The Child Goddess (14 page)

15

“IT’S NOT JUST
a language barrier, Simon,” Isabel said. She frowned, and her hand strayed to her scalp. “There’s something cultural, too. Something I can’t fathom.” They sat together at the table in her suite. Oa was in bed, asleep almost before her head touched the pillow. They had come back very late from their walk. They had eaten a late dinner, though no one had much appetite after the ice cream feast of the afternoon. Simon had already shown Isabel the highlights of the medicator scan. A half-finished pot of espresso rested between them. Simon expected it to keep him awake too late, but he hadn’t wanted to refuse Isabel’s offer.

“Tell me what happened.”

Isabel said, “It was as if she were confessing something shameful, Simon, something really awful. As if it could be her fault! Or as if she had been deliberately hiding it. She expected me to be angry. I’m certain of that. She was startled when I told her I already knew she was older than she seemed. The tattoos have something to do with it—I guess that’s obvious. But I don’t understand what it is that troubles her.”

“She’s picked up a good bit of English, though,” Simon said.

Isabel nodded. “Well, she seems to understand everything I say. But these words she uses—anchen, and tatwaj—she can’t translate them.” She sipped from her cup, and set it down. “I’m no linguist, I’m afraid. The colony would probably have spoken Swahili, which became a sort of pan-African language in their time, I believe, but blended with Bambara and Old French. I tried these words in a translation program, but I didn’t get any response. It could be idiosyncratic pronunciation, or it could be that the language mutated after the Sikassa emigrated. I can theorize that tatwaj has something to do with the tattoos. Oa was able to explain that anchen means very old, but not why that should be shameful. What written language the Sikassa had was obviously lost, which makes it the more remarkable that Oa was able to teach herself to read as much as she did with the books Matty gave her.” She shrugged, and a fond smile curved her lips. “Children are so quick with languages.”

Simon drew breath, but then he released it without comment. She needed no reminder. Isabel knew perfectly well what the issue was. And perhaps childhood should not be measured only by years of life. Perhaps the failure of Oa’s body to mature meant that her mind, also, would not acquire the attributes of maturity. Along with the wisdom of age, after all, came a certain rigidity, a loss of receptivity. Old dogs and new tricks, he thought, smiling. Oa could never be called an old dog.

“Simon.” He looked up, and found Isabel regarding him with her slender dark brows lifted. “What’s amusing you?”

“I’m just thinking that we may have to reassess how we determine maturity,” he said lightly. “Because Oa may be old, but she’s still a child. An old child.”

That brought on one of Isabel’s glorious wide smiles, her eyes alight, the lines of her face smoothing. “That’s it exactly, isn’t it, Simon? That’s it. Oa is an old child!”

*

ASH WEDNESDAY ARRIVED
as they waited for the board of regents to reconvene. Isabel had called the cathedral on the hill above the Multiplex, the Cathedral of St. James, offering to say the Mass in the absence of a resident priest. She was informed in a chilly tone that the bishop was sending an itinerant priest from another city. The receptionist didn’t say, A real priest, but the implication was clear. Isabel shook her head as she put down the wavephone. Marian would have been furious. Eighteen years . . . She thought of her sister priests, their discipline, their devotion, their self-denial. Centuries of tradition stood in the way of their full acceptance.

Isabel went to stand by the window, looking out over the roofs. Oa came out of her bedroom to stand beside her, letting her little hand creep into Isabel’s as she often did now. The skin of her palm was delicate and warm. Isabel smiled down at her. “Good morning, Oa.”

Oa nodded solemnly. “Good morning, Isabel.”

“Did you sleep well?”

Another nod. “Oa sleeps well.” And after a little pause, “And Isabel sleeps well?”

Isabel did not smile at the error. “Yes. I slept well, thank you.”

And Oa said, “Thank you.”

“It makes me happy, Oa, to hear you speak so well. I’m proud of you.”

Oa flashed her white smile.

Their breakfast arrived, and as they sat down together, Isabel said, “Today is an important day for me, Oa. A day when I go to church to pray and to reflect on life, and death, and rebirth. It’s called Ash Wednesday.”

“Ash Wednesday.”

“Yes. Would you like to go to church?”

“Oa goes with Isabel?”

“If you like.”

“Yes. Oa likes to go to church. With Isabel.”

*

THE CHURCH WAS
different from anything Oa had yet seen on Earth. As they walked in through its tall doors, a bell was ringing with a deep, sweet tone that Oa felt in her bones. The floor was cold and hard, and the ceiling arched high, dim and smoke-stained and echoing. At first she thought there were people standing on shelves set into the walls, and then she realized they were not real, but carved figures wearing long robes and holding curious things in their hands. Little lights flickered below them like tiny lamps. Like the candle Isabel lit every morning for her prayers.

Oa followed the arch of the roof with her eyes, up and up and up, to a circular window set into the very center. Soft light came through the window to fall on an ancient, chipped table. Oa flared her nostrils, and they filled with the spicy fragrance of some burned herb, and the peaceful scent of an old, much-loved place.

She looked up at Isabel and whispered, “Oa likes it.”

Isabel smiled. “I like it, too.”

There were more people in the church than Oa had ever seen at one time, more even than at the tatwaj, when the people of the three islands all came together. She stared, openmouthed in wonder at the variety of them. She saw skin in every shade between Isabel’s pale one and her own dark one, even one or two as dark as Oa, who wore their curling hair short, or wound into elaborate shapes. There were men, women, a few children, who looked at Oa and Isabel curiously. Oa peered shyly past the curtain of her hair, holding fast to Isabel’s arm. Several people smiled and nodded at the two of them. Some glanced at Isabel’s white collar and Magdalene cross, and they narrowed their eyes and turned away. One very young woman, with a baby on her hip, grinned at Isabel and said, “Hi, Mother.” Isabel returned her greeting.

Isabel led Oa to a seat on a long bench facing the center of the church. Matty Phipps sat on the bench behind theirs. Isabel pointed to the white table. “That’s the altar, Oa.”

“Al-tar.”

“Right. Altar. And you see, there beside the altar?” She pointed to the cross, with the suffering figure hanging on it.

“Raimu?”

Isabel shook her head. “I don’t know, Oa. We call it a crucifix.”

“Cru-ci-fix.”

“That’s right.” Isabel knelt, and put her hands together, as she did in her morning prayers. Oa knelt beside her in imitation. Isabel smiled at her, and then closed her eyes and turned forward, toward the white table. And the crucifix. Some people in long robes, like those of the statues, moved here and there lighting candles, spreading a cloth on the table, setting silver cups on a sideboard. All of it together, Oa thought, made a kburi. She almost touched Isabel’s arm to tell her so, but then she dropped her hand. She wasn’t sure.

Isabel opened her eyes, and the two of them sat down. A moment later, a crash of sound made Oa jump. Isabel touched her hand, and Oa relaxed, but it took a few seconds for her ears to adjust to the volume of it, to understand that it was music. It seemed to fill her head right to the brim. The people in robes made a procession up one of the aisles to their places around the kburi—the altar—and Ash Wednesday began.

After a time Isabel left Oa with Matty and joined a long line of people making a slow progress around the altar. When she returned, she bore a smear of gray on her forehead, and she knelt again for a long time. There was singing, and a lot of incomprehensible words. Oa watched the people move back and forth, up to the altar, back to their seats, the robed ones weaving in and out with slow, sure steps. Everyone seemed to know just what to do and when to do it, as if they had performed the ritual many times, and always in the same way. Oa supposed that, as with the tatwaj, they had. The mark on Isabel’s forehead reminded her of the tatwaj, too, although it couldn’t mean the same thing. Of that she had no doubts at all.

They left the church together, with Matty following. One of the men in robes stood by the tall doors, shaking hands with the people who filed past him. He wore the same white collar as Isabel, and he put out his hand to her. “You’re a Magdalene,” he said.

“Yes.” Isabel shook his hand. “I’m Isabel Burke.”

He nodded. “I saw you on the news.” He glanced down at Oa, past her to Matty, then back to Oa. He had kind eyes, she thought. Not brilliant ones, like Isabel’s, but nice. “This is the girl, then?” he asked.

“This is Oa,” Isabel said. “Oa of Virimund.”

“Hello, Oa,” the priest said.

Oa ducked her head. Isabel said, “Oa is rather shy,Father.”

The priest chuckled. “I am, too, Oa. Don’t worry about it.” He released Isabel’s hand, saying, “Mother Burke, the sacristan told me you called. It was generous of you, especially under the circumstances.”

“I’ve missed saying Mass,” Isabel said softly.

The other priest nodded, and bent closer to murmur, “Our bishop is old-fashioned.”

“I understand,” Isabel said. She turned to go down the broad stone steps.

The priest called after them, “Good luck, Mother Burke. I’ll keep you in my prayers.”

“Thank you, Father,” Isabel said over her shoulder. As they descended the stairs to the street, Oa heard her say, under her breath, “We’ll need them.”

*

ISABEL GAZED OUT
the car’s window as they descended the hill to the Multiplex. Spring was in full swing, she decided, though the indifferent sunshine spoke of winter still. But daffodils and tulips had sprung up in window boxes and beds, and buds swelled slowly on the deciduous trees. The Tuscan hills would be turning green under the March sunshine. She thought with a pang of the Mother House, the quiet chatter of the novices clustered on the patio to study, the ringing of the bell for Mass in the ancient chapel. Marian in her office, waiting to hear of Isabel’s success, of the bolstering of the Magdalenes’ reputation.

“Isabel?”

She tore herself back to the present. “Yes, Oa.”

Oa pointed to Isabel’s forehead and whispered, a question, “Tatwaj?”

Isabel couldn’t think for a moment what she meant. She put her hand to her forehead, and when it came away smeared with ash, she remembered.

“Oh,” she said. She turned her hand to show Oa the smudge. “This is ash, which is why we call it Ash Wednesday. Do you know the word ‘ash’? Ash is what’s left when you burn something. In this case, palm branches—that is, fronds of the palm tree. The ashes remind us of our mortality.”

Oa sighed and nodded. “Not-tatwaj,” she said, with an unreadable expression on her face, something like relief, something like sadness.

*

SIMON WAS WAITING
in their suite, and he stood up when they came in. “How was it?”

Isabel shrugged out of her coat. “It was traditional,” she said. “The cathedral is a bit dilapidated, but it’s a beautiful old building. Wonderful bronze doors, and an oculus.” She turned and helped Oa with her coat and hat. “And a nice young priest to say Mass,” she added, hoping she had kept the wryness from her tone.

“Ah.” Simon smiled at her, and she allowed herself to enjoy the warmth that their mutual understanding always gave her. He said, “Do you want some lunch?”

“Not for me,” Isabel said. “But Oa is probably hungry. Are you, Oa?”

Oa had settled herself on one of the chairs with her little reader.

Matty Phipps had brought some new disks from the Multiplex library, and she was spending every spare minute with them. She spoke without glancing up. “Oa is hungry.”

Matty laughed. “Oa is always hungry,” she said cheerfully. “And so am I. How about if I take her down to the kitchens? Okay by you, Mother Burke?”

“Thank you, Matty. You’re a great help.”

“Nah.” She grinned and turned to the door. “Come on, Oa. Food!”

With a glance at Isabel, Oa pushed away her reader and followed Matty.

“I’ll see you soon, Oa.”

Matty grinned and waved as they went out into the hall.

The moment the door closed, Simon said, “I want to show you something, Isabel.”

The table was covered with piles of plastic-sleeved disks, a few scattered hardcopies, piles of flexcopies, and Simon’s computer. He turned the screen to face Isabel. She sat down, and he pulled a chair close beside her. When his shoulder brushed hers, the warmth of flesh and solidness of bone radiated strength and confidence, made her want to lean into him. Sometimes, she thought, her little talent was more a curse than a blessing. She bit her lip to make herself concentrate. “You see this,” he said, pointing to a figure on the screen. “This is the hormone the medicator couldn’t identify.” He brought up a scanning image to overlay on the chart. “And this” —pointing again— “is a small anterior pituitary tumor. It was on the imaging scans, and Adetti didn’t want you to see it. That’s what’s producing the hormone.”

“What is the hormone, Simon? What is it doing?”

“Well,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “As to what it is—give it whatever name fits, because we haven’t seen it before. Adetti wants to call it delayed senescence factor. As to what it does—it’s producingtelomerase.”

Isabel stared at the three-dimensional image, the tiny scarlet cloud Simon had touched with his fingertip. Her heart beat loudly in her ears.

Even the word “tumor” was upsetting. “Benign tumor, Simon?”

“Yes, it’s benign.”

“And what’s telomerase?”

“First you have to know what telomeres are.” He leaned past her to bring up another screen. “Telomeres are the caps that stabilize the ends of chromosomes. Every time a cell divides, its telomeres get a little shorter, thereby dictating how many times a cell can divide before it shuts down.” He pointed to an artist’s rendering of a cell. “Telomerase is an enzyme that lengthens and strengthens telomeres, replacing the bits of DNA lost in ordinary cell division. Cancer cells have a lot of telomerase, for example. It stops malignant tumors from shedding telomeres, the natural process of cell decay and death, and helps make the tumors stronger than the healthy cells around them. Oa’s little tumor is producing telomerase, and a lot of it. It’s interacting with her own hormones in some way that will require more study. And it’s stopping her from aging.”