Chapter 5 #2
things,” he said. “I don’t know. It could have all been fine—it could have been there with its mother and we just didn’t see her, with its family, and it was just making a fuss for everyone
to hear. It could have been an animal, maybe. It could have been a trap. Bait. You have to be careful out there.” He paused,
searching for words. He exhaled. “It was probably what you think it was.”
“And that’s just something that happens?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “And I don’t see how it couldn’t happen, sometimes. Especially this time of year.”
“I mean, we could have done something.”
“I don’t think so.” Simon’s voice was hollow like I had never heard it before. “We don’t know what kind of state it was in.
We wouldn’t have been able to take it with us. I don’t even know if Lincoln accepts foundlings. It’s most likely that it came
from here anyway. Stepping in and helping in those cases isn’t . . .”
Reasonable? Meant to be? Simon didn’t say and instead let silence drip and gather.
I tried to keep my expression blank, tried not to seem like I knew any better or had some futureman, utopic vision of humanity because I didn’t.
I had delusions of a moral high ground I could have tapped into, something condescending and self-soothing, but I said nothing.
I joined Simon’s unanswerable silence and in doing so, let my idea of human life—the brass tacks function of our bones and brains—recalibrate.
The chattering trill of a magpie sounded from somewhere outside the cathedral. Something smaller and braver chirped in return.
The sun was already making its way back to this side of the planet. In silent agreement, Simon and I stayed where we were,
there in the nave. We sat in the pews and over the next few hours watched the black stained glass windows fade to pure blue,
their stains of red, green, and yellow slowly coming to life. Faces awakened and I realized my way of seeing had been permanently
altered. With no TV, no films, no easy reservoir of human representation to tap into besides what I could see in front of
me, I felt real fear as the figures in the windows came to life with daylight. Apostles, saviors, and virgins all awakened
as sentient, shimmering creatures and I felt an animalistic sense of fear tickle me, right at the back of my neck, making
me blush, skittish as if exposed, weak as if the stone walls were an imposing god’s giant hands about to slap together and
squash me—and the conflicting sensation of wanting this to happen, of wanting to be crushed. The only thing I can compare it to is a feeling I once had in Italy, on a trip
I had taken with my boyfriend early in our relationship, where I had felt a similar, destructive awe.
“This reminds me,” I suddenly said. My voice was a croak.
I cleared my throat. The sudden noise jolted Simon awake and he looked at me with his regular eager self, eyes wide and blue.
I didn’t know what I was saying but I needed to say it, to let the pressure out of what I was feeling.
“Back in my old life,” I began, “I had a boyfriend.” I let that drop.
Simon had no reaction. “And early in our relationship, we took a trip to Italy, which is a place—”
“In the Mediterranean,” said Simon.
I smiled. “Right. Sorry.” I decided to stop translating every little thing and continued. “This Italy trip was the only big
trip we ever did together, everything after it was just beach holidays to Spain with his friends. But in those early days
I think we were both trying to be something for the other, trying to show off.” I tried to describe the overwhelm of expectation,
both of us trying to impress each other—him with some DJ friend he wanted me to meet in Naples, me with my inability to be
intimidated by Italian. I remembered old train station walls plastered with laminated signs, broken ticket machines, asking
Americans for directions to Pompeii. “We did a day trip there,” I said. “It was a billion degrees, I got sunburnt. We spent
all day there and even stopped at Herculaneum on our way back to Naples, like we were trying to overculture each other, even
though we had probably both watched the same travel videos to prepare the itinerary.”
We were annoyed with each other by the time we arrived at the Herculaneum complex, hungry and hot.
We argued about getting audio guides or not, why we hadn’t thought about lunch, whose idea it was to go to Herculaneum the same day as Pompeii anyway.
We blazed through the complex. I felt nervy about all the arguing we were having—we had been together less than a year, we were both about to turn thirty.
I wandered alone to the very bottom of the archaeological site, to the boat docks, where hundreds of screaming skeletons frozen in volcanic ash had crammed the docks, trying to escape.
I gazed into their empty eye sockets and felt the cheap horror, but what I remembered most was turning around and seeing the hundred-foot wall of solid rock they were up against—what their city had been buried under.
Long grass grew at the bottom. The wall was pink and purple, stained in places with moisture.
It was the purest form of hopelessness I had ever witnessed and it washed over me like a boiling wave.
My boyfriend came over and I pointed out the rock wall left over by the volcano, but he was more drawn to the skeletons. We
took a tasteless photo together, we returned our audio guides, bought a chocolate bar, but I couldn’t shake the presence of
that massive wall. I felt it in the back of my mind for a long time after, almost like a hidden shame, like a desire. It had
been such an anomaly of destruction, how could you do anything but surrender? I wanted it to envelop me.
“I swear,” I said to Simon, “if Mount Vesuvius had been any closer, I would have thrown myself right into it. I wasn’t upset
or anything, I just felt the overwhelming impracticality of being there, being up against something so enormous. I wanted
it to bury me. I guess it was awe.” I went silent, surprised by how real the feeling was when I acknowledged it out loud.
“Anyway, that’s what this place reminds me of. It just feels like it’s about to swallow us.”
“Well, I hope not,” said Simon. He put his hand against one of the gothic pillars and gave it a comical shove. “Seems pretty
sturdy to me.”
I smiled but my awe was not eased. I almost proclaimed this was the biggest building I had ever seen, but of course that wasn’t
true. I laughed at how acclimatized I had become, my wherewithal no greater than any peasant scurrying under the stained glass
gaze of angels.
We stood up and stretched, yawned, nudged each other along.
We went to the guesthouse to find our travel companions and some splatter of breakfast. We ate and rested in the churchyard while magpies thieved about and the city thrummed to life.
We gathered our things for the final stretch of our journey, and all the while I still felt that destructive awe, the gravity pull of the cathedral.
Like light pouring through stained glass, I felt the eyes of monsters on me as I stepped further into their world.