La Petite Cathédrale d’Elsie

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(Author’s note: This story was selected for the 2021 Napa Valley Writers group Anthology, Third Harvest, released December 8, 2021 – available HERE*)

Father Paolo gripped his cloak tight around his face, bent into the snowstorm, and moved on. A numb grip held his walking staff; fingers a mottled pink and pale, ghostly white. Aroused by the assault of another gust, he realized he no longer climbed with each step. Was this the vale he sought?

When the wind abated, snowflakes surrounding him held motionless, as if considering their mission toward earth. He caught the scent of burning wood. The snowflakes returned to their downward flutter. He stopped and turned toward the heartwarming aroma, a hound on the hunt, then started walking again. The day’s light waned, and the temperature plummeted. Below his well-worn boots, the snow scrunched and squeaked. Paolo stopped, analyzed the smell of a villager’s distant fire. He reoriented in its direction and stepped forward. Squeak, scrunch.

Though he felt certain of his path, he made slow progress. 

Before him, a small structure loomed atop large beams. In the dark space below, a woman fed her cows. She stopped her work and turned toward the storm. She moved to the edge of her shelter and called out.

Father Paolo froze in place, not quite believing his dulled senses.

She called out again, and a cow lowed. And Paolo’s world spun into darkness.

Woken by the woman’s urging as she shook his shoulder, Father Paolo lay on his back, stunned, mouth agape. Through a dark haze, time spun backwards through his recent ordeal. He introduced himself and thanked God and the young woman. 

His cloak hung on a peg near the rippling fire a few feet away, steam roiling from its sodden wool. Bits of ice lay on the floor below, thawing into thin puddles. Close to the fire, his boots sat, vapors lazily rising from their insides, looking as if they were two steeping cups of hot tea. The aroma of a savory meal drifted his way. This sent his mouth watering.

Beyond the crackling of the fire, Paolo heard the babbling of a child. He sat up—much too fast. His vision blurred. The woman caught him as he slumped toward the threadbare carpet lying beneath him. Senses returning, he looked into her eyes, then told her she had saved his life. She blushed and helped him to sit up, slower this time. He surveyed the room, with its low ceilings, dark log construction, and worn furniture. Amber light from a pair of candles and the fireplace danced across the humble scene. 

The babbling resumed. Paolo twisted toward the sound. There, near a bed in one corner of the room, a cradle wobbled. He returned his gaze to the woman, and she nodded. With her help, Paolo stood. When his head had cleared, he took a few unsteady steps toward the cradle. 

The woman said the baby’s father had named her Elsie, after his grandmother. 

The beautiful child’s oval face, pink cheeks, and gleaming brown doe eyes lifted Paolo’s spirits. The color of the child’s rosy cheeks pulled at a memory from the padre’s painful childhood; he pushed away the thought. The baby’s mother beckoned him to sit at a small table, then placed a steaming bowl of stew before the priest. His stomach growled. He felt mortified by this ravenous response. She returned to the table with a bowl of her own and sat with Elsie on her lap. Father Paolo said a short blessing, then tucked into the thick, aromatic stew of braised meat, potatoes, carrots, and peas. 

After Paolo’s frenzied first bites, they spoke. He learned the woman’s name was Luana, she was recently widowed, and that Elsie was five months old on this very day. The child watched Paolo’s movements with delight and accepted portions of the stew’s gravy from her mother’s spoon. Elsie’s eyes sparkled with the flicker of candle flames, her cheeks glowing red and reminding him of his twin sister, Revela, who had passed before their fourth birthday. 

As the meal ended, Elsie cooed and reached out for him. With his smiling approval, her mother set Elsie on Paolo’s lap. He had not held a child in years, but holding Elsie filled his heart. Father Paolo asked about the child’s christening. Luana said their previous priest had to leave the village several weeks prior. Villagers waited for their new priest’s arrival for christenings and weddings to take place. He looked from mother to child and back and declared a promise: because she had saved his life, he would christen her child before any other. 

The next day woke to more gloom. Windows on one side of the woman’s home were now half covered by snow. Icicles hung from the eves. The weather remained dreadful throughout that day. They heard loud snaps and sudden crashes, trees and their branches breaking from the burden of ice and snow. The bitter cold, blinding snowfall, and such hazards made it unsafe for any living beings outside their homes and dens. Paolo and his new friends spent the day by the fire.

The next morning, the storm broke, and the sun rose in a low line over distant alpine peaks. As if from a cataclysm, villagers emerged from their homes. Cows lowed in their stalls.

Elsie’s mother bundled her, and they guided an anxious Father Paolo to his new church. The old building stood two hundred yards away from the location of his deliverance from the fiendish snowstorm. Under a tall, snow-capped spire, the building sat with its hanging, bedraggled bands of faded paint. Paolo’s heart sank at the sight of a house of God in such a deplorable state.

The young priest, using stiff leg muscles, pushed a thick snowdrift away from the entrance. That burdensome task completed, he shouldered the doors open and peered inside, the scene forbidding, cold and dark as an ice cave.

The village alderman presented himself. The older man, replete in a suit and tie under a long, fur-lined coat, informed Father Paolo someone would come to help light a fire in the boiler. Father Paolo informed the alderman that services would resume the next morning, Sunday.

With so little time before this first service, the boiler had done very little to ward off the chill in the church. In the sacristy, Father Paolo saw his breath. Nevertheless, nervous as a hare under a hawk’s eye, he perspired under his cassock beneath liturgical vestments and silk stole. At the proper time, he stepped onto the dais and looked toward his congregation. In a space large enough for over one hundred people sat less than two dozen. White puffs of breath mingled and held in a layer above the villagers.

During the days that proceeded the christening of baby Elsie, Father Paolo and the alderman’s righthand man, Alfred, fed wood into the boiler. It would take many more days before the heat would penetrate the thick walls of the church and bring comfort to its parishioners.

One Saturday evening two weeks later, as another storm dumped more snow in the valley, Father Paolo prepared for the next day’s sermon and baby Elsie’s christening. He set out his vestments and the silver cup and aspergil. Satisfied with his planning for the special event, he left the sacristy and walked across the dais, preparing to kneel at the altar.

Before Father Paolo could complete his prostration, Alfred burst through the doors of the church gesticulating with both hands and bellowing incoherent sentences. Father Paolo, moved to panic by the sudden frenzy, calmed himself, settled the man into a mid-row pew and asked him to repeat his message. 

Word had come that Luana and her child had not returned from her mother-in-law’s home, well above the village near the Col de la Forclaz. Alfred also declared that this new blizzard had blown in as heavy as the last.

Alfred, fearful, sat with hands clutched in his lap and his head down. He informed the priest that the men of the village were on their way; they would begin their search for mother and child, from the church.

Village men stomped into the church, thick wads of snow falling from coats and shaken from their hats. The unorganized herd clamored for several minutes, each of the men speaking over the others. Father Paolo was at a loss.  As if on cue, the alderman entered, surveyed the scene, and said a few words. The men quickly organized their search. Father Paolo said a quick prayer, and the men, now roped together in pairs and trios, set off into the dusk, lanterns in hand. 

As the snow continued its cascade from the heavens, Father Paolo asked God for advice. Nothing came. He asked where his newest friends could be. No answer. He was preparing another query when several of the village women spilled into the church, all talking at once and beckoning for the priest. Another flood of snow fell to the wooden floors. Someone rushed off for a pail and mop. With Father Paolo’s agreement, the women set up narrow tables and laid out warm food and hot beverages for the men’s return. Father Paolo offered a prayer and asked God his next question. What more could they do? Still no divine reply. The women returned to their tasks. 

Paolo kneeled before the effigy of Christ and asked what his Lord meant for him to learn from this experience. Only silence. Paolo remained still for long moments. Suddenly, a warm feeling blanketed him, God’s meaning filling him. The angelic faces of baby Elsie and of Paolo’s dearly departed sister Revela, each smiling their assent, filled his mind’s eye.

He stood; hope was not lost. Returning to the women, he made a declaration: If right then they could make plans to paint the old church the following spring, bringing all the people together in that task, he believed that the village would be blessed, and mother and child would soon return. The women discussed the idea amongst themselves. Paolo paced.

Moments later, the women paired up and set out into the storm to visit nearby village homes. Within an hour’s time, they piled buckets with remnants of various colored paints in a corner of the church opposite the baptismal font. The ladies told Father Paolo this was all the paint in the village of Trient, and that it may not be enough for all of the church. He thought of the up-valley homes, their spare bits of paint. There must be more. The priest said God would understand and with His blessings they would find more paint before spring.

Tense minutes, then hours, passed; the old building fell into a worried silence. The ladies’ hushed voices faded away from the priest’s awareness. Father Paolo, deep in contemplation, walked the long aisle, past the transept, and returned to the altar. He kneeled once more and murmured his words to God, telling of the villager’s valiant efforts. On both knees, hands clasped tightly before him, he slid through his life, hovering over his rescue from the previous blizzard and when he had first met the radiant child, Elsie, and her fearless mother, now struggling to survive somewhere out there in the dark.

He started a different prayer, this time louder, his voice bouncing off the angular walls of the apse and the stained-glass images of saints in tall windows above. Before he could finish his appeal, a clamor broke the silence. The doors of the church burst open, and a throng of men poured into the main aisle, encircling a bundled figure holding a smaller bundle. More men, and then more entered. The swirling mix of bodies overflowed into the pews. From the bundled figure appeared Luana. She undid a fleece that had protected her child from the cold; Elsie’s tiny smile and rosy cheeks beamed. They all cheered with delight. Father Paolo turned back and thanked God and Jesus in a long prayer. Tears streamed down his face for the first time in his adult life. 

Next morning, the storm now abated, baby Elsie and mother arrived at the church first. Then a dozen villagers appeared, and a dozen more.

Beyond the sacristy walls, Father Paolo could hear a din rising up in the nave. The thought of Elsie and her mother waiting for him lifted his body. He donned his garments, clutched his bible to his chest and made for the door. From the altar, Father Paolo looked up. The first set of pews were full, Elsie and her mother beside the aisle. Villagers crammedinto the second set. As he continued his survey, expectant faces filled every pew. Others stood in the back and along the walls.

Mass complete, Father Paolo announced Elsie’s christening. A cheer rose from the crowd. The priest led Luana and Elsie through the now standing, expectant people to the baptismal font. Elsie wore a long christening gown. Generations of use proudly shown as an off-white hue in the garment’s delicate fabric. Elsie gabbed and cooed to everyone’s delight. Somewhat nervous, Father Paolo said the words of his faith and sprinkled holy water from the aspergil. The christening complete, Luana dried the baby’s fine, light hair and bundled her up once more. Festivities over, they all filed out into the daylight, each taking the time to address mother and daughter as they passed.

When the following spring arrived, the people found more paint on long forgotten shelves and in cellars throughout the valley. Father Paolo organized a ceremony to mix all the paints following Sunday church services. To begin their undertaking, the alderman recalled the horrific storms of the past winter and their dire circumstances. He then asked Father Paolo to give thanks. 

Preambles concluded, villagers began opening pails, pouring their contents into a large barrel, and mixing the various paints together.

Two large men standing over the barrel and using willow branches stirred the thick goo with all their might. Elsie’s mother held her close to the proceedings. She chattered and attempted various words. In the barrel, thin swirls and traces of the various pigments mixed in a colorful spiraling mosaic. Nearby villagers predicted that the result would be a boring brown or a dull gray. As the new color materialized, the people crowded close. Each would look into the barrel, then to Elsie, then to each other, and then cross themselves. 

Father Paolo noticed the people’s response and looked into the barrel. He too looked to Elsie. He softly caressed her tiny cheeks. Those close by smiled in delight. Father Paolo declared to those who could not see for the crowd that little Elsie had inspired the color their church would become. To everyone’s amazement, the new creation was a perfect match to the child’s rosy, pink cheeks.

That Springtime in Trient, so many years ago, Father Paolo had warned the villagers their church would likely never house a bishop’s cathedra. However, ever since, they have called their church La Petite Cathédrale d’Elsie, Elsie’s little cathedral.

(Another note: If you’d like the true story behind this tale, let me know)

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While sketching out the backstory and family history for Camino Child (my recent novel) and our lead character, Summer Darling, I wrote a novella about her grandmother when she was a young woman backpacking through Europe in the 1980s with her older sister. CLICK here to download your FREE copy of Georgia & Patricia.

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