XII

The Saint

AH, LOIS!" EXCLAIMED THE OWNER. "I've been waiting for you!"

The old woman ran up the steps like a teenager, with her arms outstretched, then paused with a shocked look on her face, and fell to her knees. "Master!" she cried. "I'm so glad finally to be here!" She reached out impulsively and embraced his legs. Laughing, he raised her up.

"You don't have to hold on; I'm not going anywhere. Ever again. You remind me of Mary Magdalene." He held her at arms length and looked into her eyes. She tried to avert her gaze, but found herself fascinated by his look, and finally returned it, blushing with embarrassment. "What are you afraid of?" he laughed. "Don't you know me?"

"I don't--I don't know what to say," she faltered, her eyes still captives of his. "I know that face so well! I never saw it before, and it's completely different from what I thought it would be, but now that I see it, I've known it all my life. . . . You know, I always wondered what this moment would be like, when I met you face to face for the first time. And it isn't the first time, is it?"

"Far from it," he said. "We've been together for years and years."

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she put her arms around the owner and sobbed against his breast, "I was so afraid! I was af--afraid I'd never make it! I'd even be--begun to wonder whether there even was such a place, and wheth--whether you really existed at all! And I--and you were there all the time, weren't you? And--what am I doing?" she suddenly cried, aghast, pushing herself away from him; but he held her and with his hand kept her head upon his chest.

"What are you doing? Just exactly what you should be doing. I'm your husband, Lois; you know that. My home has been in you for a long time now, and you've found your home in me, which is why you know me." He held her head and looked again with amusement at her face, streaming with tears. "--And there's no need any longer to beware of any impulse you have; every one now is exactly what it ought to be."

She put her hands over his and said, "I thought there was supposed to be no weeping here, and look at me!" she laughed. "My heart is going to break with joy!"

"It is a bit overwhelming at the beginning, isn't it?" he answered. "But don't worry; it will all be familiar before you know it."

"I'm not sure I want it to be. --And to think it will never end! That 'and they lived happily ever after' isn't just for fairy stories! I can't believe it!"

"You don't have to any more."

She put her head on his chest again. "You know what bothered me most back there? That all this--what you promised--was too good to be true. I mean, it all made sense, and what else did? But I couldn't help thinking, 'Are things really that neat? Does everything really work out for the best? Open your eyes. It can't be true; it has to be just a legend and a myth to make weak souls able to face life. Reality isn't that way.'"

"But it is, of course. Why shouldn't it be? It's the weak souls, actually, who give in to the temptation of believing that, because they want something to be a certain way, this proves the opposite. There are different kinds of wishful thinking."

"But it's so easy to do that, because so many awful things happen--and we do so many awful things to each other! When I think of what I've done to some people, I can't bear it! I don't see how I can live with the thought! I mean, I didn't so much mind suffering myself; it's the suffering I've caused others I can't stand."

"But Lois, don't you know even yet? You have never done anything to anyone except exactly what they needed to reach their own happiness. How can you think I'd let you--or anyone else--actually harm someone I love?"

She backed away a little and looked up at him. Emboldened by his expression, she said, "Well, you have a funny notion of what helps people, then."

"You know why that is?"

"Why?"

"Because you people rejected me. It meant I was to save all of you by using the sentence you handed down and by dying on the cross. But the punishment of mankind for that rejection is that instead of removing suffering from your life on earth, your rescue must now come through sharing the cross--because it's the cross that saves you."

"You mean that if we'd accepted you as our king, none of us would have had to suffer?"

"Or die. Or be able to harm anyone, even temporarily. I tried to tell you while I was with you--and I showed you in every way I could. But nobody took me literally. I simply couldn't convince people that to accept me meant not to die or have disease or suffer. I failed."

"We failed."

"Well, that's true too, of course. But you didn't know what you were doing, really, and so it was a redeemable failure. But what it resulted in is that everyone is saved through failure. The cross is not so much suffering as failure, and because of your rejection of me, success comes only in failing."

" How strange. But I guess it makes sense. I always hoped it was something like that, actually, because I've never really done anything right. It used to bother me so much! It isn't even that I tried my hardest and didn't succeed; I didn't even try very hard, most of the time."

"That's true; but you can see that it doesn't matter, does it?"

"I know. Here I am! I can't believe it! And even there, after a while I got resigned to it, and told you, remember, that I wanted, more or less, to do the right thing; and I asked you to take that and see what you could do with it."

"I remember."

"And do you remember when it occurred to me? I was meditating on the stations of the cross, on the one where you fell the third time, and the thought came to me, 'He didn't do a very good job carrying the cross, did he?' And then I realized that you weren't even carrying it. Simon was. You couldn't carry your own cross! So how could I be expected to carry mine?"

He smiled. "It took a while to get through to you with that. You used to be so concerned, and feel so guilty, over things that made no difference. No one can carry his cross by himself; and to reveal that, even I had help, and still fell."

"So I didn't need to worry, really, did I? In spite of the mess I made of things."

"It doesn't really matter what you do on your way here, but what you try to do and what you want to do. That's what builds your room; I take care of everything else."

She thought for a moment. "--But can I know how the damage I did to other people actually helped them? I mean, I love them all so much, and--well, it'd ease my mind if I knew how they were. Especially if they realize now that I didn't really want to hurt them."

"Oh, yes. You'll meet all the others who are already here out in the garden; and they'll tell you all you want to know about their lives. You don't want to be hearing it retail from me."

"And there's so many others I wanted to be able to do something for and--in a way, I was sorry you called me this early, even though I almost couldn't bear not to be here, because I didn't get done half of what I wanted to. Am I making sense?"

"Dear Lois, you've barely begun your work. Single mothers will be looking for your help for thousands of years."

"Oh, I hoped so so much! They need so much help!"

"Your concern for them doesn't stop with the ones you had direct contact with. You'll see. When you get to your room, you'll find an album full of all the lives who have been enriched because you chose to care about them."

"People I don't even know!"

"You will. And they'll know you. They'll be asking for your help; you'll see. And since you and I are the same, you will be able to help them because I will be helping them in you."

"How wonderful! When can I start?"

He smiled. "You've already started; and you've already finished, and the work will continue forever. There's no time here."

"You see? It's too good to be true!"

"No, Lois. It's too good not to be true. This is my world, remember. And I made everything good. But before I show you your room, there's someone who said she'd like to meet you right away; and I've never been able to refuse her anything."

They entered the door, and on the other side, with her arms outstretched, was a woman, clothed with the sun, with a crown of twelve stars on her head. She reached out and took both of Lois's hands in her own and said, "It's so wonderful to see you here, Lois! We have so much to talk about."

"My Lady--" she began.

"Mary," returned the other. "I am no one any more than you are. Why should we be formal, when we've spoken together so often already? We've been practically a team, after all, haven't we?"

"Well," faltered Lois, "I did ask if you'd speak to your Son for me quite a bit."

"It does my heart good to have somebody remember that I actually care," said the lady. "Of course,"--looking at the owner--"he does everything, but he likes to have cooperation, doesn't he?"

"The more the merrier," said the owner. "And you know perfectly well, Madame, that the desire to cooperate with me comes from me, because I am in you and you are in me--just like me and my Father."

"Of course, child," she said. "Whoever would say anything different? What are we? But that's neither here nor there. When you get settled in your room, Lois, I'd like it if you'd come into the salon over there where I live. There have been a couple of requests that I'd like your help on."

"Really? --I don't know what to say. I'd be ever so happy to do what I can. But--"

"And you'll be amazed what you can do, now that you're here. But don't let me keep you now. You'll be wanting to see your room."

"Thank you, my Lady."

"Mary. Just Mary. And don't thank me. Thank him."

"Oh I do, --Mary. I thank him so much!"

"Well," said the owner. "But I want to see your face when you see your room. So come this way."

The woman waved and Lois, looking back at her, made her way up the stairs to a room just off the balcony. The owner put a key in the paneled door.

"This?" she said. "But I don't--what's that noise?"

"You'll see," he said as he flung the door open, and a small black and white border collie dashed out and leaped into Lois's arms. He kept licking her chin as she leaned her face back away from him and squirming so violently she could hardly hold him. "Frodo!" she cried. "Frodo doggie! I missed you so much!"

"The rule," said the owner, "is that we were to wait for things like this until all the rooms are claimed and we move the mansion back to the other country after we've finished remodeling over there. But as a special favor to you, and because you loved him so much, we thought we might bend the regulations a bit."

"This is heaven!" she exclaimed, and then looked into the dog's eyes. Suddenly, she found herself looking back at a blurred image of her own face, and filled with an ecstasy of pleasure so great that she could not keep any part of her body still. She turned her head toward the owner, and things became normal again. "That was what he was feeling, wasn't it?" she asked. "I always wanted to know what was going on in that little head!" The owner nodded.

The dog gave a particularly violent squirm, and she put him down. Immediately he dashed into the room and through the French doors out onto the wrought-iron balcony, and flew down the stairs into the garden beyond, ran at top speed around a blue spruce in the center, back up the stairs, jumped up against her, and began the circuit again.

"He'll dig up all the flowers!" she cried, running out onto the balcony after him.

"Don't worry," said the owner, following her out into the Spring-fresh air, full of the scent of tulips and roses. "He couldn't even if he tried; and he won't try."

"I could never break him of that. As soon as our back was turned, he'd go right into the garden and flop down right on top of the flowers. It was the soft ground, I suppose."

"Well, we have our little ways here."

She looked out over the landscape. "How absolutely lovely!" she cried.

"Well, we have quite a few expert gardeners who come here, you know; and as soon as they get here, they're itching to get out and tend to the grounds."

She looked over at him. "So it's not just you. We make this place too."

"Of course. No one is idle here; no one wants to be, especially since you can't get tired any more. We didn't make a place where you sit back and have things happen to you; our place is a place where you do all you ever wanted to do." He added, with a smile, "And succeed, for a change."

The dog, by this time, had worked off the frenzy of his delight. He trotted up the stairs and into the room, where he flopped down on the small oval Oriental rug in the center, and let out a sigh of absolute contentment. Lois and the owner, arm in arm, followed him inside. She looked around at the enormous room, with its ornate fireplace and mantle of carved ebony, on which ticked an ormolu clock.

"But this is much too much!" she exclaimed. "I don't need all this! I'd be afraid even to sit in these chairs."

"Oh, I don't think so," said the owner, running his hand along the silk brocade of the back of the sofa. "After all, most of this furniture was what you yourself picked out."

"I did? But I never really even paid attention to things like this! You know that. I was poor as poor, and perfectly content to be poor, as long as I could get my work done."

"Exactly. And that's what built all these riches--because you, of all people, can appreciate them for what they are. Go ahead. Sit down."

Gingerly, she sank into the soft chair beside the fireplace. The owner said, "You don't have to worry about appearing proud; relax. It's yours because it fits you. Everything fits everyone. It's as hypocritical to pretend you're less than what you are as to pretend you're more than what you are."

"I suppose," she said dubiously.

"Everyone finds that living here tends to need a bit of getting used to. It's never quite what anyone expects, even though it's what they've been preparing for all their life. But it is comfortable, isn't it?"

"It's certainly comfortable," she said, her hand caressing the satin of the chair's arm. "But you're right; I'll have to get used to it. Like you. It's strange to have my Master sitting over there just as a friend."

"Much more than a friend, my darling."

"That's what I mean. It's right, but--but it's so strange." The dog came over and lay at her feet, with his chin on her left shoe. She reached down and patted him.

"You'll settle in, never fear. Look how soon Frodo has."

She looked down at him again and got a dog's eye view of the room, suffused with a feeling of peaceful contentment. She stood up, "But you mustn't let me keep you," she said. "You must have a million things to do."

"I have all the time with you you want," he said. "There are no distractions here, and no duties; we all do everything we want, and never have to leave one thing for another. But you haven't really looked around the room yet."

She walked about. "I know; I was so overwhelmed. I still can't believe it! And look at all the vases of flowers you've put around for me; it's as if the garden invaded the inside!"

"Well actually, I didn't put those there. They're gifts and mementoes from your friends. There's a tag on each one."

She picked up one of the tags. "'With the deepest love. Welcome. Julie.' Julie! I haven't thought of her for years! Is she here?"

"Oh yes, she's been here quite some time. She was overjoyed to hear that you were coming today; but when she put the vase on the table, she seemed to think that the room wasn't quite adequate."

"That's Julie, all right. Nothing is ever too good for the people she takes a shine to."

"And nothing used to be quite bad enough for the people she didn't," added the owner, voicing the thought that came unbidden into Lois's mind. "I'm happy to say that she's moderated that attitude a good deal. She told me to be sure to tell you to drop into her room as soon as you'd got everything straightened out here."

"I can't wait to hear how she's been," she said, moving about the room, looking at the vases and reading their tags. "But they all want to see me right away! How nice of them! And such lovely bouquets! --Who's that?" she asked, stopping in front of what looked like an ornately framed portrait. "Do I know her? Such a beautiful young woman!"

"That, Madame," said the owner, "is a mirror."