“Can you imagine what that left me feeling like? Why was I allowed to witness this? Would it all be to no purpose? What could I be expected to do about it, for crying out loud? I was all twisted up in a knot. From that point on, everything in the forest seemed to spell ‘futility’ to me. I was restless, closed off from the beautiful world around me, and terribly alone.
“Anyhow, an unbelievable thing happened to me that same night. I dreamed of the ants, of course, and of King and of my wilderness paradise. They were all tumbling around together in my dream, not making any sense. And then, all of a sudden….”
Steve paused. He choked up. He took a deep breath.
“This is the part you won’t believe, my love. All of a sudden, in the midst of all that chaos, you were there!”
Cecilia’s head jerked around. She looked up at him, her eyes as big as saucers.
“ME?”
“Yes, , Cecilia. All of a sudden there you were. And the moment you appeared in the distance, the world stood still. A hush fell over everything, and all I saw was you. But you were so far away. It was as if you had come to me, to us, from another realm because we needed you so badly. Your eyes were cast down and I can still see you in my mind’s eye sobbing quietly over us. Yes, I knew somehow that you were weeping for me, for us all, for the ants, for this poor old world. I wanted to come to you so badly, but I couldn’t move. You approached a little closer to me, your eyes still wet with tears, and then you disappeared. I woke up, all out of breath.
Steve tightened his grip on her. He was breathing heavily. She was speechless.
“I can’t explain how it was that you came to me,” he went on. “You seemed to just come down from Heaven. For me, everything came together in you, my love. I can’t explain it. It just did.
“From then on I had everything in that paradise except you, and so I had nothing. All it took was a whiff of your love to reduce all my other loves to ashes. In the following days my Spectre Maiden—that’s what I called you—would appear to me anytime, anywhere. She would tantalize me and then disappear into thin air. I became obsessed with her to the point where I despised myself for it. I knew no such person could really exist, much less for me; but in my heart and my sick imagination she was always hovering near me.
“To this day, my beloved Cecilia, I can only marvel at it, and I always will. You really do exist, and you exist for me. The only one of you in the whole wide world, in the whole universe! I love the real you, and—wonder of wonders—you love the real me. It’s too much, too much….”
He burrowed his face into her hair. Both of them were now sniffling softly.
“You can’t imagine what a shock it was to me when I first caught sight of you in the cafeteria. The Spectre Maiden I had fallen so crazily in love with was standing in front of me in flesh and blood, almost close enough for me to touch. I didn’t dare to hope for more than to get a glimpse of you on campus from time to time, you were so beautiful. So heart-meltingly beautiful. And now this. Now this….
“Without you, my angel, I am not even half a man. But with you….”
“Yes, yes, my dear Steve. Without you I’m not even half a woman. And both of us together, united with our dear Lord in love, will know pure joy. We’re awfully close to it already. It is a wonder.”
Steve was shifting around to feel her precious body against his in a new position. Drawing her tightly to him he whispered, “If you had been with me in the hollow this summer, everything would have been perfect. We would have soaked up the still moonlit nights together and taken great pleasure together in the events of each day. We would have been so happy. We would have figured out what to do about the ant war. We would have had a plan. You are close enough to God to make that happen, and I am close enough to you to let it happen. Our arms would not have been empty. I guess we’d have to be married to do that, wouldn’t we!”
She snuggled up to him. It was her way of saying, “I guess we would.”
She whispered back, “Jesus will give us everything we need for happiness on earth and in Heaven forever.”
Steve winced. He was too vulnerable at the moment to hear that, though at other moments it made perfect sense to him. She filled him. Why couldn’t he fill her? Why did she always have to have Jesus along?
And now his headache was recouping its strength. The dull smarting around his eyes was slowly spreading again and his eyes themselves were burning. The longer he lay there, the more spent he felt.
“Cecilia, would you mind if we waited until sundown to go back? It will be much easier for me to drive in the dark.”
“That’s just fine,” she replied. “I feel so sad for persuading you to come out here when you are not well. I pray that you and God will forgive me.”
“Supposing only I do?”
Cecilia started in surprise. Supposing only I do?’ Whatever could he mean by that? She looked up into his eyes, confusion written all over her face.
Steve did not really expect her to answer such a silly question.
“I don’t understand, Steve. What do you mean?”
“I mean, don’t you ever feel as if you and I are the only beings in the universe and that the only love and forgiveness that really counts is yours and mine? Don’t you ever feel that our love is just between us?”
Quite unexpectedly a lump formed in his throat and the dull throbbing in his head seemed to be sublimated into a real spiritual agony. Was he really questioning their love?
Immediately Cecilia caught on to his pathos. It was all related to what he had told her about his lonely childhood. As her heart went out to him, a light veil slipped down over it. She had suspected it before, but now she knew that to Steve, at the moment at least, for her to love God first was to love him less. She struggled to find the right words. She had never felt for one moment that God was any less close to her because she was in love with Steve, or that Steve was less close to her because she was in love with God. But obviously that was not how he felt, yet.
“Steve, my love. For me, it doesn’t work like that. I have more love for you when I love God first than I could ever have if I didn’t. His love for us, and ours for Him, kindles the fire of our love for each other. If I didn’t love Him most, I would love you less. It makes me so happy to have such a rich source of love in the Heart of God, a source that never goes dry. Please believe me. My love for God takes nothing away from my love for you. It makes it all the stronger. Do you see what I mean? It all fits together.”
Steve pinched his eyes shut. His dear little Cecilia! He would try to understand. But it felt to him as though everything about their love had to be censored by God before she could embrace it. That’s not what she meant, he knew, but it was what it felt like to him. Would she always be like that? Would there always be that Third Person intruding into their relationship, from her side? Steve was too worn out to pursue this any further, but it continued to unsettle him.
Cecilia sensed he couldn’t absorb what she had said in the shape he was in. She knew he was not feeling well and so she wrote it off to that. She lay by his side, saddened by their first little disagreement but confident that some good would come of it in time. A good night’s sleep would heal the little wounds opened this afternoon. They had too much going for them to let a day like today put their whole future in jeopardy.
“I think that love is the private property of two lovers and resents any intruders,” he muttered.
With that Cecilia patted him on the cheek and got up to fix a little lunch for them before sundown. But her heart was restless. She thought of all the things that had preoccupied her these past few days and silently she commended them all to God. She must try hard to help Steve to experience the love of God at first hand, and she must understand from what he had told her why it was not easy for him to enter into it.
As for Steve, he was still shaking his head. How could his splitting headache have wrecked a whole afternoon and left him feeling so unloved and so unloving? How could he have chose
n to say things that obviously hurt his Cecilia so much? He must try to be decent to her now, try to be understanding. He needed her so badly. For God’s sake, however crumby he was feeling, he didn’t want to push her away!
I will be so glad to get back to the dorm, take a couple of aspirins, crawl in bed, and wake up to a new day and the prospect of a happy Sunday morning breakfast with my Cecilia, he told himself. She’ll look gorgeous in her Sunday clothes, and we’ll be sitting side by side in church holding hands. Hang in there!
He glanced at Cecilia preparing their simple supper. She seemed sad.
“My angel, I love you. Please forgive me.”
“No. You forgive me.”
She came over and knelt in front of him. Steve sat up. They threw their arms around each other and kissed and kissed.
“Let’s not let this happen again.”
“Never.”
“We can’t be afraid to be honest with each other.”
“Not ever again.”
They glanced at each other often as they downed their picnic supper mostly in silence. Love was in their eyes.
XLII
As they started down the road back to the campus, Steve began to doubt the wisdom of having waited until sundown to leave. Denied the mellowing rays of the sun, the earth snapped quickly out of its vernal interlude. It was more than a mere annoyance to bounce along on top of the newly frozen ruts chopping up the road. It was a real risk. Little canyons crisscrossed the hardening gravel and mud like a mad maze of railroad tracks all fouled up. To maneuver through them safely demanded unflagging concentration from Steve. For Cecilia, the ride home was the opposite of the ride out. It was pure agony for her to know what Steve was suffering for her sake. She had to hang onto him tightly just to prevent herself from being thrown off the cycle as it bounced and bucked along.
But there was one good thing about it: the glare was gone. Pain was no longer ramming itself into Steve’s skull from the outside; it was just a dull ache seeping out from behind his eyes. It comforted him to know that it was not going to last much longer. He could feel the swollen arteries in his head throbbing on the sensitive membranes that surrounded them, almost sluggishly now compared to the punishment they had taken earlier. It was like a dull venom in his head, numbing his senses. As he swerved through and around the ruts in the deepening darkness, the whole exercise took on the feel of an interminable nightmare.
He was grateful to feel Cecilia’s arms around his waist. They would get through this, and they would be happy again. Just knowing she was there made the struggle possible for him. He couldn’t give up!
The roadbed was getting harder. Picking his way across it, Steve would skid the cycle along in one rut and then have to hammer it across into the next one to avoid a hash of holes ahead. He tried the middle of the road, but that was no better. Many of the ruts there were on a diagonal as though someone had skillfully laid them out to ensnare motorcycles. He was not moving very fast, but the whole thing was steadily grinding his nerves to shreds.
Soon daylight faded away and his dim headlight was all he had to go by. He sank into a kind of trance, lurching from one near disaster to the next. He tried to banish all thoughts and mental images that might distract him from concentrating on his driving, and mostly he succeeded.
Finally Steve turned a corner and the lights of St. Mark came into view, less than a mile away. The roads would be better there.
“We’re almost home, my love. You’re amazing!” Cecilia shouted into his ear.
A few minutes later they were in town and the going was much smoother. The cycle turned onto Christiania Avenue. It was in excellent condition. The wheels bit into the road surface with smooth traction and they roared up the gentle incline all the way to the base of the hill. There the road curved to the right. Steve gunned the engine to get them up the steeper incline.
At that very moment the cycle struck a patch of ice where melting snow had run across the road during the day. It spun out of control, skittering wildly off the road. An ominous crash sounded sickeningly over the campus. Then, more sickening still, silence.
Minutes later an ambulance raced up to the scene from the hospital. A motorcycle carrying two passengers had skidded into the retaining wall above the power plant at high speed.
The male driver was rushed to the hospital.
The crumpled form of his passenger, a young woman, was gently gathered up and taken directly to the mortuary.
Even the mortician wept when he wiped the congealed blood from her face and beheld her lifeless beauty.
XLIII
Some three months had passed since the tragic accident above the power plant. Most of the students and faculty members had forgotten about it. Mid-semester examinations were over, and everyone was gearing up for the final push.
The Christiania College Choir, having just returned from its annual concert tour, was to present its home concert tonight. Already the auditorium was filling up with eager concert-goers, anticipating a splendid evening of sacred music. The choir was riding on the crest of the high praise Eastern critics had lavished on its entire program.
As the curtain rose on the handsomely robed choir, a lone figure on crutches made his way to an inconspicuous corner at the back of the auditorium where he could remain standing without bothering anyone.
The first section of the program consisted of Bach’s sublime Easter cantata, “Christ lag in Todesbanden,” based on Luther’s hymn, accompanied by an excellent small ensemble of string and wind instruments.
The second section was composed of shorter works of a meditative nature, such as Mozart’s “Ave Verum.” The last of these was a work entitled “Verily” in which the words of Jesus from the twelfth chapter of the Gospel of John were set to music:
“Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”1
No information was offered in the program notes about the composer, Susan Dahl.
The music, a striking opening statement followed by two contrasting fugues, both intense and sublime, left the audience spellbound from start to finish, with the message of Jesus still ringing in their ears when the last chord faded away.
At the very first note, however, the young man at the back, leaning forward on his crutches, broke into convulsive sobs which he tried hard to muffle.
“Your surprise, my angel. Your surprise….”
When it was over, Stephan Pearson, tottering on his crutches and trembling all over, stood staring at his feet, his eyes awash in tears.
The audience was still applauding when he pulled himself together, lurched forward towards the door, and fled out into the cold and lonely night.
THE END OF BOOK ONE
Notes:
1 John 12:24 KJV
Book Two
I
The cold meant nothing to Steve, nor the heaviness in his chest, nor the sharp pains in his half-healed legs, as he stumbled his way back and forth in the snow under the moonlit trees behind the men’s dorm that midnight, mumbling to himself the words on which he knew, to the core of his being, that his whole life would depend from this evening on. Coming as a total shock to him at the end of the concert, he could only hear them as Cecilia’s parting words of love to him, direct from Heaven. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would either be living them out somehow in his remaining days on earth, bound through them in love to her forever, or he would ignore them and die a lingering and bitter death on earth, far from her and from her love for him.
But for the moment, they were confusing words to him. He didn’t question their truth, but he was far from sure of their meaning. He didn’t dare to let them slip away from him now. They were all he had left to live for. She had called them her “surprise” for him. She had told him this with tears in her eyes that night on the organ bench just as she was starting to emerge from those two shadowy days of mourning. He had felt so
protective of her that night because she seemed so very vulnerable and so delicate and so possessed of a beauty and a sorrow that were not of this world. That night she had played him only the music, without the words. But tonight she had given him both the music and the words and they had hit him like a sledgehammer. Now they were tumbling round and round in his mind.
“Verily….
“A grain of wheat….
“Fall….
“Fall into the ground….
“Fall into the ground and die….
“Except it fall and die….
“It abideth alone….
“Alone….
“Alone….
“But if it die
“If it die….
“It bringeth forth much fruit….
“Except it die, it abideth alone….
“Alone except it die….
“But if it die….
“BUT IF IT DIE!”
Arrested by that single haunting detached phrase, Steve cried out into the darkness, “Better for me to die now, my angel, than to abide here alone, without you! Better, better, better for me to be with you where you are now than to be where I am, so alone, so terribly alone…. I told you. You do remember, don’t you? I told you I’m nobody without you, my love. Nobody at all! And here I am without you, less than nobody. I never dreamed I would have to face life without you! Never!…
“You fell, and you died. But I am the one who is alone. You fell and died and now, according to Jesus’ own words, you are supposed to ‘bring forth much fruit’? How? How? What fruit can you bring forth now that you’re gone? What fruit now?…
“All I want to do is fall and die, too, my poor sweet angel, after what I did to you! I just want to die now. O God, why can’t I just die? Let me fall and die now! Just let me fall and die….”
Swaying back and forth on his crutches in the cold silent night, Steve sobbed his heart out. “Why can’t I just die? Why can’t I just die?…”
A Grain of Wheat Page 18