Nada

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Title:     Nada
Author: James Huneker [More Titles by Huneker]

The tenderness of the growing night disquieted the dying woman.

"Aline!" she called. But it was only the name that reverberated within the walls of her brain, harrowed by fever. A soft air rustled the drawn curtains of lawn; and on the dressing table the two little lamps fluttered in syncopated sympathy. One picture the room held. It was after a painting by Goya, and depicted a sneering skeleton scrawling on his dusty tomb, with a bony fore-finger, the sinister word, Nada--nothing! The perturbation of the woman increased, though physical power seemed denied her. "Aline, my child!" This time a clucking sound issued from her throat.

The girl went to the bedside and gently fanned. Her aunt wagged her head negatively. "No, no!" she stuttered. Aline stopped, and kneeling, took the sick hands in her own. Their eyes met and Aline, guided by the glance, looked over at the picture with its sardonic motto.

"Shall I take it away, Aunt Mary?" The elder woman closed her eyes as if to shut out the ghoulish mockery. Then Aline saw the tabouret that stood between the windows--it was burdened with magnolias in a deep white bowl.

"Do you wish them nearer?"

"No, no," murmured her aunt. Her eyes brightened. She pushed her chin forward, and the young girl removed the flowers, knowing that their odour had become oppressive. She was not absent more than a few seconds. As she returned the maid touched her arm.

"The gentlemen are waiting below, miss. They won't leave until they see you."

"How can I go now? Send them away, send them away!"

"Yes, miss; but I told them what you said this afternoon about the danger of Holiest Mother--"

"Hush! she is calling." Aline slipped into the room on hurried feet, her eyes dilated, her hair in anxious disorder. But the invalid made no signal. She lay with closed eyelids, the contraction of her nostrils a faint proclamation of life. Again the niece took her place at the headboard, and with folded fingers watched the whispering indications of speedy flight. The maid soon beckoned her from a narrowed door. Aline joined her.

"They say that if you don't go down, they will come up."

"Who says?" was the stern query.

"The Second Reader and the Secretary. I think you had better see them; they both look worried. Really I do, Miss Allie."

"Very well, Ellen; but you must stay here, and if Holiest Mother makes the slightest move, touch the bell. I'll not be gone five minutes."

Without arranging her hair or dress, Aline opened the folding doors of the drawing-room. Only the centre lamp was lighted, but she recognized the two men. They were sitting together, and arose as she entered. The burly Second Reader wore a dismayed countenance. His cheeks were flabby, his eyes red. The other was a timid little man who never had anything to say.

"How is Holiest Mother?" asked the Reader.

"Dying."

"Oh, Sister Aline! Why such a blunt way of putting it? She may be exchanging her earthly garb for a celestial one--but die! We do not acknowledge death in the Church of the New Faith." He paused and blandly stroked his huge left hand, covered with red down.

"Holiest Mother, my aunt, has not an hour to live," was the cool response of the girl. "If you have no further question, I must ask you to excuse me; I am needed above." She stepped to the door.

"Wait a moment, sister! Not so fast. The situation is serious. Hundreds of thousands of the faithful depend on our report of this--of this sad event. We may tell them that the female pope of our great religion"--he bent his big neck reverently--"was wafted to her heavenly abode by the angels. But there are the officers of the law, the undertaker, the cemetery people, to be considered. Shall we acknowledge that our founder has died like any other human--in bed, of a fever? And who is to be her successor? Has she left a will?"

"Poor Aunt Mary!" muttered the girl.

"It must be a woman, will or no will," continued the Second Reader, in the tone of a conqueror making terms with a stricken foe. "Now Aline, sister, you are the nearest of kin. You are a fervent healer. You are the Woman."

"How can you stand there heartlessly plotting such things and a dying woman in the house?" Aline's voice was metallic with passion. "You care only for the money and power in our church. I refuse to join with you in any such scheme. Aunt Mary will die. She will name her successor. Then it will be time to act. Have you forgotten her last words to the faithful?" She pointed to a marble tablet above the fireplace, which bore this astounding phrase: "My first and forever message is one and eternal." Nothing more,--but the men cowered before the sublime wisdom uttered by a frail woman, wisdom that had started the emotional machinery of two continents.

"But, great God! Miss Aline, you mustn't go off and leave us in this fix." Drops of water stood on the forehead of the Second Reader. His hands dropped to his side with a gesture of despair. His companion kept to the corner, a scared being.

"You know as well as I do that somebody has to take the throne seat after--after your Aunt Mary dies--I mean, after Holiest Mother is translated to eternity. Ask her, beg her, for some advice. We can't let the great undertaking go to pieces--"

"You have little faith, brother," replied Aline. "If that message means anything, then the New Faith will take care of itself--"

"Yes, yes, I know," was the testy interruption; "but the world is not so easily led in matters of religion. The message, as you say, is divine; but it may sound like meaningless twaddle to the world at large. If we are to heal mankind and dispel the heresy of disease and death, why can't Holiest Mother save herself? Mind you, I am looking at this thing with the eyes of the sceptics--"

"You are an unbeliever, a materialist, yourself," was the bold retort. "Do as you please, but you can't drag me into your money calculations." The swift slam of the door left them to their fears.

Her aunt, sitting as upright as a candle, was conducting an invisible orchestra when Aline returned. The frightened maid tried to hold the lean, spasmodic arms as they traced in the air the pompous rhythm of a march that moved on silent funereal pinions through the chamber. The woman stared threateningly at the picture on the wall, the picture of the skeleton which had come from nothingness to reveal nothingness to the living. The now distraught girl, her nerves crisped by her doubts, threw herself upon the bed, her fears sorely knocking at her heart.

"Aunt, Aunt Mary--Holiest Mother, in Christ's name, in the name of the New Faith, tell me before you go--tell me what is to become of our holy church after you die--after you pass over to the great white light. Is it all real? Or is it only a dream, your beautiful dream?--What is the secret truth? Or--or--is there no secret--no--" her voice was cracked by sobs. The stately, soundless music was waved on by her aunt. Then Holiest Mother fell back on her pillow, and with a last long glance at the picture, she pointed, with smiling irony at the picture.

Nada, Nada ...

The night died away in tender complicity with the two little lamps on the dressing table, and the sweet, thick perfume of magnolias modulated into acrid decay as day dawned. Below, the two men anxiously awaited the message from the dead. And they saw again upon the marble tablet above the fireplace her cryptic wisdom:--

"My first and forever message is one and eternal."

[The end]
James Huneker's short story: Nada

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