Our Lady of the Forest (4 page)

Yes, of course. I want you to. I've said plenty of prayers myself over the years and I'm not even religious isn't that strange?

Inside, said the Catholic woman, your heart wants to be.

She turned to Ann, put a hand on her shoulder. If it's okay I'll join you because I brought along my rosary. I checked my calendar last night, too. It's the feast of Martin of Tours.

Who's that? Ann asked.

The patron saint of horsemen and tailors. He joined the see in animal skins and was a conscientous objector.

Horsemen and tailors, said Carolyn. What a great combination.

Ann and the Catholic woman began their devotions. The others sat on a log nearby. The ex-bartender lit a cigarette. The mother of the lost girl produced from her backpack a Tupperware container of oatmeal cookies and a jug of lemonade. All right, she said. Help me, please. You two eat up.

They look great, said Carolyn. But I'm supposed to be watching my waistline.

I cut the butter back by half so you can probably get away with these.

It's the sugar that gets made into fat. I'm going to pass, thank you. Discipline. Control.

That only works for so long you know.

I know it better than anybody.

I've been reading about this thing called the Zone Diet. Thinking I'd better get myself on it before I turn into a cheese blimp.

Cheese blintz, said Carolyn. But I like cheese blimp better.

So, said the ex-bartender, taking a cookie. Where are we anyway?

This is Stinson Timber land. The mother of the lost girl took a cookie too. We went all through this years ago. When my daughter was lost. Stinson Timber. They own every stick of timber here. From here and down to the highway.

Stinson owns everything.

Just about.

It's hard to believe how much they own.

They're ruthless about it. That's how they do it. Or that's what my husband says.

I've been meaning to ask, said the ex-bartender. I won't say a word so you don't have to worry. But how come you're keeping this a secret from Jim? Why don't you want him to know?

Jim is Jim, he always has been, but somehow our marriage is stable right now. Right now things are on the upswing.

And? said Carolyn.

This is supposed to be behind me.

How can that ever be the case?

You have to go on, is what he says. And the marriage counselor is on his side. So I'm the bad guy, I guess.

Quiet, said the ex-bartender, snuffing out her cigarette against the toe of her boot. She's doing her thing over there.

My God, said the mother. She is.

None of them would say later that they saw the illuminated figure of a woman, smiling beatifically and clothed in shimmering vestments, that the visionary claimed was the Virgin Mary come to speak with her again. They heard nothing either, except for an occasional gasp from Ann, who seemed otherwise in the grip of catalepsy and was tilted forward in a kind of arrest that defied gravity. A girl in rapture turned to stone, except that now and then she trembled. The others present could not report that they too beheld a vision or received a Marian communiqué or saw the traveling light in the forest that Ann was adamant about. Yet for the mother of the lost girl and the Catholic woman kneeling at prayer there was a charged and numinous atmosphere and the aura of an otherworldly presence inhering in Ann's rapt attention. The Tupperware container fell from her lap, the oatmeal cookies spilled into the moss, and the mother of the lost girl took three steps in the direction of the visionary. Is it her? she asked. Lee Ann?

The ex-bartender held the snuffed-out cigarette as if it was evidence of her culpability in the crime of leading an abject life and considered only her next small move, whether she ought to tuck it in her pocket—and signal further her indigence—or drop it furtively into the moss and hope that this defilement of nature would not be noticed by anyone. Meanwhile the Catholic woman, still kneeling with her rosary, watched Ann with an expression of dazzled pleasure and said Bless and Hail Our Lord, Bless Jesus, Bless Our Lady. Carolyn picked up the oatmeal cookies. She's maybe on uppers or an epileptic, she said. Or I don't know. She's crazy.

Quiet, said the ex-bartender. Let's just watch for a while.

She hadn't seen anything like this before. The girl was in the fixity of seizure and her face was awash, a-shine. The girl kept her gaze fixed steadily, she didn't blink or waver. Clearly this Ann was seeing something no one else could see right now, clearly she saw the invisible. And no one could keep from blinking that long or kneel so tilted without falling over unless there was supernatural assistance or something weird going on. The ex-bartender pondered the chances that perhaps, indeed, the Virgin Mary was present. It wasn't an impossibility, and thinking this, and feeling afraid, she knelt on the forest floor. It's the safe thing, she told herself.

The mother of the lost girl knelt as well. Is it Lee Ann? she pleaded. Lee Ann?

Now all had knelt except Carolyn, who saw the others in a kind of tableau, four women kneeling in forest rain like one of those tacky Christmas crèches, bewitched, felt Carolyn, by a shared fantasy that a ghost or something stood before them, ensorcelled by their own hopes. And she felt more powerfully alienated from people susceptible to these things. She fingered the cord from which her compass hung and clutched absentmindedly at her pepper-spray necklace. She felt alone, and feeling this, she took a large bite from a cookie. What the hell, she told herself. I haven't eaten today.

Ann in ecstasy, Carolyn thought, was something like a theatrical performance that even Ann believed in. It was something like playing with a Ouija board. It was like the eyeballs that were really peeled grapes or the intestines that were only noodles in a Halloween haunted house. If you believed then what you believed was real and if you didn't believe there was pasta. It wasn't deceit or sham or swindle. The more accurate word was probably delusion, encompassing the appropriate psychological origins and including the notion of collective delusion, which embraced all four of these forest-kneelers clearly prone to believing something otherworldly was present. When in fact whatever was there was only there in the girl's addled mind, a desperate projection of her inner life with all of its high-pressure turmoil. Ann's self-arrest was self-imposed, her dialogue with herself. Like the jet of steam from a boiling pot a shade comes into this world. Like the sleepwalker engaged in a conversation with nobody in the room. Like the dreamer who falls from bed at night in lieu of a dream-world death. Carolyn chewed her cookie and watched while Ann's tortured face constricted and contorted through the myriad expressions of the listener, the histrionic listening face that shows everything, like a mime's. Mime was not a bad comparison, if the mime could be construed as having studied with Lee Strasberg. A mime hallucinating.

When Ann was done she collapsed on the moss in the same manner as the day before, then sat up and swabbed her eyes. The mother of the lost girl wept, gasping: grief collected over many years. Our Lady knew you were here, Ann told her. And she says Lee Ann is in heaven.

What happened to my baby?

I don't know what happened.

Can't you ask?

I don't know if I can. The Blessed Mother came to speak to me, not for me to speak to her.

The mother of the lost girl clasped her hands. Couldn't you try, though? Please?

I guess I could try.

God bless you.

She wept more, and the visionary held her lightly in her arms and stroked her wet gray hair. It's all right. Your daughter is with Jesus. Stop crying. Everything is all right.

I'm sorry about your daughter, I truly am, cut in Carolyn, and I imagine that your life has been ruined by losing her, that it's been easily the most difficult thing ever and that the rest of us don't know a thing about it, can't relate, don't understand, have no idea how it affects you really, how it colors everything every day and is absolutely the worst thing that could happen to a person, but anyway I have to say, Ann you sound like a radio talk-show host, a Bible station call-in show to Dr. God or something. I—

She's helping me, said the mother of the lost girl. Don't be critical. Please.

When she was calmer and had stopped sobbing they all sat under the cover of trees and tried to collect themselves. The ex-bartender, apologizing, lit her cigarette again. A cigarette helps me relax, she said, so don't lecture me about lung cancer please. But getting to the point here: What did she say? The Virgin Mary? What did she tell you? Aren't we all interested in that?

I won't lecture, Ann said, and took the ex-bartender's hand. But God wants you to quit smoking. I'm going to pray for you to stop this habit of needing nicotine.

Whoa, said Carolyn. Come on now.

And these warts on your fingers, Ann added. God can make them go away. I'll pray for that at the same time. All of us should include her in our prayers. Prayers of healing and redemption.

No cigarettes or warts, said Carolyn. Are you David Copperfield?

But the ex-bartender could not easily shrug off the heightened feelings of the moment. What she felt was a jolt of assurance passing from Ann's hand to hers. I hope it works, she said earnestly. I'm not against anything successful.

A pragmatist, said Carolyn. You remind me of Blaise Pascal's wager, which holds that the skeptic should believe in God, since if there is a God belief's the right call, and if there isn't, no harm, excellent. Whereas the nonbeliever might burn in hell. So now that I think about it, count me in! Count me a believer!

Hold up, the ex-bartender said. Let's get back to the subject here. What did the Virgin say, please? Aren't we all dying to know?

Besides Lee Ann, the mother said. Yes. There must have been more… revelation. Isn't that the word?

In God's glory, said the Catholic woman.

The message was this, Ann told them. One: All good followers of Christ were called immediately to renewed service in the name of the Mother of God. Two: Our Lady had come to warn the world and to implore in particular the selfish and greedy to change their ways immediately, lest it be the case soon that she could no longer restrain her Son from wreaking a general destruction. Three: True believers were called upon to spread Mary's message of dire consequence if sin were not energetically thwarted and also of hope for a better future in which few, if any, were still impoverished. Four: Our Lady would return on four successive days to deliver further messages and to elaborate her themes. Five: A beautiful new church and shrine to Mother Mary should be built at this very place in the forest where they now stood together. Six: Ann was to go to the local priest and tell him everything.

They ate the cookies, drank the lemonade. They had all gotten wet in the soft, steady rain and had the bedraggled look of lost travelers, except for Ann, who still wore her hood, and the ex-bartender, who wore her scarf. Well, said Carolyn, standing up. I guess this is farewell for me. She tied a bootlace and picked up her mushroom bucket. I have to try to make a living.

Go in peace, Ann said. But when are you going to admit to yourself that you didn't come out here to pick today? That you came here looking for the Lord?

Go in peace? Are you serious? Are you starting to believe in yourself?

I believe in the Father and the Son.

And what about the quote Holy Ghost?

Answer me and I'll answer you.

Okay, said Carolyn. Once and for all. It's a big gamble but here I go: If there's a God may he strike me dead right now, in front of you all, as evidence and proof! Hello? God? I'm waiting.

She stood there. Ring him up, she said. Or talk to his wife—get her on board to talk to him about penciling in my death. Come on, Ann. Dial up. Order a bolt of lightning.

She isn't his wife.

That's not the point.

And the Lord doesn't have to prove anything.

Anyway, said Carolyn. I have to get busy.

You didn't come for mushrooms, insisted Ann.

Carolyn swung her mushroom bucket. Get help, okay Ann? I think you need professional help. You're seeing things, okay?

She turned her attention to the Catholic woman. What was that? Horsemen and tailors? Well who's the patron saint of lunatics?

Strange you should ask because I happen to know. Christina the Astonishing, she was called. Her feast day is my birthday, July twenty-fourth. She's also the patron of therapists.

Doctor and patient. How convenient.

The Catholic woman lifted her camera. No one helps himself by hurting another. Those words are ascribed to Saint Ambrose. Now do you think it would be okay, would everyone agree to a group portrait?

And so they arrayed themselves, if sluggishly. The Catholic woman set her camera on a log and peered for a long time through the viewfinder, making minor adjustments. There, she said finally, pushed the timer button, and hurried into the photograph. They sat there waiting for the click that meant the camera's shutter had opened and closed and in that interim the Catholic woman said: Thank you all for doing this. Because I like to remember things.

You know the Simon and Garfunkel song? said the ex-bartender, and the timer clicked. This reminds me of that.

Which one? asked the Catholic woman.

Kodachrome. What else would it be?

I know it well, it's a song I like. I think Paul Simon is kind of a genius. Anyway, we've commemorated this day. We've hallowed it with a photograph.

The song's sarcastic, Carolyn pointed out. They're anti-photo, not pro.

Going back toward the campground, the Catholic woman turned her camera on the rain forest and snapped four photos for her memory book—a bed of rotting vine-maple leaves, a boulder encrusted in hoary lichens, the monstrous foliage of a skunk cabbage, raindrops on a frond of fern. She did not believe in the literal sense that the Virgin Mary had made an appearance, since hers was not that kind of Catholicism; she had gone to church consistently except for a period in her early twenties when, briefly, she'd been attracted to Buddhism, then she came back, immersed herself, had flirted with the thought of becoming a nun—but even in her piety she was cognizant of her skepticism, a deep and quiet current. She did not believe in apparitions and could not believe in apparitions and even to believe in God was an effort for an honest person, just read Saint Augustine. On the other hand, who could be certain? In the girl's rapture there was possibly some spark of another, larger truth. The point, for the Catholic woman, was that she wanted to believe, which she didn't tell the diocesan committee or the bishop's representative when asked sometime later. Instead she described the consecrated atmosphere, the feel of something hallowed in the forest while the visionary knelt in ecstasy. She made no reference to doubt.