Thirteen Crucifixions, 75

Here, you can chop these onions.”

            “Chop these onions WHAT?”

            “Chop these onions please, please, pretty-pretty please with crème broule on it.”

            “Onions in crème broule.  Now there’s a dessert innovation”, Michael said as he wielded the knife.  He now regularly assisted Matthew in the kitchen, this being his third week at the Place of the Transfiguration, and needing something to do with his time.  He still couldn’t leave.  Had given up trying.  No one was forcing him to stay, no one was asking him to leave.  He felt welcome, wanted even, but not detained.  Right now there was simply nowhere else for him to be.  He was here with Matthew and no one seemed to mind.  They had not resumed being lovers.  From the second Matthew had stepped into the car and held his hand Michael was aware that their relations had been, and would from now on, remain drastically re-ordered.  He couldn’t see for sure if it was Matthew and his close proximity that was holding him here or not.  No expectations had been placed on him.  He did not have to rise at the crack of dawn for morning prayers.  But he did.  He didn’t have to be on hand for anything.  He was. The place was idyllic, featuring the main or manor house and a “village” of seven guest cottages.  His was nearest the sea.  Everyone, so far seemed to like him, or not mind his presence.  Especially Adam, who every evening following vespers, would join Michael for a leisurely stroll.  Everyone had their work to do.  Several attended exclusively to the needs of the guests—there were four others besides Michael.  Adam seemed young, at least as young as Lazarus, but fair-haired with notable features and large hazel green eyes.  He had sold through Matthew’s agency the four Faberge eggs he had inherited from a Russian ancestor—they were Romanovs.  The proceeds had gone to the community. He always had the look of one who had never been so happy.  Matthew still seemed much the same.  Perhaps less erratic, a little more centred.  Michael was relieved that he still hadn’t lost his sense of humour, nor his bitchy caustic edge.  In fact, he seemed more Matthew than ever before. Not one of the persons he had met here bore any trace of a false, forced or staged piety.  Except they all seemed rather quiet, they all were determined good listeners.  But Adam, with the wickedest grin, had also told Michael last night to “fuck-off and die” when Michael had suggested that he might look just darling wearing a dress.

            “Here’s your onions, Baby-Doll.”

            “Throw them in the skillet.”

            “What’s the magic word?”

            “Now.”

            “I like that in a man.”

            “So did you go on that hike today?”

            “I did some of it, but the weather was kind of crappy.”

            “Such language.”

            “Shitty.”

            “Much better.  Have you talked to your mom?”

            “I’m going to phone her tonight.”

            “I imagine she must be wondering where you got to.”

            “I dunno.  She’s not much of a worrier.”

            “Sheila?  Yes she is.  She just hides it well.”

            “I suppose you’re right.”  The onions were becoming transparent in the hot oil.  “Hey Matthew?”

            “You were wanting to know if you’ve overstayed your welcome here?”

            “You and your intuition.”

            “There is a God, dear.”

            “If you say there is.”

            “Chris and I were speaking about you this morning.  As far as he and the others are concerned you can stay as long as you want, be it ten days or ten years.”

            “I’m not going to be here for the next ten years.”

            “Stranger things have happened.”

            “Like the fact that I’m here at all?”

            “Like the fact that you’re here at all.”

            “You experienced something I haven’t

            “What would that be?”

            “I dunno—conversion? Spirituality?”

            “It’s there for you too Michael, it’s there just as much for you as it is for anyone.”

            “But I don’t feel anything.”

            “Do you still feel compassion for the underdog?”

            “Of course.”

            “Do you love beauty?”

            “Yes.”

            “Then you’re well on your way.”

            “To what?”

            “It’s not a matter of destination.”

            “Yeah, yeah.  I know, it’s the journey itself.”

            “Don’t overcook the onions.”

            But Michael was feeling different.  Just last week, waking at dawn for lauds and listening gladly to the robins heralding the new day he suddenly realized something.  He was happy.  Yes, he was back with Matthew. Who he would always love with savage devotion, and yes he could not have asked for a more idyllic setting.  And the people here—they were not only kind, but interesting.  Particularly Adam, towards whom he’d entertained a gentle crush.  He was a dancer, and would soon be studying dance at a famous academy in Victoria—that the people in this community would indulge him, encourage and applaud his decision to remain true to his Muse while living among them.  And the diversity of people here—a nun, an economist, an auto-mechanic, an ex-prostitute, three classically trained musicians in piano, flute and violin, a construction worker, who had engineered and supervised the building of the guest-houses, and others.  But this alone couldn’t make him happy.  Nor the concerts of chamber music put on by the three musicians, nor the dramatic story telling by a prominent novelist, nor the sick good humour or the outrageous good-natured teasing.  It was, perhaps, the teasing?  He didn’t miss the city, at all.  Which he found rather alarming.  Nor had he had a single drop of alcohol.  There was plenty to read.  The main house featured an excellently-stocked library.

            Michael was for the first time in his life happy.  He was writing again.  Journalling.  He had never kept a personal diary before.  But the words came spilling out on paper like the semen of a bull elephant.  He could not stop writing.  He could not stop writing.  He actually did not want to leave this place—feared having to ever leave.  Michael, who made no claims of Christianity, hadn’t even made up his mind whether God exists, nor even needs to exist, had found his home here among Christians.  But Christians or not, persons full of integrity and authentic good will.  He could tell by the way the other guests responded to being here.  There was nothing about this establishment that, in these three weeks, his highly developed cynicism was able to address.  Maybe he’d been brainwashed?  But being able to even consider brainwashing as a possibility confirmed to him that he hadn’t been.  Here, his mind was his own.  More his own than it had ever been.  He did participate in the gatherings.  Agnostic that he was, Michael had been surprised—no, shocked—to discover that he had a marked facility for meditation and silent prayer.

            They were all gathered together at three tables in the refrectory, arranged in a “U” formation.  The guests sat well mingled with the members of the community.  They rose together in silence, holding hands, an unspoken grace.   Chris, the superior, pronounced the “Amen.”   They ate in silence while Rose, a former beautician, read to them from Doris Lessing’s novel, “The Four-Gated City.”  Adam sat at the table opposite to Michael, sandwiched between the two German guests.  The looks they exchanged confirmed that they would again be walking together this evening, that they would be walking together for a long time to come.  He thought of Glen, and of Lazarus and felt for them both a sudden searing pang of yearning.