William H. Hallahan - (14 page)

He came to the old stone buildings in the cliff this time to
arrange his next walking tour. While in France he had planned to
cross through the Balkans into Turkey and from there to Asia Minor.
At the last minute he had an intuition and turned downward toward
Ireland and the monastery. There hadn't been a birth of a purple aura
in years that he knew of.

The monastery never changed. The halo of circling seabirds
remained: The eternal diving into the rising and falling surf amid
the rocks continued. Long before he reached the holy place, he could
hear the seabirds call. The Irish countryside in spring became a
great piece of tweed with gorse and heather and multitudes of purple
flowers, with Irish roses and the long lanes of stone walls like
white threads shot through the nubby fabric.

The monks as usual put him up without a question and always with
those sidelong glances.

This time there was an unusual agitation among the monks. Nothing
spoken, but there was a preoccupation in their minds. He also noted
that the abbot, Father Joseph, was absent. He asked for him.

"Away," answered Brother Kevin. He had become lame many
years before and now hand-illuminated Bibles on vellum after the
style of
The Book of Kells
. For a garrulous man like Brother
Kevin that was a significantly short answer.

Timothy asked when Joseph would return.

"Soon."

Soon. Brother Kevin, who was always swollen like a teakettle with
information--speculation, gossip, chat--remained terse with Timothy.
The other monks avoided him, eagerly busy with their monastery
duties--the shoemaker, the gardener, the cooks, the launderers, all
furiously preoccupied.

During the night he heard them rise and go to their prayers
through the biting chill of their stone corridors, shivering in their
heavy wool habits. Even the rain that washed down the roof slates and
muttered at his window seemed evasive.

Timothy felt he'd been paying his debt of repentance at usurious
rates. Eons. Millenniums. The stars had crossed the sky countless
thousands of times. Civilizations had risen, thundered and fallen,
one after another, and still the debt remained unpaid, the toll of
human suffering grew. If he were a mortal, he could have at least the
comfort of tears.

He looked up at the stars that had been watching him struggle all
these centuries, watching him easily vanquished by Satan. Yet always
they remained little gleams of hope in the darkness. Patience, they
said. Hope.

In the morning he was served fresh bread with preserves and a
large white bowl of tea.

"Strong enough to trot a mouse across," the young
acolyte said as he put down the steamy bowl. "You'll need it.
The wind is out of the west and that means a cool day with rain."

The boy had a heavy Cork accent.

"What's your name?"

"Michael."

"A happy life to you, Michael."

As Father Timothy watched Michael work, there was another acolyte,
a new one, and Michael was teaching him his diurnal duties; together
on their hands and knees, their skirts hiked up they washed the old
stone floor of the kitchen with sopping rags soaked in salty
seawater. Their hands were purple with the cold.

Michael talked and the new boy half listened. The pain in ill his
purple hands must have made him wonder if he had made a mistake
coming here: a lifetime of numb fingers and aching knees.

Michael talked of monastic affairs--which brother had a vile
temper, which was helpful, which was a little strange--and then the
words jumped out like clarion. "Purple aura," Michael said.

Timothy jumped to his feet. The bench fell back and the bowl of
tea tumbled to the floor and smashed.

"I'm sorry," he said. The two acolytes stared at the
broken bowl. Timothy picked up the biggest pieces. "I'll take
care of this," he said.

He looked at the acolyte Michael, unable to frame the questions
that swarmed in his mind. After such a long time--ages of defeat and
failure and wracking loneliness--to hear the two most significant
words in his universe uttered by a stripling mopping a floor was more
stunning than even his angelic soul could contain.

The two boys hastily mopped up the tea and the bowl splinters. And
Timothy realized that it was this matter of a purple aura that had
made all the monks so strange and taciturn. It also probably
explained why their abbot, Father Joseph, was away.

Timothy knew he'd get no more information from the acolyte mopping
at his feet or from any of the others. Father Joseph was the one to
find. The old abbot was away on business somehow involving a purple
aura.

"Where's Father Joseph?" he asked Michael.

"Oh, he's in America," the boy said in his Cork accent,
"with Brother Zebulon."

"How long has he been gone?"

"Oh, a month or more."

"Where in America?"

"Oh, it's a place called Baltimore." Michael looked at
the other boy. "I'm not supposed to talk about it."
 
 

The hawk took note of Timothy, hastening from the monastery with
his mastiff. She knew every gesture of Timothy's, the way he carried
his head, the way he walked, the set of his shoulders, even the
subtlest changes of expression on his face.

And this morning, circling high in the Irish sky, she saw his
agitated gait, his purposeful manner, and she sensed his great
excitement. She turned and flew south rapidly.
 
 

Satan summoned Beelzebub to the Hall of Pandemonium.

"Timothy's on to something," he said without
elaboration.

Beelzebub was immediately interested. "What is it?"

"He's almost running." Satan watched Beelzebub for a
reaction. "He's never done that before. I've never seen him so
excited."

"There's only one thing that can excite Timothy,"
Beelzebub said.

"It can't be." Satan was defensive. "It's not
possible. I never miss."

"Well--"

"I know, I know. His excitement is like an alarm bell."

"Maybe it's a tactic to torment you," Beelzebub said.

"Now, you know as well as I do, he doesn't have 'tactics.'"

"What shall we do?" Beelzebub said.

"You can't do anything. You know that. There's only Timothy
and the dog or me and the hawk."

"And the purple auras."

Satan nodded. "And the purple auras," he echoed. He felt
Beelzebub's eyes searching his face. Of all the fallen host this was
the one who needed the most watching. Beelzebub was always alert.
Ambitious. Always watching the first stumble, the hesitant hand or
the smallest sign of irresolution, of mellowing. If ever Satan's
authority was challenged, Beelzebub would be the challenger. Satan
met his gaze. Beelzebub had been his aptest pupil. Better to reign in
hell than serve in heaven--Beelzebub subscribed to that as eagerly as
Satan did--only he wasn't reigning in hell. Not yet.

"Where is Timothy going?" Beelzebub asked.

"America."

"Oh." And in that "Oh" was the whole unspoken
substance of their talk. If Timothy had somehow discovered a purple
aura and obtained forgiveness then the prediction made by the Lord
would surely come to pass: Timothy would return to heaven. Satan and
all the fallen angels would receive their ultimate punishments.

"I'm watching Timothy with great care, Beelzebub," Satan
said sternly.

"Good," Beelzebub said. "Then I look forward to a
long and happy life."

But would he get it? Every urgent step by Timothy was like a death
knell. As he watched Beelzebub stalk out of the Hall of Pandemonium,
Satan wondered if he was facing his own extinction at last.
 
 

Something was amiss among the monks and the hawk was watching them
with growing agitation.

The first thing she'd noticed was their great busyness: They
seemed to be everywhere on the move, even in the remoter parts of
China. What was more unusual, even the acolytes, who never left the
monastery during their novitiates, were seen far from Ireland,
traveling in pairs. That was something of great significance to the
hawk.

Furthermore, when the monks encountered each other, it was never
by chance. They met by prearrangement, held very brief conversations,
then quickly parted. They moved purposefully at a fast pace, covering
great distances on foot. And also, they seemed to center their
activities around religious places, Buddhist monasteries, Catholic
convents, American Unitarian religious communities. They were
searching for something almost urgently. But what was it?

The hawk's lord, Satan, hated this order in particular. For it was
their practice to preach against him all over the world. On every
street corner, it seemed, they railed against Satan, accusing him of
the most monstrous ways, warning against his seductive corruption,
his unslakable thirst for souls, urging all to believe in his
existence, to reject his blandishments, to save their souls; and too
often the monks were successful, too often snatching souls from
Satan's plucking claws. This order of Irish monks was a bone in his
throat.

The biggest bone of all was also the busiest: Brother Zebulon. The
hawk watched him closely. He was 6 feet 6 and broad as a bull with
heavy muscular limbs and great strength. Satan had tried to seduce
him more than once for he had a thundering voice and great Irish
eloquence. Out in public places he would orate with wit and
vividness, filling his speech with particulars against Satan. He drew
crowds. He was spellbinding. The things he said about Satan made the
archfiend wince with rage. Then Satan's bellows would fill the Halls
of Pandemonium.

What finally caused the hawk to take action was the rule of
silence the monks imposed on themselves one day. Only essential
conversation was allowed. And even their prayers were now conducted
mutely. It was a difficult rule, for they were naturally a garrulous
lot: the rule of silence hadn't been invoked in generations. So when
Brother Zebulon failed to make even one thundering sermon against
Satan in a day, indeed when he failed to speak to anyone at all for
three days running, it was too much for the hawk. She summoned her
lord.

He studied the situation and agreed something dangerous was afoot.
Crisscrossing the earth, whispering to each other in doorways,
determinedly silent otherwise, praying mutely, busy as ants, nearly
running from place to place in and out of religious centers, the
monks were up to something. It was all too suspicious.

"Where's their abbot, Joseph?" he asked. The hawk hadn't
seen him in nearly two months; but then she hadn't been looking for
him.

"How about Timothy? Where is he?" Satan asked. The hawk
didn't know. More than a month had passed since she'd seen him.

Satan pondered the situation, seeking
some precedent for the monks' behavior. But they had never acted this
way before. And where was that Timothy? It was time to find out what
was going on. He selected two acolytes from the monastery as the
easiest targets.

They were both very young, little more than boys. One of them
didn't shave yet. It was October and they were walking through the
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia under arbored trees like cathedral
arches, the yellow and orange autumn leaves in brilliant sunlight
like stained glass windows. Their feet crunched through the fallen
leaves, and in the exuberance of youth they talked softly to each
other as they walked, the rule of silence forgotten. America was a
wonder to them.

Satan assumed the shape of Father Aiden, a very old monk who
rarely appeared at the monastery.

"Well," Satan said in his sternest voice to them.
"Acolytes. Children. What are you doing out of the monastery?"

"We have been sent to find Father Joseph."

"What is your name?"

"Michael." The boy had an unmistakable Cork accent.

"And you?"

"Vincent."

"Why have you been sent to find Father Joseph? Isn't he in
the monastery? He's still the abbot, isn't he?"

"We have a message for him," Michael said.

"Message?" Satan frowned intimidatingly at the two of
them. "What message?"

"It is only for Father Joseph."

"But suppose I meet him before you do?"

The two youths drew aside and murmured to each other. Then Michael
leaned close to Satan's ear. "Father Joseph is to be told that
Brother Zebulon has found a good hiding place for the man with the
purple aura."

In his long life Satan had never been so astonished. He stared at
the two of them, looking from one face to the other. They were too
innocent; it couldn't be a hoax.

Satan gazed about him, at the brilliance of the autumn day, at the
skimming leaves that fell, at the shafts of sunlight that reached
down through the trees; and in the midst of that loveliness, for the
first time in his life, he felt the qualm of dread.

A man with a purple aura. Not a days-old infant. A man. If Timothy
found him first--this man with the purple aura--then Satan and his
throngs would be given their final punishment.

He stared so hard at the boys, his face was so thunderstruck, they
lowered their heads and shuffled their feet.

"Where is this man with the purple aura?" Satan
demanded.

"Don't know."

"Who does?"

The acolyte shrugged. "Brother Zebulon, I suppose."

Satan gazed on them with fury. Insignificant mortal trash. Daring
to conspire against him. And now they had it within their power to
destroy him. Him. Satan. His maddened green eyes dance at the two
acolytes and they backed away in fright.

Satan felt he was an eyeblink away from extinction. The great
alarm bell in the Hall of Pandemonium began to reverbrate through all
the chambers of hell.

He had to find Brother Zebulon quickly.
 
 

Brother Zebulon definitely needed new shoes. It was a commonplace
requirement, for even the stoutest shoes didn't last long on the feet
of a wandering mendicant. And those on Zebulon's feet were
disintegrating. They had been resoled more times than he could
remember and now the uppers were going. Soon there would not be
enough left to attach a sole to.