Eden Burning (12 page)

Maria walked along the grassy verge of the path, in the direction of the monastery, turning right in the direction of the Crumlin Road. A few drops of rain trickled down her neck, snaking their way inside her warm woollen coat. She shuddered, stopping to open her umbrella, shaking it for a moment. The wind moaned softly before blowing the umbrella inside out.

Father Anthony paced quickly after her, his long coarse black habit brushing against his leather sandals. His curly black hair catching rain drops before heavily rolling down his cheeks. He could see Maria struggling with the umbrella. He needed to be with Maria. Without her he was hurtling into darkest space, catapulting into a lonely scary infinite blackness. Without Maria life was numb. It was numbness where his head and heart felt stuffed with ash. He was a walking urn that knew the slow passing of time in infinity.

At the sound of his footsteps Maria turned around. She saw his dark silhouette against the grey moonlit granite of the Church.

“Father Anthony, are you alright? Did I forget something?”

He was standing now only two steps away.

“Maria, Maria …”

Father Anthony pushed Maria against the solid, heavy barked oak tree. Her open umbrella dropped from her hand, tumbling over and over, rolling towards the Crumlin Road. He started to unbutton her black woollen coat, two buttons shooting into the air as he pushed her onto the dampening grass.

“Please no!” Maria touched his face, pushing his lips away with her hand. He grabbed her wrist, digging it into cold wet
earth, kissing her deeply. Her lack of response seemed to urge him to press his lips even more deeply against her soft, warm mouth. His teeth crunched against her teeth as his arms moved in a frenzy of undressing. He opened her coat and unbuttoned her blouse.

Maria closed her eyes, lying on the grass, her hair matted with mud. Father Anthony’s hands moved towards her neck. For a brief instance he tightened his grip feeling the throb of her heart beat in his hands. He squeezed her neck gently, as though squeezing out his sin, whispering, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t. Don’t.” Maria coughed the words as she felt his nails scratch the front of her neck. Drops of blood mingled with tears, rolled onto the spiky grass. Her breathing shallow, almost non-existent as she watched Father Anthony’s face twist in pain and pleasure. “Please don’t.”

Father Anthony soon loosened his grasp; laying his head on her half naked body as he looked at her hand stretched out on the wet grass. In the light of moon which slithered between the spires, he saw Catherine’s ring on Maria’s finger. The ring glistened in the light of the moon drawing him like a magnet to her hand. He reached out, catching her hand and touching the ring with his finger, then kissing it and pulling the black woollen coat around them both, sobbing as his breathing returned to normal. The rain continued to fall; now in large drops bouncing off the gravel path – ping, ping, ping – like a small bell being struck, calling to Matins. The drops soaked into Maria’s black woollen coat. Maria rolled her head to one side, seeing the moon emerge from the behind the clouds framed between the spires of Holy Cross Church.

Father Anthony sat in his cell alone before seven o’clock Mass. He prayed to the God he no longer believed in. He closed his eyes, aware of his breathing. God was not in any of his
thoughts. God was not in his deep burning remorse. This was the fruit of his sin. He repeated over and over again Psalm 50.

Then in the gap between his breath going out and before breathing in, he remembered. How pure the heart must be that bears the holy name of Jesus graven upon it. Father Anthony knew that he had betrayed God. God had been there in the Grove when he raped Maria, present in the gap between his in and out breath. There was no need to confess. His sin was known by God. Yet did he need to confess to the Rector to hear his own voice speak out aloud his sin? Did he need to make his remorse tangible in words? How else could he find forgiveness? He needed Maria to forgive him, not the Rector.

He blessed himself, crossing the room, looking at the picture of Jesus pointing to his Sacred Heart, dropping his head before opening the door. For the first time in his life Father Anthony understood the Sacred Heart not as an emotional heart but more a heart whose function was a purity of seeing. It was a heart that was able to see reality – a heart that could respond to the pain and suffering of others with compassion.

The emotional heart needed Maria as an object of desire. It was attachment which needed to be constantly refilled by the presence of the ‘lover’. Father Anthony knew now that the Sacred Heart was true Love. It was Love inside of him which never needed an object to make it complete. It was infinite in its capacity to give and to receive love. It loved everyone equally without preference. Father Anthony breathed deeply, head down, bare toes curling up in his sandals as he walked along
the corridor into the church and towards the main altar to say Mass. Holding the Host high the altar boy rang the bell loudly for the consecration. Father Anthony genuflected, took a second deep breath and broke the bread.

• • •

In the surgery Doctor Stewart felt Maria’s tummy. He took out his stethoscope and listened to her heart. He asked her to turn around and listened again through her ribs. He listened to the blood swishing back through her heart valve. There was a tinge of blue in her lips which worried him.

“You need complete bed rest. The heart valve is damaged.” Doctor Stewart helped her on with her coat, saying, “You must tell your Aunt Lily and Uncle Tom. They need to know.”

“What can I tell them? Maria asked.

“Tell them the truth. Tell them what happened”.

“I can’t. You mustn’t tell anyone. You promised me.”

“I won’t Maria, but you should.”

It was as she expected. Lily’s face turned white and then red as she asked, “Who is the father?”

“I’d rather not say,” Maria replied. “Please don’t ask.”

“I don’t think you should keep it a secret,” Lily insisted.

“Don’t ask, I beg you.” Maria shook her head.

“Someone needs to take responsibility for his actions.” Lily looked at Tom.

“Let it go Lily. When is the baby due?” Tom stirred the burning embers with the poker.

Lily sighed and pushed herself against the back of the chair. “How can you say to her to let it go?” Lily asked in a perplexed voice.

Tom stacked a few more pieces of coal on the fire and wiped the marble fireplace with a wet cloth. “Maria will have her
reasons. Maybe it’s better if we don’t know.” Tom’s voice was gentle, undemanding.

Maria knelt on the rug beside the fire, holding her hands out to warm them. “It will be a January baby.”

• • •

Maria caught the bus with Tom and Lily to the Mater hospital on the Crumlin Road to a month before her baby was due. Her heart was weakening. Father Anthony visited, bringing the Eucharistic Host in a golden ciborium. He listened to her Confession, lighting a candle beside the bed, blessing her forehead with Holy Water and praying, “May Our Lord Jesus Christ, take care of you, forgive you your sins and lead you to eternal life.”

Maria closed her eyes, lying back on the pillow. She opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue to receive the Host. It was dry and stuck to the roof of her mouth.

Father Anthony blessed her forehead with Holy Water and moved closer asking, “Maria, do you forgive me?”

“You know I have forgiven you, Father. I’ve already told you. Forgive yourself now. You told me that God’s love doesn’t depend on anything you do or don’t do. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” Maria nudged him with her elbow. She laughed. “Sure you know that. You don’t need me to remind you. Where’s all that theology when you need it?”

Father Anthony held her hand and brought it to his lips in silence. He kissed her fingers. “Thank you Maria.”

He looked at her once more as he left the ward. A thin right arm, raised high into the air, waving at him. As he walked along the corridor outside the ward, her hand continued to wave at him through the window. For the first time in almost fifteen months, he smiled.

Next day, alone on the Ward, Maria cried out, “Help. Nurse. Help.”

No-one heard her cries for maybe fifteen minutes. It was late afternoon, the sun streaming through the ward window when Maria, alone, gave birth to Rose. When the nurses arrived, in a panic, they forgot to scrub up. The umbilical cord was cut by Nurse Rita who wrapped Rose in a cotton blanket and passed her to Maria.

Maria held Rose, pushing her dark black hair to one side. Her face was slightly jaundiced and her mouth settled into deep smile as she slept, moving a little as though to snuggle even more deeply into Maria’s arms. Nurse Rita and Maria laughed together as Rita sat on the bed and held Maria’s hand. The setting sun sent golden showers of light into the ward.

Next morning Maria wakened and walked with Rose along the corridor to see an orange sun rising over the mists of Belfast. The sun changed into a steely sphere as it gained height in the January sky. Maria held Rose close to her chest feeling her own heart beating against the soft cotton rug. She looked at the empty branches of the rose trees growing outside the window, and as the mists cleared, the wintery sun warmed them both. For the first time Maria felt a part of the earth, connected, rooted. The sun warming her was also wakening the snowdrops on the dewy grass. It nudged the sheep outside the window to scramble to their feet. She had the sense of everything unfolding, coming into a perfect sense of being ‘now’, in this moment. Her feet touching the marble corridor were also touching the earth. She took a deep breath and kissed Rose. She had never felt happier in her life – so much at ease. She had never felt so much a sense of coming home. Her body filled with a tingling rapturous bliss. Everything had meaning. Everything was fine exactly the way it was.

On the third day after Rose’s birth, Maria wakened with her forehead burning, her mouth dry and when she coughed a stabbing pain shot from her stomach towards her lungs making it hard to breathe. She shivered, pulling the sheets around her. Her breathing was rapid and shallow. She slowly pulled herself into a sitting position, looking for Rose sleeping in the cot beside her. Rose’s eyes were closed. Maria lay back again on the pillow feeling a second even sharper pain in her abdomen. Something was wrong.

Sister Rita pressed her abdomen with the flat of her hand. When she took her hand away, Maria squirmed in agony.

“Peritonitis,” Doctor McClelland confirmed in a low voice. By late afternoon, Maria slipped into what seemed to Nurse Rita and Dr McClelland to be a coma. However, Maria was conscious. She was aware of everything that was happening but her awareness was outside her body. She was somewhere up near the ceiling looking down at the bed where Nurse Rita adjusted a drip. She heard Doctor McClelland shout in distress, “We’re losing her.”

Maria watched as they struggled to resuscitate her. Her attention was then drawn to a white steady expanding light in the top right hand corner of the room. She watched fascinated as its scintillating edges continued to expand. She didn’t know whether the light was drowning her as it enveloped her in deeper and deeper waves of whiteness or whether she was somehow floating into the light.

Doctor McClelland shouted in panic. “Get Father Anthony, now.” Maria saw a blurred black shape of Father Anthony arrive in the room. He didn’t remove his cloak. Flustered, opening his oils and the casket with the Eucharist, he fumbled to lift the Eucharist from the ciborium. He broke the Host in two and lifted both pieces. He blessed Maria with his right hand on
the forehead, the lips and chest. He opened her mouth with his fingers, placing half of the Eucharist on her tongue. He took the second half and placed it on his own tongue. Maria receiving the last Sacrament of the Church felt the dry small half host sticking and then dissolving against the roof of her mouth. With her eyes open Maria gazed past Father Anthony feeling her whole being drawn once more towards the white light. Father Anthony searched Maria’s eyes and recognised a look of surrender. He had seen it many times before.

She listened to Father Anthony’s gasping, feeling his tears splash heavily onto her face. From the ceiling, not from inside her body, she watched him bless Rose in the cot beside the bed. For a moment when Maria glimpsed Rose, she struggled to detach herself from the light and return to her body. She made an enormous effort to push back into the body as though swimming against a deadly powerful riptide current.

The light held her back. It swept around her now like a whirlpool. The light was everywhere. Instead of rising now towards the ceiling she was falling, sinking into a white, boundless peace. Waves of light like an octopus’s tentacles dragged her under the surface. She held her breath. Her arms stretched out by her side. She turned onto her back, sinking deeper. Father Anthony’s body was like a surf board drifting above her – a dark pencil silhouette, hanging in the golden glow of the surface. Her mouth pressed closed. She breathed in rhythm to her heartbeat. There was enough air in her lungs. She didn’t need to get to the surface. She tumbled deeper almost losing sight of the surf board. She kicked with her feet, pulled her arms strongly down by her side. She felt the pull of the water around her. She kicked again with her legs, pushing her head forward and down, opening her fingers to allow the water to move through them. Maybe for the first time she felt a sense of freedom, although she didn’t know
from what. She turned onto her back once more to see the board slipping even further from sight, now only an insignificant dark stain in the water. She rolled onto her front and dived deeper into the depths of the ocean, now willingly, pushing down until she couldn’t see the surface at all. The light had disappeared. In the velvety darkness she did not feel alone. Where was she? Where were Rose and Father Anthony? Where was she going? For a moment she briefly quivered with fear, a final twitching movement of uncertainty in her body before she surrendered.