The Sparrow

by Mary Doria Russell

  "Until you get the measure of your own soul, Jim, don’t be quick to condemn a priest, or anyone else for that matter. I’m not scolding you, sweetheart," she said hurriedly. "It’s just that, until you’ve been there, you can’t know what it’s like to hold yourself to promises you made in good faith a long time ago. Do you hang in there, or cut your losses? Soldier on, or admit defeat and try to make the best of things?" She’d looked a little sheepish then and admitted, "You know, I used to be a real hardass about stuff like this. No retreat, no surrender! But now? Jimmy, I honestly don’t know if the world would be better or worse if we all held ourselves to the vows of our youth."

  He tried to think about all that, lying in his bunk. The divorce had been awful but then his mother found Nick, who loved her something fierce, and she was surrounded now by Nick’s kids, who thought the world of her. Things had worked out okay.

  And he thought about Emilio and Sofia. He knew very little about Sofia, only that she had lost her family in Istanbul during the U.N. quarantine and that she’d gotten out by contracting to a broker. And, of course, that she was Jewish, which had thoroughly surprised him when he first found out. It didn’t seem to bother her to be the only non-Catholic in the crew and she was respectful of the priests’ commitments, even if she had picked up a healthy dose of irreverence from Anne. Sofia, he realized then, had almost apprenticed herself to Anne during these long months, studying the nuances of affection: the quick hugs, the way to cup a chin in the hand or brush back the hair while making some acerbic, narrow-eyed, comic comment. And if Sofia was still pretty formal, it was clear that she was trying to recapture something that might have been hers by right if her life had been different. There was a promising warmth in her, which Jimmy had misinterpreted as an invitation. And now understood to be a simple offer of friendship.

  Well, he’d blown that by looking for more than she was willing to give. So he adjusted his sights. If Sofia ever felt safe enough to offer friendship again, he decided, friendship would be enough for him. It could happen. When you live in close quarters for months, a certain amount of familiarity is unavoidable. And he wondered then how hard that was on Emilio.

  After that first real dinner onboard the Stella Maris, Emilio started calling everyone but Anne and D.W. by their last names. "Mendes," he’d call out, "did you already take care of this filter? I thought I was supposed to do that this week." Sofia had persisted in Doctoring and Mistering everyone, but shortly after Emilio made his change, she took up the practice and it was, "You have to purge some files, Sandoz. We’re running low on op-RAM." It gave them a way of speaking to and about each other without first names but without unnatural formality. It was probably Emilio’s way of turning the intensity down, to make the relationship more comradely.

  Even so, Jimmy was convinced, the sexual tension was still there. Where two people working together might have brushed hands during a task or stood closely, Emilio took pains to prevent contact: an awkwardly held wrist, a slight movement away. By chance alone, they might have sat together sometimes, and so it was significant that they never did. And for all the music and singing that went on in the Stella Maris, there had been no second song, no repetition of the heart-stopping intimacy of that evening in August.

  Emilio could be so casual and funny that you forgot sometimes that he was a priest and it came as a surprise when you saw his face during the Mass, or watched him doing something ordinary extraordinarily well, in that Jesuit way of making everyday labor a form of prayer. But even Jimmy could see that Emilio and Sofia would be good for each other and that their children would be beautiful and bright and beloved. And, following in the footsteps of centuries of compassionate Catholics before him, Jimmy now wondered why guys like Emilio had to make a choice between loving God and loving a woman like Sofia Mendes.

  He asked himself how he’d feel if he found out someday that Emilio had kept his vow, always and forever. To his surprise, he leaned toward sad. And he knew that Anne, who used to be such a hardass about stuff like this, would approve.

  IT WOULD NOT have surprised Emilio Sandoz that his sex life was discussed with such candor and affectionate concern by his friends. The single craziest thing about being a priest, he’d found, was that celibacy was simultaneously the most private and most public aspect of his life.

  One of his linguistics professors, a man named Samuel Goldstein, had helped him understand the consequences of that simple fact. Sam was Korean by birth, so if you knew his name, you knew he was adopted. "What got me when I was a kid was that people knew something fundamental about me and my family just by looking at us. I felt like I had a big neon sign over my head flashing ADOPTEE," Sam told him. "It’s not that I was ashamed of being adopted. I just wished that I had the option of revealing it myself. It’s got to be something like that for you guys."

  And Emilio realized that Sam was right. When wearing clericals, he did feel as though he had a sign over his head flashing NO LEGITIMATE SEX LIFE. Lay people assumed they knew something fundamental about him. They had opinions about his life. Without any understanding of what celibacy was about, they found his choice laughable, or sick.

  Oddly, it was men who’d left the active priesthood to marry who were most eloquent about celibacy. It was as though, having given up the struggle themselves, they could more freely acknowledge the value of it. And it was in the words of one such priest that Emilio had found the clearest description of the Pearl of Great Price: a humaneness beyond sexuality, love beyond loneliness, sexual identity grounded in faithfulness, courage, generosity. And ultimately, a transcendent awareness of creation and Creator …

  There were as many ways to lose one’s balance and sense of purpose as there were people who engaged in the struggle. He had himself gone through a time when avoidance of sex became so consuming he thought of nothing else, like a starving man who dreams of food. Finally he had simply accepted masturbation as a way station, for by then he’d known men who made compromises that brought nothing but grief to the women who loved them or who dissolved loneliness in alcohol or, worst of all, who denied that they felt desire and split their lives: paragons in the light, predators in the dark.

  To persist, to find a way through and beyond the rigidity, the pitfalls and the confusion, Emilio had with painful care carved out an unflinching self-awareness and honesty. He found a way to live with the aloneness, to say "Yes" when he asked himself if the Pearl would be worth the price he paid, day after day. Night after night. Year after year.

  Who could speak of such things? Not Emilio Sandoz who, for all his facility with many languages, remained tongue-tied and inarticulate about the center of his soul.

  For he could not feel God or approach God as a friend or speak to God with the easy familiarity of the devout or praise God with poetry. And yet, as he had grown older, the path he had started down almost in ignorance had begun to seem clearer to him. It became more apparent to him that he was truly called to walk this strange and difficult, this unnatural and unutterable path to God, which required not poetry or piety but simple endurance and patience.

  No one could know what this meant to him.

  17

  NAPLES:

  JUNE 2060

  SEEING SANDOZ ENTER the Father General’s office on the first day of the inquiry into the Rakhat mission, Johannes Voelker winced and gave thanks that this was all taking place in seclusion, away from Rome, far from the prying of the media, which feed off beauty and vice. How many of the others did this evil man corrupt, Voelker wondered bitterly, before they died? Did he kill them, too, as he did the child?

  Candotti and Behr had come in with Sandoz, Behr opening the door, Candotti pulling out a chair for him. Partisans certainly, under the spell. Even Giuliani seemed to make allowances, to coddle Sandoz, who had done incalculable damage to the reputation and material position of the Society of Jesus— Voelker looked up, and realized Giuliani was staring at him.

  "Good afternoon, gentlemen," Vincenzo Giuliani said plea
santly, warning Voelker wordlessly to govern his attitude as the three newcomers entered the room. "Emilio, I’m pleased to see you looking so well."

  "Thank you, sir," Sandoz murmured.

  Slender and elegant in black, the dark hair longish now and outlined in silver, Emilio appeared less frail than he had been two months earlier. He was steadier on his feet, and his color was much better. What his mental state was, Giuliani had no idea. Sandoz had hardly spoken since Felipe Reyes’s arrival, beyond courtesies and the shallowest of dinner-table conversations; not even John Candotti had been able to draw him out. A pity, Giuliani thought. It would have been helpful to know what was going on in the man’s mind.

  The Father General moved from his desk and took his place at the head of the superb eighteenth-century table they would use during the hearings. The tall office windows were open to the June air, gauzy curtains moving prettily in the breeze. After a wet, gray spring, the summer promised to be cooler than usual, rainier, but quite enjoyable, Giuliani thought, watching the others settle into their places. Felipe Reyes left a chair in the corner of the office and hesitated before taking a seat, as though considering what position to take, relative to Sandoz. Voelker stood and pulled out the chair next to his own, putting Reyes directly opposite Candotti, who sat next to Emilio. Edward Behr took a seat near the windows where he could observe without being noticed, and where Emilio could see him.

  "Gentlemen," Giuliani began, "I would like to make it clear at the outset that this is neither a trial nor an inquisition. Our purpose is to establish a clear picture of events that took place during the mission to Rakhat. Father Sandoz has a unique perspective and a degree of insight into these events that we hope will clarify our partial knowledge. For our part, we have information to share that, I believe, may be new to Father Sandoz." Never able to speak from a sitting position, Giuliani rose and began to circle the office. "Some of us are old enough to recall that approximately a year after the Stella Maris left the solar system, Mr. Ian Sekizawa of the Ohbayashi Corporation publicized his suspicions that the Society had sent a ship to Rakhat. There was a great outcry, Emilio, which was to be expected. Sekizawa went to his own people first and they approached the United Nations with a detailed plan to follow the Stella Maris into space using much the same technology. The U.N., faced with a fait accompli, authorized a consortium of commercial interests to make direct contact with the Singers. A diplomatic element was added to the Contact Consortium’s crew, to represent all humankind." Giuliani stopped his slow circuit of the room and looked at Sandoz. "You may remember Wu Xing-Ren and Trevor Isley, Emilio."

  "Yes."

  If Giuliani had expected a reaction, he was disappointed. "The Contact Consortium’s ship, the Magellan, left for Rakhat about three years after the Stella Maris. And, at this point, I’m afraid things become rather tangled. While it takes seventeen years in Earth-time for humans to travel between Earth and Rakhat, radio signals require only four and a third years, so there is a confusing overlap and it’s hard to sort out the sequence of events. I must remind you that we lost all communication from your party about three years after your landing on Rakhat, Emilio." Nothing. No reaction at all. "When the Magellan arrived near the planet, her crew didn’t know that you were all presumed dead. They attempted to contact you by radio. When they couldn’t raise any response, they boarded the Stella Maris and gained access to the records, which gave them every reason to believe that your contact with the sentient species was successful …"

  Sandoz continued to gaze out the windows. Irritated, Giuliani found himself reacting as though Emilio were a daydreaming graduate student. "Excuse me, Father Sandoz, if this is failing to hold your attention—"

  Sandoz raised his eyebrows and turned his head to look at the Father General. "I’m listening, sir," he said. The voice was even and firm, without a trace of insolence. Nevertheless, the eyes returned to the hills beyond the courtyard.

  "Good. Because this is important. Our understanding is that the Magellan party landed near the last coordinates reported by your party before your transmissions ended. They located you after about twelve weeks, and took considerable trouble to remove you from your predicament and to tend to your injuries." Again, there was no reaction. "Our understanding is that you were then taken to the Stella Maris, which was programmed to return you to solar orbit, and you were sent home alone." Giuliani paused and his tone changed. "I’m sure the voyage was very difficult."

  For the first time, Emilio Sandoz had a comment. "It was," he said, almost to himself, still looking out the windows, "unimaginable."

  The words hung in the room, distant and thin as birdsong.

  "Quite," the Father General said at last, thrown off momentarily. "In any case, the radio transmissions from the Magellan party continued for an additional three and a half months. At that point, all contact was lost. We have no idea what happened to them, nor do we understand why the transmissions from Ours stopped after only three years. And we trust that you will be able to explain some of these mysteries, Emilio."

  The Father General nodded to Voelker, who placed a tablet in front of Sandoz, the surface blanked. This, Voelker thought, is going to be exceedingly interesting to watch.

  "But our first order of business, I’m afraid, is to deal with the very troubling allegations made by Wu and Isley." Emilio looked up, and Giuliani was forced to stop and consider him for a moment. The puzzlement looked genuine. "We have, naturally, waited until you were strong enough to speak in your own defense. Rakhat is far beyond any civil jurisdiction. No criminal charges have been brought against you but the accusations are disturbing, and there have been serious repercussions even in the absence of trial or proof." Voelker leaned over the table and brought up the display. Giuliani spoke again. "These allegations were sent by radio, so they arrived and were made public over twelve years ago. Please take your time and read them carefully. We are hoping to hear you refute them."

  IT TOOK EMILIO about ten minutes to make his way through the document. Toward the end, it was difficult to see clearly and he had to reread portions to be sure he understood, which was distressing.

  The Contact Consortium’s story didn’t take him completely by surprise. "We know about the child," John had said, "and we know about the brothel." But it was so absurd, so unfair, that he hadn’t taken in the implications, not really. The mind tries to protect you that way, he supposed. Until this day, he had not known what everyone else in this room, what the whole world had heard over twelve years earlier, nor could he have imagined how damning it would sound.

  And yet, it explained some things, and for that Emilio was grateful. He’d begun to wonder if the headaches were because of a brain tumor, because there was so much that made no sense to him. This, at least, made the animosity and revulsion explicable: the way Isley and Wu looked at him, what they must have been thinking … But he found other parts of the report both mystifying and an outrage. He tried again to make sense of it all and wondered if he’d said something wrong or had been misunderstood. There is a clue here somewhere, Emilio thought, hoping to remember that later, when things were not so pressured. Then the headache tightened its grip and things began to flicker past his mind.

  Often in the past months, he had found himself suspended between screaming hysteria and black humor. Screaming, he had determined on the voyage back, only made the headaches more devastating.

  "It could be worse," Emilio said at last. "It could be raining."

  Black humor, on the other hand, made everyone else angry. Giuliani and Reyes were not amused. Voelker was outraged. John got the joke, but even he thought the timing was pretty poor. Emilio, his vision very distorted now, looked for Edward Behr but saw only that the man was no longer next to the window.

  "It is time that someone explained to you, Sandoz, that this is not simply your private disgrace," Voelker rapped, his voice hammering in Emilio’s ears. "When these charges were made public, the reputation of the Society was all but destroyed. We n
ow operate only fourteen novitiates worldwide! And there are hardly enough new men to fill even those—"

  "Oh, come on, Voelker! That’s the worst kind of scapegoating!" It was John’s voice shouting back. "You can’t blame Emilio for every problem we’ve had for—"

  Then Felipe’s voice added to the din, and Emilio began to feel that his head would shatter, that the bones of his skull would go to pieces. He tried to escape from the yelling somehow, to go inside himself away from all this, but found no place to hide. For weeks, he’d prepared single-mindedly, building walls brick by brick, deciding which questions to answer, which to turn aside and how. He’d been sure he could get through the hearings, that he had some distance from everything now, but the carefully constructed defenses were crumbling, and he felt as flayed and raw and exposed as if it were all happening again.

  "That’s enough." Giuliani’s words cut through the argument and the room fell silent abruptly. His voice was very mild when he spoke again. "Emilio, is there any truth to these charges?"

  Brother Edward, having spotted the whiteness around the eyes that signaled migraine, was already on the way to Sandoz, hoping to get him out of the room before the vomiting started. But he stopped and waited for Emilio to speak.

  "It’s all true, I suppose," Emilio said but the roaring in his head made it hard now to hear his own voice. And then everyone was shouting again, so probably no one heard him say, "But it’s all wrong."

  He could feel Edward Behr taking him under the arms, pulling him to his feet. There was more talk, Edward’s voice close to his ear, but he didn’t understand what anyone was saying. He thought it must have been John Candotti who half-carried him out of the office, and he tried to protest that there was nothing wrong with his legs. They managed to get him into the stone-paved hallway before he lost control; he was glad he hadn’t spoiled the carpets. When it was over, there was the sting of the injection and the brief terrible sensation of falling and falling even as he was being carried up the stairs.