Chosen
by Maire Fisher

The woman kneeling in the front pew is perfect. Track-suiting covers her haunches, the beautifully wide hips of a woman past her prime, past the time when a man tells her she is glorious. There's a quiet seriousness in her bowed head and I know she is praying. "She could be the next," the voice whispers. The soft echo of heaven swells behind it - celestial music, the song of my chosen.

My hand steals into my pocket. As always, the chill touch of the small hard beads conjures up that first day, a day marked in my notebook with a little crimson A. A for Abigail.

I was out on one of my rambles, my mind circling the details. Everything was in place, but I could not proceed without a sign. I flailed in that deep space between plan and action, scared yet elated at the thought of taking the first step. "Be sure," murmured the voice. "Be sure, for once you begin, there will be no turning back." At first, the voice had threatened my equilibrium, hard won and held onto so tenaciously, so stubbornly. The more it spoke though, the more I learned that unlike the doctors with their poisonous pills, the voice knew what was best. It knew what I didn"t.

It knew, as I neared a small church on the Kommetjie Road, that this was the place. The wooden doors gaped wide, a dark singing mouth calling, urging me inwards. I slipped into a pew near the back. The woman sitting on the end slid along to make space. I settled back against the hard wood. As the congregation shuffled and shifted to the rhythm of the priest's words, I became increasingly aware of the shape next to me. Fleshy thighs encased in black trousers, short fat fingers, unadorned, clasping a prayer book. In profile her face was soft and round, framed in greying curly hair. Her eyes, washed pale by middle age, focused on the altar, her lips, full and pink, moved to the cadence of prayer. I recognised the words of the "Our Father", from dim times of early childhood. "Let us offer each other a sign of peace," the priest said. Parishioner turned to parishioner in a flurry of handshakes. She took my hand between her fleshy palms and I felt a surge of warmth, a sense of things falling into shape. When the priest told the congregation to "go in peace", those lovely solid thighs brushed past me. No husband accompanied her, no children trailed out behind her. I sat in the pew as the church emptied.

The sun filters through stained glass, bruising my hands purple, yellow, red. The church smells, as they all do on a week day morning, of old flowers and candle wax. Christ looks down from his crucifix, feet bound together, arms splayed wide. I have been in many churches since that first day, for these are where I find the chosen. Each is linked to the last - each holds her ordained place in the chain. The sign was given when I opened the pouch containing Abigail's rosary.

It lay on the ledge where she had been kneeling, the brown leather hardly discernible against the varnished wood of the pew. I bent forward to pick it up, my hands shaking. The shiny press-stud unfastened easily and the linked crystal beads slithered into my palm. Fiery sparks danced as I held the rosary to the light. Jesus dangled from a short chain, the metal weight of his crucifix pulling the perfect circlet towards him. The rosary was hers, beyond all doubt. I draped it over my wrists and time passed in clear drops of certainty. "She is the one. She will be outside, waiting". I stood up, filled with energy, with bright resolution. Fear and worry released their hold as I moved to where dreams and desire had beckoned for so long.

Small groups of parishioners walked from the church ground. She wasn"t there. For one dreadful moment I thought I had lost my chance, but then I caught a glimpse of her softly curling hair and hurried towards her.

"Excuse me, I think you may have left this behind you?"
She smiled, held out her hand. "Why, how kind. I would have been so upset to lose these."
From there the script seemed to write itself. I walked with her, taking small slow steps, chatting easily. She was guileless, naïve, easy to entrance. They all are, these lonely single women.

The doors of the church swing open, interrupting my reverie. A priest swishes past, his cassock black and elegant. He doesn't see me of course - no one ever does. There are advantages to being nondescript. I blend into backgrounds, observe from the shadows. I toy with images of myself in a cassock, of the woman, supplicant, seeking my divine mercy. I know though, that I may not deviate from the prescribed practices, for how else can the parts become one with the whole? The priest stops next to her, rests a hand on her shoulder. She turns to him eagerly; I can almost see the glow of her face from here. I grip the beads firmly, willing myself to be patient.

Abigail's rosary was my first keepsake. When her work was over, I tenderly placed the leather pouch in a wooden box, a box that filled gradually with assorted mementoes. Soon it will become too small. The box is hidden, but I like to keep Abigail's beads with me, my talisman, and my reminder. They rest in a chained clump in my pocket, fill me with strength each time I begin anew. The voice comes to me when I hold them, confirming, commanding.

Abigail and the others rest now, their duty done. At first they did not understand, but soon they learned the way, the purpose, the meaning. These women: my beauties, my lovelies, my chosen. I bring them into the circle, to the fold of the elect. I select them carefully, keep detailed notes, allow myself the small indulgence of returning to my list before I embark on a new undertaking. Joan's eyes stare from Debbie's; Debbie's hands twist in Carmen's; Carmen's warm thighs part to become Abigail's. Eager, lonely, receptive, all so ample, all so wanting to be opened, to be filled. All so ready for me.

I have to be careful of course, make sure that only one is led from each place. Some of the earlier ones, the ones after Abigail, were disappointments, and with these it was best to finish quickly. I could not risk their spoiling the perfection, the symmetry. I explained this as gently as I could, then closed my ears to their pitiful mewling, handling them as little as possible as I disposed of them. I find now that my instincts are surer, and have been glad to notice that my list of successes is far longer than my failures.

The woman rises to her feet, leaning on soft white hands. She stands gazing at the door of the offertory, where the priest has disappeared. Her shoulders lift in a sigh. Sadness? Desire? She bends to pick up her handbag, her capacious buttocks a round smooth swell. I clench the beads in my pocket and wait to be told if I have made the correct decision. "She will do very well."

I bow my head as she walks down the aisle, quick small steps, on short plump legs. Soon I will know her name, and she will call mine. She will learn how to give, how to listen. And her voice will join the choir that sings me to sleep, calls me to wake and choose again.

© Maire Fisher