Louise Erdrich - The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse

“That last,” said Father Damien, lips pressed in a worried line, “fully documented?”

“Complete.”

“Ah then…” Father Damien shook his head. Consternation soured his features. “What to make of it. Medical cures!”

“Well, the one, the first…” Father Jude shook his head, raised his brows.

“I would never make light of piles,” said Father Damien, “but is there incontrovertible proof that this man suffered from hemorrhoids through the course of his life and then was cured by the honey sold by the bee-keeping nuns? The proof is marginal, at best.

“And this ash and bee connection, what of that?” Father Damien went on. “Can you shed some light on that?”

“What light I can.” Father Jude took a long sip of water. “According to the most lucid witness — the person who saw Leopolda in the hour before her death — Leopolda was left in the garden to pray, and of course, as we regret, struck by a bolt of lightning. Next morning, we remarked on the mysterious cross made of ash that was found in the place she’d been left — of course no one knew she was missing yet. The ash blew into the flowers. The flowers, visited by bees, were the source of the wonder-working honey, and then of course… the witness—”

“Who was this witness?”

“Sister Adelphine. She cared for most of Leopolda’s earthly needs. The night she died, Adelphine left her sitting piously in her ground-floor cell, which opened into the garden. The old nun often ventured outside, to contemplate the image of Christ as she saw it in the growing plants.”

Jude stopped, eyeing a wan cinnamon bun left on Father Damien’s plate. He couldn’t help it. His appetite was constant, vexing.

“Have it,” said Father Damien, wishing it were an adequate bribe.

Father Jude reached over and delicately, with his soft, blunt fingers pinched up the bun and ate it in two bites.

“The question, or task before us right now,” he said, chewing, “is establishing your knowledge of Sister Leopolda, your history, your”— here he sought the word—“claim. No, I don’t mean that exactly. Your authority. Your expertise. Frankly”—and here Father Jude smiled—“I don’t anticipate a problem. Everybody else… her contemporaries are dead.”

“Oh really,” said Father Damien, and though he cast down his eyes in seeming respect there was a gloating satisfaction in his frail voice that made Father Jude glance sharply at the profile of the older priest. As soon as he felt his composure slip, Father Damien recovered and assumed a righteous, blank, carefully focused clerical air. Still, Father Jude’s pale eyes remained upon him, and the gaze he maintained revealed a sharp speculative intelligence.

“Just for the hell of it,” he said, smiling a tight smile, “or the heaven of it. I’m going to ask, I mean, in general. Was she?”

“Was she what? What are you saying?” said Father Damien, although he knew full well.

“Was she a saint?” asked Father Jude simply.

There was silence after his question, in which a hush of wind trembled in the leaves. Suddenly, through that corridor of extreme quiet, there sounded a harsh cacophony. Crows with human thrill had mobbed a great owl. The bird floated eerily, like a gray thrust of wind, in and out of Father Jude’s eyeshot, chased by a wheeling tumble of black feathers. Dark laughter. Their shrieks seemed to Jude’s ears both hilarious and foul. Father Damien’s voice barely cut through the din.

“There is your answer,” he said.

Creamed corn and ground-beef casserole, macaroni, a dish of hot, vinegary string beans, squares of rhubarb crumble. Lunch came wrapped in foil with twin place settings. At a small table of chipped enamel, set outside beneath the wild grapevine arbor, the two sat and made appreciative sounds as a brooding and massively built woman removed the aluminum sheets, folded them for future reuse, and loomed silently over Damien.

“Father Jude, I would like to introduce you to Mary Kashpaw. She is my housekeeper, keeper of the church grounds, master general of all you see.”

A slight smile tweaked the corner of Mary Kashpaw’s line of a mouth, cut like a seam in stone. Her eyes gentled as they rested on the old man, then narrowed as she turned her attention to Father Jude. As she slowly assessed the visitor, she stiffened into a mountain and became so monumentally rooted that it was almost a surprise when she walked away. Slightly shaken by her presence, though without any reason he could discern, Jude busied himself, poured thin coffee into white ceramic mugs. Father Damien frowned.

“Have you,” he peered behind Father Miller, “brought a bit of wine, perhaps, to complement the meal?”

“If I’d known.” Father Miller hooked his shoulders.

“No matter.” Father Damien waved his hands. “Best, anyway, that I abstain. At least for this particular afternoon.”

“You’ll need your wits about you.” Father Miller was teasing, but even so his demeanor was challenging enough to quicken Damien’s pulse, causing, in turn, an increase of circulation that often led to heartburn. Damien picked slowly at his food, raised a string bean to his lips, bit the end off, chewed, put it down again. In the meantime, Jude Miller ate two-handed, busily sopping up extra juice with a piece of soft white bread while rhythmically forking the hot dish into his mouth. He was a powerful and appreciative eater, and he gave his whole attention to the mediocre meal, took another portion of the string beans, polished his plate with more bread, ate his dessert with gusto, settled back to the coffee while Damien nibbled another bean.

“They’re good,” said Jude Miller, unconvincingly.

“Mary Kashpaw. I know her beans, only too well. A little white vinegar, pinch of sugar, salt.”

“Pepper, too,” Jude said, coughing. He put down his fork. “Your housekeeper…” He asked how long she’d been with Father Damien, and was surprised when he answered that the great woman had worked on the grounds, cared for the church and graveyard, lived with the nuns since she was a child, and then cared for his household since she was grown.

“The story of her existence is also my story here,” said Father Damien. “Her story and mine are twined up from the roots of the place. There is no telling my story without hers! It began immediately after my arrival here in 1912, with a visit to the notorious Nanapush, who tricked me into obtaining for him a wife. Mary Kashpaw was the victim of my earliest mistake, an innocent, though she has seen all of life one way or another since. It all goes back to conversion, Father, a most ticklish concept and a most loving form of destruction. I’ve not come to terms with the notion even now, in my age, when I should be peacefully moldering up there on the hillside with the bones of my friends.”

Father Jude followed the other priest’s gaze, saw the gentle brown granite markers, the sheltering oak trees, the pale lichen-eaten crosses, the neat and faded plastic flowers on wire legs, the whole array of memoria spread out up and over the quiet hill.

1996

The old priest tottered exhaustedly into his little house and closed himself into the bathroom. Washed his face, his hands, dried them carefully and slowly with a soft hand towel. Combed his white fluff. He felt a burning sensation along the corners of his eyes and he realized that he needed to weep. That afternoon with Father Miller, he’d drowsed and awakened to hear himself talking, talking too eagerly, though of course he kept back his deepest secrets. He’d known then what memories he was headed for, what scenes, what sorrows beyond imagining that had forever changed him. No! He lunged toward his desk, for the task of letter writing would, he hoped, throw him off course and allow the memory of his first years to pass him much as storms passed over bearing within their clouds whirlwinds that did not touch the earth.