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

TERESA. I’d have had to master mathematics in order to please you, and yet, I can’t help it, poor little me pleased His Majesty himself from time to time. I’m a pretentious woman and I repent of it. Not your style, I know. (Closes eyes and reopens them.) You see, Father, I don’t let go of you all the same, I love you more than you think, for look, even on my deathbed I am prolonging our so-called colloquium, the vejamen—remember? (Normal voice.) I cannot do otherwise, having this radiant Other at the core of me while you are constantly scurrying after it, poor little wounded deer, unhappy, racked priest whom I love with all my heart. (Long silence.) I understand, mind you: you’re nothing but a wretched man, which when all is said and done is even more frustrating than being a wretched woman. The truth is you’ll never be the Other’s Bride, whereas I am confident that I am. That’s how it is, get used to it. (Lips.) I enjoyed having that place, acquired since my prayer over the Song of Songs, and I’m not budging from it, hardened sinner that I am. But thank you kindly for having so clearly explained to me, in the course of your fraternal contribution to the vejamen, matters I hadn’t asked you about! (Teasing voice.) You disparage the understanding, and yet you wouldn’t stop commenting every sentence, interminably, where I, lowly creature, did nothing but feel.…Forgive me, Father, I don’t need convincing, as you know, that you alone are perfection. Me, I’m nothing but a trifler, I own. The Lord will judge; I’m on my way there now. (Listening expression.)

(Long silence.)

TERESA. You say that David assures us…of what? That the death of the just man is precious in God’s eyes.…Speak about yourself, Seneca my dear, I’m a mere woman, and a hard-hearted one at that.…Is it really in my power to tear the fabric of mortal life, as you put it so well? Perhaps.…But only in the Seventh Dwelling Places.…Run away, you say? No, I feel that I’m closing in on the jewel, la joya, within.

JOHN OF THE CROSS’S VOICE, with the face of an El Greco Christ. Solus soli.

TERESA, vehemently again. Quite so, I was about to say. “For it is not knowing much, but realizing and relishing things interiorly, that contents and satisfies the soul.”⁶² It may be that I am closer to these words of Loyola’s than you are, my friend. Ignatius does not refer to prayer, as we know, even if his spiritual graces are not so very different from your “substantial words of the soul,” are they?⁶³ And he is warier of the devil than I am, I agree. But.…(Broken voice, silence.) but when he has a vision of the Blessed Trinity “in the form of a lyre or harp,” amid uncontainable tears and sighs, and when.…⁶⁴ (Pause.) When Jesus appears to him in “white,” in His humanity as I see it, and again when He dazzles him like a sun…and leaves him nothing but the relish for the interior loquela, the uninterrupted voice.…(Her breathing and pulse accelerate.)…Well, I feel for it, it moves my soul, wounded with love, that seeks solitude with the help of the Holy Spirit.…⁶⁵

JOHN OF THE CROSS’S VOICE, still with his El Greco face. Solus soli. There is nothing nuptial in Ignatius Loyola!

TERESA, with a broad grin. Fortunately not! Man or woman, alone with the One and Only…what else do you think marriage is, my great Seneca!

(The flame turns bright red as La Madre’s innocent laugh rings out.)