Read Online Men and Angels by Mary Gordon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mary Gordon
Tags: Romance
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complete rewiring. Laura had made an appointment with him for Saturday, when Anne would be around to talk to him at length.
Everything was working out extremely well. It was simply that Anne didn’t want a stranger in her house. She was ashamed at her own unreasonableness. She needed help, and certainly Laura did not intrude. She was quiet; she spent a great deal of time reading. Anne knew she had no right to ask her to read in her bedroom instead of the living room.
She sat on the couch and read the Bible. In Anne’s inner life there were no grounds that could allow her to accept her unease about this. Nevertheless it made her uneasy, and she was afraid that Laura sensed it. Laura was sensitive, Anne knew, for she was homeless, and she had the sharp or, rather, limpid understanding of the thoroughly displaced who earn their place by knowing what will be the next thing to occur. What had happened to her parents? Anne knew there must have been something, some clear damaging event, for Laura didn’t speak of her family.
It was hard to say what interested Laura. She was devoted to the children. No one, Anne felt, had ever before satisfied Peter’s enormous craving for attention, had given him so much that there was enough for Sarah’s more modest appetite without making him feel starved. And Laura was fond of doing needlework. She was making a pillow cover; she was duplicating, on her own, the pattern of the pillow on the couch, a Shaker tree of life, which Anne loved and whose ragged dull condition she had, in Laura’s presence, mourned. Yet she was also working a large and simple pattern of Minnie Mouse on a shirt of Sarah’s. And she gave no indication that one piece of work pleased her more than the other. She’d seemed surprised when Anne suggested it was only out of kindness that she did Sarah’s shirt, that the Shaker pattern must be a particular pleasure, a particular satisfaction. Work, beauty, those abstractions one can apply to tasks only after reading many books—what did they mean to a girl like Laura? And what was in her mind as she sat reading the Bible?
Anne knew that it was like no reading she had ever done; what Laura was doing wasn’t really reading. She was doing what she did not to get information, or for pleasure, or to get ahead. She was reading, Anne could see, to keep her place. Or perhaps there was something more to it. Anne had never understood the religious life. She could be moved by it when it led to some large public generosity—the worker priests, the nuns in El Salvador. But there was another side to it she couldn’t comprehend. People had religious lives in the way that people wrote poetry, heard music. She had read, in the course of her education, since she had been interested in medieval art, the writings of the mystics. She understood that they lived in the desire for something like beauty, and that they had experienced something like creative inspiration. But it was something like and something like. What it was, finally, she could come in no way close to.
That was what disturbed her, watching Laura read the Bible with the same expression on her face as she had when she embroidered the tail of Minnie Mouse. Was she experiencing something great, something profound? What made Anne uneasy was that she didn’t know what Laura was doing, sitting there appearing to read. Some other life was going on, and Anne had no access to it. So it disturbed her. Yet she couldn’t ask Laura to read in her room. Finally she wrote to Michael. He answered the moment he got the letter, teasing her for her hesitation, telling her of course she must use the study, it was foolish for the best room in the house to go to waste.
How unsatisfactory both those letters had been, like all the letters between them. How much had been left out! The feel of the room, its air and weather, the physical truth of her sense of usurpation—it was in her shoulders that she felt it; if she had been with Michael and
Everything was working out extremely well. It was simply that Anne didn’t want a stranger in her house. She was ashamed at her own unreasonableness. She needed help, and certainly Laura did not intrude. She was quiet; she spent a great deal of time reading. Anne knew she had no right to ask her to read in her bedroom instead of the living room.
She sat on the couch and read the Bible. In Anne’s inner life there were no grounds that could allow her to accept her unease about this. Nevertheless it made her uneasy, and she was afraid that Laura sensed it. Laura was sensitive, Anne knew, for she was homeless, and she had the sharp or, rather, limpid understanding of the thoroughly displaced who earn their place by knowing what will be the next thing to occur. What had happened to her parents? Anne knew there must have been something, some clear damaging event, for Laura didn’t speak of her family.
It was hard to say what interested Laura. She was devoted to the children. No one, Anne felt, had ever before satisfied Peter’s enormous craving for attention, had given him so much that there was enough for Sarah’s more modest appetite without making him feel starved. And Laura was fond of doing needlework. She was making a pillow cover; she was duplicating, on her own, the pattern of the pillow on the couch, a Shaker tree of life, which Anne loved and whose ragged dull condition she had, in Laura’s presence, mourned. Yet she was also working a large and simple pattern of Minnie Mouse on a shirt of Sarah’s. And she gave no indication that one piece of work pleased her more than the other. She’d seemed surprised when Anne suggested it was only out of kindness that she did Sarah’s shirt, that the Shaker pattern must be a particular pleasure, a particular satisfaction. Work, beauty, those abstractions one can apply to tasks only after reading many books—what did they mean to a girl like Laura? And what was in her mind as she sat reading the Bible?
Anne knew that it was like no reading she had ever done; what Laura was doing wasn’t really reading. She was doing what she did not to get information, or for pleasure, or to get ahead. She was reading, Anne could see, to keep her place. Or perhaps there was something more to it. Anne had never understood the religious life. She could be moved by it when it led to some large public generosity—the worker priests, the nuns in El Salvador. But there was another side to it she couldn’t comprehend. People had religious lives in the way that people wrote poetry, heard music. She had read, in the course of her education, since she had been interested in medieval art, the writings of the mystics. She understood that they lived in the desire for something like beauty, and that they had experienced something like creative inspiration. But it was something like and something like. What it was, finally, she could come in no way close to.
That was what disturbed her, watching Laura read the Bible with the same expression on her face as she had when she embroidered the tail of Minnie Mouse. Was she experiencing something great, something profound? What made Anne uneasy was that she didn’t know what Laura was doing, sitting there appearing to read. Some other life was going on, and Anne had no access to it. So it disturbed her. Yet she couldn’t ask Laura to read in her room. Finally she wrote to Michael. He answered the moment he got the letter, teasing her for her hesitation, telling her of course she must use the study, it was foolish for the best room in the house to go to waste.
How unsatisfactory both those letters had been, like all the letters between them. How much had been left out! The feel of the room, its air and weather, the physical truth of her sense of usurpation—it was in her shoulders that she felt it; if she had been with Michael and
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