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

“A stinking mutt,” he whispered, “a dangerous intelligence.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Recall, when the dog plunged its foot into my bowl of soup and that soup was tasted by the sisters across this lawn. I kept the dreams of the nuns in a locked tin box. I should not like them to fall into the wrong hands, though I must admit some were novel to the point where I read them again and again—”

“You read demonic torments for your own pleasure? Should I be scandalized?” Father Jude was diverted by Damien’s ploy and, Damien could tell, his curiosity was piqued. The older priest resumed with sly ease, “I found the dreams instructive. I did not avert my eyes. To others it may seem odd that a curious and passionate being, for I do consider myself such, should have chosen a life of denial. To me, it was not at all strange, for the choice itself was made with lust. Passion over passion. Hungrier for God, I came here…”

Controlling his interest with some effort, Father Jude attempted to double back.

“And so the black dog, it was a delirious vision? Or was it possible,” said Father Jude in the most respectful and nonthreatening tone he could manage, “that for a time, you went mad?”

With an outraged jerk of his head, the older priest quashed Jude’s gesture. He folded his hands, composed himself, and shot the younger priest a shrewd glance.

“When our senses are weakened by hunger or illness, we see things and hear things that are not of this world. The question is this: Do we invent these things in the cabins of our sorry brains, or are they there always and we too comfortable to reach them or to care? At any rate, whether the answer is the former or the latter, I have no doubt, none at all. Last night’s visit has persuaded me. I saw the black dog.”

The old priest sank against the pillows, limp, folding like a window blind, but he was thinking very deeply and the thinking visibly exhausted him. His head dropped to his chest and he began to breathe deeply. Jude felt a pang of quick guilt, although not enough for him to let the old man sleep.

“Can I fetch you some water? A blanket?”

Damien shrugged off the false solicitousness. “These old bones. This old flesh. The devil will have me soon enough, cold or hot.” Damien then laughed, a dry, papery sound. “At least I know his shapes, the ones he manifests here on reservation land.”

Father Jude finished his adjustments to the tape recorder, moved it closer to Damien. He turned it on and clipped the microphone closer to the old priest’s lips, for he had lapsed into the near whisper that he used when he was exhausted or wandering.

“You believe I mean the devil… metaphorically… of course…” Father Damien nicked his head, weary, but as he spoke his voice gathered passion. “Metaphors have very little influence in this world and the devil a great deal. The black dog! What is the devil but the lack, the crying hole in the skein of thought, Father Jude, that reasoning that says, All is plain to see and yet you are deceived. I am a priest. All that I am is based upon belief. And to begin, now, after all that has passed, to think perhaps he did not speak to me as a dog and from the dog’s mouth is, quite frankly, to cast doubt upon all else…”

Father Jude switched off the tape recorder and leaned back, frustrated and shaking his head. He’d had a truly inadequate breakfast and thought now of driving to the café he’d found, the next town over, where the food was edible.

“You don’t believe me,” said Damien, after a long silence fell between them. “That’s only because he’s never paid you a visit. If he had, the question you would be forced to ask is this: If the devil can take the time to make an appearance, where’s God? Why can’t God make more of an effort?”

“God is not a politician,” said Father Jude, his voice neutral. He kept his thoughts to himself, his expression blank, and took his mind off the hot roast beef sandwich he craved. He reminded himself that his task was to record, not judge, what he heard. Still, the idea that the devil should appear in person was disappointing, an unworthy piece of superstition, a marker of Father Damien’s unreliability. He saw that Father Damien was ready to start his morning, so he left him in peace and gladly sought a meal.

After the younger priest left, Father Damien gathered his wits, his strength, and then sat up and waited for the fog in his brain to clear. He got out of bed. Teetering stiffly with hands on the back of his chair, and then taking minute steps, the old priest shuffled off through his small residence. The exchange had actually rejuvenated him a little, and he sat down at his desk and began to write with enthusiasm. “Consider the word spirit, manidoo,” he wrote, “and all of the forms in which it resides. That which we consider vermin, insects, the lowest form of life, are manidooens, little spirits, and in their designation it is possible at once to see the penetration of the great philosophy that so unites the smallest to the largest, for the great, kind intelligence, the Gizhe Manito, shares its name with the humblest creature.”

Returning later from the café where he’d eaten, thoughtfully, alone in a scarred brown booth, Father Jude frowned into the blond sky. He was well thought of in his parish, calm and good. Things had been going smoothly down in Argus. He’d had a comfortable routine figured out. And now, what an unwelcome complication, in spite of the huge honor, to be afflicted with so many new problems, uncertainties, even doubts. And how terrifying, this feeling of loving someone. Thrilling. Awful. With an explosive shake of his head, Father Jude put the thought of Lulu from his mind. Not only had he fallen desperately in love, and at this age, but he was failing at the task entrusted to him by the highest levels of Church authority.

These interviews with Damien Modeste were not going as he’d hoped. Father Damien was an extremely difficult subject. Impossible to penetrate one day, and all too transparent the next. There were gaps in the old priest’s story, missed connections, all too many loops of obfuscation. It was clear, too, that the old man regarded Jude’s presence as a disappointment. Father Damien had been hoping for an envoy directly from the Pope, and was irritated by the younger priest’s humble, local origin. Now, exhausted with their sparring, Father Jude decided that he would once again visit the person Damien had pointed out as Leopolda’s first young victim. Marie Kashpaw.

THE INTERVIEW

Marie Kashpaw liked to bake in the outdoor heat, and could sit for long hours in a lawn chair in her courtyard garden, motionless, head tipped to catch the most intense angle of the sun. She seemed lethargic, but when threatened, she could vanish with surprising swiftness. Catching the shadow of movement from Father Jude, who approached across the courtyard, she disappeared into the safe gloom of her Senior Citizens apartment, from which he was unable to rouse her by knocking.

It was clear she didn’t want to talk to him, but that didn’t matter to Jude. He had to talk to Marie Kashpaw. He had to persuade her to share her story with him. Still, he had no idea how to accomplish his mission. Sitting in the lobby, thwarted, he planned. She took the Eucharist every week, but that was from Father Damien. He could bring the sacrament to her himself, since Father Damien actually was indisposed, but, he wondered, did that put him in the highly uncomfortable position of using the Sacred Host as the lure for an ulterior purpose?

It felt wrong, but half an hour later he returned with the black leather traveling Eucharist kit, 100 percent calfskin, as official-looking as a spy toy. He knocked at the door to her apartment. Seeing who it was, she frowned, but nevertheless she allowed him to enter and stand next to her kitchen table.