The Confessions of X
A
CCLAIM FOR
T
HE
C
ONFESSIONS OF
X
“Suzanne Wolfe gives us, in
The Confessions of X
, the absolutely compelling story of the mysterious unnamed woman with whom Augustine spent so many formative years of his life. This is a beautiful and worthy book.”
âB
RETT
L
OTT
,
N
EW
Y
ORK
T
IMES
BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF
J
EWEL
AND
A S
ONG
I K
NEW BY
H
EART
“I hope your whole afternoon is free: you are likely to read this absorbingâtruly
engrossing
ânovel in a single sitting. And after you close
The Confessions of X
, you are likely to pick up Augustine's
Confessions
, whether for a first or fifteenth read.”
âL
AUREN
W
INNER, AUTHOR OF
G
IRL
M
EETS
G
OD
AND
S
TILL
“Saying I love Suzanne Wolfe's new novel is like saying there are waves in the ocean. It totally transported me. I have lived a complete life as the concubine of a Saint.”
âR
IVER
J
ORDAN, AUTHOR OF
S
AINTS IN
L
IMBO
AND
T
HE
M
IRACLE OF
M
ERCY
L
AND
“A gorgeous, poignant storyâa journey both in time and to the soul. Wolfe's writing is evocative, her research immaculate. I am a fan.”
âT
OSCA
L
EE
,
N
EW
Y
ORK
T
IMES
BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF
S
HEBA
,
I
SCARIOT
,
D
EMON, AND
H
AVAH
: T
HE
S
TORY OF
E
VE
“Writing in glorious detail, Wolfe brings to life a woman âlost to history,' and in so doing animates the full, profound, thrilling world she inhabited, and the aching knot of love and faith that sustains, undoes, and ultimately uplifts her.”
âE
RIN
M
C
G
RAW, AUTHOR OF
T
HE
S
EAMSTRESS OF
H
OLLYWOOD
B
OULEVARD
“
The Confessions of X
propels this story into a fresh understanding of the conflicts warring in the life of the saint and Bishop of Hippo.”
âL
UCI
S
HAW, AUTHOR OF
T
HE
T
HUMBPRINT IN THE
C
LAY
AND
T
HE
G
ENEROSITY
âN
EW
AND
S
ELECTED
P
OEMS
“
The Confessions of X
is a masterpiece of historical fiction. With beautiful descriptions, well defined characters and thorough research, Suzanne M. Wolfe makes the ancient city of Carthage rise up from the pages. Wolfe transforms a sliver of history into a remarkable story of forbidden love, unfathomable sacrifice and redemption of the human spirit.
The Confessions of X
is one of my favorite novels of the year.”
âM
ICHAEL
M
ORRIS
,
AWARD
WINNING
AUTHOR OF
M
AN IN THE
B
LUE
M
OON
, S
LOW
W
AY
H
OME
,
AND
A P
LACE
C
ALLED
W
IREGRASS
© 2016 Suzanne M. Wolfe
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansâelectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherâexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.
Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
Publisher's Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
ISBN 978-0-7180-3962-2 (eBook)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wolfe, Suzanne M.
The confessions of X : a novel / Suzanne M. Wolfe.
pages ; cm
Summary: “Before he became a father of the Christian Church, Augustine of Hippo loved a woman whose name has been lost to history. This is her story. She met Augustine in Carthage when she was seventeen. She was the poor daughter of a mosaic-layer; he was a promising student and with a great career in the Roman Empire ahead of him. His brilliance and passion intoxicated her, but his social class would be forever beyond her reach. She became his concubine, and by the time he was forced to leave her, she was thirty years old and the mother of his son. And his
Confessions
show us that he never forgot her. She was the only woman he ever loved. In a society in which classes rarely mingled on equal terms, and an unwed mother could lose her son to the burgeoning career of her ambitious lover, this anonymous woman was a first-hand witness to Augustine of Hippo's anguished spiritual journey from religious cultist to the celebrated Christian saint and thinker. A reflection of what it means to love and lose, this novel paints a gripping and raw portrait of ancient culture, appealing to historical fiction fans while deftly exploring one woman's search for identity and happiness within very limited circumstances”-- Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-7180-3961-5 (paperback)
1. Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo--Fiction. 2. Christian saints--Fiction. I. Title.
PS3573.O5266C66 2016
813'.54--dc23
2015029203
15 16 17 18 19 20 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Greg
CONTENTS
“There is no saint without a past . . .”
âS
T
. A
UGUSTINE OF
H
IPPO
T
here is a well in the courtyard where I sit that is not yet dry and at daybreak a young man in a dark tunic comes to draw water. One by one he fills earthen pots with the bucket he hauls again and again and again until the ground blooms dark beneath the well and water runs along the gullies between the stones where thirsty dogs lap it up. When he stoops his neck shows white below the hairline, tender like the milky stems of new grass in spring, his eyes brown and liquid like a doe's. He sets the smallest vessel brimful beside me with a piece of flatbread he takes from a sack.
“Here, Mother,” he says. “May your prayers be heard.”
I do not speak to him with my tongue but my eyes speak. They say: “I thank you, you who could be the son of my son's son. As for my prayers, there is no one left to hear.”
Long ago in Rome I saw a woman so ancient of flesh that she was kneaded and furrowed like God making the world. She was earth, root, and stone, and the shadows of the buildings of men fell across the square in silent homage. I have become that woman, and the people in the courtyard do not jostle me, although it is crowded, but leave a circle around me as if I were charmed or
cursed. They think I am wise because I am old past counting and all those who knew me are dead or dying. I would tell them that if it is wise to have lived so long, to have borne so much desolation and not to have died of it, then I am wise indeed.
When the people in the courtyard ask me what they must do in such times, I am silent; when they ask where God has gone, I am silent; when they show me the bloated bellies of their children, I look away. They think endurance is wisdom and perhaps that is so, but it is not the wisdom of men but of women, for though we live longer, history does not remember us and so we are a mystery to each generation.
Now that the city of Hippo Regius is besieged, the people whisper that the world is ending, that the clouds will part, and the Christos will descend to scourge the city of men and lead the blessed to the city of God. But first the barbarians from across the sea, the Vandal hordes, a plague of locusts swarming the land, consume our orchards, our crops, our vines, our livestock, all growing things under the sun until there is nothing but the barren husk rattling in the wind and the emptiness of children's eyes. They smote our bishop and he will die and his flock will be scattered. His death will be the beginning of the end of all things.
On the long journey of my life I have seen many beginnings and many endings. I have seen many deaths, and sometimes the living die and sometimes the dead live on and it is difficult to tell the difference. My son died young and I died with him, yet I breathe. His father lives, yet he also died forty years ago on that day in spring when the air was filled with blood and the world tilting forever beneath my feet.
I have come to this place to sit beneath the pear tree he planted
to remind him who he is. My garments against the trunk are blackness upon blackness and perhaps, if he looked, he would see the shadow of his heart and would know, irrevocably and for all time, he is that same man though more than sixty years have passed. And so I have come, to rest here against this tree, the tree he planted against the day of his judgment, to see if what he said was true when he wrote, “It was not the pears my unhappy soul desired. For no sooner had I picked them than I threw them down and tasted nothing in them but my own sin.”
Each day we gather in the courtyard of the church outside his window. Many come and the sound of their prayers is sometimes like the thrumming of bees deep within the hive in winter and sometimes like the cry of an animal in the dark. Its ebb and flow sets the leaves shaking and the shadows dancing until it is hard to know what is sorrow and what is joy, what is greeting, what is farewell. Such has been the sound of my life as it has passed along the wide corridors of time to this moment, here in this place, where I will once more look upon his face.
Now the church bell is ringing and soon the chanting of the faithful will rise like smoke from the campfires of the enemy outside the city walls and hope and fear will again contend in the souls of men. Their prayers for him and for their own deliverance are spoken in the same breath and none can tell which is which, save God. Thus the desires of our hearts knot and twist until we cannot discern the one from the other, neither seek to know, and so we weave the tapestry of our lives and wonder at the pictures we make.