Charles Baxter: There's Something I Want You to Do

How I love that poem. But, after all, how much happiness can there be, without its opposite close by, so that we can know what happiness is?

Look: the pedestrians gaze over the bridge’s side at the Falls of St. Anthony, the only falls anywhere on the Mississippi River. Who was St. Anthony, for whom these falls, and this part of the city, were originally named? A much-loved man, born in Lisbon as Fernando Martins, he became a Franciscan and took the name Anthony. Known for his preaching, he did not live long, dying at the age of thirty-five. Legend tells us that when his body was exhumed years after his death, his body was “found to be corrupted” (that is, it was dust), but his tongue was glistening and intact, thanks to the purity of his teachings.

Before Minneapolis was Minneapolis, it was St. Anthony Falls. St. Anthony is still known as the Saint of Lost Things, and even lapsed Catholics will sometimes repeat, “Dear Saint Anthony, please look around. Something is lost that must be found.” He is also thought to restore lost tranquility, and in one such prayer, he is beseeched “to restore to me peace and tranquility of mind, the loss of which has afflicted me even more than my material loss.” Father Hennepin, upon seeing these falls for the first time, described them as “astonishing in scope and power.” But much doubt has been cast on his histories, and the histories themselves are considered unreliable. Present-day historians consider Father Hennepin to have been a prodigious liar.

But the day is beautiful, all the same.

These stories had several early readers, and I especially want to thank Stephen Schwartz, Lorrie Moore, William Lychack, Robert Cohen, Eileen Pollack, and Louise Glück for their help. “Forbearance” is distantly based on an anecdote told by Miller Williams decades ago. My thanks to him and to Giuseppe Belli. Thank you to Kyle Kerr for the idea. As ever, my gratitude goes to Dan Frank and Liz Darhansoff.

Charles Baxter is the author of the novels The Feast of Love (nominated for the National Book Award), The Soul Thief, Saul and Patsy, Shadow Play, and First Light, and the story collections Gryphon, Believers, A Relative Stranger, Through the Safety Net, and Harmony of the World . He edited The Collected Stories of Sherwood Anderson for the Library of America. He lives in Minneapolis and teaches at the University of Minnesota and in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.