In addition to the abandoned instruments streaked with gore, beside the operating chair lay a porcelain bowl covered with a towel.David watched with interest as Dr. Mortimer transferred the bowl to the dining table, setting it down next to the microscope.
The surgeon offered: “Perhaps we might dissect the tumors together, Mr. Lazare?”
The boy leapt to his side. “Yes, sir!”
Joseph grimaced and followed his sister.
CHAPTER 47
And it makes no difference how honorable may be thecause of a man’s insanity. … It is disgraceful to love another man’s wife at all, or one’s own too much. … The wise man should love his wife reasonably, not emotionally. … Nothing is more sordid than to make love to your wife as you would to an adulteress.
— Saint Jerome,Against Jovinianus(393)
When Joseph came to visit his sister the following afternoon, he passed Tessa and her daughter in the entry hall.
“She’s asleep,” Tessa whispered.
“Clare, or Hélène?”
Tessa laughed quietly. “Both, in fact.”
Joseph knew he shouldn’t disturb his sister’s rest. He would have to find something—or someone—to occupy him till Hélène woke. Except Tessa was glancing at the door. He lowered his voice even further. “Can you stay?”
Her beautiful features tightened in apology. “That would be unwise.” Tessa looked down at her slumbering daughter. “I’m afraid we’re on our last diaper.”
He chuckled. So much for a tête-à-tête. YetJoseph realized he and Tessa could communicate volumes even without words—now that they were speaking the same language.
I should like nothing more in all the world than to sit with you for the rest of the afternoon,Tessa’s luminous bronze eyes told him. She checked the stairs for observers and squeezed his hand, to make certain he’d understood.
This was enough, Joseph told himself. The caress of their eyes; the embrace of their hands; the marriage of their minds. This was all he wanted, all she wanted. They had no need of midnight meetings in the light of Hélène’s blue lamp.
In Tessa’s absence, he wandered the garden, where the jonquils were already wilting. He pulled up a few weeds. He talked to Prince, who tossed his head and whinnied his displeasure when he realized Joseph wasn’t there for a ride. Finally, Joseph found himself on the threshold of his father’s office.
Joseph had meant to walk past it up the stairs; but the door was open, and he noticed a new painting. It hung between the Holy Family with the nursing Christ Child and Saint Denis reclaiming his severed head. The new painting was aNoli Me Tangere—Do Not Touch Me—representing Christ’s reunion with Mary Magdalene after His resurrection. Joseph had seen manyNoli Me Tangeresin Rome, but none quite like this.
Christ was nearly nude, wearing only a shroud knotted around His neck like a cape and another bunch of linen around His loins like a diaper. He gripped a hoe—in Saint John’s account, Mary Magdalene had mistaken the risen Christ for a gardener. Having realized her error, she knelt at His feet, reaching out to Him in wonder. He denied her, His posture expressing the words of the Gospel: “Do not touch Me, for I am not yet ascended to My Father.”
This artist was certainly a master, but Joseph found the composition oddly sensual. True, in holy art, the Magdalene was usually voluptuous and always surrounded by her luxurious hair. Sometimes, her breasts were bare—or she appeared as she did here, in robes of scarlet, to represent her former life of sin. But somehow, the combination of these elements and Christ’s near nudity, whenHis exposed flesh bore none of the marks of His crucifixion… The landscape behind the couple was simply pastoral, with no hint of the empty sepulchre.
Most of allwherethe Magdalene seemed to be looking—and reaching—disconcerted Joseph: the shadowed center of Christ’s flawless flesh, barely concealed by loose linen… Christ was bundling up His shroud to protect Himself, His hips retreating from the Magdalene even as His upper body leant toward her. He seemed to be wielding the hoe as a weapon.
Joseph supposed these elements were the reasons his father had chosen this painting. Or perhaps the bronze color of the Magdalene’s hair had simply sent Joseph’s thoughts spiralling into sin, and his own wickedness was distorting an innocent painting. Surely the Magdalene only sought to confirm that her eyes did not deceive her, that Christ was real and not a ghost.
And yet…a few verses later, He was inviting Saint Thomas to “bring hither thy hand, and put it into My side.” Christ let His male disciples touch Him. Why had He refused her?
“The connection between them is almost palpable, isn’t it?”
Joseph started. His father had joined him.
His father’s gaze remained on the painting. “Do you think He’ll give in any time soon?”
Joseph narrowed his eyes. “You cannot be suggesting that Christ and Mary Magdalene?—”
“An attractive young man and an attractive young woman, who care deeply about one another and about the same things—why shouldn’t they delight in each other’s bodies as well as each other’s company?” Then his father looked away and sighed. “No. If God had ever truly loved a woman, He would have done something about childbirth.”
“Do you holdnothingsacred?”
“On the contrary, Joseph.Lifeis sacred. What Hélène and Liam have—what you and Tessa could have—thatis sacred. These are divine gifts, fleeting and precious.” His father rounded his desk and opened a drawer. “Tessa is what I have always wanted for you. I certainly wish things had happened in a different order.” His fathershrugged. “But ‘the course of true love never did run smooth.’” He found whatever treatise he’d been seeking. “Tessa will improve you, if you let her. She will make you a better Priest, just as your mother has made me a better doctor.”
