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

ANGELA, reading. “But what learning and eloquence Paul has!”¹³ And he has an honorable and agreeable family for whom I came to care, especially his mother, doña Juana Dantesco.…I hope that beastly psychologist isn’t listening, God knows what she’d make of that! (Pause.) Ah, my darling Paul, I did all I could to protect you from Methuselah, our pet name for the nuncio Ormaneto, do you remember? (Normal voice.) Now that it’s behind us, I’m wondering whether the most egregious aspect of the affair might not be my passion for your mother, doña Juana. (Long silence, smile; collapses heavily back onto mattress, fondly shaking head from side to side.) I was as crazy about her as I was about you. (Warm smile.) Who wouldn’t be? Because I’ve seldom, or probably never, met her equal for talent and character. (Reads.) “She has a simplicity and openness that put me in seventh heaven,” I can’t repeat it too often; and “in these she greatly surpasses her son.”¹⁴ That was naughty! You’ll forgive me, Father, won’t you?

At this point Sylvia Leclercq feels compelled to tiptoe once more into the scene: Will Teresa’s free-associating cast any light on the (pretty indiscreet) pathology of that godly woman?

ANGELA, silly voice. It was very amusing, Eliseus my sweetheart, when you told me to open the grille and lift my veil for your mother; to show her my face, basically. Good grief, it seems you don’t know me! I would have opened my belly for her! For her first of all, her above all, who bore you in her womb! (Pause.) For her, sure, sooner than for the great Bernini who will make my marble entrails thrill to the cherub’s lance. (Smile.) The sculptor never suspected that the little angel was you…my baby, my lance, my javelin, stabbing me in the heart and beyond…deeper, lower, in the castle’s remotest chamber.…(Blissful smile.)

SYLVIA LECLERCQ. Poor thing, what a passion! Shoving the Word in up to her.…(For reasons of technique, the therapist is given to using crude language with certain patients. Today she holds back, flashing a half-mocking, half-complicit grin at La Madre, who doesn’t notice, immersed in her sensations.)

ANGELA. I was thinking, Joanes darling, I’d willingly give the habit to your sister doña Juana, who stayed here with your mother until the last day. And also to that little angel her sister Isabel, “who is as pretty and plump as can be.” Doña Juana very much resembles you.…(Pause.) I’d love to have her with me. By the way, which of us two loves you more, do you think? “Doña Juana has a husband and other children to love, and poor Laurencia has nothing else on earth but this padre.…”¹⁵ (Laughs out loud. Pause.) So, since I couldn’t give birth to you, or suckle you, all my care went into feeding you. Remember, Eliseus my soul, how often I nagged you to eat properly…(silly voice) to put some weight on, to make sure María de San José plied you with tasty dishes? Even if they were cooked by her, who I didn’t much like. I took huge pleasure in feeding your mother, as well as your angel of a little sister, Isabel, who is with us at present. “How plump she’s getting, and charming”;¹⁶ I love her almost as much as I love your mother, since I can’t love you more than I do already. (Knowing smile.) I give her ripe melon to eat, it’s the best I can do, since breastfeeding is not given to all — but shush, that psychoanalyst is still eavesdropping. (Smile fades.) My temperament is strange: the less notice you take of what I think, the freer I feel about expressing my desires and opinions. God bless you.…(Long silence, cheeks reddening.) Ah, it breaks my heart to hear that you are unwell, my father, my son.…A rash, it seems, doubtless due to the heat. That reminds me (tragic voice)…I must tell you about a temptation I had, which persists, concerning you. And I wonder whether you yourself do not neglect the whole truth at times. (Touching voice.) Do you think I’m jealous? Well, what if I am?