The Confessions of X (13 page)

The shadow of the roof had moved across the courtyard and the sun now fell directly on my son's face. Screwing up his eyes, he began to wail so I stood and, shushing him, paced to and fro, where Monica herself must have paced with her children in her arms. The image of her young motherhood, here in this very place, my feet treading the very tiles upon which she walked, transposed itself as if I were she and this, my son, Augustine. And all at once I felt unmoored, drifting, without home or husband or standing in this world, with only the warm weight of my child in my arms and my absolute necessity to his life to anchor me. I wondered at Monica's talk of what was needed to stay alive, for when I looked at the face of our son, I knew that therein lay all my heart's nourishment and I had no more need to search for it than I did for the sun above my head. Like my newborn son now gazing on my face with blind necessity, I had fixed all my happiness on him whom I loved and the fruit of that love. Of the riddles Monica spoke, I knew only the faintest shadow. What I did know was that I was on one side and Monica's God was on the other. And Augustine was in between.

CHAPTER 13

I
never saw Monica angry but once in late summer when the wheat stood high in the fields, rippling in waves when the wind blew, and the grapes began to plump and darken on the vine. Adeodatus was now two months old.

A childhood friend of Augustine's from Thagaste, I forget his name, fell sick with a fever and looked to die, so his parents brought the priest to him, though he was a Manichee. I was not there myself but heard that at his bedside Augustine argued with the priest, denouncing the sacraments of the Church as so much hocus pocus and the priest left in a rage, the friend unshriven. Word soon got back to Monica.

A few days later I was walking at the back of the house near the paddock under a giant oak. It was shady there and quiet and Adeodatus had been colicky and restless all that day. As I turned the corner of the barn, I heard voices.

“A pagan I could understand.” It was Monica and her voice was raised more with fear than with anger, it seemed to me, “for the worship of false gods is naught but ignorance. Your father was
such. But you of all people should know better, you with all your learning, your philosophers, your great intellectuals.”

This last said with utmost scorn.

“But to deny Christ and all the goodness of this world, that beautiful girl and your little son included, when you know better is not mere foolishness but willful heresy.”

“Mother,” Augustine said, and I could picture him writhing under the lash of her words, trying in vain to make her stop.

“Do not ‘mother' me,” she retorted sharply. “Since when have you minded anything I tell you? No, for once listen to me, Augustine, and listen well. I was willing to overlook your heresy for the sake of that sweet girl and her baby, my grandson. Yes,” she said. “Do not look at me that way. For
them.
No matter you have made promises to her that you cannot keep. No matter you brought a child into this world with no means to support them.”

“I have been offered a teaching post in Carthage,” Augustine said stiffly. “The messenger came this morning.”

I knew of this. He had told me that very morning. A part of me was overjoyed to be returning to Carthage for I missed Nebridius and the city, but, most of all, I missed being alone with Augustine as we had been before. A part of me was also sad to leave this peaceful place and the company of Monica and, most especially, Perpetua.

But Monica continued as if she had not heard him. “No, that is nothing compared to the happiness of these two souls you have so carelessly taken into your hands because you must have what you must have.”

“I love her,” Augustine replied. “She is the only woman I will ever love.”

My heart leapt at that. He had often told me so but to hear it spoken to another was an exquisite joy.

“I know,” Monica said. “But can't you see that makes it so much worse? For if you loved her you would never have entangled her in your life. You would never have given her a promise you could not keep.”

Monica's voice came to me clearly. She spoke the words with great clarity as if she knew it was her only chance to say them.

“And so I sought to repair the damage you had done her. With love. And care. And, God be praised, those two beautiful children survived the ordeal of birth when they so easily could have died.”

“I thank you for that, Mother,” Augustine said.

Monica continued, “She is a child. But you, my son, are not.”

“Enough, Mother!” Augustine shouted. “She came to me freely. You make it sound as if I tricked her. I did not. I told her of my situation and she came to me of her own accord. Truly, you know nothing of her or me or of our love for one another.”

Never had I heard him speak so to his mother. Nor had he ever raised his voice to me in anger.

He said more quietly and I could hear him striving for control: “I will not listen to you speak of her that way, Mother. She is no child. She and our son are my life.”

“By child I do not mean simple in her mind or heart, Augustine.” Monica's voice was patient though infinitely weary. “I meant she is
innocent
as a child. And you have put both her and your son's happiness and their immortal souls in danger through your selfishness.”

“I will not listen to this,” Augustine said.

I thought then he would walk away but he did not. Instead
there was a silence that stretched on and on so I could hear cattle lowing in the fields and far off the tock-tock of goat bells on the mountain slopes. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. It seemed strange to me the world was so indifferent to the human drama in its very midst, so lovely and serene it was on this late summer's day. If overhead black thunderclouds had suddenly appeared and hurled down lightning bolts it would have been more fitting.

“Think my son, I beseech you.
Think
.” I could imagine her grasping the front of his tunic and shaking him.

“Your father, God rest his soul, was a man who gave himself up to the world and all its delights. He drank. He whored. Do not look so shocked; of course I knew. No, my son, do not look away in shame. I was a wife before I ever was a mother. Children, especially sons, forget this. It is the truth and I am not afraid of it.”

“I hated him for what he did to you,” Augustine said in a low voice. “For what he was.”

“I know you did, my son. And perhaps I am to blame for many a time I played the wronged wife, the martyr. I only know I forgave him in the end.”

I caught a glimpse of her dress as she showed briefly at the corner of the barn then turned and disappeared. She was pacing up and down, her hands clasped before her.

“That was your father,” she said. “And then there is me. I am a Christian, commonly thought throughout the neighborhood to be a saint. Hah!” Her laugh was bitter, filled with desolation. Suddenly I glimpsed Monica's dreadful loneliness and, commensurate with it, her courage.

“I raised you in the Church and thought I taught you well.
What pride! What I really taught you was to see your father's face imprinted on the world and make you fear it. Fear you would become like him. And so you follow the teaching of Mani, for it gives you a perfect mirror in which to see the division in your nature your father and I created.”

Monica continued: “I was willing to bear all this because it is, in part, my own doing. I hoped that with the death of your father you would learn to forgive him and forgive that which is like him in your own nature. But you have not forgiven. Augustine, my dear, clever son, you are no longer a child. Only a child makes a mirror of the world and thinks his own image is the only truth. You are a man, Augustine. You are now a father. You must look through a window and see the world as it really is, not split like two halves of a broken cup but whole and undivided. How else can it hold wine?

“But even if you persisted in your childish beliefs, I could bear it and simply pray harder for your soul. What I cannot bear, my son, is when you put another's soul in mortal danger. You had no right to send the priest away from the bedside of your friend. He is dying and will not recover. Even if you do not believe in the Church's sacraments, a true friend would give a dying man whatever he desired to bring him comfort. His soul stands on the edge of this world and the next. Are you so arrogant you place your own intellectual purity against the happiness and salvation of another? That is wrong and I will not stand for it. It is good that you have won this post for you cannot remain under my roof.”

Her voice was so low I could barely make out the words.

“I do not do this on account of that lovely girl and my grandson.
I will always and forever love you and love them, my son, but for now you must go. It is best.”

I did not hear or see her leave. She must have gone a different way back to the house along the path behind the henhouse, which stood next to the barn. At last I heard Augustine's footsteps approaching and stepped out from my hiding place.

“You heard?” he said.

I nodded. I did not know what to say. His face was pale but whether from anger or sorrow I could not tell.

Augustine put his arm around me and we walked slowly back to the house. “Are you and the baby strong enough to travel?” he asked.

“Even if I were not I would go with you,” I said. “But, yes, we are both well.”

He kissed me. “If we pack tonight,” he said, “we can leave for Carthage in the morning.” He stopped and turned to me. “I'm sorry, my love. I know you have been happy here.” He stroked his son's cheek with a finger.

“Yes,” I said. “But I am happiest with you.”

We did not end up leaving in the morning after all for a messenger arrived late that night saying Augustine's friend was on the point of death and was asking for him. Augustine left in haste and by midmorning had not yet returned. The cart with our few belongings, provisions for the journey, and many gifts from Monica and Perpetua was standing by the front door, the mules harnessed, their
tails flicking irritably at the flies that swarmed about them. Still Augustine did not come.

When I had told Perpetua we were leaving the following dawn, she burst into tears. Cecilia, toddling at her feet, began bawling too.

“I will miss you so much,” she sobbed, scooping up Cecilia and hugging me so the child was squashed between us and wailed even louder.

“You must come and visit us,” I said. “In Carthage. We will take the children to the beach and to the children's puppet shows in the forum. You will meet Nebridius.” I had told her of my childhood friendship with him.

She cheered up a little at that.

“Here,” I said. “Help me pack. I don't know if I have enough clean breechcloths for Adeodatus.”

And so I distracted Perpetua from her sorrow and she grew a little happier though not consoled. We plumped Cecilia down in the middle of my bed with some walnut shells to play with and she soon forgot her tears. Adeodatus slept peacefully in the cradle.

Augustine rode up at midday, his face closed to me. All he told me was his friend had died an hour ago. I put my hand on his arm but did not speak. I had no words for his grief but my heart grieved with him. It was too hot to set out then so Augustine ordered the mules to be unharnessed and we went into the house out of the sun.

“We will leave tomorrow before dawn,” he said.

The day passed strangely, a kind of non-day, a marking of time until our departure. The servants went quietly about their tasks and even Perpetua's children played quietly as if they sensed the heavy mood of the household. Augustine spent a little time in conversation with Navigius in the atrium while I sat with Perpetua, Monica, and Cybele in a sitting room and passed around Adeodatus so they could take their farewells and kiss his little oblivious face as he lay dreaming in their arms.