The Pilgrimage

Peter returns to his home village in Moravia.

The Pilgrimage

 

                Father Husak shook his head. “I am sorry your Excellency. I have never heard of a Maria              Benes.”

                The bearded gentleman smiled. “I'd be surprised if you had. You're new here, aren't you, father?”

                “I've been here since Father Tomisek died three years ago.”

“Then there would be little reason for you to know of Maria Benes or her children.”

“Is that why you've come here, your Excellency?”

“She was my mother.”

“Ah.” The priest thought for a moment. “Some of the older people might remember her.”

              The stranger and his wife, a young, brown-haired woman, sipped their cups of coffee. Their Excellencies claimed to be from Canada. Being an educated man Father Husak knew it to be one of the British North American Colonies. He had often warned his parishioners about emigrating to such outlandish places. Not many people had talked of Canada though. Almost all the talk had been about America and the great war that had been fought there. Father Husak admitted that he knew little about such things. What he did know was that this Doctor MacTavish spoke the Czech as if he were native born and so it seemed, he was. The son of this Maria Benes he had been born Josef.

                                  ***                                  

                The old woman frowned.  At least she appeared to be old, toothless and grey-haired. She was not even fifty. Natasha Janacek had not had an easy life. “Maria Benes? I haven't thought of her in years. No one has.  Why do you ask, father?”

                “I'm not asking. His Excellency is.”

                Natasha peered at the stranger.  Her eyes were not as strong as they used to be and she was too poor to afford spectacles. Many summers and winters had passed since she and the other village girls had played beside the river. As she looked at the silent bearded stranger sitting at the priest's table she saw a face she had not seen for a quarter century. Perhaps it was the hair or the shape of the face. Some things are never forgotten.  “Josef Benes.”

                The stranger looked down at the wooden floor.

“What do you know of Maria,” asked the priest.

“You are from America," Natasha asked Josef. "You went there with the old baron. He has been dead all these years.” She crossed herself.  “There was a war there, in America.”

“Yes.”

“A terrible thing; war.”

“Pray to God that it doesn't happen here,” said Father Husak.  “About Maria?”

The old woman ignored the priest. “You were in the war?”

“Yes I was there, as a doctor. Not as a soldier.”

“Ah. You have seen many die?”

“Too many. What do you know of my mother?”

“I too have seen many die; sons daughters, husband and friends. Some die quick. Some so slow you don't even see it.” She fell silent for a moment. Then her rheumy eyes seemed to come alive with a soft blue fire. “At four Maria could read.”

Josef shook his head. “Don't lie to me, old woman.  She couldn't read.”

“She could when she was four.”

“How could a woman read at four and not as an adult?”

“Perhaps she had no reason to. When we were little girls she took me into the church. When the knez wasn't looking, she showed me her name in the bible, Maria. She knew the letters and what they meant.”

Father Husak protested. “A child so young could not understand…”

“I know what I saw Father. Her aunt, your great aunt Sophie believed her to be possessed of the devil, to have such skill at that age. For years, Sophie tried to beat it out of her, locking her up in a cupboard, whipping her until the blood seeped through the back of her dress. So Maria stopped reading. She even stopped knowing that she had ever been able to read.  You don't think it's possible, do you?”

Peter thought of the woman that he's once known, the w***e, her hair dirty and bedraggled, eyes listless, sitting for hours on a stool in front of the fire ignoring the whimpering of her hungry children. “Possible yes but why?”

“What would Sophie want with a girl who could read? Reading meant time away from the kitchen, time away from the animals, time away from cleaning the house. Besides, there was no school for any of the girls. The priest took a few boys but why would he take a girl? So Maria learned not to learn. You were her son. You knew what it was like.”

“Why did she become what she became?”

“The people said she was possessed of the devil. Her uncle Jiros, that pig….”

Peter frowned but said nothing.

“She could not have been more than fourteen. He made her with child. Forced or willing, I don't know. I know what her aunt called her. What they all called her. What they called her is what they made her.  Even now, I can see Sophie dragging her screaming and sobbing through the village street. She left her at the overseers, said he could take care of the w***e.  Pan Dombrowski let her stay in an old hut in the forest. She could live there if she did not make trouble.”

“So she became a w***e.”

“She had to live.”

“My father was Jiros?”

“Does it matter? They are all dead.”

The old woman shrank into her thoughts. Peter rose and placed two gold thalers on the table. “My mother told me that her aunt and uncle had sent her into the forest because of me. That was true.”

She looked up at him. “No.”

“Then why?”

“The hatred between Jiros and Sophie began long before your mother came to live with them. It swallowed her as it swallowed them. Now, God willing, it is gone.”

                           ***

Nothing remained. The last sight of his home had been burning ruins. Trees and grass had smothered the charred wood and earthen floor.  He was not even certain at first that it was the correct spot. The trail almost disappeared after years of disuse but something had led him back, the sound of the stream, the sight of a familiar tree. They had led him a*s unerringly as the feel of the water of his home stream leads a salmon. “It was here” he said turning to the priest. “This was my home, such as it was.” Somewhere in the brush lay three graves. “I want a cross.”

“Excellency?”

“You hire men to clear away the brush. I want crosses over the graves with their names. Will you do that, father? And a mass. They should have a mass.”

“Yes, of course but wouldn't you like to supervise the work yourself?”

“No. As long as I know it's being done that's enough.  Write to me in Canada when its finished.”

“Of course. When will you leave?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Where will you go?”

“Home.”

***

The boy stood beside the road staring at the coach. His feet were bare, his trousers ragged.

    Peter looked down at him from his seat as the coach passed. Behind the boy was a small herd of pigs and a gaunt bearded man in a sheepskin coat. Peter thought of calling out to the driver to stop. He would run out of the coach and take the boy away from this place.  Even as he thought it the boy, the pigs, the pig keeper disappeared in the dust of the road. Maggie placed her right hand on his.

      Looking down at it, he turned away from the window.

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