Luke 7:1-10
When I first heard about my posting to the backwater of Palestine, I was aghast.
I was a member of the Praetorian Guard, charged with protecting the emperor. It was perhaps the best that a third son from a noble family could aspire to and I was a model soldier.
It is true that in my secret heart what I really longed to do was to study and learn. I was captivated by the philosophy of the Greeks thanks to my tutor Demetrius. Perhaps I was not wise enough to keep my learning to myself for I found myself one day in front of a tribunal accused of atheism and lack of respect for the gods. Of course, the charges were inflated and misleading, yet there was in them a grain of truth. And when I say a grain, I really mean a bushel! I did not respect the gods. Indeed, who could? What kind of god worthy of worship spends all his energy trying to have sex with maidens, as Jupiter did? Our gods were merely men with superhuman abilities: proud, impulsive and violent.
So now I command a hundred men here in this hot dusty land full of religious zealots and wild-eyed priests. It is as unlike proud, cosmopolitan Rome as a pig is from a horse and yet I am content. For one thing, the people here, the Jews, follow one God whose name cannot be spoken and they live their lives attempting obedience to their Law which sets out ethical behaviour in a bewildering array of situations.
Because I know that ruling a people is easier when you understand what drives them, I made it my new study to learn as much about these Jews as I could. In this, Demetrius was my willing accomplice. Together we would go to the town square of Capernaum to listen to their scholars debate and discuss their sacred teachings.
Their God does not resemble our gods in the slightest. This God rules over his people like a shepherd with his flock. They speak of him being full of undying love. Love? A God whose lives to love his creation? Demetrius turned to me and nodded in that quick Greek way of his. “This is a God worth serving.”
What work is there for a soldier in Palestine? Oh much, my friends! You must know that these Jews see themselves as a Chosen people. You can understand this when you hear their stories. Consider their father, Abraham, the founder of the race. He was walking in a field one day and he heard the voice of this God telling him to pack up his whole family and all of his portable possessions and strike out for a country he had never seen before. Here is another of their stories. These Jews were captives in Egypt many years ago, enslaved to a pharaoh who treated them like scum. A shepherd named Moses is walking in the desert when he sees a burning bush. From out of this bush, he hears the voice of God telling him to set free the Jews, his people. He goes straightaway to the Pharaoh and demands freedom for his people and he gets it! And the Jews have many such stories of divine intervention: marching around a walled city until the walls of themselves come tumbling down, a shepherd boy slaying a huge giant with only a sling. I could go on and on.
Where was I? Oh yes, you can see why they see themselves as a chosen people. As a people special to God’s heart, you can imagine that they do not see Rome as a worthy ruler. Are they grateful for Roman roads, Roman culture and Roman peace? My friends, they are not! They are a people given to rebellion and stiff-neckedness, eager to send we Romans packing. And now the talk of Capernaum is all of their Messiah.
What is a Messiah? As nearly as Demetrius and I could understand, the Messiah is a sort of God-King come to earth to build a holy Kingdom. Bad news for Rome, you say? Ah, we will see, we will see.
My task, as I see it, is to deprive rebels of any cause to rebel. I am not the governor it is true, but I have it in my power to do good to these Jews. It was Demetrius, subtle, cunning Greek that he is, that first put the idea into my head to build them a meeting place, a synagogue. As he pointed out, a grateful people are slower to rebel. I will say that my visits to the synagogue were more than just a show of support; I was truly fascinated with the idea of a loving God and as a military man, I liked the idea of a God who rewarded good behaviour and punished sin instead of indulging in it himself.
One day Demetrius came to me all excited about a strange tale he had heard in the streets. There was a Jewish miracle worker who was in the countryside amazing scholars with his teaching and overwhelming the poor with healings and deliverances. The talk was that this could be, must be, the Messiah long promised.
“I can’t say I like the sound of that,” I said gruffly. “Every time these Jews find a new Messiah, it means rebellion against Rome!”
“This man, Jesus, might be a different kettle of fish,” said Demetrius, his eyes twinkling. “He teaches his followers not to resist oppression. He told him that when they are struck on the cheek, to present the other one for a smack.”
“That doesn’t sound like a very Jewish sentiment,” I said. “I thought their scripture taught to take an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth.”
“His teachings are as strange to my ears as they are to yours, master. But all the same...I find them profoundly exciting!”
“I’ll tell you what, Demetrius. Why don’t you join with this Jew’s entourage and keep your ears open for any whiff of rebellion?”
Over the next few weeks, Demetrius would come back for our little symposiums and he would share with me what he’d learned. It was the most amazing blend of rustic story-telling and powerful preaching. But the amazing thing, according to Demetrius, was this man’s authority. Sick men and women presented themselves to him and with a few words or a touch, all signs of sickness would flee.
“He cures men without medicine,” said Demetrius in a hushed voice. “I saw him heal a blind man by simply telling him to see! I tell you, the man has the spirit of Asclepius on him!”
“Every magician worthy of his salt has hidden tricks,” I suggested.
“I am not an easily gulled peasant,” said Demetrius, highly affronted. “Believe me master, this man is different. What if he is the Messiah?”
“Oh Demetrius, they are making a Jew out of you!” I laughed.
“I wonder...” he said.
One day, I got out of bed to break my fast, but to my surprise Demetrius was nowhere to be seen. It was unlike him to miss a meal. I went to his room to berate him for lollygagging in bed. To my shock, his face was as white as milk and an acrid smell filled the room.
“Demetrius,” I cried. He groaned hollowly but could not speak. Immediately I summoned a slave to run for a doctor.
The doctor, another Greek, poked Demetrius in his abdomen and checked his saliva. He turned to me and shook his head. “He will surely die. It is the plague from the East.”
I dismissed the doctor with a piece of silver and called my optio in.
“Take some men with you and go to the Jewish healer Jesus and ask him to heal my servant Demetrius.” I commanded. He saluted without comment and quickly marched away.
+++++++++++++
I looked up from the fire where I was grilling a fish. Romans! What were they doing here? I must protect my master, I thought. I picked up a staff and ran to where Jesus was resting.
“Master, wake up! Romans are coming!” I shouted.
“What do they want, Simon Peter?” he asked yawning and stretching.
“I don’t know yet. I came to you first!”
“Well, let’s find out what they want.” He smiled at me in that way that makes you love him.
The Romans had come to ask Jesus to heal one of their slaves. I knew that he would refuse to do such a thing because these were Gentiles, but to my surprise he just nodded and got up to go with them.
We started to walk the long dusty road to the villas of Capernaum when another Roman soldier came to us and saluted.
Jesus smiled and waited. He did not return the salute!
“My centurion greets you and begs you not to come to his villa. He has told me to tell you just to speak a word. He knows that it will be sufficient to heal his servant. He, himself, is a man under authority so he understands that you have the authority to do this.”
I tell you, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jesus look surprised before but his eyes were wide and a shocked smile was playing about his mouth.
“You Romans amaze me!” he said. “I haven’t seen this kind of faith before among my own people and now you foreigners come to me and demonstrate true faith. I tell you, your servant is healed from this very moment!”
The Roman saluted again, turned on his heal and marched back into the early morning.
+++
Demetrius’ eyes opened slowly. His face was starting to get its colour back. He looked up and me and grinned.
“I dreamed that I was about to cross the river Styx,” He said “When suddenly a man with a loud voice called to Charon and said, ‘You have no authority over this one! He belongs to me!’”
“What happened then?” I asked.
“Charon nodded and turned the ship around and brought me back to the land of the living souls.” He clapped me on the shoulder and told me that he would pick me up another time!
“Who was the man who called to you from the land of the living souls?”
“It was that Jewish healer Jesus. I tell you, sir, there is something very different about him.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you. Now get out of bed you lazy slave. My breakfast awaits its usual companion!”
+++
What a charming story. But there is a very interesting point to it which I hope you picked up on. It has to do with authority.
I remember many sessions where some unfortunate soul would come to me and ask that I pray for their healing. I always felt that somehow I had to drum up the faith to heal them, somehow I had to psyche myself and the sick person up so that God would see our faith and bring healing. I rather resented Jesus for doing it all so effortlessly! He would speak a word or touch the sick person and boom they would recover! No fair, Jesus! Why can’t I do that?
How is it that Jesus was able to operate in such authority? Is it because he knows who he is? Is it because he is so intimately tied to his Father that he can perceive what his Father is already doing and climb onboard with it?
Authority is not a star that falls from heaven and creates a crown on our heads. It is a closeness, an intimacy with God so that we know we have permission to join him in healing people. As long as I think that I (gifted soul that I am) am the healer, I will never bring healing. But if I see that God is already at work, I am welcome to join him, to come under the canopy of his authority.
Amen
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Leo Rex
I am the ugliest man ever to ascend to the Seat of St. Peter.
It is my ears: they explode from my head like gull’s wings, giving me the appearance of an aircraft coming in for a landing. This effect is not improved by the squatness of my nose, rudely hewn and plopped down like a potato under my watery grey eyes.
I have heard it said that appearance is destiny so my celibacy seemed like a foregone conclusion. After all, what woman would link the happiness of her future children to so homely a sire?
They call me Leo Rex, King Lion, and what a jungle I am lord over! The Vatican is dense, steamy and full of pitfalls and hungry carnivores. How did I come to be here?
I am here because of Cardinal Vicini. He knew that his many enemies would block his bid for the papacy, so he put all of his considerable guile and strength to plucking this little Carmelite abbot from obscurity and making me his candidate. Vicini is well-hated but then so were all of the other contenders for the triple-crown. I alone had no enemies. They say that a man without enemies is a man with only friends. So it proved, for when the white smoke streamed into the Vatican sky, it was this humble Carmelite who was anointed Pope.
Does this strike you as being an Ugly Duckling story? How I wish it were. How wonderful to see ugly Maximo transform into beautiful Leo and live happily ever after! Alas. My story is more like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, if Goldilocks had an iron grey tonsure and there were at least a thousand bears.
I hear you protest: but Maximo, you are il Papa, the Supreme Pontiff! Surely all must bow before your decrees! How can you call yourself a Goldilocks? I smile grimly at your assumption. You must be in my shoes to know how I must navigate this Latin swamp.
Vicini is chief of my bears. Imagine a bruin with silver hair, well-manicured claws, a dulcet growl and you have the illustrious Cardinal. He had hoped that bringing me to the throne would allow him to control its power. I’m afraid that he thought he would be Geppetto to my Pinocchio, pulling the strings and naming the tune that I would dance to. Sadly for Vicini, Pinocchio is turning out to be a real boy.
I am a man of prayer. Of course, it is assumed that all Popes must be devoted to divine intercourse, but Lord Acton’s words are reflected in most papal histories: absolute power corrupting absolutely. Popes of necessity become politicos.
No doubt, it was my books of meditation and prayer that attracted the Cardinal’s attention. Oho, thought he, a holy fool to make a papal puppet!
But I was and remain a man of prayer, thank God.
Of course, God himself is my biggest bear.
He has put it on my heart to take our Holy Church and put it into a rock tumbler. I am to deprive the Church of her celibate priesthood.
Oh, I know, I know! What is the Church without her abstentious leadership? Is it still the Holy Catholic Church? How then are we different than the Protestants or the Eastern Church? You don’t have to tell me.
And yet.
I was praying in my private chapel. Oh no, not that private chapel. Private? Moths pinned under glass have more privacy than the Holy Father at prayer. No, my chapel is a certain hillside near Siena, the grassy slopes where the trees mass together at the bottom like village women gathering at the well. This was my private place with God, my resting place.
My chauffeur, Antonio, longs to be a spy, working for the CIA or M16 perhaps. It is a wonderful for me to have a co-conspirator like him. He can whisk me away without any of my so-called servants knowing where their pope is. I don’t know how he does it, but no sooner do I give him my pleading sign than we are roaring down the road in a sporty Fiat toward the Tuscan hills.
Antonio stays with the smoking car while I walk through the golden grass and pray.
So it was last Tuesday in the middle of the afternoon on an almost warm day in early April. I was walking and listening. Listening? Was the Pope hearing voices? Was the homely Carmelite becoming a mystic like Francis or Teresa? Do not make me blush.
But God’s lambs hear his voice says John the Divine and this lamb was listening.
What does God sound like, you are wondering? He is never what you’d expect. He is always more stern and more loving, more joyous and more terrifying than the safely crucified Christ, pinned to his cross. Do I blaspheme? Please understand me, I am a lover of God, but my Jesus is not the meek Victorian schoolgirl painted by so many: the pale Jesus with haunted eyes and long blond hair. My Galilean is more of a whirlwind, a desert storm! When I walk with him, I am stirred, shaken, calmed and directed. I am not placated, spoiled or spoken down to. What is it you Americans say? Jesus is not my shrink.
I was walking on that fateful Tuesday and listening.
“What am I to do?” I prayed. I was full of concern for my poor benighted Church. I had heard rumours of yet another sexual scandal involving priests and children. My heart was torn with rage and anguish. I was desperate to receive some consolation, a ‘there, there Maximo’ from my Jesus.
“What should you do?” asked Jesus.
“What can I do?” I muttered.
“What did I do?” he asked.
I remembered the account of the Temple Cleansing. Jesus saw his Father’s house given over to money-changing and the sale of sacrificial animals. His lip did not tremble; his eyes did not tear up; he did not sigh with sorrow. No, Jesus took a whip and cleared the money-changers out. He physically removed those who adulterated the Temple. “My house shall be a house of prayer!’ he cried.
I was shaken. I pictured myself wielding a whip and driving the fallen priests out of the Holy Church.
“I will drive them all out of your house!” I promised.
“You are looking at fruit; I want you to deal with roots,” he said.
“I don’t understand,” I pleaded.
But he had said all that he would. I was left to meditate over the whole affair. I pondered a priesthood that could hide pedophiles. Would a married priesthood be less of a haven for broken men? Was that what I needed to do?
I needed to talk to a wise counsellor, so I flagged down Antonio and directed him to drive to Napoli and the office of my spiritual director.
Catherine is the most beautiful woman I know, and she is as wise as she is lovely. Her nut brown skin is caught up in laughing wrinkles. She is textured and noble. She outweighs me by about fifty pounds and she laughs like a wave coming over the seashore.
“You want to do what?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“I know!” I cried. “Tell me that I’m delusional! Tell me that I’m not a realist! But what can I do?”
“You really think that removing celibacy as a condition for the priesthood will make pedophiles choose another vocation?”
“I don’t know if it will,” I said more quietly. “I think that some choose the priesthood because they hope it will be a safe haven from the urges that tear them up and perhaps they reason that God will heal them if they prove themselves to him?”
“So you would change the requirement of celibacy to strain out a few offenders?”
“It takes only a little yeast to leaven the whole lump of dough.” I could quote Scripture with the best of them. But then so could the Devil. This was why I needed the wisdom of my director.
“Have you spoken with anybody else about this?” she asked.
“Good God, no.”
“That is well,” she said. “Maximo, you must make this a matter of urgent prayer and study. Consult with the best minds and stay malleable in God’s hands. Come back to me in two weeks and we will discuss it further.”
+++
What are you up to, Leo Rex, slippery feline that you are? What are you doing when my spies lose sight of you? Your dismissive answers to my questions fill me with the deepest of suspicions. You say you need privacy to pray? I wonder.
I don’t trust you. I cannot understand you or your motives. I should have been Pope! All my life, I was groomed for the supreme post. I would have made the Church glorious again. A true power such as the world has not seen since Innocent III! What have you accomplished? You refuse my advice, saying “Oh Vicini! Our call is to be in the world but not of it. You want to be the world!” What nonsense! How is it possible to be a governor without bearing the burden of governing: protecting your back, knowing your enemies, placating your allies?
I will speak with Antonio again. A simple man like him will not long keep secrets from one such as I. Brother Feo, my first confessor, always said that I would have made a better lawyer than a priest. He should know! His cross examinations were always a model of Jesuit fine-toothed combing. I seldom left his presence without a surfeit of penances.
So, Antonio, what was the Pope doing in Napoli?
+++
Herr Doktor Carlinus Tropp has blue eyes that twinkle when his mind is racing from thought to thought. When I was in St. Piex Seminary, I was lucky enough to have Linus as a room-mate and a chess adversary.
It was glorious to watch him pull out the professor’s presuppositions and smite them with Teutonic wrath during our philosophy of religion classes. His dogged determination to find the truth delighted half of our teachers and terrified the rest. Woe betide the instructor who tried to palm off Linus by pulling out such chestnuts as “But, that is what the Church teaches, so you must accept it as true, Tropp!”
Linus has an office in the University but I needed to find a solitary place to meet. We met in an apartment that Antonio rents for my private meetings. I fear his spy-games mindset is beginning to rub off on me.
“So Leo XIV will be known as the pope who did away with celibacy, eh?” said Linus, pausing to drain the rest of his Dunkel Weizen. When he looked up at me, I smiled to see that a bit of foam was clinging to his moustache.
“Why would you do such a thing, Maximo?”
“I don’t intend to do away with celibacy, per se, but only to remove it as a prerequisite for the priesthood.”
“But why?” he repeated.
I told him about my vision and watched him shrug his shoulders. “I am no mystic Maximo. If you are planning to do such a thing you must be prepared to debate!” This was the Linus that I needed.
“Teach me then, Herr Professor! Illuminate your pope.”
He put his fingers together in a steeple and I could see his eyes sparkle as he marshalled his soldiers in ranks.
“We start with our first Pope, St. Peter. Married. In fact, there was no requirement for celibacy until the 12th century. Are we saying that a millennium of priests were all heretics?” On went the good Doktor dissecting and examining the issues. He dealt cleanly with the Pauline dogma that an unattached believer is more free to serve God, and chewed over the interesting idea that an unmarried man would give excellent advice as a marriage counsellor to his parishioners. By the time he had summed up, I was even more certain that I needed to do the unthinkable.
He looked at me with concern. “Have you considered how your enemies will attack you Maximo?” he asked.
“Go ahead. Tell me.”
“At the very least they will call you a hypocrite. ‘The Pope demands a married clergy but is unwilling to get a bride himself!’ they will say.”
“I told you already, I do not intend to foist marriage on my priests; I simply want to give them the choice!”
“You will still be called to practice what you preach, you know. If you remember your Church History, Luther fought priestly celibacy and his reward was a wife!”
“Can you imagine a woman near-sighted enough to marry me?” I laughed. He did not share in my mirth, instead he sighed. “You are making jokes? So might a chicken do as it is put in the stew pot.”
“This bird is tough enough, I assure you,” I said. He shrugged as if to say, we shall see.
+++
I only knew Dr. Althuis by her reputation. She was a clinical psychologist working with issues of sexual identity and imprinting. I needed to know how it was that people became pedophiliacs. We spoke of brain structure and past traumas, of alcohol and violence. I asked her whether removing celibacy as a condition of priesthood would keep them out of the priesthood.
“You misunderstand the nature of pedophilia if you think that marriage will offer a solution,” she said, her lips pressed tightly together. “Protestant ministers have pedophiliacs in their number too. It is a myth to think that only the unmarried can be offenders.”
“Is a cure hopeless then?” I asked, my heart leaden within me.
“Perhaps the solution lies with a different approach to screening potential priests,” she said. She had a haunted look in her eyes like one who has seen too much suffering. “The Church must do a better job of uncovering men who have a genuine vocation for the priesthood and those fleeing from their own torn psyches.”
I thanked her and made my way back to Antonio.
+++
It was clear that I had made a profoundly impulsive leap with not enough information. My assumption that all I had to do was to offer the option of marriage to discourage pedophiles from entering the priesthood was flawed. Perhaps that is why Jesus’ last words to me were about roots rather than fruit.
How could I make my Church safe? How could I ensure that pedophiles did not become priests? Unfortunately, there is no unified theory as to why men become child-abusers. Dr. Althuis was clear about this. Theories abounded: perhaps it was a problem with the brain chemistry, or a question of abuse, or could it be spiritual in nature. How could the Church screen this? Was it necessary to make every candidate take an MRI? I needed to confer with my director again.
+++
“I am the pope, Catherine. If I cannot find a way, how will my Church fare?” I jumped up from my chair and paced through her office, prodding her many leather bound books and fidgeting.
“You are not listening to me, Maximo. What was the last thing Jesus told you?” She remained as calm as ever.
“He told me to concern myself with roots not fruit.” I picked up a statue of St. John and began to polish it with my sleeve.
“And how do you interpret his command?” She took the statue from me and pointed to a chair.
“The fruits are abusive priests; the roots are the cause of this sin.” I sat down again, chastened.
“Very well then. Your task is not just to protect your Church but also to bring healing to its damaged members. The Shepherd bears not only a rod and staff but also oil for healing.”
+++
“Oh come, Antonio, surely you can tell me something more than that?” I said with what I hoped was a sad smile on my lips. A father pleading with his son to be a man and tell the truth.
“It is the truth, your Eminence,” he responded, his palms upturned in the classic Sicilian gesture of feigned truthfulness; a gesture which said ‘would I lie?’ and ‘can you prove it?’ simultaneously.
“You are saying that the Holy Father leaves the Vatican and pleasure drives? That he holidays? Now Antonio, you will forgive me if I am extremely doubtful?” Now my face wore the expression of an uncle who catches his beloved nephew in a bordello and is listening to a cock and bull story about being there by accident, a faulty road map perhaps.
“Oh, your Eminence,” says the Sicilian. “It is God’s own truth! The Holy Father needs to leave his responsibilities every so often. He gets so stressed.” Now his prayerful gesture is mean to illicit my pity and also to paint himself as devout and free of carnal subterfuge. Oh Antonio, you missed your calling; you should have become an actor.
I waved him away and went back to the papers cluttering my desk. At least, there was one man in the Vatican pulling his weight.
+++
I realized that if I was going to reform my priests that I would need to do some recruiting. My problem comes down to a bit of a Catch 22: those cardinals who most inclined to a call to holiness were precisely those who most identified with the most conservative point of view, whereas those cardinals who were inclined to reforming the church were most fixated on social reform. To them, holiness was all about feeding the poor and bringing in a Marxist heaven on earth.
Of course, now you are shrugging your shoulders and saying, ‘But Maximo, you are the Pope! Surely all you need do is publish a bull from your lofty throne and all will obey you! Why this skulduggery and plotting?’
How little you know of life in the jungle. In such a sweeping reform, I cannot simply speak ex cathedra and say “thus sayeth the Lord.” I must create a climate for changing perceptions. I must speak with Vicini.
+++
“Holy Father! To what am I indebted for your august presence?” Vicini is at his charming best, a bear who shows you his beautiful smile with all of his teeth on display.
“Ah, Cardinal, you have always been such a support to me! I know that I can come to you with any problem and you will see solutions where all I see is confusion.”
“Please Father, you must sit down and tell me everything. Would you like a glass of wine?”
“Thank you, Cardinal.” I continue to use his title to register a tiny protest against his deliberate switch in address from ‘Holy Father’ to ‘Father’.
“Tuscans are all rascals, but you cannot argue against their wine. It is always superb.” Vicini is from Milan and feels that all areas south of Lombardy are full of rogues and Mafiosi. Together we tasted our wine and nodded our approval.
I decided to grab the bear by his paws.
“Cardinal Vicini, I am called by God to reform our priesthood.” He said nothing but raised his eyebrows.
“We must make sure that all pedophiles are weeded out of the priesthood before they can do damage to our children,” I continued.
“How do you intend to do that?” he asked quietly, almost respectfully.
“I am unsure. I believe that we must screen potential priests more stringently...” I said.
“But already we lack enough priests to lead our congregations.” The Cardinal was on his feet pacing. “We are desperate to increase candidates not further limit them!”
“What if we were open to married priests?” I said. “What if we investigated allowing women to be priests?”
“You want me to help you cast Mother Church into chaos?” he said. “Our people would be appalled! They will leave the Church in droves. You will cause the conservative wing of the Church to split away! It will be another Babylonian captivity. You cannot be serious!” Vicini continued to pace around, thoroughly exercised. I was seeing the real man now, not the smooth politician.
“Sometimes it is necessary to go through pain to achieve healing,” I said. “Jesus said that he would shake everything that could be shaken.”
“So let the Christ shake his Church,” spat Vicini. “You are its Shepherd, not its cement mixer!”
“You will not help your Pope?”
“I am helping you, Your Holiness. I am giving you excellent advice: leave well enough alone!” With that, the bear stormed out of my room.
+++
So. Now I know. The poor misguided fool will throw my Church into a volcano. How could I have misjudged him so? How does a simple abbot become so dangerous? It’s too bad that the Borgia’s are no longer with us. One of them would surely have poisoned the fool by now.
But, I would never do such a thing, would I?
+++
“What are you talking about, Antonio?” I sat in what I hoped was a posture of complete unconcern. My chauffeur, on the other hand, was vibrating like a cheap alarm clock, his hands making rapid arabesques in the air around his head and heart.
“You listen to me, your Holiness! This Cardinal Vicini is no good! He has the heart of a rotten oak, beautiful on the outside but black inside. He means you harm, Holy Father! Please let me hire you some more muscle.”
“You are being ludicrous, Antonio! You would surround your pope with armed guards?” With a supreme effort, I softened the harshness of my voice and pleaded. “I’m supposed to be the solid rock on which the Church is built, you know.”
“You are a good and holy man, your Holiness,” said my guardian, in a tone that suggested ‘but not too terribly aware of the risks of the real world.’
“What am I going to do with you, Antonio?” I waved my hand in dismissal. He left the room shaking his head.
Alone, I slumped in my leather chair. What if he was right?
+++
“You heard me.” Vicini’s mouth was a hard line. He sat behind the large black desk as though he were carved there.
“I did hear you. I just don’t believe what I heard.” Don Francisco was not a religious man, but even he had limits. “You want me to poison the Pope?”
“I understand that you are a man who can get things done, Don Francisco. You aren’t squeamish, are you?” Well, this was nonsense. Don Francisco had made murder an art form. Squeamish? The Pit-Viper of Palermo?
“It’s a hell of a thing to ask a Catholic to do.”
“Trust me. If this man doesn’t die, he will destroy the Holy Catholic Church.” This, Vicini believed with all his heart. Leo Rex had to go.
+++
Antonio set up the tiny video camera. I marvelled that so small a thing could do what Antonio assured me it could do.
“All you got to do is look at the camera and talk, your Holiness. It does everything else for you.”
“Now, you understand my desire, Antonio?”
He sighed and recited my orders: “Do nothing while you are still alive. If you should die before your work is done, it goes on Youtube and every other social network immediately.”
“That’s right, Antonio.”
“You know what this is, Holy Father?”
“Tell me, Antonio.”
“This is fatalism. You know that that pig Vicini has it in for you and you don’t let me help you. It’s suicide, Holy Father, and that’s a sin.” He stood with his arms folded across his chest and his lower lip trembling just a bit. The nuns had done a good job catechizing him.
“Oh, Antonio. I know how you feel, but I am in God’s hands.”
He switched on the camera and I read a prepared statement.
+++
I picked up the paper and frowned at the respectful headline: “Pope Declares a New Reformation.” The journalist went on to delineate all that the Pope wanted to do to address the problem with our clergy: mandatory screening for candidates to the priesthood, opening a dialogue to bring married men and women into the priesthood, and ordering all current priests to attend counselling to determine their fitness to lead.
I crushed the paper in my hands and ground my teeth together. What was taking Don Francisco so long? I looked down at my mobile phone to see all of the buttons flashing in alarm. As a Cardinal, it would be my job to reassure the conservatives and keep a muzzle on the radicals. Octopi didn’t have enough arms to do that.
My secretary buzzed me.
“Your Eminence, it’s the Archbishop again.”
“I told you, already. The CDF does not get through to me. I need time to think.”
“Yes, Your Eminence. But as Prefect, you are the one who...”
“Are you telling me my job, brother?”
“No, Your Eminence.”
“I am in meetings. That is all.”
“Yes, Your Eminence.”
+++
I smiled as I read the headline. What a hornet’s nest I had stuck my ferula into. I could tell by Vicini’s face during my Wednesday morning audience that he was furious with me. So furious that he would hereafter leave me alone? That was unlikely. I am still the pope and men like Vicini cannot stay away from power for long. What other choice does he have than to dialogue with me? Even if only to talk me out of my plans.
A rap at my door. My secretary entered, bearing a cream envelope. I recognized Vicini’s crest and opened it eagerly. It was to the point. He wanted a private meeting at my convenience. I smiled at the last word; I could imagine Vicini saying it with acid in his mouth. I called his office and invited him to take coffee with me at eleven.
+++
“It is madness and you know it,” he sputtered.
“It is our only hope and you know it,” I riposted.
“Read the papers, Pope Leo, they predict a split in the Holy Church. If this happens, you will go down in infamy as the Pope who divided Rome! Even Luther could not say as much from his bed of suffering in Purgatory.”
“What would you do if you were Pope?” I asked, waving the meat in front of the bear.
“I would shore up the Church, not destroy her. I would concentrate on the many, many faithful priests who serve and ignore the tiny percentage who are unfit. I would not demoralize the many for the sins of a few. What sort of a message do you think you are sending your priests, forcing them all into counselling?”
“I cannot shore up a structure if I see that there is rot in the timbers, Vicini. Surely you can see that?”
“You do not have the freedom to be an idealist, your Holiness! Your task is to keep your Church whole.”
I lifted up my mug to give me time to consider his words; he hadn’t touched his espresso. The bitter taste seemed to clarify some things.
“The difference between you and me, Vicini? You would rather keep something cracked held together with a strong grip and pretend that it is whole. I would rather let it fall to pieces that something good can be built in its place. It is bitter and painful but ultimately the pain can usher in healing for our Church.” I spread out my hands to him in a gesture of pleading.
“I should never have lifted you from obscurity!” said Vicini bitterly. “You are unsuited to be Pope!”
“Probably,” I said, and I fled.
+++
I was walking through my private chapel by myself. How bright the sun was this morning! How blue the sky! It was as though April was taking a coffee break and July was filling in for her. Did I smell jasmine on the breeze? I looked down at the grass and it was all golden and dancing in the wind. I was surprised to see that I was walking barefoot. My feet glowed as though they were burnished copper. What unseasonable warmth! Was I dressed in a robe?
I heard singing in the distance, like all of Rome’s choirs singing all together. It was a Gloria unlike any that I’d ever heard before. I could feel tears filling my eyes and it felt like a huge load had been taken from my shoulders. I straightened my back from its usual slump and took a deep, deep breath. I began to run for the sheer joy of running. I flew through the tall grass.
A voice called out to me and I pulled up and turned around. It was Antonio, not the Antonio of the pursed lips and deeply etched frown, but a youthful Antonio, his face relaxed into a smile.
“Antonio? What are you doing here?”
“Where is ‘here’?” he said laughing. “I don’t think I was ever here before!”
“This isn’t Tuscany?”
He just laughed again and pointed at me. “You aren’t yourself, Holy Father!”
I touched my face where he was pointing and everything on it felt strange. I could feel no wrinkles, no wattles around my throat. That was when I really looked at Antonio. He was glowing like one of Caravaggio’s apostles. “You look like an angel, Antonio!” I gasped.
“Are we dead, Holy Father?” he asked. The thought struck me. Yes, that was it; we were dead. But piggybacking on that thought was another question.
“But why would we both be dead?” I asked. At this the beautiful Antonio almost blushed.
I understood perfectly. “You were tasting my food for poison!” He shrugged.
“It must have been a slow-working poison,” he admitted.
“And now we’re dead.”
“I don’t know about you, Your Holiness. But I’ve never felt more alive!”
And we ran together into the golden heights laughing like schoolboys.
+++The End+++
It is my ears: they explode from my head like gull’s wings, giving me the appearance of an aircraft coming in for a landing. This effect is not improved by the squatness of my nose, rudely hewn and plopped down like a potato under my watery grey eyes.
I have heard it said that appearance is destiny so my celibacy seemed like a foregone conclusion. After all, what woman would link the happiness of her future children to so homely a sire?
They call me Leo Rex, King Lion, and what a jungle I am lord over! The Vatican is dense, steamy and full of pitfalls and hungry carnivores. How did I come to be here?
I am here because of Cardinal Vicini. He knew that his many enemies would block his bid for the papacy, so he put all of his considerable guile and strength to plucking this little Carmelite abbot from obscurity and making me his candidate. Vicini is well-hated but then so were all of the other contenders for the triple-crown. I alone had no enemies. They say that a man without enemies is a man with only friends. So it proved, for when the white smoke streamed into the Vatican sky, it was this humble Carmelite who was anointed Pope.
Does this strike you as being an Ugly Duckling story? How I wish it were. How wonderful to see ugly Maximo transform into beautiful Leo and live happily ever after! Alas. My story is more like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, if Goldilocks had an iron grey tonsure and there were at least a thousand bears.
I hear you protest: but Maximo, you are il Papa, the Supreme Pontiff! Surely all must bow before your decrees! How can you call yourself a Goldilocks? I smile grimly at your assumption. You must be in my shoes to know how I must navigate this Latin swamp.
Vicini is chief of my bears. Imagine a bruin with silver hair, well-manicured claws, a dulcet growl and you have the illustrious Cardinal. He had hoped that bringing me to the throne would allow him to control its power. I’m afraid that he thought he would be Geppetto to my Pinocchio, pulling the strings and naming the tune that I would dance to. Sadly for Vicini, Pinocchio is turning out to be a real boy.
I am a man of prayer. Of course, it is assumed that all Popes must be devoted to divine intercourse, but Lord Acton’s words are reflected in most papal histories: absolute power corrupting absolutely. Popes of necessity become politicos.
No doubt, it was my books of meditation and prayer that attracted the Cardinal’s attention. Oho, thought he, a holy fool to make a papal puppet!
But I was and remain a man of prayer, thank God.
Of course, God himself is my biggest bear.
He has put it on my heart to take our Holy Church and put it into a rock tumbler. I am to deprive the Church of her celibate priesthood.
Oh, I know, I know! What is the Church without her abstentious leadership? Is it still the Holy Catholic Church? How then are we different than the Protestants or the Eastern Church? You don’t have to tell me.
And yet.
I was praying in my private chapel. Oh no, not that private chapel. Private? Moths pinned under glass have more privacy than the Holy Father at prayer. No, my chapel is a certain hillside near Siena, the grassy slopes where the trees mass together at the bottom like village women gathering at the well. This was my private place with God, my resting place.
My chauffeur, Antonio, longs to be a spy, working for the CIA or M16 perhaps. It is a wonderful for me to have a co-conspirator like him. He can whisk me away without any of my so-called servants knowing where their pope is. I don’t know how he does it, but no sooner do I give him my pleading sign than we are roaring down the road in a sporty Fiat toward the Tuscan hills.
Antonio stays with the smoking car while I walk through the golden grass and pray.
So it was last Tuesday in the middle of the afternoon on an almost warm day in early April. I was walking and listening. Listening? Was the Pope hearing voices? Was the homely Carmelite becoming a mystic like Francis or Teresa? Do not make me blush.
But God’s lambs hear his voice says John the Divine and this lamb was listening.
What does God sound like, you are wondering? He is never what you’d expect. He is always more stern and more loving, more joyous and more terrifying than the safely crucified Christ, pinned to his cross. Do I blaspheme? Please understand me, I am a lover of God, but my Jesus is not the meek Victorian schoolgirl painted by so many: the pale Jesus with haunted eyes and long blond hair. My Galilean is more of a whirlwind, a desert storm! When I walk with him, I am stirred, shaken, calmed and directed. I am not placated, spoiled or spoken down to. What is it you Americans say? Jesus is not my shrink.
I was walking on that fateful Tuesday and listening.
“What am I to do?” I prayed. I was full of concern for my poor benighted Church. I had heard rumours of yet another sexual scandal involving priests and children. My heart was torn with rage and anguish. I was desperate to receive some consolation, a ‘there, there Maximo’ from my Jesus.
“What should you do?” asked Jesus.
“What can I do?” I muttered.
“What did I do?” he asked.
I remembered the account of the Temple Cleansing. Jesus saw his Father’s house given over to money-changing and the sale of sacrificial animals. His lip did not tremble; his eyes did not tear up; he did not sigh with sorrow. No, Jesus took a whip and cleared the money-changers out. He physically removed those who adulterated the Temple. “My house shall be a house of prayer!’ he cried.
I was shaken. I pictured myself wielding a whip and driving the fallen priests out of the Holy Church.
“I will drive them all out of your house!” I promised.
“You are looking at fruit; I want you to deal with roots,” he said.
“I don’t understand,” I pleaded.
But he had said all that he would. I was left to meditate over the whole affair. I pondered a priesthood that could hide pedophiles. Would a married priesthood be less of a haven for broken men? Was that what I needed to do?
I needed to talk to a wise counsellor, so I flagged down Antonio and directed him to drive to Napoli and the office of my spiritual director.
Catherine is the most beautiful woman I know, and she is as wise as she is lovely. Her nut brown skin is caught up in laughing wrinkles. She is textured and noble. She outweighs me by about fifty pounds and she laughs like a wave coming over the seashore.
“You want to do what?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“I know!” I cried. “Tell me that I’m delusional! Tell me that I’m not a realist! But what can I do?”
“You really think that removing celibacy as a condition for the priesthood will make pedophiles choose another vocation?”
“I don’t know if it will,” I said more quietly. “I think that some choose the priesthood because they hope it will be a safe haven from the urges that tear them up and perhaps they reason that God will heal them if they prove themselves to him?”
“So you would change the requirement of celibacy to strain out a few offenders?”
“It takes only a little yeast to leaven the whole lump of dough.” I could quote Scripture with the best of them. But then so could the Devil. This was why I needed the wisdom of my director.
“Have you spoken with anybody else about this?” she asked.
“Good God, no.”
“That is well,” she said. “Maximo, you must make this a matter of urgent prayer and study. Consult with the best minds and stay malleable in God’s hands. Come back to me in two weeks and we will discuss it further.”
+++
What are you up to, Leo Rex, slippery feline that you are? What are you doing when my spies lose sight of you? Your dismissive answers to my questions fill me with the deepest of suspicions. You say you need privacy to pray? I wonder.
I don’t trust you. I cannot understand you or your motives. I should have been Pope! All my life, I was groomed for the supreme post. I would have made the Church glorious again. A true power such as the world has not seen since Innocent III! What have you accomplished? You refuse my advice, saying “Oh Vicini! Our call is to be in the world but not of it. You want to be the world!” What nonsense! How is it possible to be a governor without bearing the burden of governing: protecting your back, knowing your enemies, placating your allies?
I will speak with Antonio again. A simple man like him will not long keep secrets from one such as I. Brother Feo, my first confessor, always said that I would have made a better lawyer than a priest. He should know! His cross examinations were always a model of Jesuit fine-toothed combing. I seldom left his presence without a surfeit of penances.
So, Antonio, what was the Pope doing in Napoli?
+++
Herr Doktor Carlinus Tropp has blue eyes that twinkle when his mind is racing from thought to thought. When I was in St. Piex Seminary, I was lucky enough to have Linus as a room-mate and a chess adversary.
It was glorious to watch him pull out the professor’s presuppositions and smite them with Teutonic wrath during our philosophy of religion classes. His dogged determination to find the truth delighted half of our teachers and terrified the rest. Woe betide the instructor who tried to palm off Linus by pulling out such chestnuts as “But, that is what the Church teaches, so you must accept it as true, Tropp!”
Linus has an office in the University but I needed to find a solitary place to meet. We met in an apartment that Antonio rents for my private meetings. I fear his spy-games mindset is beginning to rub off on me.
“So Leo XIV will be known as the pope who did away with celibacy, eh?” said Linus, pausing to drain the rest of his Dunkel Weizen. When he looked up at me, I smiled to see that a bit of foam was clinging to his moustache.
“Why would you do such a thing, Maximo?”
“I don’t intend to do away with celibacy, per se, but only to remove it as a prerequisite for the priesthood.”
“But why?” he repeated.
I told him about my vision and watched him shrug his shoulders. “I am no mystic Maximo. If you are planning to do such a thing you must be prepared to debate!” This was the Linus that I needed.
“Teach me then, Herr Professor! Illuminate your pope.”
He put his fingers together in a steeple and I could see his eyes sparkle as he marshalled his soldiers in ranks.
“We start with our first Pope, St. Peter. Married. In fact, there was no requirement for celibacy until the 12th century. Are we saying that a millennium of priests were all heretics?” On went the good Doktor dissecting and examining the issues. He dealt cleanly with the Pauline dogma that an unattached believer is more free to serve God, and chewed over the interesting idea that an unmarried man would give excellent advice as a marriage counsellor to his parishioners. By the time he had summed up, I was even more certain that I needed to do the unthinkable.
He looked at me with concern. “Have you considered how your enemies will attack you Maximo?” he asked.
“Go ahead. Tell me.”
“At the very least they will call you a hypocrite. ‘The Pope demands a married clergy but is unwilling to get a bride himself!’ they will say.”
“I told you already, I do not intend to foist marriage on my priests; I simply want to give them the choice!”
“You will still be called to practice what you preach, you know. If you remember your Church History, Luther fought priestly celibacy and his reward was a wife!”
“Can you imagine a woman near-sighted enough to marry me?” I laughed. He did not share in my mirth, instead he sighed. “You are making jokes? So might a chicken do as it is put in the stew pot.”
“This bird is tough enough, I assure you,” I said. He shrugged as if to say, we shall see.
+++
I only knew Dr. Althuis by her reputation. She was a clinical psychologist working with issues of sexual identity and imprinting. I needed to know how it was that people became pedophiliacs. We spoke of brain structure and past traumas, of alcohol and violence. I asked her whether removing celibacy as a condition of priesthood would keep them out of the priesthood.
“You misunderstand the nature of pedophilia if you think that marriage will offer a solution,” she said, her lips pressed tightly together. “Protestant ministers have pedophiliacs in their number too. It is a myth to think that only the unmarried can be offenders.”
“Is a cure hopeless then?” I asked, my heart leaden within me.
“Perhaps the solution lies with a different approach to screening potential priests,” she said. She had a haunted look in her eyes like one who has seen too much suffering. “The Church must do a better job of uncovering men who have a genuine vocation for the priesthood and those fleeing from their own torn psyches.”
I thanked her and made my way back to Antonio.
+++
It was clear that I had made a profoundly impulsive leap with not enough information. My assumption that all I had to do was to offer the option of marriage to discourage pedophiles from entering the priesthood was flawed. Perhaps that is why Jesus’ last words to me were about roots rather than fruit.
How could I make my Church safe? How could I ensure that pedophiles did not become priests? Unfortunately, there is no unified theory as to why men become child-abusers. Dr. Althuis was clear about this. Theories abounded: perhaps it was a problem with the brain chemistry, or a question of abuse, or could it be spiritual in nature. How could the Church screen this? Was it necessary to make every candidate take an MRI? I needed to confer with my director again.
+++
“I am the pope, Catherine. If I cannot find a way, how will my Church fare?” I jumped up from my chair and paced through her office, prodding her many leather bound books and fidgeting.
“You are not listening to me, Maximo. What was the last thing Jesus told you?” She remained as calm as ever.
“He told me to concern myself with roots not fruit.” I picked up a statue of St. John and began to polish it with my sleeve.
“And how do you interpret his command?” She took the statue from me and pointed to a chair.
“The fruits are abusive priests; the roots are the cause of this sin.” I sat down again, chastened.
“Very well then. Your task is not just to protect your Church but also to bring healing to its damaged members. The Shepherd bears not only a rod and staff but also oil for healing.”
+++
“Oh come, Antonio, surely you can tell me something more than that?” I said with what I hoped was a sad smile on my lips. A father pleading with his son to be a man and tell the truth.
“It is the truth, your Eminence,” he responded, his palms upturned in the classic Sicilian gesture of feigned truthfulness; a gesture which said ‘would I lie?’ and ‘can you prove it?’ simultaneously.
“You are saying that the Holy Father leaves the Vatican and pleasure drives? That he holidays? Now Antonio, you will forgive me if I am extremely doubtful?” Now my face wore the expression of an uncle who catches his beloved nephew in a bordello and is listening to a cock and bull story about being there by accident, a faulty road map perhaps.
“Oh, your Eminence,” says the Sicilian. “It is God’s own truth! The Holy Father needs to leave his responsibilities every so often. He gets so stressed.” Now his prayerful gesture is mean to illicit my pity and also to paint himself as devout and free of carnal subterfuge. Oh Antonio, you missed your calling; you should have become an actor.
I waved him away and went back to the papers cluttering my desk. At least, there was one man in the Vatican pulling his weight.
+++
I realized that if I was going to reform my priests that I would need to do some recruiting. My problem comes down to a bit of a Catch 22: those cardinals who most inclined to a call to holiness were precisely those who most identified with the most conservative point of view, whereas those cardinals who were inclined to reforming the church were most fixated on social reform. To them, holiness was all about feeding the poor and bringing in a Marxist heaven on earth.
Of course, now you are shrugging your shoulders and saying, ‘But Maximo, you are the Pope! Surely all you need do is publish a bull from your lofty throne and all will obey you! Why this skulduggery and plotting?’
How little you know of life in the jungle. In such a sweeping reform, I cannot simply speak ex cathedra and say “thus sayeth the Lord.” I must create a climate for changing perceptions. I must speak with Vicini.
+++
“Holy Father! To what am I indebted for your august presence?” Vicini is at his charming best, a bear who shows you his beautiful smile with all of his teeth on display.
“Ah, Cardinal, you have always been such a support to me! I know that I can come to you with any problem and you will see solutions where all I see is confusion.”
“Please Father, you must sit down and tell me everything. Would you like a glass of wine?”
“Thank you, Cardinal.” I continue to use his title to register a tiny protest against his deliberate switch in address from ‘Holy Father’ to ‘Father’.
“Tuscans are all rascals, but you cannot argue against their wine. It is always superb.” Vicini is from Milan and feels that all areas south of Lombardy are full of rogues and Mafiosi. Together we tasted our wine and nodded our approval.
I decided to grab the bear by his paws.
“Cardinal Vicini, I am called by God to reform our priesthood.” He said nothing but raised his eyebrows.
“We must make sure that all pedophiles are weeded out of the priesthood before they can do damage to our children,” I continued.
“How do you intend to do that?” he asked quietly, almost respectfully.
“I am unsure. I believe that we must screen potential priests more stringently...” I said.
“But already we lack enough priests to lead our congregations.” The Cardinal was on his feet pacing. “We are desperate to increase candidates not further limit them!”
“What if we were open to married priests?” I said. “What if we investigated allowing women to be priests?”
“You want me to help you cast Mother Church into chaos?” he said. “Our people would be appalled! They will leave the Church in droves. You will cause the conservative wing of the Church to split away! It will be another Babylonian captivity. You cannot be serious!” Vicini continued to pace around, thoroughly exercised. I was seeing the real man now, not the smooth politician.
“Sometimes it is necessary to go through pain to achieve healing,” I said. “Jesus said that he would shake everything that could be shaken.”
“So let the Christ shake his Church,” spat Vicini. “You are its Shepherd, not its cement mixer!”
“You will not help your Pope?”
“I am helping you, Your Holiness. I am giving you excellent advice: leave well enough alone!” With that, the bear stormed out of my room.
+++
So. Now I know. The poor misguided fool will throw my Church into a volcano. How could I have misjudged him so? How does a simple abbot become so dangerous? It’s too bad that the Borgia’s are no longer with us. One of them would surely have poisoned the fool by now.
But, I would never do such a thing, would I?
+++
“What are you talking about, Antonio?” I sat in what I hoped was a posture of complete unconcern. My chauffeur, on the other hand, was vibrating like a cheap alarm clock, his hands making rapid arabesques in the air around his head and heart.
“You listen to me, your Holiness! This Cardinal Vicini is no good! He has the heart of a rotten oak, beautiful on the outside but black inside. He means you harm, Holy Father! Please let me hire you some more muscle.”
“You are being ludicrous, Antonio! You would surround your pope with armed guards?” With a supreme effort, I softened the harshness of my voice and pleaded. “I’m supposed to be the solid rock on which the Church is built, you know.”
“You are a good and holy man, your Holiness,” said my guardian, in a tone that suggested ‘but not too terribly aware of the risks of the real world.’
“What am I going to do with you, Antonio?” I waved my hand in dismissal. He left the room shaking his head.
Alone, I slumped in my leather chair. What if he was right?
+++
“You heard me.” Vicini’s mouth was a hard line. He sat behind the large black desk as though he were carved there.
“I did hear you. I just don’t believe what I heard.” Don Francisco was not a religious man, but even he had limits. “You want me to poison the Pope?”
“I understand that you are a man who can get things done, Don Francisco. You aren’t squeamish, are you?” Well, this was nonsense. Don Francisco had made murder an art form. Squeamish? The Pit-Viper of Palermo?
“It’s a hell of a thing to ask a Catholic to do.”
“Trust me. If this man doesn’t die, he will destroy the Holy Catholic Church.” This, Vicini believed with all his heart. Leo Rex had to go.
+++
Antonio set up the tiny video camera. I marvelled that so small a thing could do what Antonio assured me it could do.
“All you got to do is look at the camera and talk, your Holiness. It does everything else for you.”
“Now, you understand my desire, Antonio?”
He sighed and recited my orders: “Do nothing while you are still alive. If you should die before your work is done, it goes on Youtube and every other social network immediately.”
“That’s right, Antonio.”
“You know what this is, Holy Father?”
“Tell me, Antonio.”
“This is fatalism. You know that that pig Vicini has it in for you and you don’t let me help you. It’s suicide, Holy Father, and that’s a sin.” He stood with his arms folded across his chest and his lower lip trembling just a bit. The nuns had done a good job catechizing him.
“Oh, Antonio. I know how you feel, but I am in God’s hands.”
He switched on the camera and I read a prepared statement.
+++
I picked up the paper and frowned at the respectful headline: “Pope Declares a New Reformation.” The journalist went on to delineate all that the Pope wanted to do to address the problem with our clergy: mandatory screening for candidates to the priesthood, opening a dialogue to bring married men and women into the priesthood, and ordering all current priests to attend counselling to determine their fitness to lead.
I crushed the paper in my hands and ground my teeth together. What was taking Don Francisco so long? I looked down at my mobile phone to see all of the buttons flashing in alarm. As a Cardinal, it would be my job to reassure the conservatives and keep a muzzle on the radicals. Octopi didn’t have enough arms to do that.
My secretary buzzed me.
“Your Eminence, it’s the Archbishop again.”
“I told you, already. The CDF does not get through to me. I need time to think.”
“Yes, Your Eminence. But as Prefect, you are the one who...”
“Are you telling me my job, brother?”
“No, Your Eminence.”
“I am in meetings. That is all.”
“Yes, Your Eminence.”
+++
I smiled as I read the headline. What a hornet’s nest I had stuck my ferula into. I could tell by Vicini’s face during my Wednesday morning audience that he was furious with me. So furious that he would hereafter leave me alone? That was unlikely. I am still the pope and men like Vicini cannot stay away from power for long. What other choice does he have than to dialogue with me? Even if only to talk me out of my plans.
A rap at my door. My secretary entered, bearing a cream envelope. I recognized Vicini’s crest and opened it eagerly. It was to the point. He wanted a private meeting at my convenience. I smiled at the last word; I could imagine Vicini saying it with acid in his mouth. I called his office and invited him to take coffee with me at eleven.
+++
“It is madness and you know it,” he sputtered.
“It is our only hope and you know it,” I riposted.
“Read the papers, Pope Leo, they predict a split in the Holy Church. If this happens, you will go down in infamy as the Pope who divided Rome! Even Luther could not say as much from his bed of suffering in Purgatory.”
“What would you do if you were Pope?” I asked, waving the meat in front of the bear.
“I would shore up the Church, not destroy her. I would concentrate on the many, many faithful priests who serve and ignore the tiny percentage who are unfit. I would not demoralize the many for the sins of a few. What sort of a message do you think you are sending your priests, forcing them all into counselling?”
“I cannot shore up a structure if I see that there is rot in the timbers, Vicini. Surely you can see that?”
“You do not have the freedom to be an idealist, your Holiness! Your task is to keep your Church whole.”
I lifted up my mug to give me time to consider his words; he hadn’t touched his espresso. The bitter taste seemed to clarify some things.
“The difference between you and me, Vicini? You would rather keep something cracked held together with a strong grip and pretend that it is whole. I would rather let it fall to pieces that something good can be built in its place. It is bitter and painful but ultimately the pain can usher in healing for our Church.” I spread out my hands to him in a gesture of pleading.
“I should never have lifted you from obscurity!” said Vicini bitterly. “You are unsuited to be Pope!”
“Probably,” I said, and I fled.
+++
I was walking through my private chapel by myself. How bright the sun was this morning! How blue the sky! It was as though April was taking a coffee break and July was filling in for her. Did I smell jasmine on the breeze? I looked down at the grass and it was all golden and dancing in the wind. I was surprised to see that I was walking barefoot. My feet glowed as though they were burnished copper. What unseasonable warmth! Was I dressed in a robe?
I heard singing in the distance, like all of Rome’s choirs singing all together. It was a Gloria unlike any that I’d ever heard before. I could feel tears filling my eyes and it felt like a huge load had been taken from my shoulders. I straightened my back from its usual slump and took a deep, deep breath. I began to run for the sheer joy of running. I flew through the tall grass.
A voice called out to me and I pulled up and turned around. It was Antonio, not the Antonio of the pursed lips and deeply etched frown, but a youthful Antonio, his face relaxed into a smile.
“Antonio? What are you doing here?”
“Where is ‘here’?” he said laughing. “I don’t think I was ever here before!”
“This isn’t Tuscany?”
He just laughed again and pointed at me. “You aren’t yourself, Holy Father!”
I touched my face where he was pointing and everything on it felt strange. I could feel no wrinkles, no wattles around my throat. That was when I really looked at Antonio. He was glowing like one of Caravaggio’s apostles. “You look like an angel, Antonio!” I gasped.
“Are we dead, Holy Father?” he asked. The thought struck me. Yes, that was it; we were dead. But piggybacking on that thought was another question.
“But why would we both be dead?” I asked. At this the beautiful Antonio almost blushed.
I understood perfectly. “You were tasting my food for poison!” He shrugged.
“It must have been a slow-working poison,” he admitted.
“And now we’re dead.”
“I don’t know about you, Your Holiness. But I’ve never felt more alive!”
And we ran together into the golden heights laughing like schoolboys.
+++The End+++
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
"A Witch By Any Other Name"
Once upon a time,there lived a ravishing maid named Clarice. Clarice fancied herself a real aristocrat, having been favoured with milky skin, shimmering black hair and lips the colour of rubies. It is possible that she may have been somewhat proud and disinclined toward a life of labour that her circumstanced demanded.
Clarice might have had all of the accouterments of aristocracy but the painful truth was that she was born the third daughter of a poor cobbler.
Now it would be nice to say that for all her poverty, the radiant beauty that Clarice had was matched by humility and inner loveliness but sadly that was not quite true, for Clarice was filled with self-importance, willfulness and self-centeredness just like a real aristocrat!
One day, when she should have been gathering wood for the fire like her hard-working sisters, Clarice was lollygagging by the stream and day-dreaming of a better life. Perhaps a prince would come by, fall deeply in love with her and take her to his castle to be his queen. Ah yes, a life of luxury and ease. Days filled with wine and roses, to say nothing of chocolate covered caviar!
While she was fantasizing, along came the Magician, Tim fabled in story and song. Tim was just starting out in the magician’s game, having apprenticed until recently with the powerful and deadly Monsieur Nightshade the Malevolent.
Tim was whistling a carefree tune and wondering how he would choose a place to set up his practice.
“Ahoy lackey!” cried out Clarice. “You wouldn’t happen to be a prince would you?”
Tim shrugged and decided to go along with her as a gag. “You may be very sure that I am,” he said, giving her a sweeping bow. “And you, my pretty biscuit, would you happen to be a princess?”
“Oh well, I suppose if you married me I would be,” she riposted cleverly.
“Why should I marry you?” asked Tim, curious to see what the maiden would say.
“You ask me why? Obviously, because I would make an extraordinary queen someday. Did you notice my flawless complexion, my raven tresses and full lips?”
“Oh, but my dear queen-in-waiting. What about a sovereign’s other attributes? Do you have a quick spirit, ready intelligence, compassion and perception?”
“What are those compared to radiant beauty and glowing skin?” asked Clarice haughtily.
“You make a strong case,” said Tim. “I will marry you, but first you must prove yourself to be worthy of my throne.”
“What must I do?” she asked. “Do you not see that I am worthy of your throne? Need I point out my flawless carriage, my alluring dimples and my sparkling teeth?”
“These are very appealing attributes,” said Tim. “But a queen must do more than look queenly, she must also act the part! Thus, you must prove yourself.”
“Oh very well,” sighed Clarice. “What must I do?”
Tim thought for a moment and then something delightful occurred to him: the girl needed a lesson and he needed a job!
“You must prove your intelligence and your creativity!” he announced. “You must dress yourself as an ugly, old woman and your disguise must be so convincing that not even your own mother would recognize you!”
“That doesn’t sound very queenly to me,” complained the maiden.
“Oh, I’m not finished yet,” said the magician. “You must convince the villagers that you are a witch!”
“A witch? But…”
“Don’t interrupt, you must convince the village that you intend to destroy them all.”
“But…”
“You do want to marry me, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes, of course I do!”
“Then snap to it!”
Clarice snapped to it. She stole rags from the scarecrow in the cornfield, made her nose long and sharp with candlewax and and darkened her teeth with soot from an oil lantern. She ground her fingernails to a ragged edge and pushed her hair under a ragged scarf. When she was done, she had transformed herself into a filthy, horrid-looking hag.
“You must do something about your posture,” complained Tim. “You need to practice walking all stooped over!”
Finally, Tim gave her his seal of approval. “That will do very well. Now take this gnarled stick and go to the village. Tell them that you are Gruzella the Witch and that you have decided to put them all under a spell of suffering and anguish. Then cackle a bit and walk into the forest. If you can fool the village, I will know that I have found my bride.”
Gruzella, the pseudo-witch did as she had been instructed and the village was in a complete state of uproar when Tim strolled onto the scene.
“Good villagers, what troubles you?” he cried.
The village elders surrounded Tim and all began talking at the same time. They explained that a witch had taken it upon herself to curse them and what would they do now?
“You problem is really very easy to solve,” he said grandly. “You need a magician. It so happens that I am rather skilled in the dark arts and for a small consideration, I will submit my not trifling skills on your behalf against this foul witch!”
“You want gold?” asked one of the sharper elders.
“Not at all!” he responded. “I want the witch as a wife!”
“You must be mad!” said the elder. “Why would you want to marry a witch?”
“I am a magician. I need a wife who understands the stresses of supernatural living.”
“But why do you need our permission?” asked the stupefied elder.
“Do we have a deal?” said Tim, ignoring the inconvenient question.
“Yes! Yes!” cried all of the other villagers.
“Right then, I will need some certain magical substances to defuse this crisis,” he announced.
“You shall have whatever you need!” cried the villagers. This thought was most appealing to Tim and he rather let himself go a bit.
“First, I must have roast fowl, served with dumplings and bit of cheese, well aged but not too well aged! (It had been some time since his last good meal.) Also a bottle of red wine, but it doesn’t have to be a Grand Cru.”
“But that’s not magical!” protested the villagers.
“Who’s the magician here?” thundered Tim and all of them raced off to prepare his meal.
Meanwhile, the lovely Clarice was hiding in the forest until she had more instructions from Tim. Being a girl of spirit, she soon chafed at being left alone. She was used to the mooning stares of the village men and the jealous sniffs of their wives. She was not accustomed to being ignored.
“Where is he?” she wondered. “What’s taking him so long?” She was half tempted (perhaps even three-quarters) to just go back to the village without her disguise to see what was up. Once the thought occurred to her, it was well nigh impossible to ignore. Finally, after three minutes of inner debate, she rose, scrubbed off her disguise and stalked to the village. She would give the magician a generous serving of her mind!
When Clarice reached the village, she met her own sister Gertruda racing to fetch some cheese and breadsticks for Tim’s feast.
“What’s going on?” asked Clarice.
“Can’t stop to chat,” puffed then full-figured Gertruda, “Magical business!”
“What magical business?” shouted Clarice, but Gertruda was gone.
She stormed into the town centre to see Tim seated at a table, working his way through a roast duck.
“What’s going on?” she hissed.
“Patience, patience, my little princess,” mumbled Tim, wiping the grease from his moustache.
“I was patient half a day ago, now I’m ticked off,” she growled.
“Have some duck,” he said, noting how she looked pointedly at the carcass.
Just then the village cobbler, Clarice’s father, appeared on the scene.
“Clarice! What are you doing with our magician?”
“Nothing Father,” she said curtseying.
“Well, you best be off to help your mother with the dumplings!” he said. “You should not be disturbing our village’s savior,” and at this he tugged a soiled forelock and dragged her home.
Clarice wanted to shriek at her father and beat him with her fists, but the cobbler had a grip like iron and a short temper besides. Tim just smiled and went back to his duck.
The village gathered together watching Tim as he picked his teeth and belched.
“Don’t you need anything more magical than food?” asked the elder.
“A meal like that was magical!” said Tim grandly. “But yes, I need some specific things: a spool, a thimble, and some scarlet silk thread. Also, I will need a colander, an egg whisk and a white rabbit. It would be very helpful if you had two goose eggs and a cup of dandelion tisane.”
The villagers put their heads together and divided up the list among themselves while Tim sipped a glass of wine. If he played his cards right, it might take the villagers the rest of the day to gather his wish list!
Just then, Clarice hissed at him from a nearby bush. “I want to know your plan!”
“What are you doing in that bush?” asked Tim.
“Hiding, you fool! What do you think I’m doing?”
“Why are you hiding?” wondered Tim.
“Because my father will beat me if he catches me talking to you!”
“Well, never mind all that, you need to get your costume on in case I need to throw another scare into the village.”
“Now, wait a minute!” snarled Clarice. “I think I have fulfilled my half of the bargain. I have proven to you that I am resourceful and intelligent!”
“That you have, my dear,” said Tim in a placating tone. “But another appearance of Witch Gruzella will seal the deal! Off you go!”
Grumbling, she went back to the woods to resume her disguise. (And who could blame her? This was vexatious behavior indeed!) No sooner had she gotten all of her hideous make-up on then Clarice heard a savage voice.
“Ha!” said the savage voice, “Competition!” It was a terrifically unpleasant-looking old woman. Clarice was not the sharpest knife in the kitchen drawer, but even she could tell that this old hag was a real witch.
“I am not your competition,” cried Clarice, falling on her knees before the real witch and hoping that she would not be turned into a newt.
“What do ye mean?” growled the real witch. “You’re a witch, ain’t ye?”
“Not at all!” said Clarice, averting her eyes. “I’m just dressed like one!”
“Why does a pretty gel like you want to dress like a Witch. Tis not Carnival, and sure, tis not Venice!” The Witch barked with dry laughter and hawked up a mass of rheumy phlegm.
“I’d better tell you the whole story,” said Clarice.
“Ye’d be wise to,” nodded the Witch.
When Clarice had finished her tale the Witch nodded and chuckled in a mean sort of way. “Yer not terrifically bright, er ye? Well, no mind, my child, I have a plan to will take your friend the prince down a few notches.” The Witch rubbed her knotty hands together cracking her knuckles and cackling, “Ha! That gives me a nasty ideer!”
And so say, the hideous hag transformed herself into the most beautiful maiden that the world would ever see. Her nose would have put Cleopatra’s to shame and as for her comely shape, the Greeks would have ignored Helen of Troy if she was around!
“Why you’re beautiful!” gasped Clarice.
“Ah ‘tis but surface, no?” said the Witch.
“But what are you going to do?” she asked.
“Come and watch!” suggested the Witch.
Clarice hid herself in the bushes and watched the Witch enter the village square. (It would not do for her father to find her out of the house being a busybody.)
Tim rose to his feet with a gasp of amazement. “My lady, you are very welcome here! But, if I may ask, why are you so far from the glorious courts of the Capital, for there in no doubt that you are a princess of a most profound noble house.
But the princess merely smiled. “Are you a worthy man?” she asked the magician.
“Well, I hate to brag, but I am fairly worthy. I am a powerful magician!”
“How thrilling for you!” said the princess in a delightful silvery voice. Tim blushed with pleasure and he had a strong inclination to impress her with his artistry.
“Look to that bird flying over the village green,” said Tim. He raised his left hand and spoke a loud spell. Suddenly the unlucky bird found itself vanish in a puff of smoke.
“Very impressive,” smiled the princess. “But destructive spells are so very simple and not very interesting.”
“Oh, I can construct as well, your majesty,” bowed Tim, a bit perturbed that his exploding bird bit went over so poorly. Tim picked up a smooth white pebble and rubbed it on his forehead while chanting a spell. He set down the rock and it quickly grew to the size of a small cottage.
The princess clapped her hands together and cried for delight. “What a wonderful spell. I do believe that I have found my soulmate!”
“You have?” grinned Tim, not believing his ears. “You want to marry me?”
“If you’ll have me,” simpered the princess.
“I will! Shall we travel to the Court and tell your father now?” asked Tim.
“I cannot wait!” declared the princess. “Let us summon the village priest and commit ourselves this very day!”
In the bushes, Clarice began (very slowly) to realize that her prince was nothing more than a shady magician. Well, he would get his comeuppance, marrying a hideous witch! Serve him right. But meanwhile, what about her? Would she ever find true happiness?
The princess and her magician quickly found the priest who agreed to pronounce the banns that very day.
It was a shocking honeymoon for poor Tim. But in time he learned to appreciate the witch’s magical skills and they became an excellent team. And every so often, for special dates, the Witch would again transform herself into the princess that so captured her husband’s dark heart.
Clarice might have had all of the accouterments of aristocracy but the painful truth was that she was born the third daughter of a poor cobbler.
Now it would be nice to say that for all her poverty, the radiant beauty that Clarice had was matched by humility and inner loveliness but sadly that was not quite true, for Clarice was filled with self-importance, willfulness and self-centeredness just like a real aristocrat!
One day, when she should have been gathering wood for the fire like her hard-working sisters, Clarice was lollygagging by the stream and day-dreaming of a better life. Perhaps a prince would come by, fall deeply in love with her and take her to his castle to be his queen. Ah yes, a life of luxury and ease. Days filled with wine and roses, to say nothing of chocolate covered caviar!
While she was fantasizing, along came the Magician, Tim fabled in story and song. Tim was just starting out in the magician’s game, having apprenticed until recently with the powerful and deadly Monsieur Nightshade the Malevolent.
Tim was whistling a carefree tune and wondering how he would choose a place to set up his practice.
“Ahoy lackey!” cried out Clarice. “You wouldn’t happen to be a prince would you?”
Tim shrugged and decided to go along with her as a gag. “You may be very sure that I am,” he said, giving her a sweeping bow. “And you, my pretty biscuit, would you happen to be a princess?”
“Oh well, I suppose if you married me I would be,” she riposted cleverly.
“Why should I marry you?” asked Tim, curious to see what the maiden would say.
“You ask me why? Obviously, because I would make an extraordinary queen someday. Did you notice my flawless complexion, my raven tresses and full lips?”
“Oh, but my dear queen-in-waiting. What about a sovereign’s other attributes? Do you have a quick spirit, ready intelligence, compassion and perception?”
“What are those compared to radiant beauty and glowing skin?” asked Clarice haughtily.
“You make a strong case,” said Tim. “I will marry you, but first you must prove yourself to be worthy of my throne.”
“What must I do?” she asked. “Do you not see that I am worthy of your throne? Need I point out my flawless carriage, my alluring dimples and my sparkling teeth?”
“These are very appealing attributes,” said Tim. “But a queen must do more than look queenly, she must also act the part! Thus, you must prove yourself.”
“Oh very well,” sighed Clarice. “What must I do?”
Tim thought for a moment and then something delightful occurred to him: the girl needed a lesson and he needed a job!
“You must prove your intelligence and your creativity!” he announced. “You must dress yourself as an ugly, old woman and your disguise must be so convincing that not even your own mother would recognize you!”
“That doesn’t sound very queenly to me,” complained the maiden.
“Oh, I’m not finished yet,” said the magician. “You must convince the villagers that you are a witch!”
“A witch? But…”
“Don’t interrupt, you must convince the village that you intend to destroy them all.”
“But…”
“You do want to marry me, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes, of course I do!”
“Then snap to it!”
Clarice snapped to it. She stole rags from the scarecrow in the cornfield, made her nose long and sharp with candlewax and and darkened her teeth with soot from an oil lantern. She ground her fingernails to a ragged edge and pushed her hair under a ragged scarf. When she was done, she had transformed herself into a filthy, horrid-looking hag.
“You must do something about your posture,” complained Tim. “You need to practice walking all stooped over!”
Finally, Tim gave her his seal of approval. “That will do very well. Now take this gnarled stick and go to the village. Tell them that you are Gruzella the Witch and that you have decided to put them all under a spell of suffering and anguish. Then cackle a bit and walk into the forest. If you can fool the village, I will know that I have found my bride.”
Gruzella, the pseudo-witch did as she had been instructed and the village was in a complete state of uproar when Tim strolled onto the scene.
“Good villagers, what troubles you?” he cried.
The village elders surrounded Tim and all began talking at the same time. They explained that a witch had taken it upon herself to curse them and what would they do now?
“You problem is really very easy to solve,” he said grandly. “You need a magician. It so happens that I am rather skilled in the dark arts and for a small consideration, I will submit my not trifling skills on your behalf against this foul witch!”
“You want gold?” asked one of the sharper elders.
“Not at all!” he responded. “I want the witch as a wife!”
“You must be mad!” said the elder. “Why would you want to marry a witch?”
“I am a magician. I need a wife who understands the stresses of supernatural living.”
“But why do you need our permission?” asked the stupefied elder.
“Do we have a deal?” said Tim, ignoring the inconvenient question.
“Yes! Yes!” cried all of the other villagers.
“Right then, I will need some certain magical substances to defuse this crisis,” he announced.
“You shall have whatever you need!” cried the villagers. This thought was most appealing to Tim and he rather let himself go a bit.
“First, I must have roast fowl, served with dumplings and bit of cheese, well aged but not too well aged! (It had been some time since his last good meal.) Also a bottle of red wine, but it doesn’t have to be a Grand Cru.”
“But that’s not magical!” protested the villagers.
“Who’s the magician here?” thundered Tim and all of them raced off to prepare his meal.
Meanwhile, the lovely Clarice was hiding in the forest until she had more instructions from Tim. Being a girl of spirit, she soon chafed at being left alone. She was used to the mooning stares of the village men and the jealous sniffs of their wives. She was not accustomed to being ignored.
“Where is he?” she wondered. “What’s taking him so long?” She was half tempted (perhaps even three-quarters) to just go back to the village without her disguise to see what was up. Once the thought occurred to her, it was well nigh impossible to ignore. Finally, after three minutes of inner debate, she rose, scrubbed off her disguise and stalked to the village. She would give the magician a generous serving of her mind!
When Clarice reached the village, she met her own sister Gertruda racing to fetch some cheese and breadsticks for Tim’s feast.
“What’s going on?” asked Clarice.
“Can’t stop to chat,” puffed then full-figured Gertruda, “Magical business!”
“What magical business?” shouted Clarice, but Gertruda was gone.
She stormed into the town centre to see Tim seated at a table, working his way through a roast duck.
“What’s going on?” she hissed.
“Patience, patience, my little princess,” mumbled Tim, wiping the grease from his moustache.
“I was patient half a day ago, now I’m ticked off,” she growled.
“Have some duck,” he said, noting how she looked pointedly at the carcass.
Just then the village cobbler, Clarice’s father, appeared on the scene.
“Clarice! What are you doing with our magician?”
“Nothing Father,” she said curtseying.
“Well, you best be off to help your mother with the dumplings!” he said. “You should not be disturbing our village’s savior,” and at this he tugged a soiled forelock and dragged her home.
Clarice wanted to shriek at her father and beat him with her fists, but the cobbler had a grip like iron and a short temper besides. Tim just smiled and went back to his duck.
The village gathered together watching Tim as he picked his teeth and belched.
“Don’t you need anything more magical than food?” asked the elder.
“A meal like that was magical!” said Tim grandly. “But yes, I need some specific things: a spool, a thimble, and some scarlet silk thread. Also, I will need a colander, an egg whisk and a white rabbit. It would be very helpful if you had two goose eggs and a cup of dandelion tisane.”
The villagers put their heads together and divided up the list among themselves while Tim sipped a glass of wine. If he played his cards right, it might take the villagers the rest of the day to gather his wish list!
Just then, Clarice hissed at him from a nearby bush. “I want to know your plan!”
“What are you doing in that bush?” asked Tim.
“Hiding, you fool! What do you think I’m doing?”
“Why are you hiding?” wondered Tim.
“Because my father will beat me if he catches me talking to you!”
“Well, never mind all that, you need to get your costume on in case I need to throw another scare into the village.”
“Now, wait a minute!” snarled Clarice. “I think I have fulfilled my half of the bargain. I have proven to you that I am resourceful and intelligent!”
“That you have, my dear,” said Tim in a placating tone. “But another appearance of Witch Gruzella will seal the deal! Off you go!”
Grumbling, she went back to the woods to resume her disguise. (And who could blame her? This was vexatious behavior indeed!) No sooner had she gotten all of her hideous make-up on then Clarice heard a savage voice.
“Ha!” said the savage voice, “Competition!” It was a terrifically unpleasant-looking old woman. Clarice was not the sharpest knife in the kitchen drawer, but even she could tell that this old hag was a real witch.
“I am not your competition,” cried Clarice, falling on her knees before the real witch and hoping that she would not be turned into a newt.
“What do ye mean?” growled the real witch. “You’re a witch, ain’t ye?”
“Not at all!” said Clarice, averting her eyes. “I’m just dressed like one!”
“Why does a pretty gel like you want to dress like a Witch. Tis not Carnival, and sure, tis not Venice!” The Witch barked with dry laughter and hawked up a mass of rheumy phlegm.
“I’d better tell you the whole story,” said Clarice.
“Ye’d be wise to,” nodded the Witch.
When Clarice had finished her tale the Witch nodded and chuckled in a mean sort of way. “Yer not terrifically bright, er ye? Well, no mind, my child, I have a plan to will take your friend the prince down a few notches.” The Witch rubbed her knotty hands together cracking her knuckles and cackling, “Ha! That gives me a nasty ideer!”
And so say, the hideous hag transformed herself into the most beautiful maiden that the world would ever see. Her nose would have put Cleopatra’s to shame and as for her comely shape, the Greeks would have ignored Helen of Troy if she was around!
“Why you’re beautiful!” gasped Clarice.
“Ah ‘tis but surface, no?” said the Witch.
“But what are you going to do?” she asked.
“Come and watch!” suggested the Witch.
Clarice hid herself in the bushes and watched the Witch enter the village square. (It would not do for her father to find her out of the house being a busybody.)
Tim rose to his feet with a gasp of amazement. “My lady, you are very welcome here! But, if I may ask, why are you so far from the glorious courts of the Capital, for there in no doubt that you are a princess of a most profound noble house.
But the princess merely smiled. “Are you a worthy man?” she asked the magician.
“Well, I hate to brag, but I am fairly worthy. I am a powerful magician!”
“How thrilling for you!” said the princess in a delightful silvery voice. Tim blushed with pleasure and he had a strong inclination to impress her with his artistry.
“Look to that bird flying over the village green,” said Tim. He raised his left hand and spoke a loud spell. Suddenly the unlucky bird found itself vanish in a puff of smoke.
“Very impressive,” smiled the princess. “But destructive spells are so very simple and not very interesting.”
“Oh, I can construct as well, your majesty,” bowed Tim, a bit perturbed that his exploding bird bit went over so poorly. Tim picked up a smooth white pebble and rubbed it on his forehead while chanting a spell. He set down the rock and it quickly grew to the size of a small cottage.
The princess clapped her hands together and cried for delight. “What a wonderful spell. I do believe that I have found my soulmate!”
“You have?” grinned Tim, not believing his ears. “You want to marry me?”
“If you’ll have me,” simpered the princess.
“I will! Shall we travel to the Court and tell your father now?” asked Tim.
“I cannot wait!” declared the princess. “Let us summon the village priest and commit ourselves this very day!”
In the bushes, Clarice began (very slowly) to realize that her prince was nothing more than a shady magician. Well, he would get his comeuppance, marrying a hideous witch! Serve him right. But meanwhile, what about her? Would she ever find true happiness?
The princess and her magician quickly found the priest who agreed to pronounce the banns that very day.
It was a shocking honeymoon for poor Tim. But in time he learned to appreciate the witch’s magical skills and they became an excellent team. And every so often, for special dates, the Witch would again transform herself into the princess that so captured her husband’s dark heart.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Book Review of "The Unlikely Alchemist" by Brad Jersak.
Nearly two decades in the works, John Van Vloten’s The Unlikely Alchemist has finally hit bookshelves. In short, this is a very well written piece of children’s fantasy literature. Readers who watch for quality work in the genre of Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe should be delighted.
The Unlikely Alchemist includes some essentials in Christian fantasy literature—a self-consistent alternate world, the mysterious means of arriving there, a fellowship-style quest and of course, strong character development in the child antiheroes and their seemingly unbeatable nemesis.
Happily, the book is also full of surprising and strange new creatures that take us beyond standard elf, dwarf and fairy remakes. Moreover, readers will feel invited to their own character growth as they track with the emotional and spiritual journey of Bartholomew, the main protagonist. The story provides a colorful venue for important childhood development themes as characters are led by an array of challenges and mentors from childish self-centeredness and sibling conflicts into self-giving love, redemption and reconciliation.
Van Vloten navigates the key risks of the genre superbly. Will the book be child-friendly and yet engaging for adult parents or teachers who enjoy reading to their youngsters? Can the author introduce encounters with God without blundering into the minefield of Evangelical kitsch? Does the story draw anything fresh from the well of this literary style? YES on all counts, in my opinion.
Beyond the typical solutions to fantasy crises (i.e. overcoming or rescue) or transformation (i.e. endurance or discovery), the author treats us to another possibility—transfiguration—an important element of Christian life that warrants rediscovery in the West. 2 Corinthians 3:18 came to mind, where Paul says, “And all of us, who behold the Lord’s glory with unveiled faces, are being (lit.) transfigured into his image with an ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
At the cosmetic level, The Unlikely Alchemist is hardbound with an attractive, full-colored cover (art by Pat Jaster), making it a family keeper and perfect gift book. Don’t wait for a cheaper paperback version (none forthcoming)—do watch for the next book in the trilogy, due out next year.
The Unlikely Alchemist includes some essentials in Christian fantasy literature—a self-consistent alternate world, the mysterious means of arriving there, a fellowship-style quest and of course, strong character development in the child antiheroes and their seemingly unbeatable nemesis.
Happily, the book is also full of surprising and strange new creatures that take us beyond standard elf, dwarf and fairy remakes. Moreover, readers will feel invited to their own character growth as they track with the emotional and spiritual journey of Bartholomew, the main protagonist. The story provides a colorful venue for important childhood development themes as characters are led by an array of challenges and mentors from childish self-centeredness and sibling conflicts into self-giving love, redemption and reconciliation.
Van Vloten navigates the key risks of the genre superbly. Will the book be child-friendly and yet engaging for adult parents or teachers who enjoy reading to their youngsters? Can the author introduce encounters with God without blundering into the minefield of Evangelical kitsch? Does the story draw anything fresh from the well of this literary style? YES on all counts, in my opinion.
Beyond the typical solutions to fantasy crises (i.e. overcoming or rescue) or transformation (i.e. endurance or discovery), the author treats us to another possibility—transfiguration—an important element of Christian life that warrants rediscovery in the West. 2 Corinthians 3:18 came to mind, where Paul says, “And all of us, who behold the Lord’s glory with unveiled faces, are being (lit.) transfigured into his image with an ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
At the cosmetic level, The Unlikely Alchemist is hardbound with an attractive, full-colored cover (art by Pat Jaster), making it a family keeper and perfect gift book. Don’t wait for a cheaper paperback version (none forthcoming)—do watch for the next book in the trilogy, due out next year.
How to order "The Unlikely Alchemist"
If you live in Abbotsford, your first option is to go to the House of James on Emerson. If you are outside the area, you may send a cheque for 25 dollars to cover shipping and handling to John van Vloten 34820 Cassiar Ct. Abbotsford BC V2S 7G9 (Don't forget to include your address!)or use the easy PayPal option! (Coming soon!)
ABOUT MY BOOK, "The Unlikely Alchemist"
I started writing “The Unlikely Alchemist” in 1984. I was underemployed and sitting at my desk musing. As I pondered, a name popped into my head: Bartholomew Straightwaist Creedance. I smiled and wrote the name down. What kind of a person has a name like that? I thought and I started to write. I wrote about a hundred pages and then work started to pour in. I put my manuscript away.
A few years later, when my daughter Kristin was about eight, I had run out of Narnia Chronicles to read to her and for a lark, I started to read her the beginning of my book. We read until the story came to its abrupt ending. She asked me:
“What happens next?”
“I don’t know, darling. I never finished it.”
“But Daddy, you HAVE to finish it!”
She would not stop bugging me until I agreed to start writing again. Years later, when it was time to edit this book prior to publishing, I realized that the one person I wanted to work on my book was my daughter. She is literally my first audience and my final editor.
What kind of a book is “The Unlikely Alchemist”? Obviously, it’s a fantasy for a young audience, but like all good children’s books, it must also appeal to an adult reader. I wrote the book to entertain myself not just my children.
It is a story about a boy and his sister and their quest in the land of Polymorph. They are in Polymorph as the result of a chemistry experiment gone horribly awry, or are they? Bart discovers that in this new land, he has powers that he cannot predict or understand and he is treated as a special person, an Alchemist.
I people my story with all sorts of creatures that appeal to me: talking animals, Giants, Vardays (huge, violent and stupid), Pensaurs (sarcastic, brilliant lizard-men, and others.
It is a story that I revelled in reading to my three children when they were young. I hope you and your children will enjoy it too.
Monday, September 6, 2010
"Unbreakable"
Once upon a time, there was a Stallion named Simony. Simony was the toughest bronco around and had never been successfully broken. Not that the cowboys didn’t try, mind you! But Simony was smart, determined and violently unpredictable. No cowboy lasted for more than a few seconds on his back before the Stallion gave them an exciting flight into the dirt!
One day, a new cowboy came to the Circle-Bar ranch. Just a tenderfoot, really, named Jeremy. A real greenhorn from back East. All the older cowboys snorted when he announced that he would undertake the breaking of the stubborn Stallion.
“Yeah, that’s right kid!” said Slim. “Yew go right ahead and break the Stallion. Show us how they do it back East!” ‘East’ was said with such a tone of mocking derision that Jeremy’s face turned white and then red. But he said nothing, and settled into the life of the ranch, mending fencing, riding the range, and studying the Stallion.
Jeremy may have been a neophyte but he was given to an intense capacity for understanding and probing. He realized without any instruction that the choice in breaking a horse came down to fear and control or something that was a lot like love. None of the other cowboys could conceive of such a choice. For them, it was breaking a horse not patting it or giving it hugs. They would have laughed such an idea to scorn.
So Jeremy set himself the task of befriending the Stallion. He would come to Simony with bunches of sweet grass and speak softly to the horse. Simony, unsure of this approach, did what he always did: he flattened his ears and showed his teeth at the young cowboy. Jeremy was patient and unafraid. This confused the Stallion, who was accustomed to swearing, whipping and fearful cowboys. A calm cowboy with whistling lips and a smile was a vexation and bedevilment. What was the lad up to?
The other perplexing thing about the young cowboy was that he spoke to the Stallion as a friend. He would come over to the corral with sugar or apples and tell the horse how a city-slicker wound up in Montana. He would tell the Stallion how much he admired his ornery streak and his sense of independence. In short, he removed himself as a threat while presenting himself as a possible accomplice. It was enough to make the Stallion’s ears flinch.
Simony decided to discuss the matter with his only friend, the disreputable Shadow, a dog of low cunning and expressive ears, a cur with a heart of gold to belie his questionable looks.
Simony found Shadow at his usual post snoozing in the hay loft.
“Hey Shad, you got a minute?”
The dog pulled himself to his feet and stretched languidly. “Yeah sure, Simon….just give me a se-e-econd (one more stretch).”
“What do you think of that new slicker?” asked the Stallion.
“What, you mean that kid with the bad facial hair and them coke bottle specs?” yawned the dog.
“Yeah, that’s the one…what do you think of him?”
“Geez, I don’t know…seems to be a nice enough sort. Why do you ask?”
“Cause he’s not acting like he’s supposed to.”
“How you mean?”
Simony explained the suspicious behavior of the tenderfoot, underlining how underhanded his actions seemed to be. The dog tried to understand the Stallion but he was confused.
“So this dude treats you well, and you think he’s not trustworthy?”
“Yeah, that’s about the size of it…”
“You are a moron, you know that?”
The Stallion showed his teeth and stomped his left hoof into the floor.
“No, I mean it, Simon,” said the dog carefully. “You’re looking a gift horse in the mouth, if you’ll excuse the expression.”
“It’s easy for you to talk,” sneered Simony. “All you have to do is lick a human’s hand, and he’s your friend for life. But me? All they can do is whip me, stab me with spurs, and almost break my neck trying to ride me. And you know what they call it? They call it ‘Breaking’! I just don’t trust humans!”
“Okay, okay,” said the dog in what he hoped was a placating manner. “But this human just might be different.”
“That’s a mighty big might.”
“How you gonna know, if you don’t try?”
“Oh shut up, Shad, you’re not helping at all.”
“Have it your way, Simo, but I think you might be making a mistake…”
The Stallion tossed his head and went in search of oats. There was Jeremy waiting by the feed trough with a goofy grin on his face and a big carrot.
“Hey, there you are big fella,” said Jeremy holding out the root. What was the Stallion to do. He gently removed the carrot and munched it. Then Jeremy touched his fingers to his hat brim in a salute and left the Stallion to feed. Simony shook his head. He did not understand this human at all.
“Well, you sure pegged that human right,” laughed Shadow. “Purely suspicious, offering you carrots and such, and did you notice that he didn’t even try to ride you?”
“I don’t trust him!” snorted the horse. “He’s got some kind of ulterior motive.”
“What’s an onion motor?” asked the dog.
“It means, he’s up to something, I just don’t know what.”
“Have it your own way, Simo. If you need me, I’ll just be with the humans just a-loving ‘em and maybe getting a hand-out from Cookie,” said the incorrigible mutt, heading for the cooktent.
It was the day of the big cattle drive and all of the hands were on horse urging the longhorns into an orderly procession east. Simony, the unbreakable, was left in his stall and Jeremy as the tenderest foot was stuck behind to make sure that the ranch was still there when the drive was over.
Finally, all of the steers were rounded up and the drive was underway. Long columns raised a huge cloud of dust. Jeremy sighed and looked for something useful to do. He picked up a broken flintlock and started taking it apart. His attitude was, if it’s broken, find out why and fix it. It didn’t matter if he’d never seen a mechanism before; he had a feel for how things were meant to work. He wiped the sweat off of his brow (giving him a nice smudge across the bridge of his nose) and he muttered: “Uh, let’s see…the flint looks okay…”Steadily, he broke the gun into its constituent parts, occasionally stopping to clean and oil and ponder. Working with the gun caused him to think of the big unbroken stallion again.
He didn’t tell anyone why he wanted to tame Simony in the first place. The truth was that the stallion reminded him of himself: wild and unloved. If he could get the horse to trust him and even (dare he hope?) love him, maybe he could believe that he was lovable himself.
There was this girl back in New Bedford that he’d trusted with his heart. He shook his head angrily, he would not think about her.
He sighed. What would it take for the big horse to trust him? He lifted the flintlock and it shone in the morning sun. It was as good as new. Mechanisms were easy: find the broken part and fix it. Hearts were more difficult by far. “You gotta be patient, boy,” he counseled himself. “One step at a time, just one careful step at a time.” It was becoming his new mantra for the horse as well as his own heart.
He sat on the split rail fence and pondered. What was holding up the horse? He had shown him nothing but kindness, asking nothing in return, but the stallion still greeted him with suspicion. Where was the reciprocity, the warmth that he hungered for?
“One little step, one careful step,” he reminded himself. Wasn’t that the way it was with Lucy? He had courted her with gentleness and infinite patience, recognizing a look in her eyes that made him think of a deer suddenly aware of danger.
He thought he’d done everything right but at the penultimate moment, as he stood waiting in the front of the little white church, she’d not come at all. Instead, it was her father who came in her stead to try and explain. The old man had stammered and mumbled that she just wasn’t ready. The subtext was plain to him, perhaps she never would be ready.
So Jeremy had fled in bind rage and grief, running as far west as his meager funds would take him. The rage blew out of him like a prairie rainstorm, leaving an emptiness that demanded filling, something new and untried to wash the flavor of rejection out of his mouth. He would stay in Montana, a territory of new beginnings and re-invention.
When he first saw Simony, he asked a cowhand why nobody ever rode the Stallion. The hand, a taciturn man just grinned and said, “Help yourself.” He soon found himself pounding the dust out of his clothes as he unsteadily rose to his feet again. He’d lasted only a heartbeat in the saddle before the horse went berserk and pitched him off. He was intrigued, to say the least. The thought shaped itself in his mind, perhaps taming the stallion could be a first step in reclaiming his sense of who he was.
So he talked to the other hands, discovering how he would not approach Simony, he would not use the tactics of fear and punishment; he would not try to crush the horse’s spirit, he would try to win his trust. He was in no rush, he decided. He had all the time in the world. He would see if love would accomplish what fear could not.
Shadow came up to him sitting on the fence and nuzzled him with his generous muzzle. “Hey boy,” Jeremy responded, scratching him around his ears. “Let me ask you for your advice.” The dog looked up at him worshipfully. “I mean, how would a scholar like yourself, go about taming that big horse?” Shadow just wagged his tail and settled his disheveled head onto Jeremy’s lap for more delightful scratching. What could he tell him? Shadow doubted that Simo would ever submit to a human, even to one as nice as this one. He nosed Jeremy’s pocket where he usually keep little treats. Jeremy smiled and pulled out a scrap of jerky.
It was shaping up to be the hottest day of an already hellish Montana summer. Jeremy felt like he was swimming in his own sweat as he pounded a new post into the ground. Shadow watched mournfully from his patch of shade and pitied the young man. Imagine having to do hard physical work in such an inferno! Shadow shuddered and then fell asleep.
“Come on boy. It’s quitting time!” said Jeremy. Shadow’s eyes opened a crack and he yawned ponderously. The sun was already touching the edges of the Bitteroots. It was time to eat! They headed for the mess tent and Jeremy fried a sizable steak. Shadow fixed his food-sharing beam on the young man and cranked it to ten. Jeremy laughed at the guilelessness of the mongrel and gave him a hunk of fat.
After dinner, he checked on the stallion making sure that he had enough oats. He pulled a lump of sugar out of his pocket and held it out to Simony. The stallion sniffed it and pulled it in with a delicate tongue. “Goodnight, you noble steed, you glorious beast,” he whispered. Simony’s ears did not go flat which Jeremy saw as a good sign.
The sky was a deep black full of stars. Jeremy sighed with contentment; it really was a big sky he was under. He leaned up against a withered pine and tried to identify the constellations. There was Orion’s belt and the Dippers, big and small, but where was Pleiades? He breathed deeply in the relative cool of the night taking in the aromas of sage and ponderosa pine. It was rich like turkey stuffing in his Ma’s Christmas turkey. He sniffed deeply but here was a different smell, something oily and smoky.
He got to his feet, something was burning. He ran to the hill just south of the ranchhouse his own private look-out. To the east he could see a running tongue of brightness running along the plain: a grassfire! To his horror, the grassfire flew into the forest at the base of the mountains and the pines exploded into flame.
He had to get back to the Circle-Bar and get Simony out of his stall! He raced back to the barn and threw open the door. “Quick!” he yelled to the dog. “We’ve got to get out of here!” He ran to the stallion’s stall and wrenched open the door. Simony, panicked by the smoke he smelt drove his hooves into the door and knocked Jeremy off of his feet. He fell in a heap.
“You knocked him out, you big fool!” barked Shadow, who ran to Jeremy and tried to pull him out of the smoldering barn. The stallion knelt down beside the dog. “Here, pull him onto my back, I’ll get him out of here. Shadow pulled the unconscious man onto the horse’s back and then they ran out of the barn.
“The canyon! We can shelter there!” barked the dog.
“Where is it?”
“Follow me!”
They pelted across the ranchland and into the narrow entrance of the box canyon. Down to the creek they ran, Simony carefully running so as not to lose the unconscious human on his back. They were not alone in the water. Every manner of animal was already there or arriving quickly: deer, rabbits, and even a couple of black bears. They all hunkered down in the quickly flowing water and waited.
When Jeremy came to, he was dazed and disoriented. Where was he? Why was he wet? Was he on a horse? He could see Simony’s heaving flank right in his face. He tried to pull himself up but he was too weak. He felt boneless.
“What are you doing with that human?” asked a buck.
“Mind your own beeswax!” growled Simony.
“Forget him!” yelped Shadow. “Come on, let’s get further into the canyon, we’re still too close to the flames!”
The canyon was mostly rock with cliffs towering over their heads. There was a creek that was still running in mid-summer and all of the animals were crowded in its safe embrace.
______________
The oldest hand, a wizened reprobate named Slim was chewing tobacco and sending a steady stream of juice into the makeshift spittoon of an old boot beside the fence. He and Jeremy were whittling companionably now that the work of branding was done and there was a lull in the work. Slim was creating an entirely unconvincing model of a horse, while Jeremy was trying to make a recorder or at least a whistle.
“Say, dija ever actually git on that Stallion’s back, junior?” drawled Slim.
“Nah, that stallion’s unbreakable!” said Jeremy.
One day, a new cowboy came to the Circle-Bar ranch. Just a tenderfoot, really, named Jeremy. A real greenhorn from back East. All the older cowboys snorted when he announced that he would undertake the breaking of the stubborn Stallion.
“Yeah, that’s right kid!” said Slim. “Yew go right ahead and break the Stallion. Show us how they do it back East!” ‘East’ was said with such a tone of mocking derision that Jeremy’s face turned white and then red. But he said nothing, and settled into the life of the ranch, mending fencing, riding the range, and studying the Stallion.
Jeremy may have been a neophyte but he was given to an intense capacity for understanding and probing. He realized without any instruction that the choice in breaking a horse came down to fear and control or something that was a lot like love. None of the other cowboys could conceive of such a choice. For them, it was breaking a horse not patting it or giving it hugs. They would have laughed such an idea to scorn.
So Jeremy set himself the task of befriending the Stallion. He would come to Simony with bunches of sweet grass and speak softly to the horse. Simony, unsure of this approach, did what he always did: he flattened his ears and showed his teeth at the young cowboy. Jeremy was patient and unafraid. This confused the Stallion, who was accustomed to swearing, whipping and fearful cowboys. A calm cowboy with whistling lips and a smile was a vexation and bedevilment. What was the lad up to?
The other perplexing thing about the young cowboy was that he spoke to the Stallion as a friend. He would come over to the corral with sugar or apples and tell the horse how a city-slicker wound up in Montana. He would tell the Stallion how much he admired his ornery streak and his sense of independence. In short, he removed himself as a threat while presenting himself as a possible accomplice. It was enough to make the Stallion’s ears flinch.
Simony decided to discuss the matter with his only friend, the disreputable Shadow, a dog of low cunning and expressive ears, a cur with a heart of gold to belie his questionable looks.
Simony found Shadow at his usual post snoozing in the hay loft.
“Hey Shad, you got a minute?”
The dog pulled himself to his feet and stretched languidly. “Yeah sure, Simon….just give me a se-e-econd (one more stretch).”
“What do you think of that new slicker?” asked the Stallion.
“What, you mean that kid with the bad facial hair and them coke bottle specs?” yawned the dog.
“Yeah, that’s the one…what do you think of him?”
“Geez, I don’t know…seems to be a nice enough sort. Why do you ask?”
“Cause he’s not acting like he’s supposed to.”
“How you mean?”
Simony explained the suspicious behavior of the tenderfoot, underlining how underhanded his actions seemed to be. The dog tried to understand the Stallion but he was confused.
“So this dude treats you well, and you think he’s not trustworthy?”
“Yeah, that’s about the size of it…”
“You are a moron, you know that?”
The Stallion showed his teeth and stomped his left hoof into the floor.
“No, I mean it, Simon,” said the dog carefully. “You’re looking a gift horse in the mouth, if you’ll excuse the expression.”
“It’s easy for you to talk,” sneered Simony. “All you have to do is lick a human’s hand, and he’s your friend for life. But me? All they can do is whip me, stab me with spurs, and almost break my neck trying to ride me. And you know what they call it? They call it ‘Breaking’! I just don’t trust humans!”
“Okay, okay,” said the dog in what he hoped was a placating manner. “But this human just might be different.”
“That’s a mighty big might.”
“How you gonna know, if you don’t try?”
“Oh shut up, Shad, you’re not helping at all.”
“Have it your way, Simo, but I think you might be making a mistake…”
The Stallion tossed his head and went in search of oats. There was Jeremy waiting by the feed trough with a goofy grin on his face and a big carrot.
“Hey, there you are big fella,” said Jeremy holding out the root. What was the Stallion to do. He gently removed the carrot and munched it. Then Jeremy touched his fingers to his hat brim in a salute and left the Stallion to feed. Simony shook his head. He did not understand this human at all.
“Well, you sure pegged that human right,” laughed Shadow. “Purely suspicious, offering you carrots and such, and did you notice that he didn’t even try to ride you?”
“I don’t trust him!” snorted the horse. “He’s got some kind of ulterior motive.”
“What’s an onion motor?” asked the dog.
“It means, he’s up to something, I just don’t know what.”
“Have it your own way, Simo. If you need me, I’ll just be with the humans just a-loving ‘em and maybe getting a hand-out from Cookie,” said the incorrigible mutt, heading for the cooktent.
It was the day of the big cattle drive and all of the hands were on horse urging the longhorns into an orderly procession east. Simony, the unbreakable, was left in his stall and Jeremy as the tenderest foot was stuck behind to make sure that the ranch was still there when the drive was over.
Finally, all of the steers were rounded up and the drive was underway. Long columns raised a huge cloud of dust. Jeremy sighed and looked for something useful to do. He picked up a broken flintlock and started taking it apart. His attitude was, if it’s broken, find out why and fix it. It didn’t matter if he’d never seen a mechanism before; he had a feel for how things were meant to work. He wiped the sweat off of his brow (giving him a nice smudge across the bridge of his nose) and he muttered: “Uh, let’s see…the flint looks okay…”Steadily, he broke the gun into its constituent parts, occasionally stopping to clean and oil and ponder. Working with the gun caused him to think of the big unbroken stallion again.
He didn’t tell anyone why he wanted to tame Simony in the first place. The truth was that the stallion reminded him of himself: wild and unloved. If he could get the horse to trust him and even (dare he hope?) love him, maybe he could believe that he was lovable himself.
There was this girl back in New Bedford that he’d trusted with his heart. He shook his head angrily, he would not think about her.
He sighed. What would it take for the big horse to trust him? He lifted the flintlock and it shone in the morning sun. It was as good as new. Mechanisms were easy: find the broken part and fix it. Hearts were more difficult by far. “You gotta be patient, boy,” he counseled himself. “One step at a time, just one careful step at a time.” It was becoming his new mantra for the horse as well as his own heart.
He sat on the split rail fence and pondered. What was holding up the horse? He had shown him nothing but kindness, asking nothing in return, but the stallion still greeted him with suspicion. Where was the reciprocity, the warmth that he hungered for?
“One little step, one careful step,” he reminded himself. Wasn’t that the way it was with Lucy? He had courted her with gentleness and infinite patience, recognizing a look in her eyes that made him think of a deer suddenly aware of danger.
He thought he’d done everything right but at the penultimate moment, as he stood waiting in the front of the little white church, she’d not come at all. Instead, it was her father who came in her stead to try and explain. The old man had stammered and mumbled that she just wasn’t ready. The subtext was plain to him, perhaps she never would be ready.
So Jeremy had fled in bind rage and grief, running as far west as his meager funds would take him. The rage blew out of him like a prairie rainstorm, leaving an emptiness that demanded filling, something new and untried to wash the flavor of rejection out of his mouth. He would stay in Montana, a territory of new beginnings and re-invention.
When he first saw Simony, he asked a cowhand why nobody ever rode the Stallion. The hand, a taciturn man just grinned and said, “Help yourself.” He soon found himself pounding the dust out of his clothes as he unsteadily rose to his feet again. He’d lasted only a heartbeat in the saddle before the horse went berserk and pitched him off. He was intrigued, to say the least. The thought shaped itself in his mind, perhaps taming the stallion could be a first step in reclaiming his sense of who he was.
So he talked to the other hands, discovering how he would not approach Simony, he would not use the tactics of fear and punishment; he would not try to crush the horse’s spirit, he would try to win his trust. He was in no rush, he decided. He had all the time in the world. He would see if love would accomplish what fear could not.
Shadow came up to him sitting on the fence and nuzzled him with his generous muzzle. “Hey boy,” Jeremy responded, scratching him around his ears. “Let me ask you for your advice.” The dog looked up at him worshipfully. “I mean, how would a scholar like yourself, go about taming that big horse?” Shadow just wagged his tail and settled his disheveled head onto Jeremy’s lap for more delightful scratching. What could he tell him? Shadow doubted that Simo would ever submit to a human, even to one as nice as this one. He nosed Jeremy’s pocket where he usually keep little treats. Jeremy smiled and pulled out a scrap of jerky.
It was shaping up to be the hottest day of an already hellish Montana summer. Jeremy felt like he was swimming in his own sweat as he pounded a new post into the ground. Shadow watched mournfully from his patch of shade and pitied the young man. Imagine having to do hard physical work in such an inferno! Shadow shuddered and then fell asleep.
“Come on boy. It’s quitting time!” said Jeremy. Shadow’s eyes opened a crack and he yawned ponderously. The sun was already touching the edges of the Bitteroots. It was time to eat! They headed for the mess tent and Jeremy fried a sizable steak. Shadow fixed his food-sharing beam on the young man and cranked it to ten. Jeremy laughed at the guilelessness of the mongrel and gave him a hunk of fat.
After dinner, he checked on the stallion making sure that he had enough oats. He pulled a lump of sugar out of his pocket and held it out to Simony. The stallion sniffed it and pulled it in with a delicate tongue. “Goodnight, you noble steed, you glorious beast,” he whispered. Simony’s ears did not go flat which Jeremy saw as a good sign.
The sky was a deep black full of stars. Jeremy sighed with contentment; it really was a big sky he was under. He leaned up against a withered pine and tried to identify the constellations. There was Orion’s belt and the Dippers, big and small, but where was Pleiades? He breathed deeply in the relative cool of the night taking in the aromas of sage and ponderosa pine. It was rich like turkey stuffing in his Ma’s Christmas turkey. He sniffed deeply but here was a different smell, something oily and smoky.
He got to his feet, something was burning. He ran to the hill just south of the ranchhouse his own private look-out. To the east he could see a running tongue of brightness running along the plain: a grassfire! To his horror, the grassfire flew into the forest at the base of the mountains and the pines exploded into flame.
He had to get back to the Circle-Bar and get Simony out of his stall! He raced back to the barn and threw open the door. “Quick!” he yelled to the dog. “We’ve got to get out of here!” He ran to the stallion’s stall and wrenched open the door. Simony, panicked by the smoke he smelt drove his hooves into the door and knocked Jeremy off of his feet. He fell in a heap.
“You knocked him out, you big fool!” barked Shadow, who ran to Jeremy and tried to pull him out of the smoldering barn. The stallion knelt down beside the dog. “Here, pull him onto my back, I’ll get him out of here. Shadow pulled the unconscious man onto the horse’s back and then they ran out of the barn.
“The canyon! We can shelter there!” barked the dog.
“Where is it?”
“Follow me!”
They pelted across the ranchland and into the narrow entrance of the box canyon. Down to the creek they ran, Simony carefully running so as not to lose the unconscious human on his back. They were not alone in the water. Every manner of animal was already there or arriving quickly: deer, rabbits, and even a couple of black bears. They all hunkered down in the quickly flowing water and waited.
When Jeremy came to, he was dazed and disoriented. Where was he? Why was he wet? Was he on a horse? He could see Simony’s heaving flank right in his face. He tried to pull himself up but he was too weak. He felt boneless.
“What are you doing with that human?” asked a buck.
“Mind your own beeswax!” growled Simony.
“Forget him!” yelped Shadow. “Come on, let’s get further into the canyon, we’re still too close to the flames!”
The canyon was mostly rock with cliffs towering over their heads. There was a creek that was still running in mid-summer and all of the animals were crowded in its safe embrace.
______________
The oldest hand, a wizened reprobate named Slim was chewing tobacco and sending a steady stream of juice into the makeshift spittoon of an old boot beside the fence. He and Jeremy were whittling companionably now that the work of branding was done and there was a lull in the work. Slim was creating an entirely unconvincing model of a horse, while Jeremy was trying to make a recorder or at least a whistle.
“Say, dija ever actually git on that Stallion’s back, junior?” drawled Slim.
“Nah, that stallion’s unbreakable!” said Jeremy.
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