St. Gervais

By Priti Aisola

Restless and unable to calm her jangled nerves, Sadhavi decided to revisit the Church of St. Gervais. She hoped that this sacred spot would communicate something to her; she also hoped to relive the moments she had spent there with Kanav. As she could not find her Plan de Paris par Arrondisement, she decided to venture out without it. After all she had been there twice before and had walked in that area. What she didn't take into account was the state of mind that had accompanied those previous visits. The first one had been nothing but an anguished trance and the second one was a chance happening, nothing less than a miracle. There was no guarantee that she would find the place today. She wasn't even sure whether it was near Hotel de Ville or near Notre Dame. If latter, she would have to cross the river.

The Seine was a dark green grey. As she stood on the bridge pont d'Arcole, she could see the two forks of the river. The second fork to the right had a walking bridge. She felt she had walked along this bridge with her husband several months back one frosty winter evening but she had no distinct memory of that walk or anything special associated with it. This afternoon the air was cold but refreshing. On the left bank the weeping willow with its languorous overhanging branches swayed gently, tickling/playfully ruffling the heavy slow-moving water of the river. She stood on the bridge for a few minutes quite shut off from everything around her. People walked past her as if in slow motion, drifting in and out of her consciousness. Then she became aware of a man with a yellow grey backpack and a woman wearing an expensive looking ochre yellow jacket. Both Raghav and Kanav liked the colour yellow. She wasn't fond of it, especially in clothes, not even in clothes for little kids, but there was a memory of another experience of yellow as she had walked with Kanav from Notre Dame to Odéon - the sun-yellow wheels of a child's tricycle on a drizzly September evening. Warm yellow on a gloomy evening. Flaming yellow flowers against a cool grey stone wall would be welcome now - now, when she felt suddenly lonely and fragile. Shivering because it was slightly nippy and more because she felt desolate, she decided that she would be able to fight both the sensations if she walked. She crossed the river, walked past the souvenir shops along rue d'Arcole and then turned left into rue du Cloitre de Notre Dame. This aimless wandering won't do, she told herself. Walking into a souvenir shop she asked the sales assistant there for directions to the church of St.Gervais.

"I'm not very sure but I can locate it for you on the map," she said helpfully. Pulling out her copy of the Paris map, she found the church which was not far from there at all and traced the route on the map for Sadhavi. Although Sadhavi couldn't see the map's fine print very clearly as she wasn't wearing her reading glasses, she nodded brightly as if she'd understood the directions perfectly.

"Thank you. It's very kind of you."

At the end of the street, she turned left and found herself on the bridge Pont Louis-Philippe. A walking bridge, it was deserted except for a middle-aged woman pushing a wheel chair with an old man in it. He had a tough time keeping his head up which kept flopping to one side and he was sniffling badly. Her heart went out to old age and she thanked the woman inwardly for this outing for the invalid. In the face of all this, what was she doing clutching her mute and inglorious longing. At the end of the bridge to the right she saw a young woman enjoying a quiet smoke looking at the river. Sadhavi decided to ask her the way to the church just to be sure that she was on the right track. The woman told her that she was in fact moving farther away and must head towards quai de Montebello. By now Sadhavi was thoroughly confused. Retracing her steps along the bridge, she crossed another bridge over another branch of the Seine until she touched that quay. At the end of this bridge was a woman artist on a low stool surrounded by her pencil drawings of Paris. Totally absorbed in another sketch she hadn't noticed Sadhavi stop near her. Long scraggy sandy brown hair, a weather-beaten face, shabby clothes, she looked like an artist life hadn't treated very kindly.

Since she's an artist, I'm sure she knows where the church is.

"Excusez moi de vous derangez. Est -ce-que vous connaisez l'eglise St. Gervais?'

She didn't hear her so Sadhavi raised her voice and repeated the question. The woman was startled at this unexpected and what seemed like an uncalled for interruption. She answered slowly, "Je ne suis pas sure mais je pense c'est pas loin de musée du Louvre."

"Merci beaucoup."

Now abysmally confused and feeling utterly lost, Sadhavi walked along the quai till she reached another bridge pont au Double which took her to Notre Dame. The square before Notre Dame, Place du Parvis Notre Dame was thronging with tourists. Filled with awe as she stood before this magnificent Gothic structure she wondered if should go into this church instead. I've seen it several times and this not my quest. Walking past Notre Dame she found herself back on rue d'Arcole where her fruitless search had begun. Like the mythic hero in Campell's analysis of the quest myth she had obeyed the call to adventure but had encountered only false guides and hadn't listened closely to the one true guide at the souvenir shop. Hence, this ridiculous misadventure.

At the end of rue d'Arcole she turned right into quai aux Fleurs. Halfway along the quai she stood near the river wondering whether she should go back home. Raghav would be amused by her aimless wandering and happy for her that she was learning to discover things on her own. As she looked across the river to the other side she saw a church steeple, not far from Hotel de Ville, the place where her search had begun. Her heart skipped a beat. Within herself she was sure that that was her journey's end. Kanav loved flowers with an almost feminine ardor. Is this why she had found the church standing on quai aux Fleurs? Foolish, irrational to believe in such signs, she chided herself..

Sadhavi felt very stupid that the church was so close to Hotel de Ville and she had wandered far and moved in circles looking for it. Why did she walk with blinkers on when she was with her husband or Kanav, trusting their sense of direction implicitly?

Walking up the wide stone-paved steps of rue des Barres she looked up at St. Gervais. Standing at some distance from the church she admired this spectacular view of its flanks and attractive roofs and gargoyles. She noticed that the whole place was deserted. In summer, in fair weather these steps had a few tables and chairs belonging to the restaurant opposite called L'Ebouillanté she'd seen students, young tourists and other holiday makers sitting and enjoying their food and drink on this tranquil pedestrian street which gently slopes down to the Seine and offers a magnanimous view of the church. Now there was no one. On the came side as the café there were a few shops, two of them owned by the monastery of St. Gervais and St. Protais. Entering one of them she found a host of honeys made from roses, tilleul, thym, romarin, sage, melisse, verveine. She repeated the French names of the herbs to herself silently and savoured the sounds within herself. For some reason the French names sounded more romantic and appealing than their English equivalents. Her senses were seduced by the atmosphere of the shop. There was something very uplifting at the same time very calming about the place. She stood there looking at the various packaged plants and infusions/herb teas - chamomile for stimulating the appetite and fighting migraines, lavender for digestive problems and good for those suffering from a bad cough, bronchitis and asthma, green mint, a stimulating and refreshing herb drink. The sight of these herbs restored her sense of well-being momentarily, but as she stepped out again the mild cold lacerated her to the very core. Right across from these shops, L' Artisant Monastique, was a lamp with carved vine leaves in low relief curving up its attractive spine. Sadhavi recalled the first time she'd noticed this lamp post. She was with Raghav at that time and they'd been walking in the Marais and finally at the end of rue du Pont Louis-Philippe when they had turned the corner, they had found themselves on rue des Barres and discovered St. Gervais right in front of them. It had come as a beautiful surprise, a revelation to Sadhavi. She wasn't really hoping to find the church though subconsciously she'd longed to see it again. This time she felt relieved that she'd found it at last. The previous time, against the iron gray of the lamp post, she'd noticed a pink rose and had been startled because it seemed to have burst out of its metallic hardness. Curious she'd walked closer and discovered that the rose was nestling against the lamp post. From the flower bed next to the lamp a tiny branch had stretched outwards to embrace it very tentatively, but tenderly. It had been a moment of profound meaning, almost an epiphany. As if in a trance she'd reached out and plucked the rose impelled by an unchaste need to possess its beauty. The spell was broken - the rose lay inert in her palm.

Today Sadhavi debated for a few seconds whether she should enter the church at all. It now seemed pointless. Tired and dejected, she longed for a glimpse of some familiar face, even an acquaintance would do. Well, since I have found it at last, I should go in, she convinced herself. After all the church is not responsible for the way I feel.

The entrance smelt of stale cigarettes. Not a good sign. Stop being foolish! As she pushed open the heavy door to enter she felt a draught behind her, cut through her. It will cut me to the quick. The first person she saw was a middle-aged woman dragging her feet wearily and mumbling something to herself. Not a comforting sight.

Soon after entering the church Sadhavi stood before Auguste Preault's sculpture in rich brown wood, Christ on the Cross, and looked up in awe at the monumental work. She noticed:

The body of this Christ is not emaciated but strong and athletic. The head is thrown back and rests on the left arm and Christ looks up towards the sky and one cannot see the look in his eyes. The mouth is slightly open as if desirous of taking his last breath. There is a fissure that runs down from the right shoulder to the fabric around his waist and hips. This fissure can't be deliberate. It is perhaps the work of time on wood. This fabric rests in thick folds behind the body of Christ and fills the space sumptuously between it and the cross. Just under the right breast of Christ is a wound with a thick drop of coagulated blood under it and some blood streaking down. For a second, Sadhavi turned away from the sculpture with a painful sigh.

The outstretched arms of Christ which form a shallow arc, the hands nailed to the cross, the left foot resting on the right with the nail driven through it, the taut and tense muscles of the body evoked in her feelings of pathos and compassion. The sculpture of Christ spoke to her and the controlled suffering of this magnificently vocal and expressive piece moved her. Impelled to touch the feet of Christ she moved closer hesitantly and was about to touch them when the shuffling of feet behind her made her freeze midway and she slowly stepped back without turning her head to discover who was behind her.

At the contemplation of the sculpture something had begun to stir inside her and slowly rise to the surface. It had begun to gather force and intensity and she felt that she couldn't contain this feeling within her anymore. If she allowed it to take charge of her, it would break out of her explosively and submerge all other feelings and meanings. She began to long for Kanav's presence. Irrational longing, she told herself. No, she mustn't allow that. Let me look at the stalls of the clergymen as I must allow something else to check this feeling and spread a film of invisibility over it. The sculptures there evoked scenes from the daily life of the parish in the Middle Ages and other sculptures were symbolic of various flaws like vanity, luxury and some others showed the heads of animals, mythic or real. A detailed examination of the sculptures led her away briefly from memories of Kanav which were threatening to overwhelm her. She walked around the church slowly trying to inhale its atmosphere and imprint its minute details on her memory but the harder she tried the more painstakingly difficult it was. Soon a painting in one of the smaller chapels to the right of the main chapel of the Virgin Mary as one moved towards it, caught her attention and she stood before it with unwavering attention:

A younger woman is drying the tears of an older woman who is sitting on a pale brown rock with her arms crossed on her breast. She is wearing a black dress and a black veil covers her head. A maroon shawl is placed on her lap and a part of it trails on the ground beside her. The younger woman's comforting left hand rests on the shoulder of the older woman and with her right hand she wipes the tears from her older companion's face. She is wearing a luminous creamy white dress and a gauzy black silk scarf covers her head while its loose end flutters in the wind. A fine transparent fabric is visible under the black scarf, which barely touches her exquisite neck. The light filtering through the stained glass window touches the upper edge of the wind-blown scarf and fringes it with pink. It is in harmony with the pink silk sash knotted around the younger woman's waist.

The pleasantly sad kind faceof the young woman in the painting drew Sadhavi to her. She would've loved to meet her eyes but her gaze is fixed nowhere in particular as she looks away into the distance. This averted gaze cheated Sadhavi of the solace she was pining for.

There is a pitcher of water next to the younger woman consoling her. There is a well close by and some sheep are grazing in the distance. Some gray clouds seem to move up from the bottom of the canvas and rise up gradually to engulf the blue sky. This was the most vividly meaningful painting for Sadhavi in the entire church.

Right across from this chapel with the painting was the chapel with the sculpture of the Pieta. She stood before it for some time looking at the two angels paying homage to Christ. The sculpture left her cold today. The chapel had rows of chairs. She sat in the sixth row, the same place when she had visited the church for the first time. Kanav hadn't come inside. He'd sat in the restaurant outside sipping his herb tea, Tilleul with mint and reading Coomaraswamy on the origin of the Buddha image.. She had wanted to ask Kanav to come inside with her but for some reason couldn't bring herself to ask that simple thing. Her heart had voiced the plea silently several times and she wanted that appeal to communicate itself without need for words but she had sensed his mute resistance and retreated. She crumpled the desire and tossed it aside with exaggerated nonchalance. That time there was a mass going on and as she had listened to the church choir singing the hymns she'd been momentarily lifted out herself. Today there was no help and no intimation of the sacred. She noticed a pair of dirty brown stockings near the chair before her. How drab! It accentuated her present desolate state. A pot-bellied man in the front row was counting and recounting his change. His BHV shopping bags were rustling as he fingered them nervously and they created a minor racket in the gloomy silence. Closing her eyes to pray, her lips silently uttered the prayer but her heart and soul did not participate in it. Refusing to be flustered by this dissonance she kept her eyes closed obstinately for several minutes. Then something changed. She felt a presence next to her - Kanav's. The feeling became so acute and her awareness of it so intense that she found herself savouring this heightened awareness of an absent presence. Waves of heat reveled inside her for a passing instant.

I am not hallucinating. You are there, next to me. How wonderful that I can think of you and you deign to come. No, you've come graciously because I've missed you. I've missed you next to me in this church which you refused to enter earlier because it was not bright enough, not cheerful enough for you although you loved the serene and attractive Rue des Barres and its surroundings. I recall you telling me that the stained glass windows are all modern because in March 1918 the church was hit by a German shell/cannon fire and several died and around two hundred were injured. This evoked some tender feelings in you for the church but you found the inside a trifle gloomy and preferred to remain outside.

I can feel the heat from your body fuse with the heat from mine.

Startled by this thought, she opened her eyes.

Am I going mad? What am I doing to myself?

She shot up from the chair, pinched herself really hard and then winced at the pain. She then moved towards the idol of Virgin to light a candle there. The church felt cold and somber. It felt like a tomb, a prison. That was a profane/sacrilegious thought. The silence there was so chillingly unwelcome that she wanted to run out. Sheets of wintry silence smothered her. Silence like a shroud. Silence pregnant with nothing but gloom. The incisive silence of cold rejection. 'Am I exaggerating how I feel?' Her soul cried out, 'I'm no treasure hunter, God. You know what I have come in search of. Don't spurn me like this. I miss Kanav terribly and do not know what to do. You've filled my begging bowl with cold ashes. I can't go on like this.'

The sound of life outside was muffled. Slowly sounds from the life outside trickled in. She heard the subterranean tremor of the metro and the distant stifled sounds of an occasional car and felt better. She let the sounds seep in and fill the church with some semblance of activity. This was notwithstanding the fact that there were a few people in the church and there was positive sign of life and movement but it was too muted to be significant or reassuring.

Now near the idol of Virgin Mary, she dropped a euro coin into the slot of the wooden collection box, picked up a new candle and lit it before the divine statue. All this was done in deliberate slow motion in an attempt to be aware of every studied move she made. She placed the open palm of her right hand above the candle she had lighted, gathering warmth from its tiny flame and then touched her eyes with this warmth. As she repeated this several times she was aware of someone observing her curious gesture. Arresting her gesture, senseless and absurd to a detached observer, she started to walk quickly towards the door and almost ran out only to discover that it was raining pretty heavily. Although she had an umbrella she decided to sit on the steps of the church for some time. 'The downpour won't last,' she thought. These steps brought back the pleasantly painful memory of the same afternoon in late June when Kanav sat in the café outside while she visited the church. Kanav was leaving for London the next day and when he returned Sadhavi wouldn't be around because she was leaving for Hyderabad in a few days so they wouldn't get a chance to see each other for two months. Kanav was quite agitated and distressed although he appeared calm and tried not to show that he would miss Sadhavi exceedingly. The thought of not being able to see Sadhavi for two months was driving him insane so he sat in the café outside to compose himself and reconcile himself to the fact that Sadhavi's absence would have to be endured.

That June day it was also raining - just a mild drizzle. When Sadhavi had stepped out of the church, she saw that Kanav was sitting on the steps waiting for her.

"What took you so long? I thought that you had renounced the world and become a nun! How was the initiation ceremony?" he said with a forced attempt at lightness and facetiouness.

"That's infernally unfair, don't you think?" she asked in a hurt voice as she sat on the steps next to him.

"Take it easy, Sadhavi. It was just a joke. Don't you read the tone of the voice?"

"Well, this is not the first time you've implied something similar. It's really uncalled for, especially now."

"I'm sorry, but you know where I'm coming from."

"Do I?" she asked skeptically and then added, "Maybe, I do. And, anyway, I took my time because you were reading Coomaraswamy, not something light and frivolous that you'd want me out in a major hurry. What exactly have you been reading?'

"Let's not talk about it. Time is short and you will have to leave soon, I suppose."

Sadhavi did not reply. Instead she looked fixedly at the window of the youth hostel in front of her. It used to be a convent. Kanav looked at his book. The pages rustled as he turned them noisily. Then with a decisive slam he closed it. For a few moments they sat there in tense silence fraught with the unexpressed. Their bodies were taut and alert, listening for the slightest message from the other, the minutest shift in energy from the other. Their powerful emotions jostled against each other, circulated around them restively without respite, as they had nowhere to go. Deprived of the will to move they sat next to each other in unquiet silence. The unspoken swirled around them in dizzy circles. Finally, the silence was breached by Kanav, "You need to leave now, I guess. Raghav will be home soon and he will, I'm sure, want to know all about your 'expedition' to this church. Our sitting here is only going to stir up more discomfort for us."

"Yes, it's time for me to go." She added within herself, "Is there something that you have to say to me, something that I can take with me and cherish - a gift of words, personal … memorable." Aloud, she said, "You will keep in touch and take good care of yourself, won't you? And I will see you once I'm back from Hyderabad."

"I suppose so."

"You suppose so?" she asked, almost tearfully as if he was about to sever all contact with her.

"I'm sure you will see me. I will write to you," he said tenderly with a desire to comfort her.

"That's better," she said with a faint smile. "Hope to see you here again." She looked into his eyes as she said this and for a brief moment she read their yearning and heartwrenching appeal that said, "Don't go away," and then his face was impassive and unreadable. She got up slowly and without saying 'good bye' or turning back to look at him, walked into the drizzle with her umbrella at her side. The tingling and cool sensation of fine drops of water on her bare skin, her arms and face, temporarily calmed the pain of separation.

This October day it was far more than a drizzle. It was raining fairly heavily. Sighing deeply Sadhavi opened her umbrella and stepped into Rue des Barres and at the end of the street, right in front of her was Place Couperin where there was an open marché every Wednesday late afternoon. Generally she enjoyed lingering in the marché and browsing through the various stalls with their different kinds of cheese, breads, honeys, confitures, flowers, candles, fruit and vegetables but today she was in no mood to loiter here pleasurably apart from the weather not being conducive to this amusement. So she just picked up some zucchini which looked fresh and tender and went home. It was customary for her to taste each of the zucchinis before chopping them because at times an occasional one could be bitter. That day, each of them, without exception, was bitter. Annoyed, as she threw them in the kitchen garbage bin, she thought, "What a fitting end to a dismal day!"

(This is an extract from a novel written by Priti Aisola. Aisola is currently based in Hyderabad and has travelled extensively all over the world. The novel is set in Paris, Budapest and Hyderabad and is looking for a publisher. For more inquiries, publishers can write to editor@indiawrites.org)

Comments