The Passion of Mary-Margaret (14 page)

I often wondered whether I captured what Jesus really looked like, or simply what he looked like to me. We all see Jesus in such different ways. Some as conquering king, others as Jewish carpenter. The gentle shepherd; the defender of children. The friend that sticks closer than a brother; the rebuker of the Pharisees. The cleanser of the temple; the defender of the adulteress. The eater of grain and healer on the Sabbath;the speaker in the synagogue who came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.

The face of Jude often flowed from my pencils and brushes, his many expressions: surliness, delight, mischief, anger, and love. That Jude loved me I never doubted; that Jude felt he deserved to, he never believed. What a subject, however. I wondered if his face would one day become famous, certainly more than the artist that drew it, again and again and again, her fascination of its even planes, its sensual curves and hard places never waning. I'm most likely the most unfamous artist there is!

However, that November, having escaped the humidity and the mosquitoes for several months, I began sculpting, chopping down small saplings in the woods behind the school and setting up pulleys and ropes in my art studio to bend them into shapes unnatural yet somehow organic. The branches seemed to bow down their heads, imploring their Creator on behalf of those in the walls of the school. And so began the series called To Pray.

My favorite student quickly showed himself to be a fourteen-year-old black orphan named Morpheus Sloan. (Actually all of our orphans were black.) Morpheus was the son of a woman from Detroit. Beatrice married his father and they moved back to his family homeplace near Bainbridge only to find he simply wanted her to take care of his sick mama. Which she did, despite the fact that her husband left only two months into their marriage and was neither seen nor heard from again. Six months after Mr. Sloan deserted his new bride, she gave birth to Morpheus. Her mother-in-law, Dorothea, lived for three more years and was a sweet old lady, grateful for everything. When she died, Beatrice did her best to try and raise Morpheus, but it was difficult. Finally, sick and not able to feed and care for her son like she wished, alone and without family, she dropped four-year-old Morpheus off one summer night with a note pinned to his blouse. She went home and put a gun in her mouth.

Morpheus didn't know that. He thought both of his parents were killed in a train wreck. He still doesn't know the truth, and I doubt he'll ever get his hands on this notebook to find out.

Morpheus was a powerful boy, the oldest boy, and my obvious choice to help cut down saplings. The first time I asked, he rubbed his hands together. “Why, sure, sister. What kind do you want? Because I know where everything grows around here.”

He took me into the woods and together we cut down young softwoods: larch and cedar, pine and oak, willow if we could find it. Beside the school, he helped me strip them of their small branches and anchor them to the ground with stakes. We tied ropes around their middles, hoisted the hemp up over the branches of the oak trees in the yard, and pulled down on the ends of those saplings, bending them into graceful arcs and securing them to stakes Morpheus drove deep into the red clay of the Georgia earth.

We didn't talk much. We didn't have to. He took to the work so naturally I invited him into the studio to experiment with other bits of wood and metal parts we'd collected. Amazing what people throw away, isn't it? What fun we had with a couple of blowtorches and some hardware.

When the priest from the nearby parish would come on Thursdays to say Mass, Morpheus would serve at the altar in our chapel, his black skin gleaming like onyx against the marble white of the vestments.

Jesus told me he had special plans for Morpheus and it proved to be the case.

Teaching at St. Teresa's was a happy experience that first year. The day students would arrive each morning. Some Protestants' children tried to peek under my habit.

“What do you think you're going to find there?” I asked.

“A tail,” one little boy named Homer said. “My sister says you all are devils in disguise.”

Louise piped up. “My cousin says you all have horns under your veils.”

I laughed. “Really?”

We were in the art room making hand turkeys for Thanksgiving cards. I handed out brown paper bags to each student. “Now, do you really think there are horns under here?”

Several of them nodded and I realized the conversation was so metaphorical, especially in these parts, as to the misconceptions of the faith I'd come to love so much. Catholicism was of the devil to so many of these dear people, people who thought we loved Mary more than Jesus, and the Church more than God himself.

“Would you like to see under my veil?” I asked.

Another little girl with tiny, clear-blue cat glasses gasped. “No! I'd be scared.”

I knelt down beside her and took her hand. “Elaine, we've been in this class for almost three months now. Do you really think I'd hurt you?”

She shrugged. “Granddaddy says he wouldn't trust you all more than he would a ni—negro.”

I got so tired of hearing what they call the N-word these days. So tired!

We had two different schools going on. One for the paying students and another for the orphans, primarily black children.

I did, however, show the children my head.

“What beautiful red hair you have!” Louise crooned, reaching out, then snatching back her hand.

“See? No horns.”

I let each of them pat me on the head.

Morpheus laughed so hard when I told him, I thought he'd cease to breathe. “Oh, Sister Mary-Margaret. Horns? Why, that's the funniest thing I heard in a long, long time.”

We tromped through the woods looking for a dying tree to strip bark from for a wood mosaic Morpheus dreamed up the week before. The saplings we'd bent were ready to be taken into the studio to finish drying and curing. What I didn't know at the time was that somebody didn't like me poking through the woods with Morpheus, who, quite honestly didn't look a day under eighteen.

We set down our sacks and rested our feet before returning to the school. I pulled an apple out of my pocket and set it between us on the log. “Do you have your pocketknife?”

“Yes I do.”

“Let's split it then.”

Morpheus, last time I saw him, still has the same type of hands he did then. Much like Mr. Bray's, they are meek and move with an economical grace, yet powerful, their strength under humble control. That day he placed forefinger and thumb on one side of the scarlet skin stretched over the apple. He sliced it with the pocketknife he'd already cleaned on the outside hem of his shirt. When the free side of the fruit toppled back, wobbling on the crusty bark of the log, he stabbed it with the point of the knife and held it out to me, completely untouched by his hands.

Without a word, I took the other side and bit exactly where his artistic, dexterous, creative, made-by-God fingertips had been, their prints invisible nonetheless.

He lifted one side of his mouth in a smile and shook
his head. “Horns. On you.” And then he
tsked
.

Listen to me, sisters. If you don't know it already, you will be hated at times for who you are, at the very least misunderstood, by those who claim to love the same Jesus you do. You will be named with the Whore of Babylon, and you will be called “unsaved,” “not born again,” even an “idolater.” Love them anyway. Without Love, as the apostle Paul says, all we say, all we do, even our faith, is nothing.

We can shed our faith no more than Morpheus could shed his skin. And if we love completely, it should be just as obvious as the color of our skin. Don't be hated just because you took a stand; be hated because you laid down your life.

Now. What I did about that letter from Jude.

I was just finishing up my string art class the day after the lighthouse trip when Angie caught me in my supply closet scribbling
plant bulbs
on the palm of my hand.

“You're acting strange.” She ran her hand along the stacks of plastic tubs holding paints, brushes, markers, pencils, scissors, glue, foam shapes, pompons, pipe cleaners, tape, wire, and, well, check the inventory sheet if you want the complete list. “Gerald told me about the letter, so you might as well spill the beans.”

I led her out of the closet and grasped the long-handled hook used to open and shut the clerestory windows that flooded the activity room (used to be my art classroom) with light. “It was a beautiful fall day today, wasn't it? I thought I'd let the breeze come in.”

“I did the same thing in my room. The trick-or-treaters should be coming by tonight. I bought Hershey Bars this year.”

I pulled shut the final window. “You buy Hershey Bars every year, Angie.”

“I'd hate to disappoint them. So, the letter.” She sat down at one of the tables with a sigh, then pulled up her knee-high pantyhose and kicked off her shoes, those black, cloth MaryJanes people wear in China. “Remember when Jude tried to get you an exhibit in Salisbury?”

I nodded and sat down on the corner of the desk. “He was always trying.”

“I hated Jude until then. And then I knew. I saw it all.”

“I didn't realize how much that mattered to you then.”

“Oh but it did.”

Filling a bucket with soap and water at the sink . . .

“So. About the hidden papers.”

“Gerald was asking whether or not you planned to do anything about it.”

I turned off the spigot. “I haven't quite decided.”

“He wouldn't tell me what the letter said even though I asked.”

I grabbed the large sponge. Time to wipe down the work surfaces.

“So anyway, Mary?”

“Well, it's about my father.”

“The raping seminarian?”

“Angie . . .” I wrung out the sponge and began circling it atop the tables, the pristine aroma of the lemon detergent released into the air, the sponge leaving a shining wake.

“I know. Why would you want to know anything about
him
?”

“Apparently Jude thought I might someday. Although he didn't put down a whole lot of information about him, just his name and when he was a seminary student. He said something about my mother, not wanting me to get upset.”

“What else could have happened to Saint Mary Margaret the First we already don't know? Sister Thaddeus sings her praises to this day. So what's your next step? That is, if you've decided to explore the matter more.” She leaned back in the chair, the two front feet off the floor. I swear every time she does that my heart jumps in my throat. And she's been doing it for years. And has never once fallen. Perhaps I should trust her more. Her table came next.

“Angie? What good can possibly come of this?” I rubbed the sponge back and forth over an ornery spot of dried paste.

She steadied the chair, leaned forward, and clasped my wrist. “We all have a need to know about our father.”

“Really? I don't think I do.” Yes, I was lying. I mean I did
want
to know. Maybe. But I didn't
need
to. Indeed. I'm old. Wouldn't it be fine to just die someday and figure it all out quickly on the other side? I think so.