Рита Браун - Cat's Eyewitness

Each had left lucrative practices for different reasons, but both were regularly off the monastery grounds to serve the poor at various local clinics.

Brother Frank also attended special conferences, if they addressed new methods of accounting or finance. He picked things up speedily. He could learn from the Internet, although the computer screen in his office hurt his eyes. This irritated him enormously, since a whole new computer system had been purchased just this past summer. Each shop had a terminal and a laser printer. Each computer could talk to every other computer. The cost just about sent Brother Frank over the edge. This expensive purchase did help keep track of sales and accounts, though. Much time was saved in each of the shops. And Brother Frank could keep current with each day's financial activities. That was all to the good, but the screen still hurt his eyes.

Some men retreat to a monastery for a life of contemplation, hoping to find a peace, an understanding, a closeness to God. Brother Frank had arrived out of profound disgust for the world.

As Brother Frank walked from sickroom to sickroom, twenty-five flagstone steps in between, door to door, Brother Andrew entered the infirmary.

Neither man felt compelled to remain silent in the other's presence. Neither would censure the other. Both men respected Brother Handle, his iron rule, but neither especially liked him.

"Can I help you?"

"Brother Andrew. Has anyone been in sick bay?"

"No, but these beds will fill up in the next three weeks as that new flu strain works its way through Virginia."

"Thought you gave us our flu shots?"

"Works for some." Brother Andrew half-smiled.

"I see. Shall we consider the flu a scourge sent from God to punish our sins?" Brother Frank liked probing, finding out what the other person really felt. Despite his cold demeanor, he respected a confidence. He earned the trust the other monks felt for him.

"I don't," Brother Andrew simply replied.

Brother Frank shrugged. "Microbes? Bacteria? Viruses? Haven't you asked what God wants with these tiny monsters?"

"I don't question God, I question man. But as a scientist, I hold that many of these seeming pests have a positive function on the whole."

"Just not positive for man?"

"Precisely. God gave us powers of reason. As a physician, it is my task to use that reason for the good of others. You might say I'm at war with the latest virus, bacteria, even deer ticks."

"Lyme disease."

"It's devastating. People don't realize how dreadful Lyme disease can be." Brother Andrew, relieved to actually be speaking with another intelligent person, sat down, drawing the folds of his robe around his legs. The infirmary wasn't as warm as it might be, although it was warmer than the corridors of the main building.

Brother Frank sat next to him, both men leaning back on the upright wooden school chairs, their sandaled feet stretched out before them.

"What do you make of all this?" Brother Frank turned toward the lean monk.

"The tears of blood?" Brother Andrew held his palms upward. "I didn't see them. And now that we're held here, I expect I won't until tomorrow, Sunday. Surely we can walk the grounds on Sunday?"

"I saw them." Brother Frank crossed his arms, his hands inside the sleeves up to his elbows. "I kept it to myself; four of us saw them and promised to keep it among us for twenty-four hours. Someone didn't."

"But I'd heard the tears were first seen by Harry Haristeen and Susan Tucker. They could have revealed this."

"I called Harry. I asked her to button her lip." He shrugged. "She probably couldn't do it. Too good a story."

Brother Andrew drew his feet in toward him. "Misogynist."

"My observations lead me to conclude that most women are superficial, emotional, and gossips."

"You're foolish, Brother Frank. Just because one woman wronged you doesn't mean they're all the devil's temptresses. Has it ever occurred to you that you asked for the wrong woman?"

Brother Frank's face darkened. "I gave her everything."

"That's not the point. The point is we often attract our own doom in the form of another person. If it's a woman, if it involves sex, so much the worse. The light by which we seek is the fire by which we shall be consumed."

"If you love women so much, why are you here?"

"One woman." Brother Andrew smiled a slow, sad smile. "Much as I understand a life of contemplation and prayer, I think we would all do ourselves much good by sharing our pasts. We learn from others. I'm a physician, and I couldn't save my wife from cancer. In the end I couldn't even stop the pain." What Brother Andrew did not divulge was that he finally injected a lethal dose of morphine into his wife to end her hideous suffering. He wondered, was he truly a murderer, or did he send to God a soul he loved more than any other, a soul at last free from pain? The monastery was his refuge from his perceived inadequacy.

"I'm sorry," Brother Frank said genuinely.

"I tell myself it was God's will." Brother Andrew put his hands on his knees. "Back to Harry. I see her more than you do when I go out to clinics. I'll stop by Crozet sometimes for fruit or an ice cream, my guilty pleasure. I'll talk to Harry at the post office. She would keep her promise. Someone else has disturbed our peace here. Would the other men have been indiscreet, not kept the promise?"

"I don't know. I can't imagine Brother Prescott doing this. I can, however, imagine Brother Mark, who is convinced this is a miracle, the Miracle of the Blue Ridge, Our Lady of the Blue Ridge." He grumbled, "People will pour through that gate once Brother Handle unlocks it, as he must sooner or later. How can we handle the numbers and the hysteria? Keeping silent, pretending the Blessed Virgin Mother isn't weeping, isn't going to cut it."

"I agree, but perhaps our leader thinks this diffuses the situation among ourselves."

"And perhaps it gives him time to think." A long pause followed. "We could make a great deal of money from this, you know."

"Ah." Brother Andrew nodded appreciatively.

"Will it fatten our coffers without violating our order?" He held up his hand as if in supplication. "As one who wishes to withdraw from the world, I don't like the idea of people beating their breasts, crying, making a spectacle of themselves in front of the Blessed Virgin Mother or, I confess, in front of me."

"She's seen worse," Brother Andrew wryly said.

"Ha." Brother Frank allowed himself a rare laugh, then stood up, his feet feeling slightly numb, tiny little pinpricks of pain slowly awakening them. "At least Brother Handle lets us wear socks with our sandals in winter, but my feet never feel warm. I hate it."

Brother Andrew stretched his feet out again. "I do, too. I think I can pray in here as easily as in my room, and it's a tad warmer." Brother Andrew wiggled his toes to make his point.

Brother Frank replied, a hint of playfulness in his voice, "Best foot forward."

"Quite right."

Brother Frank crossed his arms again, then slipped his hands back up the long folds of his sleeves. "So you haven't treated anyone in the last two days?"

"No. Why?"

"Well, I counted one head missing tonight."

"No, no one's sick that I know of." Brother Andrew now stood up. "Let's check the rooms. If someone was too sick to come to our evening meal I should know about it. It's quite possible in this aura of silence"—he tried not to be sarcastic but was anyway— "that someone is ill and told no one. We're all concentrating so hard on remaining silent, we aren't paying attention to one another. I didn't notice anyone missing."

"Someone is."

"Then I suggest, Brother Frank, that we get to it."

Together the two men walked down the east corridor. All was well there. Then they inspected the west corridor, nodding and smiling as they looked in on each brother. When they reached Brother Thomas's cubicle, it was empty.