Passenger(28)

“Well,” says the voice of a mouse. “Hello, son.”

I turn and, indeed, almost expect to see a mouse seated on the pew beside me.

“The cold,” says the nun. She is sitting farther down the pew, her voice low—a reverent whisper—her body a collection of knitted bones cloaked in a dark apostolnik and robes. “It comes through the walls. They are old walls.”

Despite the cold, I am sweating in my clothes. “It’s a beautiful church,” I say, my voice equally hushed.

The nun works her way closer to me until she is close enough to reach out and touch me. She looks ancient—as old as the church itself—and moves with the pained delicacy of the chronically tortured. The simple movement of her hands seems to cause her great pain, though she fights it off with a stoic countenance. Her skin hangs from her face and there is a great hollow divot at the base of her neck. She is swimming in her robes. Gravity and age pull down the rheumy lower lids of her eyes.

And she does touch me—rests a skeletal hand, the skin blotchy and the fingers twisted into twig-like corkscrews, on my right knee. I fear a strong wind might knock her over. I am careful not to move, not to breathe. This close, I worry the sound of my voice might rupture her ancient eardrums.

“Here,” she says, and a vibrating, fossilized fist materializes from beneath her robes. It hovers, unsteady, in the air until I hold out my hand beneath it. A rosary spirals from her fist into my palm. “Pray.”

I don’t know how, I think, but cannot say it to this poor creature. So I lean forward and press my hands together, the rosary clasped between them. What religion am I? Have I ever prayed before in my life? Because I don’t know how to do it now.

Instead, I think, No sa’wich now.

I think, Zap.

When I feel enough time has passed, I ease back in the pew and smile tenderly at the nun. Handing back her rosary, I am careful not to touch her flesh.

“You need a good meal,” says the nun. She is looking at me but her eyes are so completely opaque with yellow cataracts it is a wonder she can see anything at all. “You are skin and bones.”

“I’m okay.”

“And your head?”

I realize I am rubbing the back of my head. The headaches have not subsided. They are a torment but, at times, the pain is all there is to assure me I am real, I am alive. I say, “Just—I’ve just got a headache.”

“See a doctor.” The old woman looks immediately disgusted with me. And I almost feel like a disappointment. “For headaches—see a doctor.”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Don’t think,” she reprimands. “Do it. It is good advice for me but not for you?”

“No, of course not…”

“You feel the pain, go see a doctor. Sometimes they can catch it in time, fix what is wrong. Other times they cannot. Maybe then it’s best not to know, but you sometimes don’t know what you don’t know until they tell you.”

“All right,” I say.

“How long has it been now?”

“The headaches?” I have no idea. Since birth, really. In a way. “A few days,” I say.

“It is why you did not come to Sunday service?”

“Oh,” I say, “I don’t come here. I just happened to pass by and…” And my voice trails off. Because I am a stranger to myself. Because I do not know where I go or where I do not. “You’ve…you’ve seen me here before?”

“You are just a stubborn boy.” Something akin to a smile creases the woman’s face. “You are a superman, right? Of course. You do not need a doctor. You will live forever. Yours is good advice for an old woman like me, but you needn’t heed it yourself, eh? Is that it?”

“Please,” I plead, and it takes all my restraint not to grip the woman’s cloak and pull her closer to me. “Do you know who I am? Have you seen me before?”

“Oh, Matthew,” says the nun, “you are ill.”

Matthew. It resonates throughout my body.

“You have the fever,” she says. “You are sweating now badly.”

When I find my voice again, I say, “I’m really confused right now. Please—you know who I am? My name is Matthew?”

We stare at each other for a millennium.

Then, just when I think the world will come screeching to a halt and all life as I know it will cease to exist, the withered old nun says, “Matthew.” She says, “Come with me.”





ELEVEN





There is a small rectory across a snow-covered courtyard behind the church. The building looks as old and forgotten as the church itself, but there are curtains on the insides of the windows and, hanging from some windows, the suggestion of flowerboxes buried under heaps of snow. It tries hard to look lived-in.

It takes the old nun an eternity to walk across the courtyard. At one point, I am certain she will freeze and die out here before we ever get to the rectory. Twice, clergymen pass us by, smile and nod, and address the old nun as Sister Eleanor. Sister Eleanor, much to my mounting frustration, actually pauses in her campaign to turn and wave at the clergymen.

Inside, the rectory is stiflingly hot, the heaters working full force. The first floor has many rooms and, although I see no one, I can make out the hushed intonations of chatter emanating through the walls.