The Shepherd’s Song Read online

  As he worked, he thought about The Good Shepherd painting by Dyce. Jesus was the shepherd in that painting. He was holding a young lamb in his arms while the other sheep followed. A shepherd provided everything that his sheep needed—water, food, safety. What did François need? His wife! Who was he kidding? Nothing could replace his precious Annette.

  “I wish it were easy,” he said to the painting. “I wish a swab and a little cleaner could fix me.”

  He stood back and admired his work. Now half the meadow was in plain view, and the landscape was covered with red poppies. François’s heart beat faster. This was quality work. The design, color, tone—all the work of a master. He grabbed another cotton ball. Next, he would finish the characters in the scene, then the artist’s signature. He had been saving that for last.

  No! He didn’t want to wait. He would immediately turn his attention to the artist’s signature. That’s what he had wanted to do for the last couple of hours, but he had held back, enjoying the idea of possible greatness in front of him and not wanting to find out the truth, which was probably that the lady’s grandfather was the artist and not one of the masters.

  As François worked, his thoughts drifted once again to his soul. If it were going to be restored, it would have to be Jesus restoring it. François couldn’t do it himself. He had tried to talk himself out of his depression for weeks now, and it wasn’t working.

  François looked at the wrinkles on his hands. He was old, no doubt about it, and maybe not worth restoring. Isn’t that what you had to decide before you started a new restoration project? Was it worth it?

  François glanced at the Dyce painting. Weren’t all the lambs valuable to Jesus? He thought he recalled a story in the Bible of a shepherd searching for one missing lamb even when he had ninety-nine others. A small ray of hope began to build inside François.

  So, he thought as he worked, if Jesus was going to restore my soul, how would He do it? He certainly doesn’t have a big table with jars of cleaner.

  François thought about his own restoration work. The painting itself didn’t know how it would be restored. It just was. And François didn’t have to know how he would be restored. He just needed to believe that it would happen.

  He stopped working and looked up at the ceiling. For a moment he stared at the cracks. He opened his mouth but could not speak. Then the tears came.

  “Jesus,” he whispered through his tears. “Jesus, please restore my soul.”

  He looked down at his painting; his tears were splattered across the signature. He wiped them away, then started to remove the final layer of grime with gentle strokes. As he did, letters appeared. First P. then C and e and z.

  François stopped midstroke. He held his breath. Could it be? Surely not. He grabbed another cotton ball and worked gently: a, n, n, and finally e.

  P. Cezanne. Paul Cézanne!

  It made sense now. The thick, flat surface of paint. The repetitive, sensitive strokes that Cézanne was known for. The mastery of design, color, tone, composition, draftsmanship. It was so obvious now. And the poppies . . . Cézanne had lived in Aix-en-Provence, where the poppy fields were vibrant and beautiful.

  François worked through the night finishing the cleaning, and in the early morning he fell asleep at his desk with The Good Shepherd circling on the computer screen at his head.

  Banging on the shop door woke François at midmorning. It was Gérard.

  He clasped his hands together. “I have a surprise.”

  “I, too, have a surprise,” François said. “But you first, my friend.”

  “I bought two!” Gérard announced excitedly.

  “Two what?”

  “Two tickets for the Chunnel.” He pulled them out of his pocket and began waving them around and doing a little jig. “Now you must go with me to London, to London, to London.”

  François felt excitement rising in his chest, like when he and Annette were leaving for holiday. Yesterday the idea of going with Gérard seemed out of the question, impossible, crazy—but now the idea seemed so right.

  This is a gift from God, François thought. One step in restoring my soul.

  Suddenly his mind was racing with all the famous art in London. He could visit the National Gallery, the Tate Modern, and Somerset House, the Royal Academy of Arts, and the National Portrait Gallery. And the Wallace Collection. So much.

  Gérard suddenly stopped dancing. “You will go, won’t you?”

  “Of course!” François joined Gérard in his jig.

  “And Manchester is just a short train ride from London,” Gérard sang. “From London, from London.”

  François would finally see The Good Shepherd in person.

  Gérard stopped dancing. “What of your surprise?”

  “Oh, come and see, my friend, come and see. You will not believe it.”

  Gérard followed François back to the restoration room where the Cézanne sat in all its restored beauty on an easel. From a distance Gérard immediately spotted the quality of the art, and he approached the painting slowly. With his hands clasped behind his back, he examined it closely, looking first at the signature, then at the painting itself, studying the strokes and color and turning his head in every possible angle.

  Finally he spoke. “Magnificent!”

  François beamed. “Indeed.”

  “This calls for a celebration,” Gérard said, opening the cabinet door where François kept his wine. He pulled out two glasses and a bottle of Bordeaux. They poured the wine and pulled two chairs up in front of the Cézanne.

  “To beautiful art!” Gérard said.

  François lifted his glass.

  “To Cézanne,” François said.

  Gérard lifted his glass.

  They sat in their chairs, sipping wine and enjoying the painting.

  “They say that a painting is never the same after restoration. That you can never completely take it back to what it was in the beginning when it was new. But I have always thought that the cracks and lines add beauty to the work. It becomes part of the character of the piece,” mused François.

  Gérard lifted his glass. “Well said.”

  François thought it was true for himself, too. Time and circumstances did their work, and the results were different from the original. Just like the painting, he was different now, and he would never be the same as he was before he lost Annette. He didn’t even want to be the same. He had never experienced love as deeply as he had while helping her through her illness.

  He glanced back over his shoulder at The Good Shepherd bouncing around his computer screen. There were some sheep that were already inside the gate, and there were some behind the shepherd, following but not yet inside. Perhaps that’s how it was with him and Annette. She was already ahead of him inside the gate, and he was still outside. But someday the shepherd would carry him through the gate, too, and he would be with her again.

  François looked at the sheep inside the fenced area, comfortably grazing. The line from the psalm came to him again: He restores my soul.

  “To restoration,” François said.

  And they lifted their glasses in a grand toast.

  STOP! Stop that man!”

  Patrick ran hard down the London street, not looking back. He didn’t have to. He knew what was behind him. The police. They had seen him lifting the wallet from the old man at the train station.

  Patrick didn’t stop. He ran as fast as he could. His heart pounded, and he could feel sweat dripping from his forehead. His breath was ragged. Once you started running, it was hard to stop. He had been running for more than a year. His past was catching up to him, just like the policemen who were closing in.

  He crossed the street, dodged a couple of cars, and ducked down an alley. He easily hurdled over a small fence and came out on the next street, where he paused for a moment, listening, waiting, heart pounding. His arms and legs were still strong from the days of running in the hills of Ireland, hurdling stone walls and running down the
paths in the pasture. This was different.

  He heard them coming. The police had guessed his move and were rounding the corner.

  “Hey, you! Stop!”

  Drat. They were way too close for comfort. He ran harder.

  People jumped back from him on the sidewalk. Patrick formed a quick plan. It wasn’t likely to work, but it was his only hope. If the café coming up ahead was crowded enough, then he could artfully dodge the customers and slip inside, through the kitchen, and out the back where his hotel had a back entrance.

  Patrick rounded the corner. Good, it was crowded. That would slow down the police. He heard them behind him.

  “Stop that man!”

  Patrick darted between the tables and into the café. Out the back and a quick left. He entered the cheap hotel by the back door and took the stairs two at a time. He quickly ran into his room, slammed the door shut, bolted the lock, then fell onto the unmade bed. His chest heaved as he regained his composure. Both hands were shaking.

  His heart slowly stilled as he listened for sounds in the hallway. Nothing. He was safe . . . this time.

  Patrick sighed and emptied his pockets. The first time he’d stolen, it had bothered him. The second time, too. Then, somehow in his mind, he had made it okay. The people had more than him. They could spare some cash. At least that’s what he told himself.

  Today everything seemed different. The familiar thrill that he got after stealing was gone. He felt trapped in his life, and he was tired of running.

  The day before, he had been sitting in the square. He had picked up a sandwich from the soup kitchen and had just found a vacant park bench when a friend of his father appeared beside him. He was a man Patrick knew from childhood—one of his teachers in the village school.

  “Paddy?”

  Patrick had not been called that name in a while.

  “Yes?” He looked up into the weathered face of his old teacher and felt a clench in his heart. “Mr. O’Donnell,” he said, suddenly aware of his unshaven face and dirty clothes.

  “Paddy, I have a letter for you,” Mr. O’Donnell said. He fumbled in his briefcase. “Your father gave it to me in case I saw you here. I’ve been teaching at the university this term.”

  Patrick sat still, the uneaten sandwich in his hand. He dropped the sandwich in his lap, wiped a hand on his pant leg, and took the letter. His father’s spiderlike handwriting on the front was unmistakable.

  “I’ve carried the letter around for months now, hoping I would see you. We heard—”

  Patrick stuffed the letter into his pocket and looked down.

  “Thank you,” he said abruptly. He didn’t want to know what Mr. O’Donnell had heard. When he looked up again, his teacher was gone.

  Sitting on the park bench, he read the letter. The letter had news—news that confused him. How could it be possible? How could this have happened? He read it again. Four words stood out to him:

  You are needed here.

  He had not thought of home in months and suddenly, this. Patrick could not move. He felt weighted down with shame. Even if he was needed, he could never go home now. He had strayed too far. If his father knew the things he had done, he would never have sent the letter. How had it happened?

  When he had become a teenager, his father had seemed old and out of touch, disapproving of how Patrick spent his evenings with the young people in the pub, drinking ale and staying out too late. Then came the redheaded girl whom he had liked so much. She was new in town, visiting for the summer, and he’d thought she was the most beautiful creature in the world, with her pale complexion and deep-red lipstick. His father tried to warn him about the dangers of late nights, drunkenness, and girls, but Patrick had stubbornly continued on, spending every evening he could with the girl. Now he could hardly remember her.

  With his father growing more and more disappointed in him, the house became uncomfortable, even suffocating. That fall, Patrick left Ireland, slipping away in the night without a word. He had been happy to leave his father’s critical eye.

  The first night in London was magic. As was the next and the next and the next. Freedom. The girls, the booze, the singing, the dancing. It was a blur of things that had always been forbidden.

  Then his money ran out, and Patrick’s so-called friends disappeared. The memories of all the cheap hotels and the early days of begging and then stealing were painful now.

  He’d love to go home, especially after hearing the news in the letter, but what could he say to his father? How could he ever hope to make up for all that he’d carelessly thrown away? Despite what had seemed so outdated and restricting, there had been a certain freedom there in the suffocating house that he had not found in London.

  Sitting up on the side of the bed, Patrick studied his morning’s haul. The wallet was worn and not very promising, but at least it was something. He had spotted the two old men as they’d walked away from the Chunnel and had used his favorite technique: the bump and grab.

  He looked to see what the old man had in his wallet. Not much. There were a few bills, which he took and put in his pocket; a picture of an older woman, maybe the guy’s wife; and a piece of paper. He opened it. Psalm 23. Great, Patrick thought, worthless paper.

  His eyes fell to the middle of the page—He leads me in paths of righteousness.

  His heart clenched. The words brought back unwanted memories of his father. He closed his eyes and saw the old man’s strong shoulders and gray hair. He saw himself, a young Paddy, redheaded and freckled, following his father along the paths in the fields, just like a sheep. There was nothing like the relationship of a father and a son. His chest tightened as he thought about it.

  Patrick could almost hear his father’s voice filled with emotion.

  “Paddy, God wants you goin’ down the right path.”

  The very words that his father had used to teach him now condemned him. His father had wanted the best for him. He could see that now, but back then he only saw it as meddling and old-fashioned.

  Patrick put the psalm back in the wallet and tossed the wallet under the bed out of sight. Funny that it was the shepherd’s song. If there was one thing Patrick knew about, it was sheep. He had spent the first eighteen years of his life with sheep. He even slept with them. The lambs that were rejected by their ewes or were too small for the outdoors stayed in his family’s small house. Patrick remembered the musty smell of the lambs that slept in his room and the softness of the little ones that curled up next to him.

  Every day he took the sheep to the lower pasture. They went down the same trodden path every morning, then again every evening, yet somehow the sheep managed to stray off, then stand puzzled like they were wondering what had happened. Old Bessie was the worst. She had walked the same path all her life, but the day he’d left, she had turned off the path and ended up across the field, looking back at him with a bewildered expression.

  He leads me in paths of righteousness.

  Patrick was so far from the right path that he didn’t know how to get back. He thought about the psalm coming to him in a stolen wallet. Was it a message from God?

  “Okay, God,” he said, not really expecting a response. “Show me the right path.”

  “Go back.” The thought popped into his mind, like a torch suddenly lighting a dark room.

  Everything in him fought against it.

  “Go back.” The words rang in his head—they would not go away.

  You can’t go back, he told himself. You’ve gone too far.

  But he wanted to go back. He had to go back. The news in the letter changed everything.

  He thought about what it was like to be a father separated from your son, and suddenly he could feel the longing of a father—that desire to have your child in your arms. He remembered how he had held the lambs as a boy and how he had loved them. A father could love like that.

  “Go home,” the voice in his head spoke again. This time, instead of persistent doubts and accusations, a warm spot glo
wed. Before he could rethink it, Patrick loaded his few belongings in his backpack and left the hotel. He would need to do a few more jobs, just to get enough money to make it home, and then he’d be on his way back to Ireland.

  On the street, things seemed dull and confusing. Nothing felt right.

  He spotted an elderly couple and knew they would be perfect targets. He moved toward them. They looked a little like his grandparents.

  “No.” The thought came to him. A single word that seemed to guide him.

  “No.” He moved past the couple.

  “Good day,” the man said, tipping his hat.

  “Good day,” Patrick answered. That feeling came again. That warm spot of light.

  A young hitchhiker walked up beside him at the street corner. Her backpack brushed his hand. It was unzipped! Easy pickin’s. “No.” The thought came, and he hesitated.

  “Hey,” he said to the girl. “You might want to zip that.” She looked back at her open pack.

  “Can you get it for me?” she asked.

  Patrick zipped the pack up. He almost laughed out loud at himself, zipping instead of unzipping a backpack. It felt good.

  One after another, he ruled out every good target he saw. Finally, by dinnertime, he was hungry. He pulled out the bills from his pocket and looked at the stolen money. “It’s not yours,” the voice inside him said. The voice was right. How could he live like this? It was not his money, but he could not give it back, either.

  A homeless man leaned on the wall by the café. Patrick gave him the money. It was a relief to have it gone.

  It was the right path. He felt sure of it.

  “Go,” the voice inside him said. But how would he get home without money? And what would be waiting for him at home? Would he be forgiven? In a storybook world the answer was yes, but this was real life—no guarantees.

  Patrick stood for a moment and thought about the news in the letter. Then he steeled himself and started walking. He crossed the river, wove through Hyde Park, through neighborhoods and other small parks until he reached the edge of town. There he slept in a green hay field curled up under the clear night sky. When dawn was breaking, he woke and watched the sunrise. Then he continued walking.