by John Rechy
Amalia was baffled by her thoughts, but they provided a welcome comfort in her heart and she wanted to extend that. She considered this: Perhaps new miracles would make life better for the witness, set things right? Of course—and she would be the first to uphold the justice of this—the witness to a miracle would have to share its beneficence—mainly, of course, with those who were poorest; she adjusted that to conform to God’s thinking, and also to Rosario’…s Oh, where was her friend, with her strange ideas?
Amalia blew coolness into the top of her dress, and then she perked up the ruffle there. Why did those chosen as witnesses have to look so drab? Poor Bernadette would have been pretty without all those heavy, odd clothes. Of course those teenagers in Europe who were claiming regular visitations were too expensively dressed, and that was suspicious, very suspicious. Still, Amalia did not like drab clothes. After Manny’s funeral, she had refused to wear mourning, in defiance of his death. Why should she honor such terrible pain? She had worn mourning in her heart, where it was still draped.
She went into the church quickly.
A priest was rushing to intercept the old woman, who had almost reached the altar on her ragged knees. He raised her and guided her hurriedly out a side door, perhaps to minister to her in the sacristy. Soon, a church worker, a woman who looked like a secretary, out of place on her knees, was wiping away the stains of blood on the floor.
Amalia dipped her fingers in holy water from a font overseen by two angels, and she crossed herself.
The church glowed amber, tinged with gold from lighted candles throughout. Reflections from tall stained-glass windows smeared pastels on the floor. There were several confessional booths; and recessed partitions formed small shrines to various saints, one to the Blessed Mother, located just before the church narrowed and rose into the altar. On the walls were the stations of the cross. The figures were beautiful in their brightly painted agony; and Amalia would always look at each, going slowly from one to the other, reciting a slow prayer. The faces that remained serene in pain and sorrow soothed her.
A few people knelt or sat about the large church.
As always, Amalia went to say a prayer before the holy painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which was next to the elevated pulpit. The face was brown, but that was all about her that looked Mexican, Amalia always noticed; the features were like those of all the other saints and angels throughout the church. Manny had once asked her if all the saints, angels, Jesus, and God were gabachos. Amalia, too, wondered why they all looked like Anglos.
Now she knelt before the altar. Light flowing from one side of the church carved shadows on the body of Christ nailed to a large crucifix, his loincloth revealing carved sinews over his groin. Amalia began an urgent Our Father when she remembered Angel’s body, last night, so naked it shocked her even in memory. Well, there was nothing holy about that man, that coyote, despite his name.
She moved into the shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mother. There was only one other person here now, an old man, head bowed, praying. All the candles were lit. Once Amalia had seen a priest carefully blowing out those that had not burned too long. Certainly to make more available to others, Amalia had explained it, rejecting her initial suspicion that he was soliciting more quarters. Since then, she did not hesitate, when all candles were lit, to blow one out and relight it as her own. The initial prayer would have reached heaven by then—if it was going to at all; so what was wrong with adding her own? She did that now, relit a candle.
“For my murdered son,” she whispered aloud.
She held her hand over the lit candle, feeling its warmth just before it turned into heat, a hint of what her son must have felt that day of the terrible accident, the tattooed burning cross of the gangs—of Salvador—singed over the flame of her stove. She pulled her hand away. The hurt inside was enough.
She put the necessary coins in the slot.
The statue of the Holy Mother was separated by several wooden pews from the tiers of candles, which were located at the back of the shrine.
Amalia knelt before the Blessed Mother.
The statue was arranged against a glittering mosaic of variously blue stones. Overhead, a hidden light showered it with a silvery radiance. Within that dazzling radiance, the Queen of Heaven reigned in an alabaster gown, her crown golden, her graceful cape a deep blue.
How beautiful and pure! Amalia always thought, in awe and love and devotion. And trust.
Kneeling before the Holy Mother now, she closed her eyes. Then she rubbed them fiercely—and looked up quickly at her…. What was she doing, rubbing her eyes like that? Trying to recreate the impression of the silver cross she had not seen this morning—Ridiculous! She bowed her head and prayed her usual reverential Hail Marys, in Spanish and English.
She heard the hushed sounds that occur in church when confessions are about to begin, the whispering of priest’s cassocks, the nervous shuffling of those confessing as they gather near the enclosed booths. One of two priests had remained kneeling before the altar. He could have been Mexican or American—now that this diocese was mainly “Hispanic,” every priest heard confessions in English and Spanish. Had this priest glanced at her just now as he passed her?—in judgment of last night? Amalia often attributed to priests a powerful added sense about everything on her mind. Perhaps that glance signaled sympathy? Oh, the priest had glanced only toward the shrine of the Sacred Mother, soliciting added understanding from her to extend to the penitents. He was about her own age, Amalia figured, perhaps a few years older. She would confess to him.
In El Paso, Amalia had sometimes listened to the confessions of others, just fragments and, really, not deliberately. She might hear a word or two and instead of moving away, move closer. That allowed her to compare sins. If she heard something very modest—“I lied once”—she would not follow that person, supposing her own sins might seem weightier, although there was nothing extraordinary about them. In this church, with its much more enclosed and private booths—like small rooms—listening was not possible. What she would do here was follow into the confessional someone who looked … well, not quite innocent—and never an old woman wearing a dark shawl.… The first penitent today, a bland middle-aged woman, moved without trepidation into the confessional. Amalia would not follow her, especially because this time she wanted—would she be able?—to speak about … Angel. She needed to thrust all that away from her.
Nearby, a young man knelt, rehearsing his confession in a whisper. He looked extremely worried. He kept dropping his hands to his lap—and raising them up in guilty surprise. She heard his soft words: “… morning, when I’m about to wake up, my hands just—” She might follow him. She sat nearby.
She, too, rehearsed her confession. That was important in how she would be perceived. There were ordinary sins everyone mentions—lies, impatience, anger. The ones you had to be careful in telling were the more specific ones—and when she felt the need to tilt certain details in her confession, for a clearer understanding only, of course, she always made sure to add a few prayers to the penance she received, to adjust to what God might have inferred.
What—exactly—was there to confess?
Her odd thoughts from the time she woke and saw—thought she saw—a silver cross? Was that sinful? No. She dismissed that for now. Still, about that, she did have a question or two she wanted to ask.… Well, she would have to confess about—
Last night. It was true she needed to talk about that. But confess? Wasn’t the memory punishing enough? What was the exact sin she had committed? That she had been unfaithful to Raynaldo? She hadn’t, technically, since the act of infidelity hadn’t really happened, had it? Well, perhaps that was an area left to speak for itself. More importantly, she and Raynaldo weren’t married; so—Confess that she had gone to a man’s room? No sin in that. That Angel had taken off her clothes?… The problem was how to state it all so the priest would see that Angel—and that extra beer—were responsible for what happened. She would tel
l him Angel’s name, a powerful reason for her having gone with him. She might insinuate that there was a picture of Our Lady in his room. No, that might work against her, as might the fact that he had worn a crucifix on a small chain about his neck.
The beautiful gardenia he had given her …
The priest would not understand that. Only she could. She rehearsed: Father, last night, after my husband ran out on me at El Bar &—Raynaldo was not her husband, and it wouldn’t be good to mention a bar so quickly…. She tried again: Father, last night a terrible coyote who—The coyote part she would definitely use. Even priests must detest coyotes. … Father, he took off my clothes—She would not be able to say that!
She would just let the priest infer most of it, while she kept reminding the Holy Mother of her reasons. Would the priest allow her to tell him about feeling like a girl last night—yes, a bride—and about the hurt when it all changed? No, priests never asked for reasons, just what and how many times, always how many times.
Of course Amalia never doubted what the correct outcome of her confession should be—and God would easily approve it: The priest would say: “It is that despicable coyote who dares call himself Angel and to wear a holy crucifix and even have a picture of Our Lady in his room—it is he who should be kneeling here in the confessional pleading for forgiveness—which God in His infinite mercy may grant but I will not!—for deceiving you into what you saw as an act of purification. You had no choice.”
She didn’t really need to confess at all, Amalia concluded, just talk about several matters. Perhaps she might find a way to bring those up as if they contained something sinful on her part. What she needed to talk about was the festering humiliation of Angel’s last words to her when she was already at the door. Could she even repeat them? No!… And she needed to talk about Gloria and Juan, explore what they could possibly be holding against her—and what they were withholding from her. How could she connect them into her confession? Where could she interject anything sinful, on her part, into that?… And to talk about Raynaldo. New complications had delayed his divorce—she never disbelieved him, and he had shown her letters—but soon it would be final and they would be married. Now there was the tension among him and her children. How to discuss that in confession, when she was not a part of it?… And how to speak about the stifling pain she felt over Manny’s death? Impossible even to force anything sinful into that!
The bland middle-aged woman emerged from the confessional with the beatific look of someone who has been given a very light penance. Let the young man go in after her. Amalia bowed her head as if she was not aware of the waiting confessional. The young man did not stir. Well, she would outlast him. She began a slow Our Father…. Teresa. Why had she intruded on her thoughts now? She’d given her the expensive funeral she’d demanded. And if there was any sin there, it belonged to—Amalia said a quick Hail Mary. It was not good to question the dead. Still, it seemed to her now that often confessions were about people who should themselves be doing the confessing.
The nervous young man had not budged, trying to outlast her. He didn’t want to follow the smug woman. Now a man in his thirties, who kept twisting a gold band on his finger, paused before the confessional—and then went in. After a short time he came out—crying. The young man got up—but Amalia seized what she saw as the best time to enter the confessional—now. She bowed her head reverently, said, “Excuse me,” to the young man, and went in ahead of him.
Inside, she felt soothed, close to a holy man, who was close to God, close to the surcease she needed to find within this troubling day. Kneeling, she made her usual quiet declaration to God: I am a divorced woman, but I do not want to be separated from your church. Father Ysidro may be reminding you about this now in heaven if he is already there. She waited in the hushed booth.
The small window in the partition that separates the priest from the penitent’s sight slid open. Amalia saw only the silhouette of the priest’s head behind the shaded screen.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” she began.
He recited whispers.
“These are my sins … Last night…” She could not speak about that yet. She revised: “Father, I’ve been thinking about miracles.”
The voice was puzzled. “How is that a sin?”
“Why don’t they occur anymore?” Amalia rushed that so he might answer.
“They do. Each day God allows us breath is a miracle.”
Just that? Amalia did not ask.
“And there’s the constant miracle of faith. Have you had doubts about your faith?” the priest asked.
“Certainly not!” she said emphatically. “I have faith in all of God’s works, even the most mysterious. And in His forgiveness,” she added pointedly.
“One may not transgress counting on Our Lord’s infinite forgiveness,” the priest warned. “What is your confession?” The voice was already impatient.
Amalia felt a sudden desolation. “Last night—”
“Yes? Last night—”
“Last night, I—” She still could not give the harsh memory words.
“I must hear your confession, or—” the priest was firm.
“Last night, when my… husband … walked out on me at a bar—a family bar,” she amended, “there was a man there, and he invited me to where he lived and I went.”
“You went to his home? Alone?” the priest asked.
He was already accusing her. “Yes.”
“And what happened there?”
“Father, he was a coyote, one of those people who exploit their own, they—”
“And how is that your sin?” the priest asked.
She took a deep breath. She wanted to skip the earlier parts, move on to what Angel had said to her just before she left, the words that bruised even more today. “In his room—” She shifted quickly: “There was a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe.”
“That is commendable,” the priest told her.
She had done it, shifted sympathy toward Angel. “But what he did there—” She stopped.
The priest cleared his throat. “When you went alone to his home with him, did he attempt something sinful?”
“Yes.” She was very grateful for his help.
“Nothing more, only an attempt?”
“Not exactly.”
“Confession must be truthful.”
“It wasn’t really … completed.”
“Did he disrobe you?”
Amalia was even more grateful for his directness, because now she did not have to speak those words. She knew it was necessary for priests to locate precise sins, and to do so in exact words, no matter how mortifying to the one confessing. After all, she reminded herself, these holy men must have heard everything. They were themselves, in their purity, separated from certain aspects of life; but that only made them more attuned to those who turned to them. They were here to provide an immediate substitute for salvation, which you earned fully at the end of your life. Every Catholic understood all that. “Yes.”
“Even your intimate items?”
Amalia closed her eyes. “Yes, Father.”
“And—?”
She waited for his further help.
“I cannot hear you.”
“I didn’t say anything, Father.”
“I cannot grant you absolution unless—Did he touch you?”
He was becoming angry at her already, she could tell. “Yes,” she whispered.
“When he had already removed your intimate clothes?”
“Yes!” The violent sense of last night’s betrayal with Angel grew.
“How many times did he touch you?”
“Twice … three times.” Now that she had been able to answer what she knew he had to ask, she would move on, tell him that when she was at the door—and fully dressed—
“Where did he touch you intimately, the first time?”
“I can’t tell you.” She could not.
“What! I am your confessor!”
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“I can’t tell you, Father.”
“You are confessing!”
“He touched my … breasts.” That was enough. She would say no more. It was bringing it all back to her.
“After he had removed your intimate clothes, he touched you there, the first time?”
Amalia burned with shame, as she had last night, and disgust. She considered running out of the confessional. But she needed surcease even more now.
“What did you say!”
“I didn’t say anything,” Amalia said.
“The second time, where did he touch you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Where!”
He was reacting with so much indignation that now she considered rushing this part: “Between my—” But she could hardly gasp those two words.
“Where!”
“Between my—” She could not say it.
“Between your legs? When you were disrobed?”
She was making him even angrier by her avoidance. “Yes!” She added silently, Keep in mind, God, that it was no longer the way it had been when I went with him, the way I thought. It had been pure, and then it was dirty beyond my choice.
“Where did he touch your disrobed body, the third time?”
She remembered those moments now with renewed outrage that Angel had put her in this position, to have to speak these things to this priest, whose indignation was mounting. “The same place but with his—” She tried to answer, would not, could not.
“Not with his hands that time? Then how?”
She spat out the words, to end this: “With his mouth!”
