Father Elijah

by Michael D. O'Brien

  Smith jumped to his feet and began pacing. His eyes were red, snapping back and forth, his fists clenched. He uttered several imprecations in a loud voice. Then he threw himself back onto the bunk and hid his face in his hands.

  “Father Smith,” said Elijah calmly, “don’t you think the truth will win in the end?”

  “Will it? I don’t know about that anymore.”

  “It will. You must trust.”

  “Trust? Look, haven’t you learned anything from this? It’s been three years of sinking in quicksand. Nothing stops it. We just keep sinking and sinking!”

  “There is a Lord, and there is justice. He will vindicate you, even if all human agencies do not.”

  “And what about Gertie? Think of the humiliation for her. Think of what they’re saying about us. It’s ridiculous!”

  “Think of what they said about our Lord.”

  “Yes, yes. Thanks for the pep-talk. But the reality here is we’ve got a really good person getting nailed to the cross. She’s never done anyone a lick of harm in her life. And you can be sure that a whole lot of people, good Catholics among them, with their putrid minds plugged into this scummy society, are going to believe it. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, they’ll say. And even if a court declares us innocent, there’ll always be a cloud hanging over us.”

  “That is the price we sometimes have to pay for being on the front lines.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “Smith. . .”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to knock, you. You’re a really good guy, Elijah, and you’ve been a big help to me over the years. But this is different. Take a look at my life. Take a look at yours. Something happened about two years ago that sent us to two different planets. You’re a monk. You pray all day and you teach your classes, and that’s your life. I don’t fault you for it. I’m glad for you. But please, please understand that my life is over. I slaved for God all those years, and this is what I get in the end.”

  “Father, some time I would like to tell you a little more about my life. . .”

  “I know. You’ve suffered. The War and all that. But this is now!”

  “You are very upset, and with reason. But I want you to ask yourself if our Lord is calling you to walk the hardest way of all, right beside Him, carrying a bitter cross.”

  “It’s bitter all right. You know what the general said? When I told him that this filthy accusation about the sex and love nest was sheer nonsense, he just looked at me and didn’t say a thing. Not a damn thing! That blew my cork. I told him just what I thought about his gutlessness. I told him that I’m a priest and that I made vows I’ve never broken and never will break. I told him that I’m fifty-eight years old, and Gertie is an old lady who’s a hell of a lot holier than Grace Kelly ever was. You know what he said to that?”

  “What?”

  “He just gave me one of his cowlike looks and asked me if I’d ever felt sexual attraction for my mother! My mother! That did it. I told him that he was sick, and the order is sick too, right to the core. I said a jail cell would be a refreshing change. Then I went to my office and waited. The police came and got me an hour later.”

  The two priests sat together in silence.

  Eventually Smith stood up, went to the sink in the corner, and splashed cold water on his face.

  “I keep telling myself all the right things, the kind of things you just said. But it doesn’t take away the pain, I feel so betrayed. Why is this happening?”

  “That is the question: Why is this happening?”

  “I’m not hearing anything from heaven. Total silence. What’s going on?”

  “Are you praying?”

  “I say my Mass. I pray my office. But the heart’s gone out of it. I don’t feel very religious right now.”

  “Your heart is full of riotous feelings. Calm yourself. Make an act of trust. The consolations will follow.”

  Smith sighed, “Will they? They seemed to have dried up months ago.”

  “But have you persisted? How much time do you give to prayer?”

  “Well, if the truth be known, less and less. It’s pretty dry.”

  “That is partly the cause of your distress. You need the peace of Christ right now.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  They talked for another half-hour until a guard came to the door and said, “Five more minutes.”

  Elijah stood up.

  “I will do what I can”, he said. “Pray, Father, pray. Nothing is impossible for God.”

  “All right. Holy obedience, Elijah. Maybe God sent you to me.”

  “Trust Him. He is always with you.”

  “Can you hear my confession?” asked Smith timidly.

  Elijah sat back down and spoke the opening prayers of the sacrament. When Smith came to his sins, he said, “There’s no greed and no impurity. What they say about me is a lie. But I am guilty of something: I hate them. I hate them a lot. I can hardly forgive them for what they’ve done to the order, and to the Church, and to people like Gertie. I ask God’s forgiveness, and I ask His grace to overcome this thing in my heart.”

  “Anger is an emotion, Father”, said Elijah. “It can rise up in us for legitimate reasons. The sin is only in the will. What do we choose to do with our anger? We must convert these feelings. Pray for our enemies. Suffer in silence. When the time comes, you will speak the truth before your accusers, but you must do it without rancor. Offer your sufferings to the Lord. He will use them as a powerful weapon to confound the devices of the enemy. Believe in the ultimate victory, and then your pain will become joy.”

  Smith seemed comforted by these words. After the absolution, he embraced Elijah. The guard came, and that was the last time he saw Smith.

  * * *

  Dear David,

  The days stretch out endlessly. When can we meet again? I hope to go to Foligno for Christmas. Can you join me there?

  Love,

  Maria

  *

  Dearest Maria,

  It will be impossible to leave the college before the 26th. It would arouse suspicion. I have permission to go after the Christmas liturgy, and a tentative promise of a car. If that falls through, I will arrive by train. I count the days.

  I am always with you,

  David

  *

  My David,

  I whisper your name from morning until night. You are an island of joy for me, my beloved. If I do not write every day, it is because I savor the sweet pain of waiting, knowing that it is only a prologue.

  Life is extremely busy here. The world is changing quickly. Our President is achieving wonderful things for unity and peace in the world. I know that you are unsure of his motives. Caro, you must not be. He is a great leader and history will remember him as the figure who stands head and shoulders above the men of our times.

  I am always one with you,

  in the heart,

  Maria

  *

  Maria,

  I long for the time when we shall not hide our names. Love does not hide. Love is the great fire which consumes without destroying. This is our kind of love. Nothing can take it away from us. Nothing can ever separate us.

  I regret that I have been so critical about the President. The news is full of his achievements. Perhaps I have been mistaken. We can speak more of this at Foligno. Will we be alone?

  Your David

  *

  Dear One,

  I soon hope to have a gift for you. I am on the verge of making the purchase. It is a priceless work of art. I will bring it to Foligno. When you see it you will tell me I have been impulsive, but it is worth the price.

  M.

  *

  Maria,

  I worry about your impulsive heart. You must not pay too much. I implore you! Do not pay too much. Our love is the gift, and that alone outweighs all treasure.

  I am hoping for snow. Snow at Christmas, the world clothed in white. We will walk side by side in the hills. You wil
l hold tightly to my old arm, and I will appreciate it too much. We will speak of mountains and vineyards and the coming spring.

  We will speak of each other, you and me,

  David

  * * *

  Elijah received no reply to this note. He assumed that Anna’s schedule was full and that she was saving her news until their meeting. The third Sunday of Advent passed uneventfully. He kept himself busy correcting examinations and writing last-minute cards to friends throughout the world. On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, he took them down to the porter’s office for mailing.

  The porter teased him about the excessive postage costs.

  “More? Scandaloso! I thought you were all finished! Look at this: Israel, the United States, France, Russia, The Netherlands!” he chided. “Father, when are you going to be simple?”

  “I’m sorry, brother. Charity demands that I do not ignore these people.”

  “You get twice as many letters as any of the other Fathers. And you send as many too!”

  They jested back and forth until the brother slipped in a question: “Who is the lady who sends you all those letters every few days?”

  “Lady?”

  “Si, the lady from Holland.”

  “A friend. How do you know it is a lady?”

  “No man would use a pretty envelope like that.”

  Elijah smiled but said nothing.

  “Now it’s none of my business, but I noticed the letters have stopped.” He paused and looked at Elijah expectantly. It was a weakness of this brother that he liked to assemble tiny bits and pieces of information about the private lives of the clerics in the house. When Elijah was not forthcoming with more details, the porter turned away to other business. Elijah was climbing the stairs to his room, when he came running after him.

  “Father, Father, I forgot. This package came for you this morning. A man dropped it off.”

  Printed on the front of the padded envelope: David Schäfer.

  David?

  “Did the man say who he was?”

  “No. He just strolled in off the street and pushed it through the wicket. He said, ‘Give this to Schäfer.’ Not very polite, if you ask me.”

  Elijah took the package to his room and opened it. It contained the brass reliquary he had given to Anna. He pried open its lid. Inside there was a mass of material that appeared to be semi-liquid. It was dark purple, almost black, and bits of solid matter were embedded in it. It smelled of putrefaction. He stared at it uncomprehending. The odor filled the room. He took the reliquary to the sink, inserted the plug and tapped the contents into the bowl. A gelatinous sludge oozed down the white ceramic, leaving a trail of splinters and what appeared to be gravel. Upon closer inspection, he saw that they were rosary beads. One bead floated in the center, beside a sliver of wood.

  He bent over the sink and resisted the urge to vomit. His heart pounded and a wild cry threatened to escape his throat.

  He scooped the mess back into the reliquary and washed its outer surface, the bowl, and his hands. He put the reliquary into his pocket, turned to the icon of the archangel of the Apocalypse, and stammered a desperate prayer.

  “Holy Michael, defend us in this day of battle, be our protection against the malice and the snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and may thou, O prince of the heavenly hosts, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls!”

  He sat down on the bed and trembled violently. He turned to the Cross and cried out, “Save her!”

  * * *

  He drove like a madman. The traffic into the city was heavy, but the outgoing lanes were almost empty. It was raining now, and the pavement was slick. He went into a slow skid, pulled out of it, accelerated, and spun out of control. The car righted itself, and he went on. He prayed incessantly as the speedometer climbed, hoping that no highway police would stop him, hoping against hope that the contents of the reliquary were merely a warning or an evil joke.

  He turned east and raced up into the hills. A slash of crimson in the rearview mirror indicated that the sun was setting behind the edge of the overcast. At Term, where he turned north toward Foligno, the rain became sleet and the road a sheet of ice. He crawled along for an hour. It grew dark and snow began to fall in thick white flakes that blinded him with the reflected glare of the headlights.

  “Oh, Anna”, he cried. “Spare her, Lord!”

  At Foligno, he found the road that wound up the side of the mountain. He skidded along it until he came to her lane. Twenty yards up the tires began to spin and refused to move the car forward. He got out and walked.

  The gate hung half-open, and he saw by flashlight that its lock was broken and the bar bent askew. He ran and stumbled uphill until the ground leveled off in front of the looming black shape of the farmhouse.

  There were no lights in the building. The door was closed, but the window had been smashed out of it. He opened it and entered, dreading to see what lay within. The interior was cold and damp. Nothing stirred. His boots crunched on the debris scattered across the floor. He went through the ground floor, taking in the tumbled furniture, the drawers tossed in all directions, the broken crockery, pictures, books, phonograph records and papers that covered everything like the wake of a hurricane. A lap-computer lay on the parlor rug, its hard-drive missing, the hole gaping like a skull from which the brain had been removed. He searched for signs of blood, but found nothing. He climbed the stairs warily. It was the same on the upper floor. Mattresses had been ripped to shreds, chairs split open, cabinets stripped, clothing heaped in drifts. Here too there was no sign of blood.

  In the kitchen, he found a lamp and matches. The golden light lit up the scene of chaos starkly. He turned around and around wondering at the totality of the wreckage.

  He realized then that he was chilled to the bone. He reached behind the stove intending to grab sticks of kindling in order to start a fire. Then he saw it.

  A slip of paper, palest violet in color, protruding from a heap of sticks dumped beside the upturned wood-box. A slip of paper among the hundreds lying about the room. It seemed to cry out to him.

  He extracted it and read:

  Beneath Nonno’s heart.

  Anna’s handwriting.

  “Beneath Nonno’s heart?” he whispered. What did it mean? What could she be saying? Nonno’s heart?

  He shuffled through the house from one room to another. What is it, Anna? What do you want me to find? He went into the room where he had slept—her grandparents’ room.

  Nonno’s room?

  Heart, heart, heart, heart. . .

  The bed was demolished, the pictures torn from the wall, the crucifix broken into pieces, the picture of the Sacred Heart. . .

  It was lying face up on the floor beside the bed. The glass was shattered, tearing into the oleograph heart. Christ was weeping, weeping over the world. He was calling, calling, but none would listen, none attend.

  Elijah lifted the lantern higher, and the light revealed the outline of a boot print on the pieces of glass.

  He picked it up by the frame and carefully removed the broken shards. He turned it over in his hands. The back of the image was covered entirely by two wide strips of wood, held in place by old-fashioned pin-nails. The top two nails were missing. He removed the others; they slipped out of their holes effortlessly, and the strips of wood dropped to the floor. A sheet of paper fell out.

  The paper was not yellowed with age, and it was filled with computer script. He took it back to the kitchen, turned a chair upright, and sat down on it by the stove. He read:

  Foligno, 21 December

  Dear Elijah,

  Marco will carry this to you. I can write openly.

  I am a little worried. I have received no reply from you concerning my note of the twelfth in which I relate the news about “the priceless work of art”.

  We could not have hoped for better: my every suspicion has been confirmed. The surgeon, the ma
gician, and the destroyer were definitely involved, a fact related to me by a person they believe to be secure. I have worked hard to earn her trust. As I penetrated deeper into their rings, like Dante descending through the circles of hell, I found more than one individual who was unhappy to be there. Many telltale signs can be deciphered in such wretched souls. She is one of their playthings, a poor, broken human being who could no longer withstand the psychological pressures of their activities. My presence among them, which is merely a source of amusement for the most powerful ones, is a source of agony for her. Don’t ask me to explain it; I can only say that she is one in whom the last pathetic scrap of conscience has not been entirely eradicated.

  I befriended her only in order to dig for evidence. In the beginning I felt nothing but revulsion for her, but gradually as I learned more about her horrible existence, I was moved to pity. I let it be known that I understood her pain. She responded. We grew close. Then, last week, the prize you and I anticipated fell into my lap. The woman could no longer bear the tension of pretending she knew nothing. She hinted that she knew something very big. Point blank, I asked her about Stefano. She admitted everything. Stefano was killed by the circle. She confessed that she had been present during some of the sessions in which he was tortured. She said Architetto was there and approved of everything. She regretted what they did to him because he was a brave man. He was a nice man, she said emphatically. A nice man! I suppose those are the only words a person like her could dredge up to describe a person like Stefano.

  I recorded our conversation on a concealed microtape and made a transcript of it. I will not ask her to testify in court because she would not live a single day past the filing of an indictment. However, the material she has supplied, along with other evidence that has come to light, will be enough to convince the Italian government to mount an inquiry. It is doubtful that they will be able to send him and his associates to prison, because his tentacles reach far into the vital organs of the nation, and beyond. Nevertheless, the public scandal will slow his rise to absolute power and may even bring it to a stop. A radical doubt will be planted in the mind of the world. If any harm comes to me as a result of my legal suit, it will only serve to confirm that doubt. It is a risk I am willing to take.