Alina in Ecstasy

By Joseph Roccasalvo

Alina in Ecstasy is a novel about a man who is a famous writer and intensely hostile to religion. Julian Mandel, more an agnostic than an atheist, is in a rage over a former lover's decision to join the Carthusians—a religious order noted for silence and solitude. When he visits Alina, now Mother Maddalena, she claims not to recognize either Julian or herself as the persons involved in a former sexual relationship. Later, he learns she has died and been declared “blessed” by the pope. Obsessed by this development, he tries to prevent her advancement to sainthood. But when Julian is cured of terminal cancer, which the Vatican believes is a second miracle owed to Alina's intervention, he prays for the return of his cancer. When it does, he cannot avoid the thought that Alina has intervened to subvert her own canonization. The Vatican quickly responds by declaring that no protocol exists for treating as miraculous the reversal of a former miracle.

This novel is meant to be spiritual reading cast as a psychological thriller: to inform a secular audience, against all odds, that love is stronger than death. The effort has succeeded if it fuses the erotic with the mystical like Bernini’s statue of Saint Teresa now viewed through the medium of fiction. Alina in Ecstasy is intent on its goal: to tell how a saint is made. Miracles are the hook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543441666

Joseph Roccasalvo

A native New Yorker, Joseph Roccasalvo followed his graduate degrees in philosophy, English literature, and theology with a Harvard PhD in comparative religion and a specialty in Buddhism. He has lived and taught in Boston, Bangkok, and Chicago. For over ten years in New York City, he was a professor of religious studies at Fordham University´s Bronx and Lincoln Center campuses. He was also a visiting professor of Buddhism at Columbia University in New York City and Franklin University in Lugano, Switzerland. Now engaged in graduate school mentoring, he is also a fiction writer. He has published five novels: Fire in a Windless Place, Chartreuse, Portrait of a Woman, The Odor of Sanctity, and The Devil’s Interval. Two novellas, The Powers That Be and Beyond the Pale were printed as Double Entendre. There followed three books of short stories: Outward Signs, The Mansions of Limbo, and Triple Sec. Two solo performances, Waging Waugh and Gospel Limericks, appeared as Two for One and were followed by a memoir, As It Were. Two further novellas have been published: Island of the Assassin and Alina in Ecstasy. These novellas were followed by a book of poetry, Poems for Two Violins, and the collected short stories, Twists of Faith. He has guided students in journalism and international studies at The New School for Social Research and has contributed essays to the New School’s newspaper in his online column, A Word to the Wise.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Joseph Roccasalvo.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Final cover design by Peter Hanley.

Rev. date: 05/11/2020

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

765192

CONTENTS

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

For

John and Veronique Lagerwey

I cannot tell what heart my heart has met.

I only know that were this love a dream,

O let me dream on, and do not wake me yet.

ONE

T HE HEADLINE MADE the front page of Vatican City’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano . The English version read PORTUGUESE CHANTEUSE RAISED TO THE RANK OF BLE SSED:

Thousands of Portuguese stood in front of St Peter’s to celebrate the beatification of Alina Lontana. She was the fado singer known in religion as Mother Maddalena, a Carthusian nun of Notre Dame Monastery. The ritual was the kind that gives Catholicism a glamorous name. Crowds were there to honor a woman who had acquired a global following for her music’s joyous lament.

The vicar for the Roman diocese asked His Holiness to proceed with Alina’s beatification. A biographical note followed. Before entering the monastery, she bequeathed all the royalties of her recorded music to the foreign missions. Her bequest created clinics, orphanages and schools, and educated countless seminarians. The bishop in the Alps of Haute-Provence opened Alina’s cause for sainthood. Not long after, the pope recognized her heroic virtue.

All stood as the pope pronounced the formula of beatification: I grant that the Venerable Servant of God, Alina Lontana, known in religion as Mother Maddalena, be called Blessed; that her feast day be celebrated on October 21, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Thunderous applause came from the crowds after her relics were brought to the altar.

Alina’s beatification followed on the revival of her nephew, Jorge Lontana, who had entered the world stillborn with no signs of life. Jorge appeared to have suffered the loss of brain functions. Medical examiners determined he was clinically dead. His mother and father prayed to Jorge’s aunt to revive their son. Unaccountably, his heart began to beat. The Vatican’s panel ruled that no explanation accounted for the sudden reversal, which transcended the limits of science. Theologians reviewing the case were unanimous in approving it. It passed to those advising the pope whose endorsement recognized Alina as blessed. A second miracle propels her to canonization. It will show this secularized age that fame need not disqualify sanctity that’s still possible in the modern world.

The headline story astonished Julian. It shocked him more than when, five years earlier, he had visited Alina’s monastery. To get there, he went to Reillane and took the route to Banon. After walking three miles, he turned right onto the road. Since the monastery sought to remain hidden, the only indication was a cross showing the way and a forest of pine trees that served as a landmark. He was feeling lost when suddenly he saw a sign: Chartreuse de Notre Dame. A mile more of walking and it appeared. It seemed hopeless to venture farther because the sign said the door was shut to strangers. Julian presumed Alina, now prioress, had made an exception for him. He knocked, announced himself, and the extern sister stepped outside. She led him to the guesthouse, bowed, and left. He found himself waiting in the parlor. A door was open to a second room with a table, chair, bed, and oratory. In a house like this, Alina lived. The pared-down style made it easy to unburden herself. Julian guessed he was one of the burdens she no longer carried.

Alina entered the room where he was waiting. She was dressed as a Carthusian nun in white habit and scapular bound loosely front and back by wide bands. He rose, but she motioned him to sit while she chose a chair at a table opposite him. Though his thoughts were racing, he reined them in and broke the silence.

I was surprised to get news of you after two decades, more so when I learned you were a nun.

I’m not sure what you mean, she replied. The self of twenty years ago—yours and mine—no longer exists.

Like you, he replied, I’m heir to it and all the selves in between.

I have a feeling you don’t want the heir but the original owner. The person who once was. In your imagination, you’re back at Reid’s Palace in Madeira.

That’s where we met. At night, I heard you sing fado on the hotel’s balcony. Surely we share the same memory.

Do we? she asked. The mind is a collection of ghosts. It makes the past seem real.

The past is always present. It follows me everywhere.

It’s a handbook of dubious memories, she corrected.

I’d like to compare mine with yours.

You’re free to do so.

I thought I had in my letter asking to visit. I hoped you’d read it.

Removing it from her pocket, she reviewed the contents.

Dear Alina:

Excuse me for not using your religious title, but it sounds strange to my ears. What matters is that it helped me find you. When you disappeared over twenty years ago, Naldo and I were in a state of panic. After futile visits to the ER in local hospitals, we contacted TV networks, entered your name on lists of missing persons, and put up posters with a reward for information concerning your whereabouts. We turned up nothing. You had vanished into thin air. Over the years, we refused to give you up for dead—your body was never found. For Naldo and me, you were still alive.

Then I chanced on a sentence in a book about Portuguese culture. It mentioned a famous fado singer rumored to be prioress of a French monastery. Could it be Alina? I thought. I noted her name in religion and the monastery housing Carthusian nuns. I learned they had no computers or phones and received no mail. They had no access to radio, television, magazines, or newspapers. If you were among them, you might as well be dead. Your name, Mother Maddalena, sealed the coffin.

After finding the monastery’s address, I felt compelled to write. I hoped against hope my letter would reach you. I thought as prioress you might make an exception and honor my request to see you. I needed to keep