Читать книгу The Miracle of the Images - Welby Thomas Cox Jr. - Страница 6

Father Francis watched the mystery man coming up the walk. He looked to be of average height for a Caucasian, about six feet tall and weight perhaps one hundred eighty. The man stood quite erect, as a military man, he walked up the sidewalk to the front door of the rectory at the historic and preciously small Victorian chapel of St. Augustine Catholic Church in Germantown, Ohio. Father Francis heard Mrs. Clarice answer the door; she failed to ask the visitor if he could possibly reschedule the confession but directed the caller to the rectory office where Father Francis stood near the window watching his fighting Irish of Notre Dame make battle against the bitter enemy to the north, Michigan.

The audibles were distinct as gladiators met at mid-field, as over three hundred thousand eyes watched the teams dig in at the line of scrimmage. Imagine, one of Notre Dame's finest... out of action on this Saturday...replaced by a sacrament.

"Excuse me Father Francis, but your 1:00 appointment is now here."

Father Francis seemed to note a triumphant sound in Mrs Clarice's voice, and he gave her 'the' look as she shuffled out the office door.

"Good afternoon Father." The voice was clearly mid-western and no hint of Italian.

"Good afternoon", I responded.

"May we offer you something to drink...a coffe' perhaps" I noticed a hint of Italian in my own voice.

"Mrs Clarice... coffe' ...Por favor."

"Thank you Father... if it isn't too much trouble."

"None at all" I responded

"I do believe, that Mrs Clarice has just brewed a new pot... in her new pot...near her new microwave...in her new kitchen."

"Grazie...Padre." The old lady said as she threw her head at him.

"How goes the game?" Aldo asked.

"The Irish are threatening." I said.

"Sure would be a feat for the new coach of the Irish, ranked at # 24 to beat the 4th ranked Spartans at home." Aldo said.

"Yes... it would certainly make my day as well." I replied.

"So, Aldo...you're not here for confession?" I inquired. "Nor the game?"

"No Father...although after fifty years it might be a good idea." He said. "Not the game...you know I have seen the game every year."

Mrs Clarice brought the coffee and a tray with cold cut sandwiches...they both thanked her as she backed out of the office and closed the door....nearly.

"Mrs Clarice..." I called to her... "The door Por favor."

"Why are you here, Mr. Selleri?" I asked

"Did you not hear from the Holy Father...and do you not have a communication for me?" Selleri asked.

"I did hear from the Vatican secretary...and they were rather mysterious and brief...asked me to meet with you...you know get some introduction...so, if you don't mind Aldo, could you please start at the beginning." I asked.

"Yes Father, as though as I was in confession in order to protect the confidentiality of this conversation." Aldo said.

"That's acceptable." I said.

Aldo watched as the priest kissed the holy vestment and placed it around his neck and on top of his cassock.

"Bless me Father for I have sinned in thought, word and deed." Aldo began

"In Nomine Patris, et filii, et spiritus, sancti...Amen" I said while making the sign of the cross blessing the pentatent.

"It's been fifty years since my last confession...Judica me', Deus" Aldo began.

"We've missed you." I said.

Aldo warmed to the priest. Throughout his life, Aldo had never been so alone, as when he was alone. And now he somehow felt safe...this empirical wisdom covering his ability to say whatever he wanted to get off his chest...and if it happened to be offensive, in the end, the absolution would come with the raising of the priest hand...

"Indulgentiam, absolutionem, et remissionem, peccatorum, nostrorum, tribuat nobis omnipotens et misericors Dominus." (May the almighty and merciful Lord grant us pardon, absolution and remission of our sins)

In many ways Aldo was as nearly like a coyote as any animal that came to his mind. He lived on the edge of humanity...foraging for the truth but knowing that his very nature to be distrustful of all... perfected his own comfort with himself. He was not a sociopath in that he never felt remorse for any transgression. The opposite was true and Aldo was even bipolar with serious manic depression. Manic when he was on the farm; free and alone to discover... just to be. Depressive when forced into a social situation, which might jeopardize the legal nature of his adoptive parent's life. That was the truth of it...Aldo was beyond feeling any pain at the prospect of being 'discovered' because he had come to know that the worse that could happen to him was that the United States would deport him to Italy, where, at the very least he might discover who he was and be able to assume his own identity and perhaps even rediscover some semblance of a natural life.

"Father Francis, I have been living a lie...a part of this whole identity crisis throughout my life."

"How do you mean...and take your time Aldo so that I may understand." I said as the game droned on and the Irish marched down field again.

"I first remember being here....you know, in the United States when my Mother told me I was four years old... that was in 1942...she wanted me to know my age and that I was born in Italy, of noble parentage in the past, perhaps of a Count in the fifteenth century.

"You don't know how old you are?" I asked.

"Not exactly, I have no birth certificate" Aldo searched my eyes for some acknowledgement of understanding...but none was there...confusion weighed as Notre Dame stalled.

"You see Father, soon after our arrival in Dayton, my Mother passed away." Aldo said.

"Buried, I suppose in some pauper's grave...I was never told."

"Why Dayton?" The Priest asked.

"Apparently my Mother was looking for my Father who was in the Air Force. She was able to somehow get information at the naval base at Naples, Italy... that he was stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio."

"What about papers?" I asked.

"There were no documents...my Mother was befriended by a Greek captain on a ship out of Naples...you know how that goes... and I only remember how savage the journey and how ill my Mother became."

"So your Mother passes away...and you are just out there...about four years old...all alone?"

"Not exactly Father... somehow she was befriended by a middle-aged couple who had a farm near-by Dayton. They were shocked by her death and reported it promptly to the police. They told the authorities at the Coroner's Inquest that they did not know her...had picked her up on the highway in a driving rain storm... and, that she was seriously ill with high fever...she passed away in the night." Aldo paused for a sip of coffee to ease the sudden crowding in his throat...a moment to collect his feelings.

"My Mother became another statistic, and I, the de facto child of the elderly couple who were devoted to the Holy Mother through the rosary which they prayed each and every day of their lives for a child...hence the name Theodore... 'Child of God' which I answered to until they passed away in the sixties in deference to them. After that I began to use my given name...which, of course, the three of us knew but never used.

"Yes I know the devotion of older Catholics, which would be a blessing to the Holy Mother church if that spirit would return, but today we have flip flops, dirty jeans, mid-drift blouses revealing tattoos on buttocks and navels and various other locations. We have rings on every finger and in noses, lips, tongues and ears. We have women with small children who refuse to take them to the partitioned space provided for them...do they go there...of course not, they would prefer to let them terrorize me during the Mass and all others near them" I said eyeing the screen which showed the Irish up by ten points at half time. Michigan had failed to mount an offense but there was another half to play."

"So Father Francis...why do you not rail against these activities from the pulpit...it seems that these poor folks are begging for some authority figure to direct their despicable lives." Aldo inquired.

"Aldo I should do just that...but do you know what would happen...they would drop out...and I suppose having them in the church in some form gives hope to the future; and it appears that these unnatural choices will be discarded by the next generation who perceive the parental choices of dress and doing dope as negatives to a responsible life." I said.

"I see...sort of like...Better off with the suits than empty vestments?" Aldo said.

Father Francis rather ignored the comment, which was a direct sleight to the priesthood...remembering that he was not here to argue with the Penitent.

"So the authorities just assumed that this family living out there on this remote farm, had this only child and tried to offer a warm, dry place to a woman they picked up on the highway?" I said.

"Correct."

"But what about school?"

"I did not...you know living way out on the farm...and my Mother was a former school teacher... so I was an early home schooled child...no questions. And my new parents were much too frightened to disclose the truth about me and so we remained aloof and after a few years we began to mesh into the farm community."

"Sort of like Superman." I said.

Aldo laughed as well.

"Aldo, are you able to tell me the name of the family?" I asked.

"Must I, since they have long since passed?" Aldo implored.

"The truth only matters during the rest of the confession." I said.

And then Aldo made a remarkable and strange comment in response to me.

"I don't suppose that anyone could be trusted that was known to be untruthful." He said.

"No, lying is an unremarkable quality...unacceptable in life generally and most especially here in the confessional. After all Aldo, it is here that you have come for the Pastor to forgive. .Wouldn't it make a total mockery of the confessional if in fact you had lied." I asked.

"Father...I wasn't speaking of myself...I was thinking more of my adopted parents. I am quite certain they must have been truthful to the Parish Priest especially when I was baptized, made my communion and confirmation..." He said.

"No I am quite certain that they would have confided in the Priest...just as you have chosen to do so. You will see, after your confession what a weight lifting experience the sacrament really is." I said with every assurance that I had spoken the truth and I was quite certain looking into the still gray/blue eyes of the Penitent that he was speaking the truth as well.

"So Aldo ...when did you start to exhibit the talent for art?" I asked.

"When I was in the second grade, my Mother took me to classes at the public school in art and sports, a small concession for the home schooled. It was there that I discovered an affinity for color and design. By the time I was twelve, I was painting landscapes with a decided technique of bold brush strokes, original color selection and unique design elements. My teachers were quite impressed and they often spoke to my Mother of my being a child prodigy." He said.

"But you never went to public school...otherwise?" I asked.

"No Father...my Mother continued with my home schooling through high school. But of course I continued to go for the art classes and I was able to join the wrestling and football team. It was the first time in my life that I began to assimilate...turns out I was a pretty damn good half-back...even getting scholarship offers from some of the smaller colleges...but then the old issue of my illegal status crept back into my life and the college offers were forgotten in favor of a career as an agronomist...which I didn't mind all that much because I had come to love the independence and the free nature of the farm."

"And it was in 1955 that I experienced the dream." He said.

"Yes Aldo, please take your time here and do not omit even the smallest element of this dream." I said.

"I had gone to sleep...and soon thereafter, I heard a knocking on the door of my bedroom. I sat up in the bed and was nearly blinded by a shaft of light coming through the cracks around the frame of the door. The light was of a brilliant nature and flooded even the smallest crack in the door-jamb. Of course, I was shocked... taken aback by the knock on the door and the light streaming through. I am certain that I was now fully awake. I got out of the bed and went to the door, I opened the door and the light in all its magnificence came rushing into the room. A woman stood elevated, above the door, filling the entire length and width of the door. I was terribly frightened and I slammed the door in her face. By the time I returned to the door and opened it, the light and the beautiful woman had disappeared. I spent the rest of the night waiting for her return and as I waited, I prayed the rosary." He said.

"Was praying the rosary something you normally did?" I asked.

"Yes Father...my parents and I said the rosary together every night before bedtime."

"And what did you pray for Aldo?" I asked.

"I prayed for my Parents and for my deceased Mother." He said.

"And did you dream of your Mother?" I inquired.

"Yes...I dreamt of her quite often. I could see her coming to me, hugging and kissing me and telling me stories of Italy. All of the dreams were in color and she spoke to me in Italian...her native tongue." He said.

"She sung to me as well...had a beautiful voice which I wish I could emulate." He said.

"So perhaps...the lady in the dream was an aberration of your Mother. , .you know of your longing to be with her...near her. The mind, Aldo is capable of working amazing feats." I said.

"No Father...it wasn't my Mother who visited on that night. This was a quite tall woman and she was elevated in the doorway.. .standing on air." He said.

"So when did you next see the lady?" I asked

"A few weeks later on the feast day of the Assumption, August 15, 1955, she came to me just after I had gone to sleep. It happened in the same manner...but this time I wasn't afraid. I opened the door to the same brilliance and she stood on air looking down on me. I told her that I was so very sorry for being so rude and frightened. She did not speak but left me with a feeling of peace and warmth. I asked her what she wanted of me. She did not speak but transmitted her thoughts that she wanted me to paint a simple portrait of the Holy Family.

A portrait, not so unique, with the virgin and child, sitting on a burro, and Joseph leading the beast of burden. I asked if there was any special design that she had in mind and again, without speaking she told me quite specifically that the design was only to be simple... to incorporate the elements of the three family figures and the burro. Then I asked her the most essential question, from the prospective of the artist... "How will I know to apply the paint to the facial features, and the color of the family?" He said.

"Then she made the most amazing statement... she said that I was to leave the faces blank and, she said in fifty years from this date , the faces of Mary and Joseph would be revealed in the painting. Fifty years thereafter, the face of the infant would be revealed." He said.

"She also told me that the painting was to be given to the Holy Father in Rome on the fiftieth anniversary of the visitation and after the miracle transformation had occurred." He said.

"So Aldo...the first miracle..." my voice trailed and Aldo continued.

"Yes, the first miracle occurred on the feast of the Assumption, August 15, 2005. I did not go to bed. I knelt before the painting and prayed the rosary. Sometime just as the sun rose to the east, slicing and penetrating my dark room...I watched in abstract awe the miracle take place on the canvass. First Saint Joseph's features took shape as he peered at me from the front of the burro. He had a definitive and piercing look, as though he was asking a question...perhaps...who are you and what do you want of my family?" He said.

Blessed be God in heaven, I thought.

"Then just as simply, the face of the Holy Mother, began to look out at me from the veil which draped her head and shoulders. It was a face, which... in no way, looked anything like what we have come to believe the Holy Mother looks like. She appears more weary...travel worn...much older than any painting by the Masters. Not so flattering, but calming, reverent as she holds the Christ child to her breast in a protective manner."

"So Aldo, in 2005 you are sixty-seven years of age.. .and in 2055...should you live you will be one hundred seventeen years of age?" I said.

"I do not expect to live to see the second miracle...this is why I have been directed to deliver the painting to the Vatican and to the Holy Father in Rome." He said.

"Now Aldo, what do your parents think of the painting and the miracle?" I asked.

"They do not know of the miracle, nor have they seen the painting." He said.

"Why were you chosen?" I asked.

"Good question...and one I asked of the lady. She said that I was asked to do the painting because of my daily reverence to the Blessed Mother and the Holy Family. She also informed me that my prayers would be answered by the Holy Father in Rome as to my origins and my place in the world. She very specifically cautioned me not to disclose the miracle nor the potential of it until after the event occurred, and then to give the portrait only to the Holy Father." He said.

"Well Aldo, practically speaking...you know that it is highly unlikely that you will be able to personally deliver this portrait to the Holy Father." I said.

"I am confident that the will of the Blessed Mother will be done." He said.

"Are you prepared Aldo, for the thorough investigation by the Vatican of yourself and the portrait?" I asked.

"Certainly, I am willing to be forthcoming at the appropriate time and place."

"And where might that be, Aldo?" I inquired.

"Only in Rome before the Holy Father as requested." He said.

The heat of the late afternoon felt penetrating against Father Francis's light shirt. Aldo Selleri's confession had lasted nearly five hours. Notre Dame had long since spoiled the Spartan fans thirst for Irish blood and Father Francis felt the need to walk about while considering the confession of Aldo Selleri. There was no doubt Aldo truly believed that he had been the instrument of a miracle.. Father Francis knew as well that the mind was more powerful than any muscle a man could muster...he even suspected that it was capable, in a paranormal situation, of even the creation of conditions to paint the faces of a family portrait.

But how do you explain this phenomenon. A grown man swears before God that he witnessed the creation of a face on a canvass. Well Father Francis knew one thing for certain...the Vatican team of experts would descend upon Selleri like locust and before he was capable of uttering Blessed Mother, Selleri would be martinized to the point that he may never again be recognized. Father Francis had not been a witness to the exorcisms carried out by the Vatican sponsored teams but if there was a devil in Aldo Selleri...he would soon have to find a new home.

Poor Aldo, Father Francis thought...going through his entire life without the identification necessary to have a full life. No birth certificate, no driver's license, no passport...each of these items so essential to a life. A life, which had precluded marriage and children for Aldo. Father Francis could not help thinking that this was a criminal act on the part of Aldo's adoptive parents. There was no way that the child would have been removed from their home if they had only performed their duty to this child, and then he would have had the opportunity to a full and lasting life as any American.

But then these are the lengths to which some women are driven in the madness to have children. Nothing matters but to possess the heart, mind and soul of the child regardless of suitability to raise one.

Of course these were the forties and fifties and life took on a decidedly different look and feel. The era of McCarthyism...Better Dead than Red. Everyone in the country was suspicious of any activity or of anyone who exhibited the slightest tendency to be different. Different... was not a good thing... and Aldo's adoptive parents saw to it that he carried the mantle of different...like the scarlet letter, except this one would have been inscribed 'weird'.

Good thing there was plenty to do out on the farm. Aldo stayed busy through the morning and in the afternoon he took classes in English, reading, writing, math, history of the world or American history. Later, he would stay busy with Geometry, Algebra, Trigonometry, Latin, and Spanish...more than a full course and well taught at that.

But as prepared as was Aldo in the world of book sense, he was void of social skills. Nearly backward as though he and his family were members of one of the Amish families but at least as rudimentary as was the social interaction of these sects...there was some social function, Aldo had none of that.

After a fashion, Aldo's family did begin to take him to Mass when he approached the age for the beginning of the sacraments. Confession in those days was a grueling event for most children. Standing in line for your turn to enter the dark confessional and then to hear the sliding partition between the Penitent and the Priest...certain that the person on the other side was straining to hear what sins you had committed in the intervening week. Yes it was true every child had to go to confession every week and receive the absolution of the priest.

First Holy Communion was also a major event. No more sitting in the pew while everyone else marched up the isle to receive the wafer. In 1945, the congregation did not receive wine as they do today...Aldo concluded that the priest and alter boys drank it all. Aldo could not wait to become a server at the Mass and to have his share of some of that delicious nectar of the gods.

Of course he was no stranger to wine...the homemade variety his father made from the bountiful harbor. Not only grape but there was apple, peach and pear as well.

Aldo's adoptive Father was a professional farmer. Everyone in the county knew that if Buck did not have the answer to a particular problem...there was no problem. He knew when and how to kill and cure the hogs or beef, where to harvest the honey and to tap the maple trees. The farm was a bastion of plenty and aside from a few staples from the grocery...all that went on the table was grown and 'put up' for the winter. Corn, green beans, tomatoes, squash, turnips, collard greens, cabbage, potatoes, peppers of all kinds, filled the jars in anticipation of winter. The kitchen was a beehive of activity throughout the summer as each crop brought its own bounty.

And the place had its own symmetry...its own music, which Aldo enjoyed from gathering eggs to weeding the garden, picking the fruit and helping in the kitchen. He learned at the heels of his parents and he learned his lessons well for in his own time Aldo became known as his Father's son and the best farmer in Montgomery County, Ohio.

Of course this left little time for Aldo's passion for painting. Even though it is assumed that farmers have nothing but time on their hands, in the winter, most remain quite busy with winter chores such as fence mending, clearing of brush and seeing to its safe burning. The planting of greenhouse plants for transplanting in the spring and the year round caring of the animals. Most essentially the Dairy cows, who were always with them, seven days per week, twice per day the cows came to the barn for relief and the delivery of rich milk to the families in the city.

They were long days and Aldo did not have the joy of spending any part of them with a partner. Although he had kept company with an occasional female visitor from the church or one of the women from town... Aldo was careful to draw the line on getting to close to any thing that resembled a commitment to marriage. And, in those days women were less apt to take up residence with a man without the exchange of wedding vows.

Certainly something that Aldo would have been most willing to make a commitment to were it not for the delicate matter of his illegal status.

So Aldo was a lonely man, filling his days with busy work to near dark and always turning in as soon after the evening meal as possible. Lest you get the wrong idea of Aldo, you should know that he could kick up his heels on the week-ends. One of his favorite haunts was Newport, Kentucky where gambling, drinking and wild women were all a part of the syndicate control of this northern Kentucky community.

Long before Jennifer Flowers and Bill Clinton there was another hooker/dancer/singer by the name of Flowers...seems she slipped something in the drink of the Kentucky Sheriff by the name of George Ratterman. You know the guy who was the all-American quarterback and pro bowl football player. Ms. Flowers and others took several illegitimate photographs in an attempt to frame the good Sheriff in what was deemed an inappropriate circumstance. Fortunate for George it didn't work...he won reelection and set about to clean up the levee along the Ohio River across from downtown Cincinnati. It only took about forty years to do so and George Ratterman long since passed into oblivion or wherever else old football heroes go.

It wasn't that Aldo was the hell raiser from Texas...he just liked to let his hair down and have a good time. These folks sure knew how to do that and there was no interest in seeing an identification card of any type. Show your face and get the pass. Have a good time, make no trouble and you were always welcomed back with open arms. Want to shoot dice...they had it...want to play poker...always a game under way...there was pool, there was live music and there was lots of cold beer. Yeh northern Kentucky was a happening place and it was a place into which Aldo could fit right in.

In those days he had a young man's appetite for cold beer and sexy women. He remembered the first time he had been with a woman...she was a pro but it mattered little to Aldo...he paid the price up front and there were no questions or lingering on the back end. Her name was Ella...like himself just a farm girl looking for a way to support her exodus from the farm. Aldo wondered how long it would take before Ella became as hardened looking as most of the women selling their wares in the bars along the river. For now it was enough that she was there next to him, warm and a reasonable facsimile of a woman with emotions enough to pretend that the moment was special.

Her fragrance was strong as was her breathing. Aldo closed his eyes and listened...it was strong and healthy, even vital. The longer he listened the more sensual her breathing seemed to become. In time he began to feel the press of her body against his. Felt himself breathing with her, as if the rise and fall of their chest was the same. Her breathing became deeper, overriding his. He felt her own hand touching him and then her own breast. And then Aldo reached out, wanting to touch her and to keep touching her, exploring her in a way far more provocative and passionate than any way he had gathered from the men's magazines.

In the morning Ella would be gone, perhaps she had left in the night to complete the many task at hand...working the men who came for comfort and a few moments of tenderness which she faked as well as the orgasm making them feel that they had shared some compelling moment. Leaving the fluid of life and contemptuous thoughts of other farm boys who had mouthed the words of affection but were not there for her when her time came to deliver the child that neither wanted.

If she was really lucky, someone would come along and be the real thing for her, someone who would demonstrate emotional connections and unconditional love. Marry her and carry her back to the farm were she would welcome the seasons and the family which she had heretofore disdained. She had the looks, she had the breeding and Aldo hoped for her that she would recognize the moment and accept it for what it was...the opportunity to move on to some semblance of normalcy... of a life on the farm.

Aldo was no longer a virgin, and he had not been dishonest during the act...he did not tell her he cared for her nor did he expect to hear it from her. The moment was... what it was for the two of them...raw sex, played out in a cheap motel to the sound of the Tommie Dorsey Band and the plastic curtains blowing its own sound.