Chapter 2. Fate
“Evil up close?” Here was an unforeseen conversation while the other passengers chattered around them and dusk gave way to night. “What did it look like?”
The old woman pursed her long flat lips and moved them nervously back and forth like a cow chewing cud. “Exactly like a human being. As beautiful as an angel…”
Jacquetta felt a panicky, almost prissy qualm. “There can’t be such a thing as absolute evil,” she insisted. “A soul can always be saved.”
“Oh, there’s no soul involved,” insisted the woman. “It’s a husk. I’m telling you, I saw.”
She fumbled in her bag. “I really must pay you back,” she insisted.
Jacquetta held up a hand. “Oh, you’ve paid me back,” she said, “with your story. Money means nothing to me now.”
The old lady gaped at the raw boned young woman before her, she of the sweeping brunette hair, deep-socketed eyes and medieval nose finished off at the end with three sharp chisel cuts. “Are you…going to DIE?” she gasped.
“Well, we’re all going to die,” laughed Jacquetta. Actually I’m entering a monastery.”
The poor old woman’s jaw almost disappeared into her purse. Jacquetta took pity on her. “I’m going to become a nun,” she said. “It’s a contemplative order, and you’ve given me something to contemplate.”
“I didn’t know that sort of thing still went on,” said the old lady. “You don’t look like the kind of wishy washy creature that life would appeal to. What are you going to do all day…pray?”
“I hope,” said Jacquetta. “Prayer and study. They can reject me, after all.”
“I smell an unhappy love affair,” said the old lady, “and you’re probably a lot more romantic than you look. So you’re going to become a bride of Jesus? Trust me, it isn’t worth it. No man is worth giving up the world.”
Why did I bring this up? Jacquetta wailed inwardly. “Nice old lady” was turning mean and showing an uncomfortable clairvoyance. “I’ve been working the last eight years on a magazine,” she jested, trying to change the subject. “All my wishes came true. I was promoted from secretary to researcher and then to writer. I was feted and adored, offered travel and given more and more work. Interesting work. Believe me, I could use a little peace and quiet.”
She didn’t say, I prayed for my boss to notice me and he did. Oh, he did…
“Last year I was sick to death of everything. I went on retreat at a monastery and it was a revelation. The nuns were so happy! Like you, I hadn’t pictured that. They were preoccupied with something I couldn’t see. They looked past me, as if I were a shadow. It quite literally seemed a heaven on earth.”
“I must say it’s a relief to have a discussion with someone who believes in evil!” snapped the old lady. “I’m tired of being told I’m a leftover has been. Brought up Catholic, were you?”
“I was. Didn’t go to parochial schools though and I wasn’t as religious as my mother. She always seemed –” “superstitious as a pygmy,” Jacquetta had been going to say. Some very, very primitive tribe. “But when I began to read…”
“Ah,” said the old lady, “The Age of Reason. Glad to see someone making use of it instead of consigning the world’s greatest thinkers to the dustbin. So you’re something of an expert on evil.”
Actually, this diagnosis felt horrible. Terminal. She wanted to argue with it and couldn’t. Typically, she tried to joke. “Well, if you’ve lived in the advertising world for any period of time –“
“I might be ready for the monastery myself!” the old lady nodded. “This meeting has been providential. As for me, I believe in Fate. Comes to the same thing in the end, doesn’t it? I wish you’d give me some advice.”
This was more to be expected, and Jacquetta felt herself relax a bit. This was the same thing that happened to seminarians and medical students. Advice. The moment they saw you as a specialist, everyone wanted a free diagnosis.
“Certainly,” she returned, thinking, I love discussing anyone other than me.
The old lady glanced around her as if the demon she feared had the cloak of invisibility.
“Not here. Would you do me the honor of lunching with me tomorrow?”
Alysse Aallyn 