Carol Sister O'Marie - The Missing Madonna

Turning her back to the detail, Kate slipped the enclosure card out of the envelope. “If you want to make up, I have some ideas,” it read. “For more details, meet me at the yellow peaked-roof house, corner of 34th and Geary, 5:30 sharp. Love Jack.”

Kate could hardly wait!

One peek through the beveled glass door of the Hanna Memorial Library and Mary Helen knew finals week at Mount St. Francis College had begun in earnest. The place bulged with students hunched over long, narrow wooden tables that were punctuated with brass reading lamps. At summer school nearly fifty years ago, she and Erma McSweeney had hunched over those same tables, Mary Helen thought with an unexpected pang of nostalgia. Diligently they had studied in the light cast by those same brass reading lamps.

From the far end of the main reading room, a bigger-than-life portrait of Archbishop Edward Hanna kept a watchful eye on the scene. Hanna had been the archbishop of San Francisco when the college was founded in the 1930s. From the looks of things, the library, named in his honor, had not changed much since.

Elaborately decorated bullet-shaped lights hung from the high-arched ceilings. Rare books, many of them bequeathed by the archbishop himself, lined the walls on dark walnut shelves. Some of the original leather-back chairs studded with brass were being occupied by young women in faded denim designer overalls. At least Sister Anne had called them designer overalls and explained that the fading was deliberate. To Mary Helen designer and overalls , even those in full color, seemed like a contradiction in terms.

At the other end of the oblong room was the circulation desk. Behind it Sister Eileen was busily stamping out books. A line of weary-looking students queued up in front of her.

Waving at her friend, Mary Helen headed for the reference section. A loud pst made her turn. Wildly, Eileen was motioning her to come over.

“What is it?” Mary Helen asked in a stage whisper. She knew Eileen took her position as head librarian very seriously.

“When you told me you’d be over to do some research I figured what it would be,” Eileen whispered back. “I could find only one reference, so I removed the book from the shelf before anyone else took it. Not that there’s much call for this particular volume of the Catholic Encyclopedia , but one never knows.”

She patted the thick black book on the desk beside her. “P,” she said, “for Perpetual Succor, Our Lady of. In some places called ‘Perpetual Help.’ ” Mary Helen noticed she had even stuck a small piece of paper in to mark the page.

“How did you know that’s what I had in mind?” Mary Helen asked, then felt foolish. The two of them had been fast friends for more than fifty years. You can’t know a person that long without having some insight into the way she thinks. Particularly if you are also her pinochle partner.

“Just a lucky guess.” Eileen turned back to the stack of books in front of her and resumed her stamping.

Mary Helen found a comfortable, well-lighted carrel along a sidewall of the library. Quickly she opened the volume of Catholic Encyclopedia to the article she hoped would shed light on Erma’s mysterious picture. She was disappointed to see how short it was.

She read carefully, hoping to stumble upon some pertinent information. Then she skimmed, still hoping something would jump out at her. Nothing did.

The article was interesting enough. It described the Byzantine Madonna and told the significance of all the figures in the picture. It gave a little history: “Fifteenth century… picture brought to Rome by pious merchant… Man died there… specified picture be venerated… For three hundred years crowds flocked to Church of San Matteo, where it was exposed.

“Augustinians served the church… also sheltered the Irish escaping persecution… In 1812, the French invaded Rome… destroyed church… Picture disappeared… lost for over forty years… Discovered in 1865 in an Augustinian oratory.

“As a boy, Pope Pius IX prayed before the picture in San Matteo… became interested in its discovery… Wrote a letter to the Father General of the Redemptorist convent… built over the ruins of San Matteo… Picture enshrined there.”

The article went on to tell about the Pope’s great devotion to the picture and to Our Lady under this title and his fixing a feast day and approving a special Mass and Office for the Redemptorist Congregation. The Pope was also among the first to visit the new shrine. Facsimiles of the picture, the article concluded, had been sent from Rome to every part of the world.

Mary Helen read the article yet a third time. Currently, she reminded herself, the feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is observed on June twenty-seventh. Even at third reading, none of the facts seemed to give any indication of what Erma could possibly have meant. At least they gave no indication to Sister Mary Helen.

“Any luck?” Eileen asked when Mary Helen returned the encyclopedia to the circulation desk.

“None,” she said.

“To tell you the truth, I read it before you arrived and I couldn’t make head or tail of it myself.”

“That at least makes me feel a little better.”

Eileen looked sympathetic. “From the looks of you, you couldn’t be feeling much worse,” she said.

Outside, the day was still damp and dreary. Leaning against one of the stone lions guarding the entrance to the college building, Mary Helen surveyed the scene. The benches and lawns surrounding the building were deserted; it was too cold to sit outdoors. Students pulling heavy sweaters tightly around themselves hurried along, eager to get inside. A brisk wind picked up small scraps of paper and spun them like minitornados across the deserted campus.

Only the hot pink petunias bordering the driveway seemed unaffected by the weather. The flowers looked as perky and cheerful as if the spring sun were shining.

Kicking at a loose piece of gravel in the entranceway, Mary Helen heard the pebble without really seeing it bounce down the steps in front of her. Her mind was preoccupied with Erma. Maybe a brisk walk around the grounds is what I need, she decided. Oxygen to the brain-good for the thinking. Right now her brain needed all the oxygen it could absorb.

Hands buried deep in her sweater pockets, she started along a walkway. Look to the picture, Erma had said. What in the world had she meant? Names? Perhaps.

There were Jesus and Mary, of course, and the two archangels Gabriel and Michael. Could she have meant to look for someone named Gabriel or Michael? Sister Mary Helen racked her brain, but no one and nothing surfaced.

Breathing deeply, she went over the other names connected with the Madonna: the Church of San Matteo… was there a Matthew? The Augustinians… maybe somebody named Augustine? Pope Pius IX. What was his real name? She’d have to look it up.

Then, of course, there was Marie, a derivation of Mary. But the very idea of Marie harming her mother was preposterous. She was obviously devoted to Erma and very dependent on her-actually too dependent Although Mary Helen had to admit that Marie Duran was puzzling. Why did the woman keep insisting Finn had harmed her mother? Even when he had offered money to the brother to go to St. Louis. Even-and more puzzling-after he announced that the mother had called… Marie Duran couldn’t seem to get him out of her craw. Mary Helen listened to the gravel crunch under her feet and wondered why.

Did Ree know something none of them knew? Or was she really mentally ill and unable to face the reality that Mama had finally been driven to leave home? Was she just looking for someone like Finn to take the blame?