An Offering: The Tale of Therese Read online

  “Are you stupid?” She kept her voice to a menacing whisper, even though there was no one to hear her. “Tell everyone you are walking into the woods alone, and one of these monsters will follow you. Snap you in two and make you into soup. Or throw you down a well. Or worse.”

  Therese couldn’t imagine anything worse than being made into soup or thrown down a well, so after that, whenever she ventured out to visit, she left with little fanfare. Barely a good-bye from her mother, let alone wishes for a good journey shouted down the street.

  Now she held this back, as well as her other accomplishments, lest Sister Heida think her to be too big and strong of a girl to need her hand held or to hear such lovely words spoken over her.

  “I wouldn’t believe a word of it,” Father Bastian said, glowering at Therese. His hands rested on the fattest part of his belly where the knot rose and lowered itself with each breath. “When would you have had the chance to read, let alone write? You’ve a mother who won’t bring you to darken the church door. I highly doubt she’s seen to any aspect of an education.”

  Therese felt her reply turn iron-strong within her. “I can too. I—”

  But before she could finish, Sister Heida had drawn her blissfully close to her side, and Father Bastian’s opinion lost all merit.

  “I’m going to take her around to the kitchen. This way?” She pointed to a small, unimpressive door at the far end of the room.

  “We’ve finished our breakfast already, Sister.”

  “Well, if you’ve left enough to feed the mice, I trust there’s a crust for this little one as well. She’s not much bigger.”

  If Sister Heida had any intentions of waiting for Father Bastian to grant any more than his grudging permission, she gave no indication. In silence, she produced a small leather pouch, opened it, and brought out two thin copper coins from within.

  “For the poor,” she said, pressing the coins into Therese’s hand.

  “Thank you.” Already she could imagine how the money could be spent. Bread, of course. Maybe a little milk. An apple.

  “Child.” Sister Heida pointed to a plain wooden box on a pedestal near the second set of ornate doors. “There are those who live with even greater need than you. You may keep the money if you wish, but the Lord will bless you for your gift. He is faithful to give to you even more than you give to him. Put the coppers in this box as an offering, and see if he will not reward you. That is—” she turned her attention to Father Bastian—“if the money is properly dispersed. Surely no man of God would take money given by the poor for the poor and use it for any selfish gains.”

  “All offerings here are dedicated to works of charity,” Father Bastian said. “No doubt this little one has benefited from the generosity of our community.”

  “This same community that would lob a stone at a fatherless child?”

  Their squabbles faded behind Therese’s thoughts as she remembered the children who shared her street. Yes, she was fatherless, but others she knew had no parent at all, only an older sibling, or were given over to the tavern keeper to scrub the pots and sleep under the tables.

  The warmth of the coins turned to festering, and she feared they’d sear into her skin if she didn’t give them away. She walked to the box and rose up on her toes to see the narrow slot cut in the top. With silent apologies to her mother, who would surely deliver a blow to her head for the wastefulness, she dropped the coins in, each one producing a faint metallic clink as it landed.

  “God bless you, child,” Sister Heida said. “What a good, big girl you are. Now, are you hungry?”

  “Yes.” Therese’s empty stomach twisted on itself with the promise of food. This time, when Sister Heida offered her outstretched hand, Therese took it with both of hers, ignoring the disdainful sigh of Father Bastian as he gave directions to what was called a refectory. Out the side door, across the courtyard, and then the first door on the left of the long, low structure.

  “The brothers will be coming back from morning prayers,” he said, his voice full of warning. “If they ask, tell them you are here as my guest.”

  “I will,” Sister Heida said with exaggerated diplomacy. She led Therese on the path directed, walking at a clip faster than it seemed her stature would allow. Therese trotted to keep up, often finding her feet tangled in Sister Heida’s robes. The hallway leading out of the church was long and dark. Sunlight from the windows cut high into the wall created perfect squares along the floor, and Therese made a game of stepping from one to the next, feeling the warmth of the tile beneath her feet.

  Then, the courtyard, a bustle of activity, with men identical in dress and manner moving at a languid yet purposeful pace. Some strolled in pairs, hands tucked away within their sleeves. Others knelt in garden beds, raking the soil with short-handled tools. Here and there, one stood in solitude, face turned up to the sun. A few offered a friendly, “Good morning, Sister,” as they crossed, and even more looked at Therese with a sort of affectionate curiosity. Not the same way the men who came to visit Mutti looked at her. She didn’t feel the need to hide or shy away from their gaze. Strength surged through her, its source no less than Sister Heida’s presence at her side. Even if she were to drop her grip—which she wouldn’t—she knew she could walk upright in this place. Nobody here would throw a stone. Nobody here would chase her into a corner with a leering grin and pinching fingers.

  “Good morning, Brothers.” Sister Heida returned the greetings but offered no explanation for Therese’s presence—and asked no permission for hers. With a singularity of purpose, they crossed the courtyard. A plain building with a thatched roof ran the length of it. They walked to the end, rounded the corner, and came to a door propped open to reveal a room filled end-to-end with wooden tables and benches.

  Sister Heida motioned to the closest one. “Here, sit. I’ll fetch something for you.”

  Therese obeyed, for what choice did she have in the matter? She crawled onto a bench and swung her legs around, allowing them to dangle. The table was high enough for her to rest her chin upon it, while her hands stayed folded nicely in her lap. She’d only ever sat at a table when she visited her grandparents, as Mutti had only one chair, which she claimed for herself at mealtime.

  Sister Heida had disappeared through an arched doorway cut right into the wall, and Therese could hear her voice and that of another man on the other side. Nothing harsh, none of the exasperation that had come from Father Bastian. Just low, soft tones, matched in volume, the words of each fitting into the words of the other.

  This is what it sounds like to have a mother and a father. And a home.

  She kicked her legs and turned to rest her cheek against the table. Doing so, she spied another carved image hanging on the wall on the opposite side of the room. This one, however, gave no sense of awe or comfort like that of Jesus Our Lord in the entryway of the church.

  This was a man, stripped bare to only a rag wrapped around his waist. He was thin, ribs showing clearly across his chest, but with well-muscled legs and sinewy arms. The arms were stretched out, his hands twisted, nails protruding from open palms. Another larger nail speared his feet. Therese rubbed her toe on the bare, soft skin on top of her foot and pressed down a little to imagine its piercing.

  The bearded face, twisted in pain, looked out over the tables. A ribbon of thistles wrapped around his head. Therese reached up and gingerly touched the gash on her own brow, finding the blood sticky and dry, but still the source of a dull pain.

  In the moment, her eyes welled with tears, and the first spilled out across the bridge of her nose. The emptiness of her stomach forgotten, she cried not for pain from her own wound, but for what she imagined this man had suffered. His eyes, hooded in agony, sought hers, his mouth open in a silent utterance. What an awful image to look at, especially during a meal.

  And yet she could not look away. Not even when Sister Heida’s cheerful voice summoned her attention, or when a trencher crowded with sliced bread and fruit came in
to her field of vision.

  “Here, child.” Sister Heida nudged her shoulder. “Sit up and eat. See the feast I have prepared for you.”

  In an instant, hunger dominated again, and Therese rose, her eyes filled with the food before her. Bread, yes. Four thick slices. And a wedge of cheese, and what she now saw to be a pear sliced to reveal juices to rival those forming within her cheeks.

  “And a cup of milk soon. Our brother is fetching it from the cellar. There would be porridge, too, but it had gone cold.”

  Therese wanted to say that she would have gladly eaten cold porridge, as it would hardly be the first time. Sometimes when Mutti made a pot, it sat on the table for days, congealing into something that had to be broken with the spoon and softened again in water until it became nothing more than a gritty gruel. Instead, she said only, “Thank you. This looks delicious,” and was reaching for a slice of bread when Sister Heida gestured for her to wait.

  “First we give thanks to God, because he is the provider of all things.” Then she touched the tip of her finger to her brow, her breast, and to the places where her wimple touched her robe on either shoulder, saying, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, we thank you for this provision of our daily bread. Amen.”

  Therese had seen such prayer before; even Mutti, in the nights when she thought Therese asleep, would kneel at the bedside and cross herself repeatedly, tearfully pleading to some unknown force to forgive her sins and save their lives. And her grandparents, too, long ago. This, however, was the first time she’d been invited to join in, as Sister Heida prompted her to say amen.

  “Amen,” Therese said, surprised that she could speak when her mouth was so full of hunger.

  “Now, child. Eat.”

  The bread was coarse, but rich with a sweet, nutty flavor. One bite of it, followed by a bite of the salty cheese, and Therese felt herself nearly dizzy with satisfaction. A monk, identical to all the others she’d seen, with his hair shaved clean at the top of his head and a plain brown robe, came in with a wooden cup filled with the promised milk. Therese feared she would have to pause in her eating to ask yet another blessing, but Sister Heida nodded her permission as soon as the cup was set on the table. Therese took it in both hands, careful not to spill a single drop, and swallowed three big gulps before reluctantly setting it aside. In truth, were she given the choice between the next breath of air and another great swallow of the cool, delicious drink, she would gladly face unconsciousness in return for satiation.

  Between each bite of bread and cheese and fruit, her eyes drifted to the image on the wall.

  “Do you know who he is?” Sister Heida asked, taking—with Therese’s permission—one of the slices of bread.

  Therese shook her head, knowing she didn’t have the words to communicate the familiarity of the man. A deep instinct knew him to be Jesus on the cross, but she only knew the phrase as one spoken as a curse in anger. The sight of this suffering, bleeding man had no connection to the angry words spat in the streets and alleys of her home.

  “He is our Lord and Savior.” Sister Heida repeated the motion, which Therese now realized replicated the cross.

  “The same as the other one?” Therese pointed in the vague direction of the church’s front door.

  “The same.”

  Therese looked up into the hooded eyes that now seemed softer in their gaze. “What happened to him?”

  “He died. He was killed, crucified. Nailed to a cross.”

  “Why?”

  “To make a way for all of us to go to heaven when we die.”

  Sister Heida turned her attention to a bowl of warm water that had been delivered with the cup of milk. She plunged a clean white cloth into it and began dabbing at the wound on Therese’s temple. Though it stung at first, soon the washing brought comfort, so much that she wasn’t the least bit alarmed to see the cloth tinged pink with her own blood.

  “Now, young girl, you know stealing to be a sin.”

  “Even if it falls to the ground?”

  Sister Heida smiled and wrung out the cloth in the bowl. “Maybe not so much. But the person who threw this rock at you—God be with them—thought you to be a thief. A sinner. And this rock was thrown as punishment.”

  She refolded the cloth, exposing a cleaner surface, and resumed her ministration. “People who sin cannot go to heaven. They are punished for eternity when they die.”

  Therese felt her eyes grow big, feeling pain with the expression. “With rocks?”

  “With fire. But Jesus—he took our punishment on the cross. All the stones that would ever be thrown. So that we are all forgiven. And we can go to heaven.”

  “Only those who are baptized.” The voice of Father Bastian destroyed any sweetness in the room. His wheezing breath had gone unnoticed behind the beauty of Sister Heida’s words.

  Therese winced, wanting to look away in shame, but Sister Heida tucked a finger under her chin and forced her to look straight ahead. Once satisfied that Therese would not waver, she took a lock of the girl’s hair and began to sponge it clean.

  “Such a bully you are.” Sister Heida spoke to Father Bastian but kept her eyes locked on Therese. “Anyone can be baptized.”

  “But not all are.”

  “And whose fault is that? Those who reject the Christ? Or those who refuse to show even a portion of his mercy?”

  Therese felt a tugging within her, as if Sister Heida and Father Bastian had each reached a hand through her rags and through her skin and clutched a bit of her insides. Keeping her head held high, she glanced down to see the strands of hair splayed out in Sister Heida’s palm, dark with the washing of the water.

  “I wish I could be baptized.” The words came with the soft conviction of a long-held motivation rather than a thought newly born. “But Mutti says I can’t because I haven’t got a father. She says the church—” here, she looked straight at Father Bastian, as if he himself had made the decree—“wouldn’t take us. Turned us away at the door like dogs, and she hasn’t been back since.”

  “Perhaps if she’d come for confession,” Father Bastian murmured.

  “The sins of the mother belong to the mother. Will you turn away the lamb who wishes to be brought into our Savior’s flock?” Sister Heida softened her voice and placed a folded square cloth over Therese’s wound, securing it there with another length of bandage stretched across her forehead and tied beneath her hair at the nape of her neck. “Don’t you see how precarious life can be for this little one? Even this morning, hunger, violence. Suppose she’d suffered real harm?” Now her voice dropped to a whisper. “Suppose no amount of water or breakfast could heal her? And here she is a little soul wanting to be brought into the Church. Would you deny her?”

  Father Bastian, who until this point had been a silhouette against the sun in the doorway, walked toward them, his sandals silent on the floor. He stood behind Sister Heida and said, “Child, tell me your name.”

  Therese looked up, feeling smaller than she’d ever felt, and obeyed.

  “Your family name?”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Father.”

  “Your surname. The name you share with your mother and father.” He shifted uncomfortably when Sister Heida turned to glare. “Your mother, then. And her parents.”

  “Heinrich?” Therese wished she could be certain of the answer. She knew only that her mother referred to her parents as Herr und Frau Heinrich when she was particularly angry at their mistreatment.

  “Very good.” Father Bastian said. “Tell me where you live and I’ll send one of the brothers to fetch her, and we’ll make plans for your baptism.”

  “No!” Therese nearly leapt out of the seat, stilled only by Sister Heida’s restraining hand. “Mutti says never to come back and disturb her once I’ve been sent away. And what’s more, I don’t think she’ll approve.”

  “Of course we’ll not disturb her,” Sister Heida said. “Did any of those baptized by Saint Peter need t
o come to the waters with their mothers’ permission?”

  “I don’t know,” Therese replied, sincerely confused. She kept her focus on the sister’s kind face, blocking out the mound of brown wool behind her. “I don’t know anything. Only that I will die someday. And when I do, I want to go to heaven.” She turned and looked once more at the figure on the wall. Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, whose eyes now invited her.

  “It was our Lord,” Sister Heida said, “who commanded, ‘Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.’”

  “Very well,” he said. “Bring her to the altar.”

  Though Father Bastian showed no enthusiasm for the promise to come, Therese felt a burst of a joy she couldn’t identify. At Sister Heida’s bidding, she quickly finished the meal set before her, tempted to tuck the final piece into her apron pocket until being assured she would be given provisions to last the rest of the day. While eating, she allowed Sister Heida to finger-comb her hair and then plait it into a loose braid.

  “Such a pretty face you have, Therese. Now that it’s washed clean.”

  Satisfied, Therese hopped from the bench and thanked the monk who came to clear away the trencher and the cup, earning more praises for her good manners, and ran to the door, slowed only by Sister Heida’s admonition that they were in the house of the Lord—even if it was the kitchen of the Lord—and must maintain reverence throughout the place.

  Keeping an easy pace at Sister Heida’s skirts, Therese traversed the courtyard with a new sense of belonging and entered the massive building through the side entrance at a brother’s direction. Once inside the dark hallway, her very breath took on a hush, and she clutched at Sister Heida’s voluminous veil until her eyes could become accustomed to the shadows.

  “Through here.”

  A final, nearly black passageway, and Therese emerged into a place grander than her imagination could hold. Vaulted ceilings so high she feared her neck would snap as she strove to see to the top. The very air was full of color as light streamed in through tall windows made of stained glass, each depicting the image of a man, some with rings of gold above their heads. Row upon row of gleaming benches stretched the length of the narrow center of the hall. Dotted throughout, men and women lifted their heads in curiosity. Therese stood at the front, on a platform twice the width of the aisle that loomed in both holiness and power. At its center, a structure like a large, solid table, with intricately carved images of the figure she quickly recognized as Jesus, Our Lord and Savior, holding a gold-painted goblet in his hand, with men lined up on either side, hands held open to receive.