Virgin (14 page)

Poverty,
chastity, and obedience, she thought as a cab pulled up outside the convent.
This afternoon I'm breaking all my vows at once.

A wave of
self-loathing rose from her belly into her chest, reaching for her throat,
momentarily suffocating her. But it receded as quickly as it had come. She had
hated herself for so long that she barely noticed those waves anymore. They
felt like ripples now.

She descended the convent steps and slipped into the cab.

As the cab
rounded Columbus Circle and headed up Central Park West, Carrie gazed through
the side window at the newborn leaves erupting from the trees in the park,
pale, pale green in the fading light. Spring. The city's charms became most
apparent in spring. Nice to live up here, far from the squalor of downtown.

She spotted a
homeless man, trudging uptown on the park side, wheeling all his worldly
possessions ahead of him in a shopping cart.

Well, not too
far. You couldn't escape the homeless in New York. They were everywhere.
You
can run but you can't hide.

Brad had run to
the Upper West Side, to Yuppy-ville. Or Dinc-ville, as some folks were calling
it these days. But Brad wasn't a dinc. Wasn't married, lived alone. Carrie
guessed that made him a sinc: single income, no children. He could have lived
anywhere--Westchester, the Gold Coast, Greenwich, anywhere--but he seemed to like
the ambience of the newly gentrified neighborhoods, and he often spoke of the
friends he'd made in the building.

The cabbie hung
a mid-block U-turn on Central Park West and let her off in front of Brad's
building. Carrie counted up five floors and saw a light in one of Brad's
windows. Had to be one of Brad's windows--his condo took up the entire fifth
floor. She smiled as desire began to spark within her. She was the latecomer
this time. Usually it was the other way around. Good. She wouldn't have to
wait.

The doorman
tipped his cap as he ushered her through to the lobby. "Beautiful evening,
isn't it, Sister."

"Yes, it
is, Riccardo. A wonderful evening."

Carrie had to
use her key to make the elevator stop on the fifth floor. The sparks from
ground level had ignited a flame of desire by the time she stepped out into a
small atrium and unlocked the condo door. Slowly she swung it open and slipped
through as silently as possible. Light leaked down the hall from the dining
room. She removed her shoes and padded toward it in her stockinged feet.

On an angle to
her right she spotted him, hunched at Brad's long dining room table, his back
to her, his sandy-haired head bowed over half a sheaf of typewritten sheets, so
engrossed in them she had no trouble entering the room unnoticed.

Desire grew to
a molten heat as she crept up behind him.

Closer now, she
noticed the waves in his hair as it edged over his collar and ears, the broad
set of the shoulders under his shirt. She loved this man, loved the scent of
him, the feel of him, the sound of his voice, the touch of his fingers and
palms on her. She wanted him. Now. Every day. Forever. The times they could
sneak away to be together were too, too few. So she made these times count,
every minute, every second, every racing, pounding heartbeat they were
together.

She laid her hands on his shoulders and gently squeezed.

"Hi
there."

He jumped.
Through the fabric of his shirt she felt his shoulder muscles harden to rock
then relax under her hands. He turned in the chair and looked up at her.

"God,
don't
do
that! My heart almost stopped."

Carrie tilted
his head back and kissed him on the lips. His skin carried a trace of Old
Spice. She nodded toward the papers on the table.

"What's so
interesting?"

"The
translation of an old scroll. It's--"

"More
interesting than me?"

She kissed the
tip of his nose, then each eye in turn.

"Are you
kidding?" Father Daniel Fitzpatrick rose, lifted
her in his arms, and carried her toward the guest bedroom.
"Not even close."

Dan was dozing.
He often nodded off as they snuggled after their lovemaking. Carrie rose up on
an elbow and stared at his peaceful features.

I love you,
Danny boy.

They first met
about five years ago when he stepped in as the new associate pastor at St.
Joe's, ran into each other occasionally at parish affairs, and for the past
three years or so had been working side by side at Loaves and Fishes. They'd
come to know each other well during those years, discovering that they shared
the ecclesiastically incorrect notion that the Church should expend at least as
much effort in nurturing minds and bodies as saving souls, that the well-being
of the last was dependent to a large extent on the health of the first two.

Last year they
became lovers.

Precipitously.

A strange
courtship--long, slow, and tentative, never kissing or even holding hands. An
occasional bump of the shoulders, a brush of a hand against an arm, long looks,
slow smiles, growing warmth. Carrie doubted it would have progressed beyond
that stage if she hadn't take the initiative last summer.

Up to that time
she had used Brad's condo as a vacation spa--her private retreat from the soup
kitchen, from the convent, from the world in general. She'd soak for hours in
his whirlpool bath while watching old movies from his laserdisk library. She'd
return to the convent physically and mentally refreshed. But last summer she
asked Dan to drop her off on his way to the Museum of Natural History to see a
new exhibit. When he pulled up in front, she asked him to come inside and see
how the other half lived.

An hour later
one of them was no longer a virgin.

It
wasn't me. Oh, no . . . not by a long shot.

After the first
time they both went through a period of terrible guilt--Dan's much deeper and
more racking than hers--and for a while Carrie feared he might never speak to
her again. Then their paths crossed in a deserted
hallway and he took her hand and said they had to talk. The only place to do
that was Brad's apartment. So they met there on the condition that they would
talk and nothing more.

And talk they
did. Dan poured out his feelings for her, his doubts about his calling, about
the priorities of the priesthood and the Church itself. Carrie told him that
she had none of those doubts: Sister Caroline Ferris was all she ever wanted to
be, all she ever would be. But she knew she loved him and she couldn't change
that.

Despite their
good intentions, they wound up in the guest room bed again. And when they were
together like that, neither could find any wrong in it.

They made love
here as often as timing and circumstance permitted, which wasn't nearly often
enough. And after they loved they talked. Dan opened up to her as she was sure
he opened to no one else.

And finally,
Carrie opened to Dan. She hadn't intended to, but one afternoon the story burst
from her in a rash and she told Dan about that man . . . her father . . . and
how he'd started sneaking into her bedroom at night when she was twelve. . . .

Mom had been
sick for a while, almost helpless. Her multiple sclerosis had accelerated to
the point where the only time she spent out of bed was in her wheelchair. That
man had said his dear Carrie had to do what Mom couldn't, that it was her duty
as a good daughter. And when it was over, and she'd cry, he'd tell her it was
her fault for tempting him and making him want to do what he'd done, and if she
told Mom he'd tell everyone what she'd done . . .
everyone.

For two years it went on, Mom becoming increasingly disoriented,
growing weaker and weaker, fading into the sheets of her bed, and that man
sneaking into Carrie's room with increasing boldness and frequency until Mom
died. She'd been so terrified of what would happen with Mom gone that she ran
away immediately after her funeral.

Ran to the
Convent of the Blessed Virgin. Virgin . . . something young Carrie Ferris was
not. But the sisters had
accepted her and
she'd been there ever since. She'd devoted her life to God, and to Mary, but
she'd never felt worthy of her calling.

Dan had been
stiff and silent as she'd wept on his shoulder. She'd never told anyone--
anyone
--until
then, and it felt so good to get it out. Yet she was so afraid, as she'd been
afraid all her life, that anyone who knew the truth would hate her and shun
her. But Dan had held her close and absorbed her racking sobs, and the secret
became a bond that welded them even closer.

Carrie kissed
Dan's cheek and slipped from his side. She found a terrycloth robe in the
bathroom and wrapped it around her as she wandered through the silence of the
huge apartment.

She almost
wished she smoked. As much as she hated the smell, a cigarette would have given
her something to do with her hands. She liked to keep busy and she always felt
at loose ends here in Brad's. She couldn't do any cleaning because his
housekeeper kept the place immaculate; she couldn't rearrange things because
none of it was hers. So she stuck her idle hands--those Devil's workshops--into
the pockets of the robe and continued to wander aimlessly.

As she
meandered through the dining room she spotted the typed sheets Dan had been so
intent on when she'd entered. She sifted through until she found the face
sheet. The title caught her interest.

Translation:
the Glass scroll

The Glass
scroll.
What was that?

She glanced at
the first paragraph and her interest was piqued. She scanned the second, then
the third. Captured, she sat down and began to read.

I
have left this place only once. I traveled north to Qumran one night and stole
upon the sleeping Essenes. I moved among them like a shadow, taking two jars of
scrolls and some ink. I loaded them on the back of three goats and returned to
the Resting Place, where I feasted upon one goat and kept the other two for
breeding.

And then I began to write my story.

from the Glass scroll

Rockefeller Museum translation

10

Jerusalem--The Old City

Kesev followed
Qadasiya north from the Via Dolorosa. His footsteps echoed on the street
stones. Well after midnight and all was quiet in the Moslem quarter.

Suddenly the
sound of a car engine echoed off the surrounding stone walls and bouncing
lights cast long, jittering shadows up ahead. Had to be a Jeep. A military
patrol most likely. Things had been quiet in the Moslem quarter for a while
now, but the patrols stayed on schedule. That was the way to make sure things
remained quiet.

Kesev had
donned Arab dress for the night--a frayed jellaba and a striped keffiyeh held in
place around his head with a worn akal. He knew he looked more Arab than many
natives of the quarter, and if the patrol spotted him they'd stop and ID him.
He ducked into an alley and crouched behind some debris, waiting for them to
pass.

One look at the
Shin Bet ID in his wallet and the patrol would wish him well and continue on
its way. But Kesev didn't want to be stopped at all--the supposedly sleeping
walls were full of eyes. He didn't want
anyone
to know he was here,
especially his superiors.

This business
had nothing to do with the Shin Bet.

Kesev stepped
out of the alley after the patrol had passed. He scanned the street to see if
anyone else might emerge in its wake. Nothing moved. Rising above the silent
Old City, the Dome of the Rock gleamed in the starlight. A brilliant gold in
daylight, it looked more silver now.

Continuing
along Qadasiya, Kesev shoved three sticks of gum into his mouth. He chewed
steadily, savoring the peppermint sweetness as he turned into the narrow side
street that led to Salah Mahmoud's antique shop. The dealer lived above his
place of work, the better to keep watch over his inventory, Kesev supposed.

Kesev had been
watching the shop for three days and nights now, and had finally paid it a
visit this afternoon. Most of the statuettes and carvings on Mahmoud's dusty
shelves were junk, some outright fakes, waiting to hook some well-heeled
European or American tourist with a craving to take home a piece of the Holy
Land.

Mahmoud himself
was obviously playing to the foreigners with his waxed mustache and red fez
perched atop his balding head. With his jowls and rumpled suit, he looked like
a transplant from Hollywood.