CHAPTER 9: COMMUNION

Chapter Nine: Communion

[From the Willow manuscript, Part 3.]
I was never sure what it meant to get to first base, or second, or third, but I am sure I knew what it meant to hit a home run, and I had never done that. I had always known that my Babe Ruth, maybe Baby Ruth would be more a propos, would be Argo Malle. I knew he would be the only man I would ever want. Perhaps most women know without ever doubting who the special someone will be. For me, it was always Argo.
Of course, given his annunciation, I would likely have to make an adjustment, settle for a pinch hitter or something, but that thought never really crossed my mind. I knew only that Argo was the man for me and that eventually it would be Argo who would circle the bases.
It’s not at all that I did not have the opportunity with other players; there were a few guys I had dated more than once, and they reached base occasionally, but nothing was ever as sweet or as powerful as that first kiss with Argo, and I never again trembled as I had that Christmas in the living room. My team was pitching a shutout, and when that first run would score was anybody’s guess.
So much for baseball, a game I knew was boring but which Argo believed was exciting and the only sport worth watching.
“Unlike football in which you can’t see the ball unless it’s thrown, and where the game is won or lost at the line of scrimmage, where piles of humanity crash into each other, baseball is out in the open. You can see every pitch and every play,” said Argo. But I wasn’t convinced.
“Well, in basketball you can see the ball, and in soccer,” I argued.
“Basketball is for pituitary cases with attention deficit disorder. Seven footers score two hundred points a game making the same play after play. What could be more pointless? Soccer is running helter skelter and jangles my nerves,” added Argo dismissively. “Baseball allows time to think, to anticipate, and then it explodes with speed and power. It is both a mano a mano contest and a team effort. And a baseball player lacking in power and speed can compensate by having developed a specialized skill. The game is perfect.”
“A perfect bore,” I added, and Argo laughed.
“De gustibus non disputatum est.”
“You’re not in the seminary now,” I said. “Besides, I happen to know what that means.”
“What?”
“You don’t believe me!” I said as offended as I could sound.
“Of course not; Rutgers students are lucky if they know English. Latin is out of the question.”
“You went there,” I pointed out.
“Oh, right,” he said as if he had forgotten. “But I didn’t like it
“Well, I do,” I answered. “I guess you can’t argue with taste.” I gave him my best smirk and walked to get an ice cream from a street vendor. It was at Sheepshead Bay, a small Brooklyn inlet not far from Coney Island. Commercial fishing boats go out daily and sell their catches at the fish markets across from the piers.
It was a hot day in June with August humidity, and I had overdressed. Jeans and a long-sleeved sweatshirt were impossibly hot, and my damp hair clumped on the back of my neck making things even worse. Argo looked cool, though, as he always did. His dark curly hair, cut full, was just long enough to curl, Grecian style, at the nape of his neck, and his wiry frame was afforded lots of breathing room beneath his too large white shirt and khaki slacks. And the man never seemed to sweat. I, on the other hand, felt droplets of perspiration roll down the middle of my chest.
“Want an ice cream?” I asked the Brooklyn Johnny Depp as I ordered mine. The vendor, an elderly balding man, a Latino, was anything but cool, and his shirt clung to him as if it were sprayed on.
“No, thanks.”
“It’ll cool you off,” I said giving him one more chance.
“No it won’t.”
“Ice cream doesn’t cool you off?” I said. Then I looked at the vendor and said, “I guess you sell a lot of ice cream on cold days.” The vendor gave me a look that told me that the guy I was with was an idiot.
“Of course he sells more on days like this…”
“So everyone must be wrong. They all think that ice cream, note the word ice, cools them off, but they’re all wrong.”
“It cools them, at first,” explained Argo. “But it’s high in calories, note the word cream. Calories, you may recall, are units of heat. Eventually, you will feel hotter than if you had, say, ice water, which has no calories.”
We took a few steps down the block, and holding out my double scoop strawberry cone I said, “Want some of my ice cream?”
“Of course; it’s a hot day,” he said before biting off a piece. “I’m cooler already.”
We had gone on occasional dates during my junior and senior years at Northern High while he was at Rutgers, but they always included others, usually Karen and Eileen. But once I started at Rutgers and Argo went to the seminary Connecticut, those “dates” stopped. He would visit on Thanksgiving or Christmas, stay overnight, and leave the next day. Alternate holidays he spent with the Machiarolla family in Brooklyn.
But we did meet unchaperoned on two occasions. The first time was the year before when I got mugged in Camden outside the law library. I had driven there to do research on a paper for a pre-law class, and on a dark winter’s evening as I got to my car in the lot, I was pushed to the ground. The mugger grabbed for my keys, but I tossed them under a nearby car. Apparently it was too dark for him to see them or he couldn’t reach them. He punched and kicked me and ran off when a few boys approached.
I did not want to tell my parents because I knew they would overreact, but I suppose I needed comforting. Perhaps it was simply an excuse to call him, but I asked Argo to visit me at the dorm. It was good to see him sitting on the edge of my bed, and me with a blackened eye and a cracked rib. He was tender and solicitous and comforting, and when he took my hand and stroked it gently, all the pain was gone --- all the real pain --- and I knew the electricity was still there. I kissed him on the cheek.
The other time was when we went to the movies in Bensonhurst and had Italian ices from Rispoli’s Bakery. I don’t remember the movie, but I do the ices. It was the best ever, and we said we would go back at the end of the summer, but we never did.
Every other time I saw him, Argo wore his Roman collar. This time he hadn’t.
“So where’s your collar?” I finally asked.
“It’s too hot, and I’m on holiday.”
“Aren’t you supposed to wear it even if it’s hot?”
“Not necessarily. Do you want me to wear it?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Good. You want me to wear a tie?”
“You used to. Remember?”
“Yes, and they were only a little less uncomfortable than a collar. Why, by the way, do businesses make men wear closed collars when women can wear décolletage tops to the office?”
“One of the mysteries of life, I guess.” Then I added, “Here’s another mystery: why is it called Sheepshead Bay? It’s a small inlet and not shaped like anything but a hot dog.”
“Then they should have named it Hot Dog Inlet,” he answered. “But then it would not have been named after the fish.”
“What fish?”
“A sheepshead,” he answered. “They used to catch them here. They’re ugly things, used for deep-sea bait. I think they’re gone now.”
“Well, they got the ugly part right.”
Argo looked around. “You think it’s ugly?”
“Yes. The docks are old and splintery, the boats are old and beaten up, and the water looks polluted.”
“Well, besides that.”
“Besides that, it smells like fish.”
“It’s supposed to; it’s a commercial port. It’s not Hilton Head where big yachts are lined up and never taken out,” Argo said in defense of the place. “I like it.”
“Well, it’s a mystery to me how you think there’s beauty here,” I answered.
“I think you’re beautiful,” he said quietly.
“Another mystery.” Now I had never been called beautiful before. Charming, attractive, sensual, sexy, but never even pretty, except for my mother and sisters who really were pretty. My thin, drab hair; light brown narrow eyes set too close together; a nose that was too flat; and lips that were too heavy hardly made for beautiful face. And unless you thought Dolly Parton cut the ideal figure and were therefore a century behind the times, I could hardly be thought of as anything remotely approaching beautiful. “But de gustibus non disputatum est,” I said. “But thanks for the flattering words.”
“It’s not flattery,” Argo insisted.
What was also a mystery to me was why he asked me to meet him at Sheepshead Bay. He said it was a surprise, that I should bring sunglasses and sneakers, and that I was to wear pants and a long sleeved shirt. Obviously, given the heat, I should have worn shorts and a sleeveless top.
“The other mystery is what we are doing here.”
“No mystery; a surprise,” he said as we walked along the pier on the north side of the inlet. “See that boat,” he said pointing to the white pleasure yacht; “we’re going for a ride.”
He stepped from the dock onto the stern and raised his hand to help me on board.
“Whose boat is this?” I asked as Argo unlocked the companionway.
“Joe Machiarolla’s --- his father’s really. They used to keep it Gravesend Neck, but they moved it here. It’s the only non-commercial vessel here.”
“Where are they?”
“Italy, on vacation.”
“Who’s going to drive it?” I asked but the answer was already obvious.
“I am,” he said with a smile and a bow. “Captain Argo Malle, a true Argonaut, at your service.”
“I never knew you could drive a boat.”
“We captain boats or sail them, not drive them.”
“So when did a city boy learn to operate a boat?”
“Ever since I was a kid. The Machiarolla’s would take me to their lake house every summer. I learned on an outboard, then they bought this a few years ago when…”
“Is it hard?”
“Not today; there’s no wind. With such a high freeboard it can be tough on windy days.”
“What’s a freeboard?” My nautical vocabulary at that time was limited to a cursory high school reading of Moby Dick.
“The sides of the boat. The more mass, the more the wind has an effect.”
I supposed I looked a bit shocked standing in the companionway of a yacht, and Argo must have noticed my reaction.
“You don’t get seasick, do you?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I don’t think so. I’ve been on the ferry a few times.”
“Do you want to go out?” he asked. “We don’t have to; we can have a picnic right here in the air conditioning. I stocked the galley.”
“Air conditioning sounds good right now,” I said pulling the front of my shirt out from my slacks to keep it from sticking.
“It gets nice and cool when we’re underway,” he said, “but it’s up to you.”
“This is a big boat,” I said sizing it up. “Are you sure you can handle it by yourself; I won’t be of much help to you.”
“Come on down below. It’s really well-laid out.”
“It smells nice,” I said. “What is that smell?”
“It’s the teak and teak oil. When the cabin is closed up the aroma gets captured; I love it.”
“And everything is so neat and clean. It’s like new.”
“The Machiarolla’s keep everything shipshape,” he said as I followed him through the main salon. “Of course, they have help.”
“They have people who clean boats?”
“The Machiarolla’s do.”
The boat was more impressive from the inside than out. All the walls were oil rubbed teak, and the brass fittings were bright and shiny. The windows had navy blue curtains with a lighter blue fabric on the settees. The main berth had a king size bed with a white bedspread and navy throw pillows. Off to the right was a private head with white marble walls and black marble bathtub.
Argo opened a panel with what looked like fifty switches and flipped on some of them. Lights and the air conditioning came on and the walls took on a deep orange hue.
“It’ll get cool in a few minutes,” said Argo as he walked to the refrigerator. “Can I get you something to drink? I chilled some white wine, but we have cokes and iced tea.” I noticed the wine glasses on the table with two place settings. “If we stay in port I can have wine.”
“Let’s have the wine,” I said. “But first I have to use the facilities.”
The mirror over the sink in the head off the salon was a brightly polished metal framed in rich teak with inlaid brass disks. On the vanity was a stack of paper hand towels with a clipper ship under full sail. I put on fresh lipstick, which I really didn’t need, and ran a brush through my hair. When I came out, Argo had on a Brubeck tape and poured the wine.
“Thanks for not telling me it’s the head,” I said as I scooted along the settee behind the table covered in a white tablecloth with navy napkins. Argo was sitting along the bulkhead in the corner so we were at right angles to each other.
“I had to resist,” he said flashing his perfect white teeth and lifting his glass for a toast. “To good friends.”
“On a date,” I added.
“On a date,” he repeated.
“That’s good,” I lied after a sip. It was too tart for my taste.
“It’s a dry Bellino soave. The Machiarolla’s drink mostly Chianti, but I’ve bought this for them a few times and they seemed to like it.”
I took another sip and could feel the warmth despite its having been chilled. “Wine on a hot day, and you wouldn’t have ice cream.”
“Actually, alcohol will cool you down,” said Argo with a gleam in his eye.
“Right. That’s why St. Bernards carry rum to people dying in the frozen tundra.”
“Initially the rum warms you and gets the heart pumping, but eventually the alcohol will cool you down.”
“So the St. Bernards should bring ice cream to freezing people.”
“Well maybe a rum float.” His eyes laughed.
We were young then, and it was a long time ago, so I can’t be sure if my memories, drawn by youth, were colored by time. They are honest, though, and I know that on that day my life had changed. It wasn’t because we circled the bases, though that was part of it, but it was because of what we exchanged afterward.
The wine, of course, helped, as I’m sure Argo had intended. So did the location --- just right for the first time, anytime for that matter --- and the time of year with its promise of a long, hot summer beckoning just outside our navy blue curtained air conditioned world.
I was fortunate to have Argo as my first lover; he was tender yet directive, and what he lacked in experience he compensated for in honesty. I suppose it was then, on that first day, that I learned men want mothers as much as lovers, and I was happy to be both for my man.
We lay together in silence afterwards for hours clinging to each other as if to let go would cancel the wonder we had just experienced. I wanted to talk to him, to try to express what I had felt, to define it for myself; but no words came, only kisses and soft fingertip swirls on his chest. It was dark by the time the surge of passion coursed through our bodies again, this time more powerful than the first. I was open and vulnerable and free.
It was getting late, and as we held each other under the sheet the words just popped out: “Why did we do it?”
Argo let go of me and rolled on his back before giving me the answer. “It’s natural.”
“A lot of things are natural.”
He was looking up at the paneled ceiling. “Are you sorry?”
Part of me was. “No. Are you?”
“No.” He took my hand and kissed it. “But you are.”
“No, I’m not. I’m very happy.”
“Well, if you were, why did you ask why we made love?”
It was a fair question, I thought. “I guess I know why I did, but I wasn’t sure why you did.”
“Then your question should have been why I made love.”
“Well, I’m sorry I asked the wrong question. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
“I’ll try.”
“You are kind.”
“Yes, I know.”
I poked him in his ribs. “And what else do you know?”
“I’m also modest.”
“And you have so much to be modest about.”
He pretended to be crushed. “No,” I said like a mother comforting her baby. “You don’t have anything to be modest about. I was only teasing,” I said stroking his forehead.
“Good,” he said as if much relieved. “Now can we get up?”
“Not until you answer my question which you artfully avoided.”
“Well, it’s a bit complicated.”
“Too complicated for me?”
Argo let out a laugh. “It’s really not the best time or place to engage in a discussion of moral theology. We are lying here naked.”
“Good,” I said rolling over and onto him. “No better time for a heart to heart, so to speak.” Argo laughed and kissed me.
“I guess not,” he said in a deepening voice. “But you’re making it hard to concentrate, so to speak.”
“You can do it; go! Tell me about what’s natural,” I said before kissing him again.
“Willow, I can’t,” he said half laughing. “We better get dressed. I’m warning you.”
“Coward!” I whispered and rolled off him. He got up quickly and picked his briefs off the floor and hurried them on. It was as if the underwear were protection, and I giggled.
“What?” he asked.
“Feel safe now?”
“No,” he answered sheepishly.
It was almost midnight by the time we left the boat. It was still humid as we walked along the street across from the docks, but the temperature had dropped significantly. There were a few stars, and the moon was almost full and danced on the water. We held hands for the first time in public, young lovers not wanting to let go of the wonder they owned.
I didn’t have to ask him again to explain why he believed that what we had done was not wrong. As we walked slowly hand in hand along the docks and to the train station, he explained what was “complicated.”
“It goes to what is the Natural Law and what is the purpose of things. According to doctrine, the primary purpose of sex is to procreate. To have sex for any other purpose is against the Natural Law. As marriage is the universal place for parenthood, sex outside of marriage would frustrate the Natural Law, or the natural order of things.” He paused and gave me a half-smile. “Does that make any sense?”
I nodded. It was as if he were lecturing in a class.
“But I hold that the Natural Law suggests that childbirth is not the primary purpose of sex; it is secondary. That’s because sex seldom results in birth. How can birth be the primary purpose of an action when it so rarely results in that purpose?”
“So what is the primary purpose?”
“Pleasure. It is a natural need, an appetite chemically driven,” he said letting go of my hand so he could be free to punctuate his speech with gesture. “I believe the Natural Law is to enjoy sex, to satisfy the natural need, not to procreate, but to bond with another.” He clasped his hands. “People don’t have sex only to have children. They have sex because it is the most natural and powerful drive --- a fundamental drive. Having children is rarely the result, but pleasure always is. And parenthetically, why does the doctrine’s primary purpose make the secondary purpose lesser? Can they not be equal?”
“So basically if you can make an argument for something, it’s not a sin?” I asked.
“Not at all; you have to really believe it. He was wide-eyed and resolute. “You can’t just be a cannon lawyer arguing a case. You have to feel it, honestly study the issue and also pray for guidance.”
It occurred to me that the law I was studying was different from canon law in that canon law made greater allowance for conscience than public law. Intent certainly is a mitigating factor but it is not totally exculpating. According to Argo, and I was certain he was correct, conscience was totally exculpatory in the Church.
“What about me?” I murmured. “I guess I don’t intellectualize things as you do. Part of me thinks that sex before marriage is just wrong. It’s wonderful but…”
“It’s truly a matter of conscience. If you think it’s wrong, it probably is,” he said looking past me. “If you feel guilty, then you shouldn’t do it.” Then he looked into my eyes, “But you’ve been trained a certain way, so guilt is going to be there.”
We walked in silence for a while and I took his hand. The truth was that I seemed to be losing my faith in the Church before then, and now that I was officially a sinner, I simply didn’t care. Objective sin, subjective sin, doubting conscience, on that night those words meant little. What mattered was that I was holding hands and walking with Argo into adulthood.
But Argo was still lost in thought it seemed, and I felt that what we had shared had less an impact on him than it did me.
“You know,” he said looking at me as we walked slowly on what for me at least was a beautiful night. “The Church teaches us the best way for everyone. We are sheep and the clergy our shepherds. Sex outside of marriage can and does cause problems, social and otherwise. The question is, theologically though, is premarital sex intrinsically evil. That is, in and of itself wrong, and I cannot in good conscience accept that it is, certainly not in all cases.” Then in a lower voice he added with consternation, “The problem is that I could be motivated to think as I do because I want to --- that desire is clouding my judgment. Obviously it’s much easier to argue against chastity when I have someone like you. You know, someone I’m so attracted to --- someone I love.”
Those words ran along my spine and I could feel tears well. He was being incredibly honest, so sincere, that it was impossible not to love him completely.
“I love you, too,” I said trying to keep from blubbering. I squeezed his long, cool hand and kissed it.
Perhaps because I felt so close to him then and our being together had been so overpowering I never asked him why he could remain a seminarian given that we could never be together. I realize now that even if I had, it would have made no difference.

l

Argo was to leave the next day for the seminary, and there was not enough time to meet. So we spoke by phone. It was a long conversation, one with long pauses as neither of us wanted to say good-bye. Eventually Argo said that he had hoped we could take the boat out if it were available when he returned to New York in four months. I asked him out of nothing more than idle curiosity what Mr. Machiarolla did for a living such that he could afford a yacht, and that’s when he told me Tommy M. was a Mafioso.
Argo told me as matter-of-factly as he would have if Tommy M. had been an accountant. I had known of the Machiarolla’s, of course, and of how kind they had been to him and his mother, of his friendship with Joe, and of the genuine affection he had for them, but to learn of their being criminals was stunning. How could any religious person, let alone a seminarian, associate with people like that?
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re telling me for sure that they’re in organized crime?”
“I am.”
“I can’t believe that,” I exclaimed.
“Well you don’t have to sound so shocked.”
“It’s shocking --- how long have you known?”
“I’m not sure,” answered Argo. “Probably always.”
“And you never said anything?”
“Can you find it in your heart to forgive my laxity?”
“It’s not funny, Argo. These people are dangerous.”
“Not to me,” he said smartly.
I really did not know what to make of it. “I understand that they were good to you,” I said trying to see. Then I recalled the marble incident and how Argo hit the boy next door. I had attributed it to his growing up in a tough neighborhood, but perhaps it was because of the Machiarolla’s influence. “But these are killers,” I said. “And you want to be a priest.”
“Yes,” answered Argo softly, “I know. But they are in a way like my family. I’m not like them, but I like them --- not what they do. Besides, do I turn my back on them?”
“Why not; I would,” I said.
“And you would be justified, but for me that’s not an option. I have the duty to do whatever I can to lead them from their bad choices --- to pray for them and to lead by example.” There was a long pause before he added. “Christ didn’t shun sinners; He embraced them and led them His way.”
I understood what he was saying, but what about the boat? “How many people died, or became addicted to drugs, or turned tricks in some alley to pay for that yacht?” I asked. “And you took us on it!”
“The same could be said about my going to their house for dinner. The food and even the house like the boat were no doubt paid for by criminal activity. But how do you embrace someone from arm’s length? ‘I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. M., I can’t come to dinner because you are sinners, but let me tell you about the error of your ways.’ Accepting their invitations allows you to be close to them so that you in fact can be an influence. The Church does not reject donations of sinners; if it did, there would be no churches.”
I resisted saying that that didn’t sound like a bad idea to me. Instead I told him I understood, and he told me that he was sorry that he had not been sensitive enough to how I might feel about having used their boat, and I lied that I was glad that he had told me the truth. I was thoroughly convinced then that knowing the truth was not always best, not always a good thing, and not always desirable. I was to learn later that knowing the truth could be horrible.

l

Soon after I graduated from college I stopped attending mass. I was at Rutgers Law School in Camden then, and my parents didn’t know until Christmas. As usual they were going to midnight mass, but when my mother saw I wasn’t dressed, she knew there was something wrong. I told her I wasn’t feeling well, which was true, but I felt sure she had seen through me. At any rate, I had lost my faith by then.
It probably started when Argo and I made love for the first time. It was wrong, of course, he a budding cleric and I a romantic girl hoping his love for me would change his direction. I asked myself over and over why something so wonderfully natural could damn my soul for all eternity, and the answer always came back that it couldn’t. Still, I was firmly convinced that I had sinned, and when I had made confession I vowed I would never again allow myself to offend God. But I knew I would, and I did.
Perhaps it is false pride, as the priests might say, or ego, as the psychologists would prefer, but I was convinced that I could decide for myself what was best for me, and it was Argo. He made me more than happy; he made me a better person. From there, it was not too hard to question other truths that I had been taught. The God of Abraham, a vengeful God, sent his son to be tortured so that mankind could be saved. Had the innocent Jesus not suffered to appease an angry God, the gates of heaven would never be open. And this because of the sin of Adam and Eve, a simple sin of a single disobedient act.
What kind of God could be so cruel? Yet I was to celebrate the goodness of God who sent his only son to a torturous human sacrifice. Could God find no other way to open the gates of heaven? And why was there a need for any sacrifice at all? The story was absurd on its face, and yet I was coerced into believing it. In more than one sense it truly seemed the greatest story ever told.
As a woman there was part of me that resented my own femininity. I had a body that was attractive to men yet I was forced to hide it lest I become what the nuns taught me would be the occasion of sin. Like Eve, I was the temptress of men leading to the ruination of their souls. I was pulling Argo away from what he decided was his path to God, and to make matters worse, I had hoped he would choose me over his Holy Mother, the Church.
It was ironic, I suppose, that the only person I trusted to share my feelings was Argo. Who better to talk to about faith than the man I loved who had it? We had gone for two days to Washington, D.C. on the sly to be together and to see the sights. It was a steam bath in D.C. that August, and we stayed as much as we could indoors even though Argo had wanted to take a walking tour of the architecture. As it was, I was glad to have spent time with him in the galleries because we got to hold hands in public and be part of the crowd, a normal couple doing what thousands of others did each day. The difference was that I had Argo, and being in an art gallery with him was special. Now I knew that my aesthetic sense was lacking; between the nuns and my mother I had no reason to believe otherwise. But Argo, by asking the simplest questions, got me to see more in a minute than I had seen in twelve years of school. For Argo, there was no right or wrong about looking at a painting, only the failure not to ask oneself questions. “The more you look, the more you see,” he said a couple of times. “You like only what you know, and you can’t know unless you open your eyes to see.”
It wasn’t at all that Argo was an artist or even a historian; he had taken only one year of art history at Rutgers. His was a natural sensitivity to the arts that seemed as much a part of him as being a baseball fan. He said he was the worst baseball player on any school team ever having the misfortune of having him on it, but he knew the game well and appreciated those who mastered it. He preferred Renaissance art, but enjoyed the subtlety of Chinese watercolor and even the large sculptures in the Smithsonian gardens. He would say what he saw, what he liked and what he didn’t, and sometimes I would agree and sometimes I wouldn’t. It didn’t matter, though. Argo never felt the need to convince me of anything in art, or come to think of it, in little else. I was important only that shared our feelings.
That was why I wasn’t too leery of telling him why I had stopped going to church and believing what I had been taught about religion. As we walked along the mall, our fingers intertwined, I told him everything that had turned me from my very Catholic roots. When I finished, Argo just shook his head.
“What?” I said abruptly. “I’m not unhappy about it.” I sensed that I had perhaps made him feel some guilt.
“You don’t sound too happy.” A boy was flying a kite and Argo strained his head to watch it for a moment. The sky was hazy, and we stopped to watch the kite drop and rise as the boy, unaware of the midday heat, pulled on the string.
“Well, I’m not happy, but I’m not sad, either. It’s just a fact.” I caught his eye. “Really.”
“Well, sometimes faith is elusive. It comes and goes, for some people, probably most people.”
“And you?” I asked. “Is it elusive for you, Father Malle?”
“I very much appreciate your referring to me by a title I have not yet earned. The sincerity and respect overwhelms.”
“Well that’s good because I like it when I overwhelm you.”
“Yes; I’m sure you do, but right now I’m more whelmed.”
“Aren’t they the same?” I asked.
“Well, whelmed is less than overwhelmed.
“So that means I’m not overwhelming you with my confession?”
“I didn’t know you were confessing,” he said looking at me but with unsmiling eyes.
“I wasn’t,” I said. “I was just stating the facts. Telling you something I haven’t told anyone else.”
“You know,” said Argo, putting his hand in his pocket and getting a handkerchief to wipe his brow which had only the barest of moisture. We began to walk toward the Lincoln Memorial. “I took a class in apologetics, and the teacher, Fr. McDonnell, a Vincentian, said that if all knowledge were Niagara Falls, our brains would be thimbles trying to catch it all. How much knowledge can we expect to hold? It’s amazing how often I think of that analogy.”
I thought that that sounded right but said nothing.
“Of course, some people’s thimbles might be a bit larger than other’s, but in the scheme of things it really doesn’t make too much difference. The old saw that ‘the more you know the more you don’t know’ is true. The more I read --- the more I study biology, for example --- the more I see, but the more I see there is so much more.”
“What do you see?”
“Order and form. An overarching structure so large I can’t come close to getting around it. And the only thing that makes any sense, to me, is faith --- a faith that the structure has reason.” We stopped walking at the reflecting pool, and I thought he was going to say that God had set the structure, that God was the “reason.” But he didn’t.
“You know, Willow, I can’t say you are wrong about a vengeful God and the sacrifice of Jesus. All thinking Christians --- and Jews --- must have had the same thoughts at times in their lives. But the Bible is an ancient text filled with allegory and symbols. Only through faith can it be understood. Maybe ‘understood’ is not the right word. ‘Accepted’ might be better.”
We walked on a bit before he continued. “I was reading about the many translations of the Bible and the literally thousands of inconsistencies between one copy and another. They attribute the differences to simple copying errors but also to purposeful changes to suit the beliefs of the transcribers or to those who paid them. Some translations totally change the meaning from the one being copied, and the source of that copy is often unknown. Which Bible then should be studied word for word? The only way, it seems to me, to know God’s words is through divine inspiration, and that divinity comes from the apostle Peter who founded Christ’s church.”
Whether my anger was caused by the absurdity of the belief system or that Argo was drawn more to it than to me, I really don’t know. What I do know was that the words came out quickly and with an edge that I was unsure I had ever shown Argo before.
“I just can’t accept that either. Here you have God who appeared two thousand years ago, one time, and told one man that he would be divinely inspired to speak God’s words. I mean, we have this on the authority of only one man, Mathew, and his original document is missing. Isn’t that what you just said? There are copies of copies, and there are changes in each?”
Argo nodded, and I continued my argument as if I were already in moot court. “And God expects all the people of the world to learn this fact so they can enter the gates of heaven. In two thousand years since he rose to heaven after being sacrificed by his alter ego, most of the world is not Christian, and a billion or so of them never even heard of him.
“And let me ask you this, why, if God wanted us to act a certain way, would he not take the mystery out of it and make it perfectly clear to all people in every nation precisely what is acceptable behavior and what behavior is forbidden? I mean even Adam and Eve had no doubt about what God forbade.”
“Perhaps because this world is not Eden. Perhaps it was their disobedience which makes it so difficult for their progeny,” answered Argo with the beginnings of a smile.
“Right, so we all suffer? And what’s funny?” I demanded, none too sweetly.
“Not funny. Ironic,” answered Argo. “You have a big thimble, obviously, and that makes for an excellent lawyer. Except that Niagara Falls drops four billion gallons a minute.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just made it up. But that’s what I meant when I told you about apologetics: you can’t hope to understand on a rational basis. I just used an argument about the Garden of Eden and you rejected it, and that’s the way religious discussions go. Except that is not religion, not for me at any rate. I know I’m Catholic because I was reared Catholic. Had I been born in Iran, I’d have been a Muslim. But I am what I am, and my religious tradition, not arrived at by reason with my pitifully small thimble, comforts me. When I’m in church, I feel --- not think. The incense, the echo of the soft sounds, the flickering candlelight, move me to my soul. During a mass I feel connected with the others in a way I never, ever feel outside. The rest of the time I feel on the outside, different and apart.
“When I study biology and mathematics, I see the beauty of their cold precision. I even enjoy the impersonal and implacable. But in the end, they are intellectual disciplines, mechanical. In church, I am moved in a part of me I can’t touch or locate. In a way, I am transported into another plane of existence, really inexplicable.”
I thought I was beginning to understand, at least a little, but I said nothing. Argo wasn’t put off by my rant as he might have been. Instead, he shared with me something I was certain he had never shared with anyone else, and I loved him all the more for it. I only wish I could have felt what he did.
“I was listening to a piece by Vivaldi last night,” he said as we walked along the reflecting pool. “‘Concerto in G-Major.’ Its quiet beauty was a paean to God, I’m sure. The piece, for me, somehow both recalls and creates the simple pulse of existence. For me at any rate, in that piece, heaven rests in the silence between and above the notes. It’s the same quiet I feel sitting alone in church at night. That quiet serenity is a communion with God.” Argo looked at me and added, “When it was over, a line from Keats struck me, and I said aloud to no one, ‘Thou foster child of silence and slow time.’
“The urn,” I said.
Argo nodded. “He knew the beauty of silence and the lure of ancient, simpler times. He was looking at the kite. “I guess for me, the Church offers that beauty and the connection to the beginning.”
“I guess I just don’t have the faith,” I said ruefully.
“Perhaps you don’t have the faith because of us,” he said, folding his handkerchief to be put back in his pocket. His dark curls were darker with sweat, and they glistened in the sunlight.
“That’s part of it, I suppose. But it’s more,” I answered, taking his handkerchief and using it my brow. “I can’t seem to compartmentalize as you do. I mean, I can’t say that a doubting conscience doesn’t bind --- that my religious training is wrong in this instance but not in others. I can’t be a hypocrite --- go to confession when I know I’m going to sin again.”
“It’s not a sin if you don’t feel it to be. Objectively it is, and is to be confessed. The grace of penance will either work for you or it won’t. It may not work this time or next, but it may in the future. That is hope. I’m not hypocritical when I pray to be a good Catholic. I hope to be better, and if I pray well and if it is God’s will, I will be a worthy Catholic priest. We live in time, and we change, but our brains are only thimbles, and there is Niagara Falls.”
We walked on, I in sadness and he lost in thought. I didn’t have any words and I was conscious only of the pebbles being pressed under our feet as we walked along the mall. We could have been walking anywhere on any day --- and the beauty of D.C. remained elusive.
“Have you ever been to mass on Christmas and felt the beauty all around you --- the flowers on the altar, the music, the happy hearts of the people?” he said looking in the distance. “That’s the way I feel almost always when I’m in a church. I love its quiet beauty, and its majesty, sometimes simple, sometimes grand. It’s often that way when I read the Gospels, the simple words, the great ideas. My spirit soars as if God is releasing my soul to let it fly above the mundane.”
“Like that kite,” I said turning back.
“Maybe, but I don’t feel a string, I don’t think. It’s more like a bird, maybe like on the wings of the Holy Ghost. In any event, it is the key, at least to me, to faith. It’s not intellectual at all, Willow; it’s pure emotion. I think it’s always been in me.”
I felt his honesty and sensitivity more than I ever had, and for the first time I understood a bit of his soul. He didn’t sound like the walking textbook who could wow you with his brainpower and brilliant use of language. He wasn’t on TV flashing his beautiful Mediterranean smile after skewering some talking head. He was a normal man having difficulty finding the words to express the deepest part of him. Argo never ceased to amaze me.
“I guess it was never inside of me,” I admitted sadly. “It’s a gift, another one of your many.”
“That it is, and I’m grateful. But you have it too, I’m sure you do. I’ve seen it.” He took my hand up and kissed it. “I’ve seen you sparkle with your sisters when they appreciate what you have done for them. I’ve seen your generosity of spirit, how you treat me. You have a beautiful soul.”
“I don’t feel beautiful.”
“Liar!”
“I don’t. I really don’t.”
“You and I both know you do,” he said looking at me with a strange face.
“I don’t mean physically. You make me feel beautiful, physically.”
“I’m not talking about that. But even then your beauty brings me close to you, makes me better than I am. Where do you think that comes from? It transcends the physical, doesn’t it? That’s a gift. Your goodness, the love you give me is a gift from God, and in a very real way brings me closer to Him.” He paused a bit. “I don’t know if I’m making much sense to you. I’m probably expressing it badly.”
Could it be true that I brought him closer to God? To me it seemed that God and the physical were at odds. After all, nuns and priests were the closest to God, and they suppressed the physical as if their bodies were barriers to their spirituality.
It always amazed me how Sister Mary Esther, as tall as she was, was able to hover around the aisles in her classroom like an apparition. I never heard her footsteps, just the jangle of the rosary beads from her belt if I was lucky. It was as if the laws of physics did not apply to her body which magically made no sounds, had no smell, or even occupied space. Before I knew it, Sister would be standing over me, her long finger pointing from the nether world to an error I had made in my notebook. She never missed a day of school, of course, and even when the flu was rampant, Sister would magically produce a hankie, turn from the class, and sneeze so that only a trained hearing dog could have detected the sound. I was certain Sister Mary Esther was an angel whose body existed only so the rest of us mortals could hear her speak. I really wasn’t sure she ate, slept, or used the toilet and was convinced that, like the other nuns, she never left the classroom, ever. We were all positive that after school was dismissed, nuns stayed at their desks correcting tests and planning new ones until school began the next day. And the holy sisters did little to dispel the notion that nuns, like Jesus, had no brothers or sisters and were virgins born of virgins. The human body was to be hidden and ignored, and that had to be because it was basically evil.
I knew that priests used to marry, but that was in ancient times. No and for the last thousand years they have taken vows of chastity and would not do so, I was sure, if they thought their sexuality would bring them closer to God. Perhaps Argo was lying to himself or was mistaken. Perhaps he would feel closer to God if he didn’t have me. I was, after all, a very willing partner.
“What if you didn’t have me, you know, to make love with? What would you do then?”
Argo shook his head slightly before answering. “I really don’t know. I would be very sad, of course, as I am now knowing that we won’t be seeing each other for so long.”
“No,” I said. “I mean if we never knew each other or ever made love.”
“But we have.”
“But if we hadn’t.”
“Then,” he answered with a wry smile, “I would have never known what I had missed.”
“Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that?”
“It has something to do with thimbles.”
“Then what if we stopped seeing each other?” I asked.
“That’s easy. I’d pick one of the girls just hoping for the chance to know me better.”
“And are there many?”
“None.”
“So that doesn’t work out for you then.”
“No. So I guess I’d join a cloistered order and bake bread for the rest of my life.”
“Could you handle it?”
“Only if they were rolls. Loaves of bread would be too challenging.”
“It has something to do with thimbles,” I said, handing back his handkerchief.
I didn’t see Argo again for two years.