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"Dies Irae"
© 2008 by Walter D. Reimer (Fr. Augustus Merino SJ courtesy of EO Costello.) Saint Anthony’s Church Meeting Island, Spontoon February 18, 1912: Augustus Merino sat up in bed suddenly. Breaking glass and a heavy thump eclipsed the sounds of the night breeze and the calls of various insects. The crash and tinkle of glass shards awakened the ram, who rubbed sleep from his eyes before looking at his bedside clock. It was hours before dawn and the wind coming into the room from the lagoon was chill and damp. Despite the weather, the occasional mosquito still whined around the netting that guarded his bed. After a few moments to shake the last of the sleep from his mind the ram got out of bed, slipped on a robe and went to investigate. A cricket bat stood beside the bed, but Merino had never needed to use it. He had wrestled on the varsity team at school, and for diversion while in the Jesuit seminary at Fordham, and was still quite fit even though he was in his forties. In fact, he had managed to repel two toughs who one night had tried to help themselves to the communion service. Afterward he had prayed that their bruises might teach them what school had failed to do. His office in the rectory now sported yet another broken window, the chunk of brick sitting atop his desk. The second one this month. He sighed and lit the oil lamp beside the desk, then examined the piece of hurled masonry. A hastily scrawled note in a childish paw was wrapped around it, and it warned him to leave while he still could. Some wag had appended “Continued on other brick” at the bottom of the note. Merino sighed. He had arrived in the Spontoons just a few short months before the last of the British colonial administration had departed Meeting Island, leaving the remaining non-natives here and on Accounting and Plantation Islands to shift for themselves. Over the past decade or so most of the natives had been content to either leave their former overseers alone and a few had even apprenticed themselves, wanting to learn more about Western ways. There were a few, though, who wanted any one who wasn’t a native to get out. And stay out. He set the brick aside, placed the note in a desk drawer and examined the hole in the window. It wouldn’t need much patching – just a piece of oiled paper secured with gum until he could afford to get new glass put in. After the British had left the local economy had largely collapsed until five years ago when the island’s government, a council calling itself the Althing, had started opening the atoll up to trade. Money and jobs had started to increase, but some things were still a bit hard to come by, or were very expensive when available. The Althing had also started slowly encouraging non-natives to move off the larger islands to the north and south and live on one of the smaller islands within the central lagoon. Most had been quite happy to take the hint, and for a while the size of his congregation had swelled. Last year, though . . . Pirates had started raiding the Spontoons, seizing money or goods – or even people. Some were just destroying things seemingly for the sheer pleasure of destruction. Merino finished pasting a piece of paper over the window. It would hold until the morning. He went back to bed, a paw brushing at a mosquito that got too close to his right ear. The morning, Sunday, dawned bright and cheerful and the ram prepared to celebrate Mass. Saint Anthony’s was the oldest church on the islands – well, the oldest Christian church – and had seen its congregation dwindle somewhat since the end of British rule. Still, Sunday High Mass was still well-attended. Nearly thirty parishioners were regularly in attendance, with a few more on Christmas and Easter. And not all of the congregation were Euros (the term had come into prominence about three years earlier, as a riposte to the degrading word ‘Spoto’ that some still used when referring to the Spontoonies). He had more tact than that; in all his years here he had never used that demeaning term, and likely never would. He had just started vesting himself when he heard running feet, followed by a pause in which the hedges near the rectory garden gate rustled. He suppressed a smile and said as the door opened, “Good morning, Orrin. Decided to sleep in?” He turned to face a fox kit maybe ten years old. “Aw, nah, it ain’t like dat, Fadder,” the todfox said, barely winded from his run. “Ma was late wit’ breakfast, see?” “She was? Will your brothers and sister be at Mass today?” Orrin Brush, christened Francis Xavier to honor the greatest Jesuit missionary in the East, nodded. “Kara an’ Ma’re gettin’ those two knuckleheads cleaned up.” Merino nodded. He liked the Brush family, although he strongly suspected that the oldest child, the sole daughter in the family, was the smartest of the kits. Purely native born and bred, they spoke the same English as the first Brush had when he jumped ship off a whaling vessel a couple generations back. Orrin’s native name was Karok. So was his father’s name, but he had been named ‘Ignatius’ in order to keep Euros from getting confused. “So why was your mother late getting breakfast ready?” “She an’ Pop was up late helpin’ out.” “Oh? Helping whom?” The tod hurriedly smoothed down his apricot-colored fur and started to don the traditional garb of an altar boy. Struggling into the white vestment he said, “Dere was anudder village burnt out. Pirates, I t’ink I hears Pop say.” Merino frowned at that. The Brushes – at least, Orrin’s family; it was almost a given that they were related by blood or marriage to every other fox on Spontoon - lived in the highlands of the main island. To have another village attacked so close . . . “Was everyone all right?” “Guess so. No one got killed, so I hears Pop say.” Orrin’s grandfather had been a village watchman, then a constable in the colonial police; Ignatius had also joined the colonial constabulary and had simply stayed at his post while the British moved out and the Althing took over. The Brushes were in police work mainly to keep the location of the family still secret. Merino had never sampled what translated into English as ‘sour cocoanut popskull,’ but did appreciate it for its disinfectant properties. The ram entertained the hope that Orrin, growing into a powerfully built teenager, would live up to the promise of his breeding and follow in his father’s footsteps. Perhaps, though, not too closely. Merino sniffed. “Have you been smoking again, Orrin?” A guilty flinch from the fox. “Just one after breakfast, Fadder.” The priest frowned. Orrin had acquired this from his father. “I won’t have your habit smelling up your vestments, Karok.” At the sound of his real name, Orrin flinched again, recalling the old adage that one doesn’t anger the servants of a god. Any god, native pantheon notwithstanding. “As a penance, you can carry the censer today. Paul will carry the crucifix,” Merino said, referring to the second of his two attendants for today. Paul, a slim feline who had already finished vesting himself, grinned. Orrin resisted the urge to wrinkle his nose in distaste. The incense used in the censer always smelled like burning shoes to him. “Sure, Fadder.” After lunch he was working in the garden behind the rectory, carefully tending the hedges and flowers left to him by his predecessor at the church. Old Father Wolff had shown him everything at his disposal, made sure that he was well-acquainted with his parishioners, and then had left for Germany and a comfortable retirement. Merino worked diligently in the garden, mindful of the story that one Jesuit, back near the Order’s founding, had been washing dishes when the word came that he had been elevated to the papacy. Manual labor was a ministry, as well. “Hello, Father!” Well, so much for the latest from the Conclave. He dusted off his paws carefully before standing up. “Good afternoon, Mr. Mahoku. A very fine day, isn’t it?” The rabbit, brown-furred and just as strongly built as Merino, smiled broadly. Edmund Mahoku was a member of a powerful clan on the western end of the main island, and had been educated by missionaries on Plantation Island. He had also quite deliberately taken a Christian name, much to (or so Merino heard) the chagrin of his elders. He had also learned certain other things from the non-natives who lived here and ruled the place. Some of those things usually caused Merino to bristle. Mahoku had started acquiring properties left behind by some of the Europeans as the colonial government had shut down, and had made himself relatively wealthy selling or leasing them back to the Althing. The Althing (again, so he’d heard, usually in confessional) were grinding their collective teeth at Mahoku’s machinations, but so far his family name had been enough to forestall any direct action. So far. “Oh, a very fine day indeed, Father,” the lepine said as he straightened his tie. Among his affectations was his penchant for wearing a suit no matter how hot the weather would get. It was sometimes comical to watch. “How’s your garden doing?” Despite his personal feelings about the rabbit, the ram smiled. “Everything’s growing quite nicely, now that I finished clearing away the debris from that storm last week.” The rabbit nodded. “Yes, that was a big one, wasn’t it? Sorry to take you away from your gardening, Father; I was on my way up to Xia Ping’s. I’ve had my eye on the place for a year now, and I think I can get old man Xia to sell.” “Is he interested in selling?” Merino asked. The elderly Chinese man who ran the small restaurant had always loudly – and profanely – refused to either abandon his business or sell it to anyone. The bear’s words had usually been backed up by the impressive cleaver he wielded in his right paw. Mahoku’s smile faltered, only for a moment. “Not yet, but I think I can persuade him.” For an instant, Merino saw the rabbit’s smiling mask slip, and he definitely didn’t like what he saw. It had been bad enough that certain ‘Euros’ had blatantly exploited and mistreated the natives without having their own emulating Western ways. The rabbit smiled again and, with a wave, walked off. Merino regarded the bed of flowers at his feet before turning away and crossing himself, reciting one Hail Mary for allowing Mahoku to irritate him. He’d been a priest for nearly twenty years, but still hadn’t quite achieved a state of grace. He was still hopeful, though. Later in the afternoon he heard confessions, seated in the cool darkness of his booth and listening patiently to those whose souls were burdened. Prominent features of daily confession were the same pair of middle-aged widows, both of whom seemed to have the most astounding tales to tell him. Usually having to do with exceptionally well-built and younger specimens of the men who labored in their gardens or looked after their business. While he would disapprove and impose penances, Merino had also been trained to rationalize some aspects of human frailty. So he was disapproving. But not too disapproving. After the evening service and his supper he liked to take a walk around the island, talking to those who made the place their home. Meeting Island had once been covered by dense jungle, but the trees had largely been stripped away to make way for shops, stores and the occasional colonial administrative building. Most of the latter were made of brick or native quarried stone and had been taken over by the Althing; the rest were basic clapboard construction that Merino fancied were similar to towns of the Old West. Saint Anthony’s, though, had been built of stone since the British had felt that a church needed to show permanence. The thick walls and narrow windows betrayed the builder’s European origins. A cathedral it definitely wasn’t. “Why don’t you go home?” one elderly woman had challenged him in accented English. “Go home, priest-in-skirts outlander.” He had gotten used to people referring to his cassock as a skirt; he merely doffed his hat to the canine femme and continued on his way. He passed by Xia Ping’s, the place still doing some business as the sun went down, and Printer’s Lane where most of the administration had done what bureaucracies everywhere had done – shove papers around. All in all, despite the attitude of the natives (the Althing had sent representatives to him, challenging his right to stay in the church and hinting that the building might be seized and himself deported), and the depredations of the various pirate bands over the past months, it was a nice place to live. The pirate raids had been getting worse, though. Many times he had been awakened or his devotions disturbed by the sounds of distant gunfire, and every time he had rushed to the sound to render what aid and comfort he could. He’d gotten rather good at first aid. Usually he arrived only in time to administer the last rites to the dead and dying. There were those who looked upon him with open disapproval and even hate for his actions, but he was under a higher Authority, Who demanded that no one come before Him unshriven. Still, he sometimes wished he could do more. ***
Several nights later the church shook under him and nearly threw him out of bed. Merino threw on his cassock over his nightshirt and grabbed his cricket bat. In hindsight, he would later laugh at himself for his reaction. A bat was no use whatever against bullets or cannon fire. The heft of it in his paw comforted him a bit, though. There was a red glow outside the windows that he didn’t like at all, and he ran to the door of the church to see what was going on. He jerked the heavy wooden door open and gasped. The scene was almost one out of Dante. It looked like the entire northeastern quarter of Meeting Island was in flames. As he watched there was an explosion and a fireball lofted skyward, followed by a suggestion of a warm breeze on his face. Groups of furs ran past him, carrying their belongings and shepherded by a canine with a rifle. “Move along there – oh, sorry Father. I’m with the Militia,” the hound explained, “and we’ve got orders to move all the able-bodied off the island and onto Main.” “But what about the sick? The old?” The ram was aghast at the implication in the man’s words. The canine gave a helpless shrug. “It’s our orders, Father. We don’t have the time to move everyone; these bastards came at us too fast for the lookouts to raise the alarm.” Merino’s thoughts raced, and he came to a decision. Gather them in. “Spread the word,” he declared. “Anyone who cannot get off the island is to come here, to the church.” The man blinked at him. “Are you sure, Father? I mean, these guys don’t look as if they’d respect you anymore’n they’d respect – “ “I mean it, I mean every word. And I don’t care,” and he reached out and grabbed at a familiar figure, the goat who served as the church’s sexton. “Where are you going, Phillip?” The caprine goggled at him. “I’m getting out while the getting’s good, Father!” “No, you are not.” The ram glared at him and the goat stood there. “I want you to go around and round up everyone who can’t make it to the main island. Bring them here. The walls are stout enough to hold up.” He spun the goat around and assisted him on his way. With a foot up his backside. “Go!” Phillip went. The militia canine looked dubious. “I don’t know, Father – we won’t be able to help you – “ “No need, my son. Get everyone else to safety, and God go with you,” and he signed the cross over the fleeing group. The canine shrugged. “Warrior-Shield be with you, Father,” and he shouldered his rifle and loped off. An hour later Phillip returned with a group of perhaps fifty people behind him. “These are all I could find, Father Merino,” he said. “Some didn’t want to come, an’ I had no way of makin’ them.” The ram nodded. “I understand, Phillip. Let them come in,” and he helped the goat usher the group into the sanctuary. Some moved hesitantly, unwilling to enter the temple of a strange pantheon, but the ram smiled reassuringly to them. “Don’t worry,” he said calmly and softly, “it’s all right.” Some had been injured, whether by gunshots or explosions he didn’t know and didn’t care. Drawing Phillip aside he said quietly, “Ask that the injured be put in the Lady Chapel. If bandages are needed, take whatever you can – even the vestments and altarcloth.” The goat’s eyes bulged. “Th-the altarcloth? Your vestments? Father – “ “Do it. Wait! Stop!” he put out a paw and the fur at the door paused. The canine had a woman in his arms, and Merino recognized her as the woman who had told him to go home a few days earlier. She was unconscious, breathing heavily and her head was swaddled in bloody strips of cloth. The ram gently moved aside the bandages and swallowed hard. The woman’s right ear was missing, whether by a bullet or shell splinter or what-have-you, and a chunk of her skull was also missing. She was dead. Her body just didn’t know it yet. Merino closed his eyes, took a breath and told Phillip, “Ask him to place the woman on my bed and make her as comfortable as possible. If he wants me to perform the last rites, I shall.” Phillip translated, and while the canine looked dubious he finally nodded and let the goat show him the way to the rectory. The church had some storm supplies, canned goods and a cistern for water, and after a while the refugees settled down. Merino walked up to the altar, turned to the group and asked, “Does any one here speak English?” “Yeah,” said one, a feline with a bandage wrapped around his upper arm. “All those who can swing a club, I want posted by the windows, and these pews need to be moved to block the doors.” “What we use for clubs?” the feline asked. “Ah.” Merino strode down from the altar and grabbed one of the smaller pews. He grunted as he lifted it over his head and threw it against one wall of the sanctuary, the sound of splintering wood shocking the others into silence. Gesturing at the wreckage with a paw he said, “There are your clubs. Now,” he said as he turned away, “I have an office to perform . . . “ The woman spent a long time dying. While the man who brought her (most likely her son or grandson) watched, Merino had absolved her, anointed her brow and placed a drop of sacramental wine on her lips in a symbolic Eucharist. He prayed over her a while longer, pausing only as her breathing grew more and more labored. Finally her chest rose convulsively, and then collapsed as she settled against the bedclothes. The ram signed the cross over her once more and stood up, only to pause as the man seized his paw, his eyes brimming with tears as he whispered to him in Spontoonie. Merino smiled and laid his right paw on the canine’s brow, then walked out of the room. When he entered the sanctuary a few of the more able-bodied furs, mostly children led by a few older adults and all carrying clubs, came up to him. One of them said, “Come quick, priest-in-skirts outlander! Piratefurs come!” The ram nodded, straightening his rumpled cassock and making sure his collar was fastened properly. He said, “Stand by the windows, and let no one in,” and he stepped back into the rectory to collect the crucifix that was used in the Mass processional. The cross-topped staff was heavy enough to make a very effective weapon, but Merino knew he’d need weapons of another sort if he were to get himself and his charges out of this situation alive. He turned to leave the room and hesitated, looking back at the crucifix on the wall beside his desk. He quickly knelt and prayed for guidance and strength, painfully aware that he was all that stood between the raiders and the furs within the church. Well, if he were to win the red crown of martyrdom, at least it would be in a righteous cause. For a brief instant he knew the bitter taste of the cup the Lord had tasted of in Gethsemane. Merino got to his feet, crossed himself, and headed for the front door of the church. ***
They carried torches to light their way and to burn down buildings after they had been looted of anything valuable. Some, Malay fishing cats with their sooty stripes stark against their olive-gray fur, wielded swords or long knives, while others bore a mixture of firearms ranging from cap and ball muskets to modern rifles. The rag-tag group, numbering perhaps two dozen, marched up to the door of Saint Anthony’s Church and stopped, facing the lone ram bearing his processional cross in front him like a shield. “Stop!” Augustus Merino thundered. “You are not welcome here. Go back where you came from.” One fur, a wolf by the look of him, shouldered his way through the mass. He was older, the fur on his face grizzled, and he wore a naval officer’s jacket with no insignia, unbuttoned. A silver chain dangled from his neck and a silver ring rode in one ear. Not that Merino cared. Many of the pirates wore castoffs from legitimate navies (if indeed, they weren’t merely masquerading as pirates). The wolf was apparently the leader; at his gesture the crowd fell back a few steps. He growled, “Out of our way, Priest.” “No.” The lupine started to laugh. “And who’s to stop us? You? One priest,” and he looked over his shoulder and barked something, eliciting laughter from his crew. “Look here, Priest, I staked one of these-here priestesses out over my ship’s guns not a week ago. You aren’t near half as pretty as she was, so what makes you think I’ll listen to you and not her?” The rest of the pirates sniggered. The thought of one of the native priestesses violated or killed at the paws of these renegades caused his anger to boil up. “Because here you stand on sacred ground,” the ram growled. He saw a gleam of silver, and allowed himself a tiny hope. “Your soul and those of your crew stand on the edge of a knife – “ BANG One of the raiders had raised his rifle and fired, the heavy Minie ball striking the dense wood beside Merino’s head. He felt splinters striking his left ear and ricocheting from his horn, but he stood his ground and willed himself not to flinch. Any sign of weakness, and they’d be on him in an instant. “And you,” and here he pointed with his left index finger at the leader, “shall stand in judgment on the Last Day if you trespass here. Maleficat te in nomine Omnipotens Deus,” he roared, his processional cross gripped in his right paw as he signed the cross with his left. If it worked, he was sure the Lord would forgive him. Well, mostly sure. The leader stood where he was, but the ram noted that the wolf’s nosepad had gone pale. After several more moments in which the two stared at each other, the leader turned and yelled orders. The crew looked disgruntled at having their fun taken away from them, but they complied and started ransacking a house a short distance away from the church. The last one to leave was the wolf, who gave the priest a measuring look before walking away. Merino watched him go, and watched to make sure the pirates didn’t double back before stepping back inside the sanctuary. Once inside and the door closed he sagged against the wood, gripping the crucifix in both paws to still their shaking, mumbling an act of contrition for having tempted his own death and for cursing the pirates. If they got through the night, he was going to be hard-pressed to explain everything in his monthly letter to his bishop. Merino awoke with a start. He had either passed out or fallen asleep, still seated against the door and still clutching his cross. He yawned and looked up to see a group of furs looking down at him in the dim light. Mostly they were very young or very old, and all Spontoonies. The expressions on their faces verged on awe, or veneration. Finally one, a young kitten, offered him a cup of water. The ram reached out with a paw and took the cup. He drank deeply and after a pause said, “Thank you. Phillip?” “Here, Father,” came the goat’s voice from behind the group. “How long was I asleep?” A pause. “I’d say ‘bout an hour, Father. They ain’t come back yet. I think you scared them off.” “Pray God you’re right.” Merino got to his feet and leaned backward to relieve a crick in his spine. “Has anyone else died?” “No, Father. But some’re in a bad way. In the morning we’ll need to get ‘em to the hospital.” “If that’s still standing,” Merino replied, feeling suddenly very weary. He paused, ovine nose twitching. “Do you smell smoke?” Phillip replied, “Yeah. That house they torched is still burning.” “Ask some of the younger furs if they’ll keep an eye out for any fire getting onto the roof. It’d be ironic if we saved everyone just to have them die from having the place burn down around us.” Phillip nodded. “Get some rest, Father.” He started calling out to people in Spontoonie, organizing an impromptu fire brigade and explaining the danger. Merino walked down the aisle to the altar, using the crucifix as a walking stick and feeling much older than he was. He bowed to the altar and kissed the polished stone surface before kneeling down and offering a prayer of thanksgiving. He fell asleep there, still holding his cross aloft. ***
“Fadder? Fadder Merino?” The ram blinked awake. He was going to have an even bigger crick in his back from sleeping while kneeling against the altar. He blinked up at Orrin Brush, and at the sunlight coming in the windows. “Orrin. Good morning.” The ten-year old kit grinned. He was holding a club in one fist. Behind him Merino could see furs with stretchers bearing the injured furs away. “I take it the Militia came back.” “Yez slept straight through it, Fadder. We comes back afore dawn and caught ‘em drinkin’ theirselves stupid.” The fox grinned, and it wasn’t a pleasant look. “They’re feedin’ th’ sharks by now, I’m thinkin.’” Merino nodded and got to his feet. “There’s one other, in my rooms at the rectory – “ Brush put out a paw to help the ram up. “Yeah, we heard how yez helped Old Heipua across. Yez did real good, Fadder. My grandma sez th’ Wise Ones’ll be happy.” “I did it for her soul.” “Sure, Fadder, sure.” The todfox faced the cross over the altar and crossed himself before remarking, “By th’ way, yez’ll be needin’ to have th’ roof fixed.” “The roof?” Merino looked up to see a few shafts of light coming through the roof between the rafters. “Good Lord, we didn’t - ?” “Just a little bit,” Phillip said, coming into the sanctuary from a side door. “A few sparks from the house next door started to catch, and a couple furs climbed up and detached the shingles. They – the shingles, I mean – landed in the garden and we put them out.” “I’ll go up an’ take a look-see,” Brush said. Merino smiled wearily. “Orrin, be careful. I’d hate to have to tell your mother you got hurt falling off the roof of my church.” ***
He had finished penning a report to the Bishop of the Gilbert & Sullivans, explaining everything he did, asking forgiveness and requesting an advance on next month’s stipend for repairs and new vestments and bedding. He had doled out most of the church’s supplies of canned goods, and had allowed some of the herbivores to make off with the tastier plants in the garden. He’d make do if necessary, but he had enough money to buy a few things until next month. A little time was spent pulling splinters out of his left ear, and he didn’t think there’d be any scars. Some of the furs he’d helped showed up throughout the day, offering him food and jugs of a deep red mixture of fruit juices. He thanked them as graciously as he could, still not wholly familiar with the language. He did get a new mattress as soon as was practicable. Several nights later Merino woke up, feeling a presence in his room. He sat up in bed and fumbled for his bat, only to realize it wasn’t there. It was probably still in the rectory. “Who is it?” he demanded. A match flared and the oil lamp that usually sat on his bedside table was lit, illuminating a feline woman’s features. She looked to be in her sixties and her fur was oiled down and decorated with combed and painted symbols. Feathers had been braided into her headfur. And apart from a grass skirt she was completely unclothed. He fumbled for the sheets and made sure he was covered up before stammering, “Who – “ She looked at him solemnly, as if weighing her words out before saying, “Do not be afraid, Father.” Merino blinked. He’d heard that the native priestesses, or Wise Ones, had stopped speaking English as a protest against colonial rule. To have one speaking to him could be either very good, or extremely bad. He cleared his throat. “I’m not, although you startled me, Ma’am. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” The feline smiled. “I have come to offer our thanks. You helped us, without thought for yourself. We shall not forget it. Heipua-daughter-Teiva’s ghost shall help guard you.” The ram blinked. “I only did what my God has commanded that we do – comfort the afflicted – “ “Yes, and our Gods have seen it as well. We shall remember, even if the Gods forget.” Her quiet self-assurance and use of we had him convinced. This was either a senior priestess, or the senior priestess of the entire native population. She raised a paw. “You have earned the right to stay here, you and your church, until such time as you leave.” “But the Althing’s – “ “We know. The Althing will see reason.” She smiled and bared a pawful of claws. “I assure you, they will be persuaded to see reason.” “Is there anything else?” “No. Sleep well, Augustus Merino.” She blew out the light, leaving him blinking in the darkness and fumbling for his matches. When he relit the lamp she was gone. Augustus Merino settled back against the covers. Thinking. end |