To memory is tied an ambition, a claim—that of being faithful to the past.

—Ricouer, Memory, History, Forgetting

Alarum

+49° 16' 16.50", +8° 36' 49.74"

Conrad and Bertha are both asleep now, soothed, I suppose, by the rumble of 140 km/hr (that's 80-something, I figure, in MPH, plenty fast for me and my jet-lagged reflexes, even though we're just about the slowest minivan out here on the autobahn). I take exit 31-Kreuz Walldorf to merge onto A5 toward Basel/Karlsruhe. Piece of cake. I really feel like I'm in control of this minivan. Maybe I could handle 145, 150?

Then there's a noise from the wayback seat—a tinny techno beat. What's that? I wonder. It sounds funny—is it some kind of alarm? Maybe they have little tunes for alarms in this car—different tunes for the pressure in each tire? It could be anything...

Maybe I should have read the owner's manual. But how could I? It's in German! And realistically, who reads the owner's manual for a rental car?

But the tune keeps going—now it's repeating! Damn it, I should have asked for a translation—do they let you do that? It's us foreign drivers who might really need a translation of the owner's manual—there might be some system of alarm tunes that everybody in Europe knows but—

Then Bertha wakes up and answers her cell phone. I can see her in the rear-view mirror.

Her cell phone. Of course. That's what it sounded like—a cell phone.

Maybe it's Henry—I wonder if I should interrupt—find out where he is?

I can only catch glimpses of her in the mirror—she seems angry. No, not angry—more like forcing herself to talk to someone she doesn't like—

Suddenly she slaps her phone shut and starts shouting at it in some language—is that Italian? Now she's angry—really angry! Is her relationship with Henry that bad? Bruno's trying to comfort her—looking in the mirror, I try to figure out what's going on, but some Audi gives me the horn as it zips past...

Shit, I'd better keep my eyes on the road...

Conrad wakes up and starts screaming in his kindersitz, but Bertha doesn't even notice. She arguing with Bruno now, pointing at her cell phone...

Now even Lambert is awake—or maybe he was awake the whole time, and now he's paying attention.

He turns around and looks back. Okay, I'll let him figure out what's going on.

I study the road ahead of me for a while. I try to keep the minivan perfectly centered in our lane... I don't even look in the mirror. I'm the driver. I'm responsible for keeping us all alive. Eventually things calm down. No more voices from the back. Lambert turns around and looks forward again. He seems weary.

"What was that all about?" I say. "Who called Bertha?"

"That was Henry's cousin," says Lambert. "Her name is Matilda."

"Matilda?" I say. "You mean Matilda of Canossa?"

"You know her?" says Lambert.

"Well," I say. "I've read a few books..."

The Best Seller

The first and only appearance of Sister Martin de Porres, O.P., at the offices of B&B Books of Dubuque, Iowa, had not been a planned part of her sad itinerary that frigid February morning, but her visit was, nonetheless, eagerly anticipated by the publishing house staff.

After all, Sister Martin de Porres had been born in Dubuque, and her scholarly distinctions and international career had been held up as an exemplar, at one point or another, by every Sinsinawa Dominican nun who taught the Catholic youth of Northeastern Iowa. On top of which, Sister Martin's book, Warrior, Daughter, Saint: the Story of St. Matilda of Canossa, had become one of the best sellers of 1973--relative to its own market niche, of course. Riding the surge of enthusiasm which followed Matilda's unexpected canonization in 1972 (unexpected, that is, to American Catholics, who had largely forgotten Matilda's beatification in 1927) Warrior, Daughter, Saint represented, as the marketing people liked to say, exciting new opportunities for all concerned.

For Sister Martin, the paperback was her first venture into the popular market, topping off a lengthy curriculum vitae filled with catalogs of Etruscan statuary and comparative studies of early Christian iconography.

For B&B Books, it was the first release under its new imprint, Marcellina's Bookshelf ("Empowerment Through Faith, Not Feminism"), a line of inspirational texts for teenage Catholic girls that showed every promise of becoming a successful ministry.

And for the publisher, it represented a special milestone: it was the first book released by B&B Books to be written by anyone other than himself.

Privacy in the Wayback Seat

+49° 10' 6.46", +8° 34' 15.58"

Everything had calmed down for awhile, but now, as we pass the towns of Forst and Hambrücken, Bertha's anger erupts again. In the mirror, I can see Bruno listening to Bertha. Even though she's yelling at him, I can tell he's having the time of his life, leaning back, leaning in, taking her verbal blows like a boxing coach.

"What language is that?" I ask Lambert. "Is it Piedmontese? She's from Turin, right?"

I don't know what Piedmontese sounds like, but I'm pretty sure there is such a language—Primo Levi talked about it in his books. I figure it's a pretty good guess...

"It's Latin," says Lambert.

"Latin?" I say. "It doesn't sound like Latin... Maybe Occitan? Or Langue'doc? Those are more medieval, aren't they?" I'm really stretching here—to be honest, I have no idea what I'm talking about.

"It's Latin," says Lambert. "The way the Savoys speak Latin, when they're angry."

"You're the expert," I say. "Interesting. Savoyard Latin."

"How would you know what Latin sounds like," says Lambert.

It doesn't sound like a question, so I don't answer.

In the wayback seat, Bertha says something sharply, in a new tone, and then falls silent. I catch a glimpse of dejection on Bruno's face, and then the mirror fills with his lumbering body as he climbs forward into the middle seat.

"What happened?" I say.

"She says Conrad needs more room," says Bruno.

"How could he need more room?" I say. "He's sleeping! In a kindersitz!"

"Conrad needs more room, okay?" says Bruno. "A little privacy." His voice is kind of testy.

"Okay, okay. So was that Matilda? Matilda of Canossa? On the phone?

Lambert gives a little snort, like he's upset that I'm asking Bruno, when he already told me.

"It was the countess herself alright," says Bruno.

"Well, what did she say? How did she get Bertha so upset?"

"Just a minute," says Bruno. "There's something going on back there."

"What is it?" I say. We're entering a long curve on the Autobahn, so I've gotta keep my eyes on the road.

"She's taking out her cell phone... she's making another call... "

"Who's she calling?" I say.

"Shh," says Bruno. "I'm listening."

The Publisher

Fr. Niall Bresnahan, the publisher and founder of B&B Books, joked that until the success of Warrior, Daughter, Saint, he had secretly suspected himself of running a vanity press. The joke, delivered in Fr. Bresnahan's nasal Cork City brogue, usually got a laugh, and quickly joined his repertoire of apparently self-deprecating humor. Fr. Bresnahan had only discovered his skills as a raconteur four years earlier, when he had been assigned to the Archdiocese of Dubuque--some would say exiled--as Censor Librorum and assistant Cathedral Chaplain. In Dubuque he took up the game of golf and learned, to his surprise, that middle Americans found his accent charming.

Prior to his arrival in Iowa, charm had been the least of Niall Bresnahan's qualities. A brief outline of his career to that point reveals little time for conviviality, let alone golf:

1930 Born, Cork City, Ireland

1944-51 St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, Baccalaureate in Theology, summa cum laude

1951-52 Assistant Chaplain, Hospital Nacional de Enfermedades Infeciosas (Hospital del Rey), Madrid, Spain.

1952 Ordination

1952-57 Curate, St. Kentigern's Parish, Manchester, England

1953-56 Oxford University, First class degree, philosophy

1957-60 Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, Lateran Pontifical University, Rome, Sacrae Theologiae Doctor, theology and patristic sciences

1960-63 Missionary service in Angola

1963-65 Personal Secretary to Manuel Gonçalves Cerejeira, Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon, at the Second Vatican Council

1966-70 Assistant Professor, Theology and Philosophy, Catholic University, Washington D.C.

1969 Receives book contract from the University of Notre Dame Press; one-semester leave of absence from teaching duties

1970 Publication of Lean and Flashy Songs: The Misuse of Vatican II in America

In Lean and Flashy Songs, Bresnahan performed a delicate balancing act--he endorsed, or claimed to endorse, every decree, constitution and declaration issued by Vatican II (many of which he cited at length, in Latin, with punctilious if selective accuracy), while at the same time using those very documents to denounce the implementation of the Council's work in the United States: Bresnahan declared that legacy of the Council had been "hijacked by the unholiest of ideas, the idea of Reform." In a furious final chapter, Bresnahan broadened his attack to include several other unholy ideas--"the sweaty nightmare of Progress, the brutal lie of Social Equality, and the scorched wasteland of Psychology." It was in this final chapter that he made his most shocking--and yet most subtle--accusation. Bresnahan somehow managed to proclaim his loyalty, love, and eternal respect for Pope Paul VI, while simultaneously suggesting that Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, the former Archbishop of Milan, had been a lifelong member of the Italian Communist Party.

Bresnahan learned quickly that fervid anti-communism played very well on the golf courses of Dubuque, Iowa. On the fairway, men of substance and achievement would confide to him their growing estrangement from a Church in which the celebration of Holy Mass increasingly resembled the meetings of a socialist cell, or a spaced-out drug party, or both. Bresnahan reminded them of a more vigorous strain of Catholicism: long hours in the polio ward, strict adherence to ancient rules, narrow escapes from Communist guerrillas at African mission schools. The golfers bought his book; they skipped the Latin but read with guttural assent the incendiary final chapter; soon an offer of financing was presented to him over drinks at the country club bar. He took the money with a handshake, bought his friends a round of his favorite apertif, and the next day established Burke & Benedict Books ("libertas per opsequium") as a "platform for the neglected voices of conservative Catholics." If the liberal Catholic bishops of the early 1970s thought they could silence Fr. Niall Bresnahan by sending him to Dubuque, they were sorely mistaken.

Eavesdropping

+49° 5' 39.18", +8° 32' 4.06"

"Be quiet!" says Bruno. He's listening to Bertha make a phone call, and I guess I've interrupted once too often. Through the white noise of the minivan, as we pass the towns of Untergrombach and Obergrumbach, I can just barely hear Bertha's voice. She doesn't sound quite as furious as when she was yelling at Bruno, but I can tell she's talking about something that still makes her angry.

"It's her Mom," says Bruno. "That's who she called..."

"Whom she called," says Lambert. "And Mother would be a more accurate translation..."

Bruno listens for minute. "Okay... She's telling her Mom all the same stuff she told me—how disgusting Matilda is, how Matilda complains about being a widow when everyone knows she was the one who sent the assassin to kill her husband so she could give his lands to the pope."

"Matilda took out her husband?" I say. "Godfrey the Hunchback? Everyone knows that?"

"Common wisdom in the Emperor's camp," says Lambert. "Personally, my money's on Robert of Flanders."

"Shh!" says Bruno... "That was just the warm-up. Here's what really pisses her off—Matilda gave her a message from Agnes."

"Wait a minute," I say. "I know who that is! It's Henry's mother, right? Agnes of Poitou!"

"Well, Agnes used to be his mother," says Lambert. "Since Henry's been excommunicated, I would imagine the dowager would say she has no son."

"Bertha says that Matilda saw Agnes in Rome," says Bruno. "Apparently Matilda always makes a point of visiting Agnes in her convent, whenever she's in the old town. That really makes Bertha sick.... wait—now she's on to a new subject... and... what? It's Conrad! They're talking about Conrad! Agnes told Matilda that she couldn't stop thinking about Conrad."

"How grandmotherly," says Lambert.

"Agnes went on and on about Conrad—his pale skin and sensitive eyes—his passivity and obedience—his aptitude for a life of holiness and scholarship. At least that's what Matilda told Bertha," says Bruno.

"An unmistakable message," says Lambert. He turns to me. "Do you see where this is going?"

"Uh... no," I say. "Not really...."

"Boy oh boy!" says Bruno. "Listen to this! Agnes would love to have to have Conrad visit her in Rome. And both Matilda and Agnes are certain, absolutely certain, that that Pope would take a personal interest in Conrad's education."

"Well," says Lambert. "the little Duke is quite a prize."

"What's the big deal?" I say. "So what if Agnes wants her grandson to visit her in Rome?"

Bruno stops listening and turns toward me. "Don't you get it?" he says.

A Mercedes zips by—a big one. That's the fastest car I've seen yet out here on the autobahn.

"He doesn't get it," says Lambert. "Tell him."

"Well, in Bertha's opinion," says Bruno, "Matilda and Agnes are trying to steal her son."

"Not to mention Lower Lotharingia," says Lambert.

"That's why she's angry," says Bruno. He looks back at Conrad, sleeping in his kindersitz.

"And she's quite correct," says Lambert.

"Hell yeah," says Bruno. "A lotta people would like to grab that kid."

In the mirror, I see that Bertha is still on the phone—but now she's just listening. Maybe her mother has problems of her own.

Marcellina's Bookshelf

Conceived over cocktails in a country club bar, Burke & Benedict Books soon matured into a thriving business. Fr. Niall Bresnahan's own prolific pen supplied the early catalog: Learning the Suscipiat: the Struggles of an Irish Altar Boy (1971), Non Serviam: The Contraceptive Mentality in Modern American Life (1972), and The Feel-Good Trap: How the Pursuit of Pleasure Leads to Despair (1972) all appeared within three years of that fateful golf outing.

In this period, he also contributed entertaining prefaces (many readers said they were his best work) for two books co-written with his stockbroker: Faith: Your Greatest Asset (1972), and The Rosary and Your Portfolio: Marian Investment Strategies (1973).

B&B Books added staff, moved to larger offices, and in early 1973 Bresnahan, perhaps sensing that his own well might soon run dry, made what turned out to be a very shrewd move: he asked his employees (all of them Catholic women) what mattered to them, as readers.

Bresnahan knew little of women (aside from sharing his bed in Angola with his housekeeper, a sin for which the Cardinal Patriarch had granted him a dismissive absolution), and he was surprised at the enthusiasm of his employees' response. Intrigued, Bresnahan began visiting book clubs, holding impromptu focus groups, and listening to the life stories of devout women told in the form of effusively annotated reading lists. Bresnahan discerned a pattern--that a woman's lifetime love of inspirational reading always began with the passionate literary appetites of a prepubescent Catholic girl. From that insight, Marcellina's Bookshelf was born, taking its name from Bresnahan's favorite female saint: the consecrated virgin sister of St. Ambrose. Needless to say, the female employees of B&B Books embraced this new project. (Bresnahan, for his part, had learned more about Catholic women than he really wanted to know, and he returned, refreshed, to his polemics and his putter.) Among the staffers most ardent about Marcellina's Bookshelf was a overweight typist in her early thirties named Nora Eunice Magliano.

A self-described "ceramist" who was "lost without her kiln," Nora Eunice Magliano had moved to Dubuque only a few years before, having previously lived in Madison, Milwaukee, Florence, and London. Her co-workers wanted to know more about her traveled past, but Nora Eunice would speak only of the present--she had come to Dubuque to care for her frail and aged grandmother, also named Nora. Nora Eunice Magliano referred to her tiny grandmother as "big Nora" and herself as "little Nora," and often talked to her co-workers about duty, sacrifice, and the lessons taught to her by her "favorite aunt"--the distinguished Sister Martin de Porres. A formidable woman indeed, Sister Martin was dean of art history at the Villa Schifanoia in Florence, an Italian graduate school "of the fine arts for women," where her niece had once taught, or studied, or visited, no one was quite sure.

It was Nora Eunice Gagliano who brought the manuscript of Warrior, Daughter, Saint to the B&B offices, where it instantly impressed everyone who read it, even Fr. Bresnahan, and it was quickly chosen as the first book to be placed with pride on Marcellina's Bookshelf. Throughout the pre-publication process all communication with Sister Martin was conducted through hand-written letters, which Nora Eunice received at the home of her grandmother, who was, of course, Sister Martin's mother.

Then, on the first day of February, 1974, "big Nora" died, at the age of 93. Her final weight in pounds matched her age in years.

Monastic Sign Language

+49° 2' 31.72", +8° 29' 19.16"

Bertha's still talking to her mother on her cell phone, actually she's listening mostly, as we barrel down the autobahn. In the mirror, I can see her nodding her head. Then she closes her phone and makes an announcement to the car.

"Listen you guys!" she says. "I told that bitch Matilda that we are still in Speyer where the Pope wants us to be. So don't go talking to any spies now, okay? We want this trip to Canossa to be a surprise, a big surprise, got that?"

Bruno and Lambert nod their heads, kinda thoughtfully, like middle managers agreeing with their boss. Then I realize everybody in the minivan is looking at me.

"Got it!" I say. "No talking to spies. Top-secret!"

Then Bertha curls up in the wayback seat, next to Conrad in his kindersitz, and goes to sleep.

The minivan gets really quiet, I mean, except for the roar of the autobahn.

Lambert opens the black book on his lap, looks down at it, and closes his eyes.

I drive on for a while. We pass an autoban rasthof—it looks like a rest stop of some kind.

Then Bruno climbs forward and whispers in my ear—

"Time for sign language!"

"What?" I say.

"Monastic sign language. I'll teach you. Perfect for nap time in the modern vehicle."

"Aren't you a mendicant?" I say. "One of the those monks with no home?"

"So?" he says.

"But you're not part of a monastery... are you?"

"Who better to reveal the secrets of the cenobites?" says Bruno.

Bruno, from his perch in the middle seat, begins to demonstrate, in gleeful parody, the silent solemn discipline of the Benedictines. Does he think I'm paying attention? In the rear-view mirror, I can only see fragments of each move... and besides... I'm driving!

When Bruno sees that I'm not taking my eyes off the road long enough to learn the gestures, he laughs and leans forward.

"I'll tell you," he says, "the truth of the matter—monastic sign language shouldn't be called a language at all."

Lambert closes the black book on his lap with an emphatic thud. Apparently he's been awake the whole time.

"It's not like the sign languages of the deaf," says Bruno. "Those are real languages. They're vigorous, grammatical, complete. But this monastic lexicon—it's got no grammar, no prepositions, no logic words: no that, no whom, no because, no why. The verbs don't even have tenses!"

Lambert finally responds to Bruno's sarcasm. "Who needs tenses?" he says. "Our sign language dwells in a tenseless present, for all times are as one to the mind of God."

"Oh give me a break," says Bruno. "You're just elevating the primitive to the philosophical."

"A true monk," says Lambert, "seeks to approach the divine through limitation, not excess, whether of pleasure or of language."

"So poverty is a virtue?" says Bruno. "In a language? You've gotta be kidding! Come on, tell me—how many nouns does your sign language have?"

Lambert thinks for a moment, and then, accompanying each word with its gesture, he says:

"Well, there's... Abbot.... God... altar... church.... And of course, any thing that can be indicated by pointing."

"Pointing?" says Bruno. "That's rich! Sorta proves my point, doesn't it? Now tell us—how many verbs?"

Lambert replies without hesitation, indeed with reverent pride. "In my abbey," he says, "there are four and only four verbs: sit, stand up, kneel, and confess. What else would we need?"

The Funeral Visit

Shortly after the death of Nora Quinn Larkin, in February 1974, two of her nine daughters felt bold enough to make long distance calls to Italy. At the Villa Schifanoia in Florence, a polite young lady answered the phone, and went to fetch the Dean of Art History. Later, comparing notes, the two sisters agreed as to how polite the young lady was, how vast the transoceanic silence seemed when they were put on hold, and how the cost didn't matter, not at a time like this. Soon Sister Martin de Porres was making plans to come home to Dubuque, for the first time in forty-two years.

Nora Eunice Gagliano, who had bravely continued working during her grandmother's decline, told everyone in the offices of B&B Books not to expect to meet their bestselling author--the Sinsinawa Dominicans had rigid rules, and Sister Martin, for all her achievements, had been given permission only to attend the funeral of her mother. But Father Bresnahan was eager to meet this nun whose scholarship was rumored to match his own, and whose book had outsold his last two. He still had connections in Rome, and he made a few phone calls.

At the wake, Sister Martin told her sisters and cousins and nieces that, after much prayer, she had decided take advantage of a new policy in her order. From now on, she said, she would be using her birth name: they could now call her "Sister Eunice Larkin." Nora Eunice Magliano was disappointed in the change, but everyone else seemed to like it--they all said it was so much easier to talk to Sister Eunice than to Sister Martin. After the burial, Sister Eunice returned to the Mother House in Sinsinawa, Wisconsin, a few miles from Dubuque, across the Mississippi.

That evening, the Mother Superior took Sister Eunice aside--after first calling her Sister Martin, and then apologizing with a smile that Sister Eunice considered rather unctuous--and gave her permission to visit her publisher the next day. At first, Sister Eunice had no idea what the Mother Superior was talking about. But apparently a priest named Father Bresnahan had arranged to send a car in the morning. And the Mother Superior seemed quite certain that she, Sister Eunice, had some sort of business relationship with "B&B Books" in Dubuque. Could this be the place where her niece had found a job? Concealing her puzzlement, Sister Eunice agreed to the arrangements, and asked a few discreet questions about this priest and his publishing house. The Mother Superior told her all the details, rattling off sales figures with evident pride. Sister Eunice listened carefully. This was the first she had heard of Father Niall Bresnahan, or B&B Books, or Marcellina's Bookshelf, or a best-seller called Warrior, Daughter, Saint: the Story of St. Matilda of Canossa, by Sister Martin de Porres.

The Mother Superior suspected nothing: Sister Eunice gave no hint of her astonishment or her suspicions. In fact, Sister Eunice seemed most grateful for the opportunity to make a visit to B&B Books.

Leaving the Autobahn

+48° 57' 36.17", +8° 23' 55.34"

I bite my lips, contort my cheeks into a grimace, first the left side, then the right side, pinch my leg, squeeze the steering wheel, anything to stay awake. The autobahn is even more soporific than I-55 in southern Illinois, especially when everyone else in the minivan has gone back to sleep, or is praying the office. I try to imagine life in the towns and villages whose names flit past on the blue signs: Waldbrüche, Karlsruhe, Wolfartsweier, Ettingen, but really all I can think of is a warm bed and closing my eyes.

Maybe it's jet lag, maybe I'm resentful for having assumed the role of the only adult in the vehicle, maybe this whole project is a mistake—how was I so foolish as to expect that these people from another century, another era, whose view of life, after all, is fucking feudal—how could I have expected them to pitch in, offer me a banana, maybe, or a granola bar, or even just stay awake and make conversation which is all I need to keep this goddamn minivan on the road.

Then there's a noise from the wayback seat. It's Bertha's cell phone again—that tinny techno beat. She answers it and talks for a while in a tone of studied nonchalance. Who could this be now? In the rear-view mirror I see her shrug her shoulders. Then Conrad, in his kindersitz, wakes up and starts screaming "Papa! Papa!" Bertha's voice grows more argumentative for a moment, then stops. Can I actually hear the tiny click of the cell phone closing, or do I just imagine it? I glance back in the mirror, just in time to see Bertha inhale sharply through flared nostrils.

There's a lot of whispering and rustling behind me now. "Keep those seat belts on!" I shout. Even Lambert, in the seat beside me, wakes up, the prayer book sliding from his lap.

Eventually Bruno leans forward and tells me what's going on. "Look," he says, "I don't know whether you've noticed, but Bertha and Henry, well, their marriage is kind of rocky...."

"I noticed," I say.

"Well, that was Henry," Bruno says. "He's not taking the autobahn. He's got some vehicles in his retinue, they can't do the minimum speed limit."

"What? Like Vespas?" I say.

"Who knows. Anyway, Bertha, she has mixed feelings, you know, about Henry's retinue, but at the same time she doesn't want to get too far ahead of him. On the road. What with all the spies and the assassins and so forth..."

"You and Bertha," I say to Bruno, "You seem to be close."

"She needs someone to confide to," says Bruno. "Anyway, you gotta admit she has a point. It would be really weird for her—I mean us, all of us—to show up at Canossa without Henry—particularly after Matilda made those comments about taking Conrad to Rome..."

"I suppose so," I say.

"So Henry wants us to get off the road, cross the border into France, and meet his retinue is Strasbourg."

"You mean get off the autobahn? No problem," I say. "No problem at all!"