Teresa, My Love: An Imagined Life of the Saint of Avila

She is not contemplating Gratian as he looked the day of their first meeting, but as he is in the seventeenth-century portrait of him that hangs in the Carmel at Seville. Because Sylvia Leclercq has no other way of picturing him.

LAURENCIA. You’re a charmer, Padre. Had I had no other reasons for serving God, your angelic grace would have sufficed to convince me. And “in a certain manner it is a delight for me when you tell me about your trials.”² I can think of someone — me — who will know how to defend “her son Eliseus better than anyone else in the world.”³ (Reading.) “I was pleased that Paul wrote me as ‘your dear son.’”⁴ “Oh Jesus, what a wonderful thing it is for two souls to understand each other, for they neither lack something to say, nor grow tired.”⁵ “Mi padre—and my superior, as you say, which delighted me and gave me a good laugh.…(Chuckles.) What little need there was for you to swear — neither as a saint nor much less as a teamster — for I am fully persuaded.…I only want to remind you that you gave me permission to judge you and think whatever I want about you.”⁶ (Still reading.) Oh, my soul grows lonelier every day, so far from you.…(Normal voice.) I feel as though I’m “always near Padre José,”* [*A code name for Christ. — Trans.] but who is he? Jesus Christ or you? “In this way one passes through life well, without earthly consolations, yet continually consoled. It seems you are no longer of this earth, since the Lord has withdrawn the occasions of becoming attached to it and filled your hands with what keeps you in heaven.”⁷ (Big smile.)

Fr. Jerome Gratian of the Mother of God. Sixteenth century. Carmel of Seville. Private collection.

Here, Sylvia Leclercq grows irritated. Despite her years of graphomania, our poor Madre remains a slave to her passions! (The therapist will not speak of her irritation, but allows herself a moment’s intrusion into the deathbed scene of this most unusual patient.)

SYLVIA LECLERCQ. After so many years of, um…(hesitates, clears throat)…of flattering, supporting, and shielding your precious genius of an Eliseus, mightn’t it be a good idea to give it a rest? And for you to find rest in the peace of the Lord Himself, rather than in some stand-in or other?

Teresa is not best pleased by this interpellation. Under the guise of protectiveness, could the stranger be seeking to discredit her?

LA MADRE, trying to get a clear view. How very sensible of you, my dear! Kindly refrain from treating me as an invalid who has lost her marbles. (Tries to point a finger at the intruder, hand falls back onto sheet.) Think what you like, but pray keep this in mind: “The important thing is not to think much but to love much.”⁸ Consider if you will, clever lady, that by 1575 I had already started seven convents and was having some trouble with the friars of my Order. There weren’t many discalced men in those days, and not one, frankly, who could hold a candle to Fr. Gratian. (In a wheedling voice.) And so, you understand, a fellow like that who as a young man in Madrid used to beseech an image of our Lady, whom he called his “Beloved”—all right, it’s a bit pretentious, but with such disarming humility! He fell in love with our order in Pastrana, where he charmed the socks off the prioress, Isabel de Santo Domingo.…(Snort.) Who succumbed like all the others, male or female, to the magic of his conversation.…Finally he decided to take his vows with us, after trying out the Jesuits.…(Widens eyes.) An hombre with that kind of mettle is something to treasure, don’t you think? (Knowing smile.)

Defeated by the evidence, Sylvia Leclercq keeps quiet.

ANGELA. When he came to see me at Beas, a few years later, in that unforgettable year 1575, he was already widely esteemed as a discalced white friar. Considering that, three months before his profession of faith, he had had to vanquish some very powerful temptations; he told me a little about it.…(Absorbed in Gratian’s travails, the voice grows dreamy, quivers, melts. Is Teresa taking the path of ecstasy already?) Anyhow, he had been called upon to be a captain of the Virgin’s sons, and he was fighting with great valiance.

SYLVIA LECLERCQ, trying to get through to her via realism. So you needed him, just as he needed you? Gratian would be the organizer you had been hunting for in vain, the man to coordinate the renovation of the Primitive Rule. And yet he didn’t include your name in the Alcalá Constitutions published in 1581; there’s no mention of you at all!