from the tyranny of stratigraphy
Father Robert was slender. Just a tall wispy man with hair thinning above a round and shiny forehead. He sat in the only armchair at the head of the table, leaning over two tall piles of well-handled paper, in the rectory dining room. He was new to the parish, having been transferred only four months before. The Nun’s responded to him with the mixture of caution and respect that they reserved for all of the transferred Priests which seemed to come and go with unfortunate frequency. The arc of fortune of their school had reached its apex and had been in the descendance for quite some time. This was due to a change in the demographics of the small mountain town in which the church and the very small school were situated.
None of the Priests they had received were true horrors, of which they’d only heard rumors. All had minor faults which had caused them to lose their prior positions and had brought them to Saint Mary’s of the Assumption. Most, on arrival, were apathetic to the extraordinary needs of the school and attempted to find another placement as rapidly as possible.
Father Robert was different. His great fault had been of faith. Oddly enough, it wasn’t an absence or questioning of faith which led to his soft spiral downwards through several parishes, each less well funded than the prior. It was an overabundance of faith. He tended to see, instantly, remarkable solutions to each of the increasingly large problems which arose in each of his assignments. He generally set about implementing his solutions without clearing whatever budgetary commitments were necessary with his immediate supervisor. He was of the private opinion that his only supervisor was God.
His file was littered with correspondence from him to whomever above him had been alerted to his present financial crises with the closing remark that “I’m sure that God will provide.”
Invariable the populace of the parish had failed somehow to receive the appropriate message and fiduciary shortfalls rapidly developed. Saint Mary’s of the Assumption was, for Father Robert, a last chance.
The four Nuns, one in jeans and a loose Indian-print shirt: batik with elephants crossing at the bottom, and the three entirely ensconced in the characteristic black, sat in the hard high-back chairs. The one in batik, Sister Rebecca sat beside him. The three in black sat opposite him.
“The averages have apparently been falling in every class for the past three years,” said the Father. “This is systematic, every single class.”
He raised one of the papers, adjusting it, moving it back and forth and tilting it to better catch the light from the window. The room was dark, paneled in a high false mahogany wainscot with dark green floral paper above it, and was poorly lit by a chandelier of sorts hanging above the table. Only one of sixteen small tear-shaped bulbs was glowing.
Look at this,” he said, “This boy, Miguel Dominguez. He’s in your homeroom, Sister Rosemary.” He glanced out across the top of the paper at the Nun seated in the center of the three in black. Sister Rosemary nodded slightly in acknowledgment, her eyes focused on the back of the paper which Father Robert held.
“We have three paragraphs, and in those three paragraphs are one, two, seven, eight sentences. Well this last is not entirely a sentence. I suppose. And in those seven sentences are one, two, three, ten, eleven spelling mistakes and one, two, four grammatical errors. This excludes entirely the questionable sentence.”
A sustained silence followed as the Father looked at each of the Nuns and each of the Nuns looked away. As the Father returned to shifting the papers form one pile to another, Sister Mercy Wisdom, sitting on the left of the three Nuns in black and looking as if she were about to stand and take leave of Father Robert said, “What can we do? Over a third of the children are now Mexican and we continue to have trouble. We’ve taken lesson after lesson. But Father it is difficult, very difficult after forty.”
All of the women nodded and then Father Robert nodded as well, returning his gaze to the paper in his hand.
“There is only so much you can take from a lesson anyway. The dialects. There seem to be several and when I’ve learned a little I still can’t understand. And then I don’t use it and soon enough, I’ve lost it. I’m just lost sometimes. Often I’ll be asked simple questions – I think they are simple questions – and I’ll have no comprehension whatsoever.”
“Perhaps someone in their community could help us,” Father Robert replied. The two sisters who had spoken looked at the father with a barely hidden look of disdain. Disdain for the obvious. This same suggestion was raised by every new Priest within four or five months of his arrival.
Sister Rebecca spoke as if reading a list, looking at the piles of paper, shifting her gaze from one to another and back again as she landed on each of the salient points.
“The State requires a teaching certificate and the teacher’s union requires membership. We could operate without the approval of the union but that would limit our ability to find teachers who could fill in now and then. Even if we exclude the union issues, the teaching certificate for the right courses and the right aged children would be required, even if she were only an assistant, and there are a bevy of problems with that.”
“Mustn’t they be certified to teach in the same language, the language the children speak.”
”No,” sister Rebecca replied. She was smiling. “The only language in this State is English. Other languages simply don’t exist, legally. And anyway, if knowledge of Spanish were required we’d certainly be in a pickle wouldn’t we. We’d have to shut the doors.”
Father Robert smiled a humble smile of acceptance.
“Couldn’t parents simply sit in,” he suggested.
“We’d have to pay them. That is the real dilemma. These people are not wealthy. Every penny counts. Often three and four families living in a two-bedroom apartment. We can’t pay them because of the state and the union. No certificate. No money. Citizenship is a big factor too. Maybe one out of three have citizenship. That means that one out of three can drive and one out of three can get a legal job. That one gets the other two hired and drives them to work. You take one parent, who meets all of the State standards, in here to teach English, and there aren’t that many parents with good English, and you take at least three out of the work force. They all work. I’ve had third graders who worked full time jobs after school.”
“Perhaps we could exchange tuition. Maybe with a large family we could offer tuition to several in exchange for a commitment just through the school year? How about labor? We could offer a husband payment for painting the rectory or paving the parking lot and along with it his wife could work for us for a little while. Something slightly under the table.”
Sister Rebecca looked at the Priest as if he had suggested an obvious but ridiculous scheme for a bank robbery. He sat straight up in his chair and looked back at her with his head turned away for a moment with the expression of a scolded child.
She said, “The tuition for all of the Mexican kids is pretty much entirely subsidized through the general fund; and all of the buildings are painted and the lots are paved by parishioners willing to donate their services.”
The last of the Nuns in black spoke, interrupting the silence which had fallen over the room like a descending mist after Father Robert had shifted his chair back and away from the piercing stare of Sister Rebecca.
“I’ve a specific problem.”
The Nun who spoke was Sister Marguerite. She was seated furthest from Father Robert and had always sat furthest from whomever the residing Priest had been for the past two years, since she had arrived at Saint Mary’s. Her head was invariably bowed in a manner connoting respect for the person who was addressing her, but the gesture was more intended to conceal a minor facial tick which arose whenever she was considering a response to a question. Her lips stretched tightly and moved tremulously at the margins, as if chewing on the answer. The other Nuns considered it something of a wonder that she was a successful teacher because of her disturbing shyness. She simply rarely spoke and in all of her discussions with Sister Rebecca she had never once made eye contact.
Whenever Rebecca had appeared in Marguerite’s classroom, the quiet Nun had, on noticing her, assigned a long writing project and had gone to the back of the classroom, as far away from Sister Rebecca as possible and had leaned against an unused desk, very clearly waiting for Sister Rebecca to go away. The thing that all of the Nuns found peculiar was that none of Sister Marguerite’s students complained and performed well on all of the statewide tests. Sister Rebecca concluded that she must have a personality which she only is willing to share with companions less than twelve years old.
Sister Rebecca and the other Nuns had discussed Sister Marguerite’s condition often and concluded that it must have been related to some form of abuse by adults in the course of her childhood. Many hints had been laid before Sister Marguerite in unveiled attempts to get her to discuss the provenance of her condition but thus far to no avail.
The other sisters turned quickly to her. She had never spoken at one of these meetings. Sister Rebecca contemplated the way Sister Marguerite had put up her hair and considered it mousy.
“Yes, Sister,” Father Robert appeared to be greatly relieved to be on to another subject. He smiled gently and continued to no-one in particular, “a momentary alleviation of a perpetual worry. I’m sure God will somehow provide.”
With this he turned his attention to Sister Marguerite.
“I’ve a boy that, well, who sings,” sister Marguerite said this and then stared in an intent though blank way at the single lit bulb of the chandelier reflected in the dark surface of the table.
“A boy who sings? How is this a problem? It is encouraged. I will notify that Mrs. McCartle. Another child for her good works, ” said the Father.
“I’ve a boy, a Mexican boy, Hector Velencia, who sings invariably at two o’clock and ten minutes every day.”
“Does he sing well?” Father Robert asked.
“What does he sing?” Sister Rosemary interjected.
“As you know, I begin American history at two. The singing began about two weeks ago. I’ve interspersed all of the Mexican children. They used to sit all together in a large clump and simply look at their hands while I was speaking. Now I’ve mixed them in with the other children; and some of the Mexican children, at least a few, are looking at me, looking up, at any rate, while I’m speaking. I’m not at all sure they can understand anything I’m saying.”
“What does he sing?” Sister Rosemary interjected again.
“It began just after I interspersed the Mexican children. I’ve put Hector with three American girls. All of them are fine girls. None are of that heritage. Of course that doesn’t matter. But it appears to have had an effect on the boy. I get exactly ten minutes into my lecture and up he pops. He never consults a wristwatch or the wall clock. He doesn’t wear a wrist watch of course. He seems to be one of the poorer Mexicans. Always dressed in one of two rather large suits which only barely could be excused as meeting the dress standards. I’ve always felt a real soft spot for the ones who just can’t save up enough to send their children to school in proper uniform. It must be just awful to see them out the doorway everyday, and to know that because of the size of your paycheck that they will be just a little bit humiliated or maybe just ashamed in front of the other children.”
“Yes, and what exactly does he sing?”
“He stands very still and stiff. Very upright. He’s kept very clean. Not overly dressed as I said. Not even appropriately dressed. Just barely appropriately I guess, cleanly dressed. You know when I was a girl I was never really well dressed either. It didn’t bother me because I was a child and you know sometimes children just haven’t learned to pay attention to that sort of thing yet. But it must of bothered my parents terribly. I never realized until seeing this boy with the singing. For some reason it brought me back to, well, to way back in elementary and middle school. My parents never went to school to see my teachers because I was an acceptable student. And I’m thinking now, for the first time, because they must have been embarrassed about the way I was dressed. They must have realized that everyone knew we were poor. The funny thing is that I did not. God provides for the children doesn’t he? Each day the alternate suit has been cleaned. His mother or sister or something must wash his clothes everyday.”
“Perhaps he does,” said the Father – being sensitive to a prejudice he had noticed as soon as he had arrived, where the sisters invariably favored the female Mexican children. His voice was edgy, not edgy as if he were nervous or afraid, but edgy in that he was astonished, as were all of the sisters other than Marguerite. He had heard the Nun speak a few times and it had never amounted to more than three or four words put together. She somehow found something in this topic which released a torrent of exposition.
“Yes, and what exactly does he sing?” Sister Rosemary was becoming animated and a little angry with having her question unanswered for such a long time. Sister Rosemary was a very good woman. But she was direct. She enjoyed efficiency. For this reason she had informally managed the financial accounts at the Church through the last seven Priests. She was forewarned about Father Robert and as soon as she noticed his interest in the language problem with the Mexican children she’d begun to go out into the community in a maladroit attempt to solve it before he could address it in a manner requiring expenditure. Her every meeting failed because she and the Mexican parishioners seemed to operate on vastly different personal schedules. Every meeting she that expected to take five minutes took an hour or two and when she had left she sensed that the family had been offended at her leaving early.
“All of the Mexican children look up at the boy. Instead of down at their desks as they usually do. And I’ve noticed that some of them are starting to sing softly with him while he sings. At first they just, some of them, actually very few of them, just moved their lips along with him. Mainly the boys. But now even the girls are beginning to sing softly, almost inaudibly along with him. I’m worried that this could get out of control. But, at the same time, I have to admit that I’m a little thrilled to see the Mexican children expressing themselves as openly as they are. They are usually so timid.”
“For how long does he sing?” asked Father Robert.
“He sings the same song. I don’t know. It isn’t very long.”
“But what does the boy sing?” Sister Rosemary now was obviously agitated. She was half standing in her seat and had turned to stare openly at Sister Marguerite.
“I don’t know. I’ve written the beginning of it down. As all of us know, I’m only beginning to learn the language.”
The Priest wiped his brow with a gray handkerchief stitched with a rudimentary cross and an only remotely discernible portrait of Christ, the gift of the mother of the most advanced of the Mexican children, removed from a pant pocket as he leaned back in his chair and extended out his legs beneath the table.
“So I have no idea if what I’ve written is correct,” Sister Marguerite continued.
“What does the boy sing? For the pleasure of all of us, please do tell us, please do tell us now, what does the boy sing?” If Sister Rosemary wasn’t smiling in an apparently fixed and painful way she would have looked to be furious.
Sister Marguerite shuffled forward in her chair and slowly removed and unfolded a small piece of paper from a deep pocket somewhere inside her jacket and beside her ample bosom. She read in a broken faltering voice with no attempt at following the rhythm the boy had used. At the end of each short segment of verse she nodded quickly and in the affirmative with a tiny smile, as if validating that what she had written and what the boy had sung approximately coincided.
“Mexicanos,
Al grito de gwera
El assero aprestad e d breedon
E retiemble en soos sentros la tiera
Al sonoro rugir del canon.”
That was the first of three stanzas that she matter-of-factly read without comment. Then she said, “It goes on even more, quite a bit. That’s less than half of it. And some of it he sings more than once. You know. It must be a repeated chorus.”
She refolded the paper and put it back in her pocket.
“I’ve no idea what it means,” she went on. “There is a clear reference to an archangel, I think. Otherwise I suspect, from the words I can make out, its somewhat violent. He appears, otherwise, a good boy. A fine child. Not entirely appropriately dressed. Very quiet.”
“We should figure out what he is singing,” said Sister Rosemary. “What if it is something the other children shouldn’t be hearing? He could be intentionally singing something as a way to infest the rest of them with a bad feeling about the school or something.”
“It couldn’t be,” Sister Marguerite replied. “He’s not that sort of child. As a matter of fact, none of the Mexican students in my classes are like that at all.”
“Well we should certainly sort this out,” decided Father Robert. “Could I have the paper?”
Sister Marguerite responded by clutching at the outside of her jacket where the paper was buried. Then she nodded, saying, ”No.” She paused, clearly formulating what she wanted to say. “No,” she repeated.
“I’ll look into it myself.” She looked at Sister Rosemary, who sternly glanced back at her and then at the Father.
“By the next meeting,” Sister Marguerite said softly and to no-one in particular, “I’ll contact the parents of the boy myself. I’ll need the keys to the Honda for an afternoon this weekend, preferably on Saturday.” She smiled at the Father in a reserved and careful manner – somehow feeling comfortable, as if having identified a soft chair which fit her contours ideally, at the rectory table, for the first time in her short experience at St. Mary’s of Assumption.