Catalog

The first counselor arrives, slipping out of a dark winter coat. He’s dressed in a dark suit and tie, white shirt starched and stiff. The rest of us arrive, the girls I grew up with, playing jump rope on the sidewalk outside the Bennetts’ house, the boys I know from Seminary and Sunday School. Young people. That’s what we’re called: as if we are another species; a sight—we are!—to behold. Even in our winter garb, behold our youth.  Our lean bodies, our unblemished skin. 

The bishop greets us one by one, shakes our hands, welcomes us all, invites us to listen to the opening prayer. 

Dear Heavenly Father. Bless us as we gather on this winter evening. 

We sink into leather sofas designed to lure the young to sleep. But some of us are awake and will remain awake. 

*

I arrived early, before the others, to begin my job.

“You can tell from the antlers,” the bishop said, making conversation, speaking of whitetails. We occupied uncomfortably the pocket of minutes before everyone else arrived. 

“Males lose and regrow antlers every year,” he said. 

His hand covered his crotch as he talked.

He must have believed my timing meant something special. It did but not what he thinks. Early does not mean eager. Eager does not, cannot, mean eager for him. He’s about to be dethroned. I arrived early to record the event. Eyeballs out, I began filling out a form, writing a formal letter-to-the-self. An unofficial complaint. Just a hunch, true. A sketch so to speak.

*

The speaker tonight is Brother Hanks, the bishop’s second counselor, third in command. The subject: 2 Corinthians, Chapter 12. As Brother Hanks speaks, I keep my body upright and still so as best to take my detailed notes. On expediency. On glory. On visions and revelations of the Lord. I write: paradise. I write: unspeakable words. I write: I shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth. I write of him, our bishop: He is a thorn of flesh. A messenger of Satan. I underline the word: messenger. 

I watch our bishop from the corner of my eye. When he closes his eyes, I know which girl he’s thinking of now. When he opens them, he blinks three times, a sign confirming yes, you are right. I have made it a habit to watch him. Not just here, on a Tuesday nights, at what we, in our community call firesides, but on Sunday mornings as well. I watch him watching girls as the girls, my friends, leave the chapel. I read his lips as he says, he is concerned. I write this down in capital letters: CONCERNED. I date each entry. I know the difference between concern for salvation and concern for something else.

*

What I see the mothers of these girls cannot comprehend. Maybe the mothers do not remember a time when they were young people too, when they did not have thick bellies to hide. They flirt with him, our bishop, asking him on Sundays how he came to know so much about the living gospel. They hold his hand too tightly, too long. Or maybe this is their way of paying their daughters back. Youth does not discriminate. Age, however, can’t resist.

*

Mind you, I know my place. I am but a girl. I am here to observe. I see a whole catalog of women and girls. I see the men, too, mortals as well as our neighborhood demigods. Others exisit in distress here, too, not just these girls. I keep a separate log of them as well. The babies, papyrus fragments. The ancients, leftover scraps. The babies speak in tongues, old men in the staccato of diabetic shots. The old women in support hose ask me if I will send them invitations to my wedding. When I say I’m too young to marry, they pat my hand with powdered ones. They say, “Well, invite me anyway,” and smiling, they walk away.

What I am writing will read like junk to them. 

What good is Eros if breath forms your prayers each night?

Which is not to say the dying do not believe. Take Sister Schettler, for example. She understands. The talents of our ancestors are part of a divine genealogy, part of our blood. She knows that that their music is her music, that their notes belong to her. She asked last Sunday me what I’ll do when school is through. I told her I’m not sure. She said, “You’d make an excellent mother. Or camp counselor.” Briefly I considered. Me with the babies, lost in tongues. Me in cutoffs and t-shirts all summer, singing songs, swimming in a cloudy lake, wearing a lanyard, the keys to the kingdom. Camp as Mardi Gras. I could live it up! I could hike and be paid! I’d be a good counselor. I’d watch and listen to my charges carefully. I’m good with the youth. I’d make sure no one drowned on my ancient watch. I’ve got nerves like you wouldn’t believe. No one has a patent on this kind of skill. But I’m bound for another wilderness. I’ve read Jude the Obscure. I could win real money on Jeopardy. I am stone-faced and dream detailed scholarly dreams. My talents are better utilized here, completing this report.

*

Quiz me and I’ll tell you just who’s who, a systematic account of the ruling elite, who the bishop’s touched and who he wants to touch, which girls will soon bring him to his knees. 

*

The bishop stands when the counselor finishes his talk. I write this down. Talk. Complete. Soon there will be punch and cookies. I am not making this up. For now all eyes are on him as the bishop speaks. I am a modern riddle, the only one able to see. Look beyond what he says. Look under the underneath. He speaks on the need to make resolutions throughout the year, not just this month. He knows as I do, we have year-round needs. That there will always be those who yearn to sleep with the gods. Competing definitions of royalty forever exist. A recurrence of themes. Hysterical Greek myths.

*

Do not misunderstand. The bishop’s unions are not without authenticity. If I publish it will be under another name. If I publish it will be called A Compendium of Sins. If I publish, my catalog will include: a chapter on endoskeletons just below the skin. A chapter on how our tubular bodies are not so unalike. A chapter on footnotes to the lecture the bishop now offers on Satan and his minions. A chapter on the chapter on footnotes, longer than the lecture itself, richer, too, in historical fact. Because it’s true he has an authoritative voice. He believes. And there is the title, of course. His. Our bishop. And this house with its game room downstairs and its big game above the mantel. It’s alluring, yes. The sand-colored carpet. The clocks that strike when you expect them to. His is a very tidy bishop’s wife, by the way.

*

I come from a disordered house. Disorder yields a fresh point of view. To look for a needle in a haystack means looking for the haystack first, handling each strand of hay. Before the find? Perception. Before the first prick? Care. Before blood begins? Look closely. If you ask me what he reminds me of, I will answer truthfully: a sea cucumber. If you ask me what she reminds me of, I will answer truthfully: a sea cucumber’s wife.

*

It is hard for a girl to enter the kingdom of god. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle. The camel is not the important part. Neither is the needle. The eye recognizes the kingdom of of god as a disordered place. I am here for the girl.

*

“It’s untenable, is it not?” The wife whispers to me. “To try to live with Satan and against Satan?”

“Oh,” I say. I thought she was speaking of her wig. Also, untenable but why, I’m not sure. She will die in less than a year. I wonder if the bishop prayed for her to be relieved of her pain, if he hastened her journey to the other side.

She brings me juice in a crystal cup. Two pralines. She touches my arm. I can see what she’s doing, how she yields to me now, not him. How she sees something in my smooth unvarnished face. How she believes that in me is something she can trust, that I will be the one to free her from the mouth with its tentacles, from her life atop a gravel floor. 

*

Now the clock strikes eight. Our fireside is through. The feeding hour will soon begin. The bishop roams the room, whispering in each precious ear. There are creatures with no true brain who have rings of tissue surrounding the mouth. The bishop’s wife knows this deep inside. She’s lived under water for so many years. She has read the ancient texts. Her face is flawless, bearing no scars from earlier accidental sins. There is something natural in this. 

*

An alternate title: A Natural History of Natural Sins. 

*

As antlers grow, they grow hairy skin, skin akin to velvet. 

*

The Greeks understood better than anyone, there are versions that beget versions. Euripides wrote that Xuthus had two sons with his wife, but one was the son of Apollo too. What I mean to say is that every riddle is a creation story, every creation story its own tragedy, every tragedy its own myth. 

*

Ours is a place of natural beauty. Yes, there is inadequate rainfall, places that remain barren. But barrenness is relative. Look hard, then harder. You’ll see two hundred species of cactus, strawberry cactus, pincushion cactus, blacklace cactus, more. Look hard, then harder. You’ll see, we are where we are because of erosion. I do not mean that metaphorically. Our air is arid. Barren land is good for grazing. Aspen, cottonwood, chokecherry flourish. Our resources are plenty. Look. We offer copper, gold, silver, zinc. 

*

Our girls are beautiful. Round-faced. Believing. Their smiles are silver, their hair a shiny gold. At home I will check the spelling of each name. Alongside their names, I will write: My grace is sufficient. My strength is made perfect. In weakness, I take pleasure. In infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, the message compels. When I am weak, then am I strong. Without the message, I am nothing. 

*

We put on our coats, preparing to leave. The bishop’s wife warns us not to fall on ice. Outside the boys threaten to throw snowballs. The girls shriek, another way of saying yes. We join one another, arm in arm, youth walking under the yellow glow of ancient streetlights. Some will stumble but no one will fall. Not tonight. 

*

You see, I am one of them but apart. I know these girls, know how these girls think, how they learned as I did to count our fathers one by one. The counting begins with God the Eternal Father and his Son Jesus Christ. The counting continues with Father at home who dislikes brussel sprouts. The list continues. The men keep on. The girls learn to say these names in whispers. With reverence. Their fathers, their brothers, their uncles, their uncles’ friends. My father, my brother, my uncles, my uncles’ friends. All were Boy Scouts. Missionaries, returned. All know well how to gather wood for a fire, how to keep the flame alive. The girls know this, too, what burns beyond, inside our blood, how it comes back to him, to our bishop, the Father of our ward. 

*

Soon he will call us into his office for a bishop’s interview. He does this once a year. He will ask us to confess our sins. He wants us to sin so we have something to talk about. So we do. A riddle. A circle. A story without end. 

*

We are born and then reborn each time we speak. We mate each time he looks at us. We sin each time we wish to mate. 

*

The Asian swallowtail mates many times, leading to genetic diversity in its young. 

*

Outside, I I finger the pocket of my winter coat as I walk. Here is where I hide my small spiral notebook. Here is what I hold to: I am sturdy, not fragile. I am not a girl filled with fright. At home I will feed the cat a saucer of blood. I will lock the door and finish my report, barely begun. I will take note of the bishop’s gestures, how he smiled, how he frowned, how he crossed his legs, then uncrossed them again. I will count. This report is my celestial plan. For his are the sins that require acquiescence to sin. His are the sins that ask for someone to record the sins. I am chosen, you see. Angels will quote from my book one day. For ours is the kingdom and the glory, a catalog without end, amen. 

Marilyn Abildskov is the author of The Men in My Country. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Sewanee Review, Southern Review, Epoch, Crazyhorse, Prairie Schooner, and Best American Essays. A recipient of a Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award, she teaches in the MFA Program at Saint Mary’s College of California.

25 February 2022