Ape Opus

I turned off the light, but he sat in the glow of his laptop. I was shocked he hadn’t simply asked me what happened. Or perhaps I wasn’t. There was a delicacy in our marriage, a tendency to not quite understand, that protected us from the deepest parts of each other. Sometimes, I felt he treated difficult aspects of life like tricky real estate deals—solving, resolving, negotiating, pushing until the deal was closed or dead. Eventually, he lay down, clutched me to him and began snoring. I tried to fall asleep, but was haunted by the vast infusion of experience into my small, human system. All night, horrific and tender images swelled into my consciousness and retreated. Before sunrise, I snuck out of bed, took a cab to the España station and boarded the R5 line back to the foothills.

When I arrived, the monastery had just opened but there was already a line for the Black Madonna. A robed monk in Teva sandals stood in front of me.
“Señora, por favor,” he said, pointing at his heels. My bare toes were jammed against them as I strained forward toward the Madonna’s cell. I stepped back. I had no idea what to expect from a repeat visit, but other courses of action seemed hopeless. I didn’t know if the sense of futility stemmed from the visions the previous evening, or the return to mortal life after a glimpse of something that transcended it. Memories surged and retreated, like surf. Howie’s mother died in a car crash. Dawn read The Bell Jar and scoffed. One of the British men dug at a hill in his grandmother’s backyard, searching for victims of the Black Plague. Matteo made a list of pros and cons: Marry Allison/Or Not. Though painful, they were less intense than before.
The air was cooler in the morning and I could hear warblers in the cloister. I hadn’t known what warblers were the day before: one of the British stag-do men was a birder. Incense braziers swung inside the basilica, spoiling the morning freshness. When the monk entered the Madonna’s chamber, I could see him through the plexiglass. He knelt and pressed his forehead to the glass barrier but didn’t touch the wooden ball. He looked up at the Madonna, stood again, bowed, and departed. I climbed the small stairs. I put my hand on the ball.