The Miracle (13 page)

"Go on," said Liz, patiently.

"I will relate the occurrence in Bernadette's own words," continued Gisele. "I have memorized them. Here is how Bernadette spoke of it afterward. 'Hardly had I taken off" the first stocking when I heard a

noise something like a gust of wind. I turned toward the meadow and saw that the trees were not moving at all. I had half noticed, but without paying any particular attention, that the branches and brambles were waving beside the grotto.

" 'I was putting one foot into the water when I heard the same sound in front of me. Then I was frightened and stood straight up. I lost all power of speech. I looked up and saw a cluster of branches and brambles underneath the highest opening of the grotto tossing and swinging to and fro—although nothing else stirred.

" 'Almost at the same time there came out of the grotto a golden-colored cloud, and soon after a Lady in white, young and beautiful, exceedingly beautiful, no bigger than myself, who greeted me with a slight bow of Her head. At the same time She stretched out Her arms slightly away from Her body, opening Her hands as in a picture or statue of Our Lady—over Her right arm hung a rosary.

" 'I was afraid and drew back. I wanted to call the two girls but did not have the courage to do so.

" 'I rubbed my eyes again and again. I thought I must be mistaken.

" 'Looking up, I saw the Lady smiling at me most graciously and seeming to invite me to come nearer. But I was still afraid. It was not a fear such as I have felt at other times, however, for I would have stayed there forever looking at her, whereas when you are afraid you run away quickly.

" 'Then I thought of saying my prayers. I put my hand in my pocket and took out the rosary I always have with me. I knelt down and tried to make the Sign of the Cross but I could not lift my hand to my forehead: It fell back.

" 'The Lady meantime stepped to one side and turned toward me. This time she was holding the large beads in Her hand. She crossed Herself as though to pray. My hand was trembling. I tried again to make the Sign of the Cross and this time I could—I was not afraid anymore.

" 'I said my rosary. The Lady passed the beads through Her fingers but did not move Her lips. While I was saying my rosary I was watching as hard as I could.

" 'She was wearing a white dress right down to Her feet, and only the tips of Her toes were showing. The dress was gathered high at the neck from which there hung a white cord. A white veil covered Her head and came down over Her shoulders and arms almost to the bottom of Her dress.

" 'On each foot I saw a yellow rose. The sash of the dress was blue

and hung down below the knees. The chain of the rosary was yellow, the beads white and big, and widely spaced.

" The Lady was alive, very young, and surrounded with light.

" 'When I had finished my rosary, the Lady bowed to me smilingly. She retired to the interior of the rock—and suddenly the golden cloud disappeared with Her.' That was Bernadette's first vision. That was the beginning."

Gisele fell silent. Liz remained silent.

At last, Liz spoke. "You mean everybody believed in that hallucination?"

"Nobody believed it at the start," said Gisele simply. "In fact, Bernadette wanted to keep the story to herself. But her sister repeated it to their mother, and the mother slapped Bernadette for speaking such nonsense. After that, after subsequent visions at the grotto, the parish priest. Father Peyramale, mocked her and the normally good-natured Commissioner of Police Jacomet accused her of being a liar."

"But she kept going back to the grotto and saw the Virgin Mary seventeen more times?"

Gisele nodded seriously. "Eighteen times in all. You wish to hear the highlights?"

"All right. The highlights only."

"Three days later, Bernadette was drawn back to the grotto, fell into a pale ecstatic trance, and saw the Virgin Mary again. Four days after that, Bernadette saw the Virgin a third time, and the Virgin spoke and requested Bernadette to come to the grotto regularly for the next two weeks. She said, 'I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next.'

"Despite much opposition, Bernadette obeyed the Virgin's instructions and continued to pray at the grotto. Impressed by Bernadette's sincerity and demeanor, the townsfolk began to follow her to the grotto and watch her."

"And Bernadette kept seeing the Virgin Mary?"

"Yes. The seventh time was when the Virgin told Bernadette the last of her secrets, that she would make a reappearance at the grotto this year. The thirteenth time the Virgin appeared before Bernadette, she told the girl two things. 'Go and tell the priests to build a chapel here ... I want people to come here in procession.' It was recorded that there were 1,650 persons gathered as spectators at the grotto on that morning."

"Did they see and hear what Bernadette saw and heard?"

"No, of course not," said Gisele. "The Virgin Mary was visible only to Bernadette and could be heard only by Bernadette."

"Umm. Well—"

Ignoring Liz's obvious skepticism, Gisele hurried on with her story. "Bernadette's most important sighting of the Virgin was the sixteenth one. It happened at five in the morning. The Virgin was waiting for her at the grotto and, according to Bernadette, 'She put Her hands together again at the level of Her breast, lifted up Her eyes to Heaven and then told me that She was the Immaculate Conception.' Since presumably Bernadette did not know, at that time, what the Immaculate Conception was, her repeating of what she had heard gave her report greater veracity. In fact, when she reported that to Father Peyramale, the parish priest, up till then a skeptic, he did a turnaround. He became convinced that Bernadette's visions of the Celestial Lady were true wonders. Bernadette saw the Virgin again on April 7, and then there was a long lapse until July 16, when Bernadette had an inner call, hastened to the grotto, and saw the Virgin Mary for the last time."

"You're telling me it was when the Virgin called herself the Immaculate Conception," said Liz, "that everyone tumed into tme believ-ers?"

"There was more that did it," said Gisele. "There was the fact that the seventeenth apparition was attended by a skeptical scientific person, a Dr. Pierre-Romain Dozous, who watched as the flame of the lighted candle Bernadette was holding licked at her fingers, yet afterward she showed no bums from the flame. And then real miracle cures began. Above all, there was Bernadette's unquenchable belief and sincerity. The police chief tried to trap her, to prove she was reporting the whole event to make money. But she never accepted a single sou. And she could not be tricked into making a contradictory statement. She was simple, straightforward, and wanted no public attention. Actually, she retired from the public eye, became a recluse, and then a nun eight years later. Anyway, five days after her last vision, the bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes formed his commission of inquiry. And less than four years later, he announced, 'The Apparition which calls itself Immaculate Conception, what Bernadette saw and heard, is the Very Holy Vir-gm.

"It didn't stay simple," said Liz. "How did we go from sweet, simple Bernadette to—to this?"

The guide's face was creased in thought.

"Look, it would take too long to explain it all, but let me tell you the main things that happened after Bernadette's visions were proclaimed authentic. Father Peyramale, following the Virgin's request, began to build a church above the shrine. But the diocesan authorities decided that the happening was too momentous to be left to a local

priest, who was small-time, had no good head for finance. So they turned the area over to a nearby group of Catholic fathers, the Garaison fathers, later called the Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, known for their aggressiveness and promotional skills. These priests, under Father Pierre-Remy Sempe, the bishop's former secretary, went to work. For processions, they purchased land and built this esplanade, a kind of super park, as part of the Domain of Our Lady. Then they finished the Upper Basihca. Then they raised money to build the Rosary Basihca. Finally, two years after the first large organized pilgrimage of eight thousand people came here to the grotto, the railway company— which had been lobbied—diverted its trains to pass through Lourdes. Within seven years, the first foreign pilgrimages arrived from Canada and Belgium. After that, Lourdes belonged to the entire world, and today over five million pilgrims and tourists come here annually."

Gisele Dupree stood up. "Now I think you are ready to see the grotto."

Liz mopped her brow once more and rose to her feet. "Okay, the grotto."

As they strode along the seemingly endless grounds of the domain, Gisele pointed off to a series of offices under a sloping walk that led to the Upper Basihca. "There you see The Hospitality, which is in charge of the comfort of visitors, mainly pilgrims. Further down is the center for the brancardiers, the volunteers who come from everywhere to push the three thousand bath chairs, the several thousand wheelchairs, and to carry the most serious invalids in one hundred fifty stretcher trolleys. The Medical Bureau, where miracle cures are reported and studied by doctors of every religious faith or no faith at all, is also under that rising walkway on our right. Nearby is a hospital—there is a second one on the far side of the river." Gisele saw Liz take out her pack of cigarettes, and admonished her firmly. "Sorry, Miss Finch, smoking is not permitted in the domain."

"Wouldn't you know," said Liz in an undertone.

"Now we are at the Upper Basihca, quite a sight," said Gisele. "We can climb up either of those twin walkways and staircases to the entrance and go inside."

"Thanks, but no thanks," Liz said grumpily.

"Are you sure? The interior is so immense and overwhelming—the nave, the silver-gilt hearts around the nave bearing some of the words that the Virgin spoke to Bernadette, like, 'Penitence . . . You must pray for the conversion of sinners! ... Go and drink at the fountain and wash in it! ... I am the Immaculate Conception!' You'll appreciate the nineteen stained-glass windows."

Liz shook her perspiring face and head vigorously. "Gisele, no more guide-book stuif. Just show me the grotto."

Grisele emitted an unhappy sigh. "The grotto. Very well. It is around the comer of the Basihca, through that archway."

On aching feet, Liz trailed after her guide to the far side of the obscenely mammoth churches. They went past a rack of candles for sale, and came upon a sizable group of people standing, sitting on benches, kneeling in prayer. Some were in wheelchairs. They were all focused on one object to the left.

Liz turned slightly, and there it was. The grotto. The grotto of Massabielle. A plain old dark-gray cave burrowed into the hillside by nature, with shrubbery and trees high above it. Liz had not known what to expect, but she was disappointed. For a wonder of the world, it was not much.

She studied it more carefully. In a niche above the opening, there stood a statue of the Virgin Mary. A traditional one, no different from any other that Liz had ever seen. Below the statue was a circular eight-tier rack with a hundred or more votive candles burning. Gisele was speaking. "A sculptor in Lyon made the statue and presented it in 1864. Bernadette did not like it."

"No kidding?"

"Bernadette was always very forthright. Now, all around you can see cmtches hanging, crutches discarded by crippled pilgrims who have been cured here." She indicated a line of visitors inching into the interior of the grotto. "Would you like to see the grotto closer?"

"Why not?"

Gisele and Liz got into line. As they moved forward, between the marble slab of an altar and the grotto wall, Liz could see that many people in the line were leaning over to kiss the wall. "There are actually three openings into the grotto," Gisele was saying, "although there seems to be only one." As they passed by the altar, Gisele pointed down at a locked grill through which Liz saw a glass-covered stream of water. "The curative holy spring," said Gisele. "In 1858, that was merely dirt. During the ninth apparition, Bernadette reported that the Lady 'told me to go and drink and cleanse myself in the spring. I saw none and went toward the Gave. She rephed that it wasn't there, and pointed at a spot below the precipice. I found a bit of water which looked more like mud, but there was so little I could hardly get any into my hand. I started digging and so I got more.' That night the water continued to trickle, and eventually ba;ame the miraculous spring."

They moved out of the grotto into the sunlight. Gisele pointed to a rustic wall behind them that Liz had overlooked approaching the

grotto. At the wall, pilgrims were lined up at a row of spigots to fill containers with holy water. "The underground spring the Virgin directed Bernadette to discover now is piped to these spigots. Also, farther on, there are the fourteen baths in which pilgrims can bathe in these waters from the grotto. The bath waters are drained and refilled freshly twice a day. Drinking the water, bathing in it, as well as prayer at the grotto, seems to be responsible for most of the miracle cures that have taken place. Want to have a closer look at the spigots and baths?"

Liz Finch grunted. "I want only one thing. To sit down. My feet are killing me. Is there a cafe anywhere around here?"

"Why, yes, there's a ramp just the other side of the church that takes you straight up to the Boulevard de la Grotte. Right across the street there's a nice cafe, Le Royale. You can sit down there and have something."

"Let's go," said Liz. "Hey, if you've got a few minutes, why don't you join me? Have some ice cream or coffee. What do you say?"

Gisele was pleased. "I say that's a good invitation. I accept."

With effort, breathing like a beached porpoise, Liz followed the girl guide up the steep ramp to the Boulevard de la Grotte. They waited for a break in the traffic and hurried across the street, swerving toward the comer where the outdoor cafe could be seen.

Liz stumbled toward the first vacant square table and almost fell into the black naugahyde chair. A slender male waiter wearing a black vest over his white shirt materialized almost at once.