Читать книгу The Saint - Tiffany Reisz, Tiffany Reisz - Страница 13

Eleanor

ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT, THE MIRACLE ELEANOR prayed for happened. Her mother had to go into work early. She’d be gone from five until midnight. Eleanor could leave the house for a couple of hours without anyone noticing.

She’d seen on the church bulletin that someone was holding a Lenten prayer service at six that night. Perfect excuse. For twenty minutes, she worked on her hair until it resembled human hair and not her usual lion’s mane. She put on clean clothes—tight jeans and a V-neck sweater. In all her life she’d never walked so fast to church.

When she arrived at Sacred Heart, she didn’t find anyone praying. She should probably ask someone where the service was. Maybe Søren would know?

Eleanor tiptoed up to the door and found it ajar. Inside the office she spied a lamp on the desk and shadows moving.

“Knock knock,” she said without actually knocking. The door opened all the way, and Eleanor took a step back.

Søren stood in the doorway clad in his clerics and collar. He didn’t seem displeased to see her.

“Hello, Eleanor. Nice to see you again.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame.

She peeked around his shoulder and peered inside. Books sat stacked on the desk and chairs.

“You’re moving in?”

“Father Gregory’s sister has asked for his things.”

Eleanor took a step back. Standing so close to him meant she had to crane her neck to look up at him.

“He’s really not coming back?”

Søren slowly shook his head.

“You have to understand that a stroke is a serious condition. Once he’s out of the hospital he’ll be staying with his sister and her husband.”

“Are they nice people?”

He seemed momentarily taken aback by her question.

“His sister and her husband? I haven’t met them, but she and I spoke on the phone. She seemed very kind and concerned.”

“That’s good.”

Eleanor bit her bottom lip while trying to think of something else to say.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Oh, sorry. I was going to go to this prayer thing but I can’t find it. I saw—”

“I mean with your lip.”

“I don’t know. I bite it sometimes. Habit.”

“Stop it. The only girls I’ve ever seen doing that are either not very intelligent or are trying to look not very intelligent. I refuse to believe you’re either.”

“Really? You don’t even know me.”

He smiled and took a step back into the office.

“I know you.”

Eleanor started to enter the office.

“What do you mean you know me?” she asked, but when she crossed the threshold, he held up a hand.

“Out.”

“Out?”

“Out of my office.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

Eleanor took a step back into the hallway.

“I’m not allowed in your office?”

“No one under the age of sixteen is allowed in my office without a parent present. No one over sixteen is allowed alone in my office unless the door is open. These are my rules.”

“That’s kind of strict.”

“I’m strict.”

He pulled a book off the shelf and added it to a pile on the desk.

“Why are you so strict?”

He paused while removing another book from the shelf and gave her a searching look.

“Can I talk to you like an adult?” he asked, shifting books on the shelf.

“I’d be pissed if you talked to me like a child.”

He glanced at her as he put an empty file box on the desk and one by one started piling books inside.

“Last year an exposé was released regarding child sex abuse by Catholic priests and the churchwide cover-up by the bishops, the archbishops and even the Curia.”

“Mom says those people, the victims, they’re after the church’s money.”

“Your mother is wrong.”

“So the sex abuse is as bad as they say?”

“Eleanor, do you know why I’m here?” Søren asked.

“I know Father Greg is retiring, and there’s a priest shortage in the diocese so they had to call the Jesuits for a loaner. You’re the loaner.”

“It isn’t as simple as that. Recently, I returned to my community after my ordination. Things were tense. A Jesuit in our province had recently been convicted on sex abuse charges stemming from his assignment at an inner-city school.”

A chill passed through her body.

“He was messing with kids?”

“Rumors circulated that one of the school officials, another Jesuit, was attempting to hide documents from the plaintiff’s attorney, who was suing the school and others in civil court.”

“What happened?”

“I called the attorney and told them everything I knew, everything I’d heard and everything to ask for during the discovery process.”

“You ratted out another Jesuit to lawyers? Jesus Christ, how big are your balls?” Her father had “friends” who got themselves killed talking to cops or lawyers.

Søren laughed softly.

“I believe those were the exact words my superior said to me. But he didn’t smile when he said it like you did. I’m not telling you this story to impress you or shock you. I’m telling you this so you know why I’m here. I was to spend two weeks in New York visiting friends and family before being sent to India. Instead I’m here at this tiny parish in a tiny town in Connecticut.”

“Oh, shit. You got in trouble.”

“Me being here is the Catholic equivalent of ‘go stand in the corner and think about what you’ve done.’”

“So you’re not letting kids in your office because—”

“Of St. Paul and First Thessalonians 5:22. ‘Abstain from every appearance of evil.’”

“I guess having kids in the office could look bad.”

Søren rearranged some books in the box to make room for two more.

“It could. I’m afraid Father Gregory was slightly lax in those areas. Of course, from everything I’ve heard of him, he was a good and gentle man.”

“He was.”

“I’m an unknown integer here, however. Being alone with a seventy-year-old priest and a twenty-nine-year-old priest give two entirely different appearances.”

“Doesn’t help that you’re like the hottest priest on the planet.”

Søren looked up sharply at her. Eleanor went pale.

“I said that out loud.”

“Should I pretend I didn’t hear it?”

Eleanor thought about his offer as the blush stared to fade from her cheeks.

“I said it. I’ll go say some Hail Marys.”

“Finding another person attractive isn’t a sin.”

“It isn’t?”

“Desire is not a sin,” Søren said, sitting on his desk and facing her. “Fantasy is not a sin. Sins are acts of commission or omission. Either you do some act you’re not supposed to do. For example, shooting someone. Or you fail to do an act you should do. For example, not giving alms to the poor. Finding someone attractive is no more a sin than standing on a balcony and enjoying a lovely view of the ocean.”

“What’s lust, then?”

“You ask excellent questions. These are the questions of a young woman who is not of the lip-biting variety.”

“I’m going to bite my lip out of spite from now on.”

“That is exactly what I knew you would do. Would you like me to answer your question?”

“About lust? Yeah.”

“Let’s go into the sanctuary. You can sit down there.”

“I don’t mind standing.”

“You’re wearing combat boots.”

“They’re comfy.”

“Where does a young lady in Wakefield, Connecticut, purchase combat boots?”

“Goodwill,” she said.

“You’re wearing Goodwill combat boots?”

“Yes.”

“Congratulations, Eleanor. Your footwear has achieved irony.”

Before she could ask him what he meant by that, he stepped past her. She spun around on the heel of her Goodwill combat boots and followed Søren to the sanctuary. He opened the doors, putting the stoppers down to keep them open.

“You’re really into this ‘avoiding any appearance of evil’ thing, aren’t you?”

“I am. I wouldn’t want either of us accused of anything we hadn’t done.”

“What if it’s something we have done?” she asked, kneeling backward on one of the pews to face Søren, who was seated in the row behind her.

“That’s an entirely different situation. But we’re talking lust.”

“I’m lusting for your answer.”

“You aren’t, actually.” He gave her a steady gaze with his unyielding eyes. “You’re simply desiring my answer. Lust is overwhelming or uncontrollable desire that leads to sin. A man might desire another man’s wife. It happens. The question he has to ask himself is, given the chance, will he act on his desires? Will he try to seduce her the first time they’re alone? Will he attack her? If she came on to him, would he give in? Or would he honor her marital state, politely tell her no and suggest she and her husband go to counseling?”

“So it’s a matter of how much you want something that’s the difference between love and lust?”

“Partly. But it’s not only a question of degree of desire, but what you do with it. If I were to find a young woman stunningly attractive, intriguing and intelligent, then I will not have committed a sin. I could take that to my confessor, and he’d laugh and tell me not to come back and see him until I had something worth confessing. Now, if I acted on my attraction to this young woman, then we might have a problem.”

“Or a really good evening.” She grinned at him. Søren cocked an eyebrow at her. “I mean, a really sinful evening.”

“Better.”

“So it’s okay to desire someone as long as you don’t act on it?”

“There are many situations when acting on one’s desires is not a sin.”

“Married couples, right? They can have sex all they want.”

“Married couples can certainly engage in sexual acts with each other.”

“And …” Eleanor waved her hand, hoping for more to the answer. “Nobody else? The rest of us are screwed? I mean, not screwed?”

“I believe that is a question for your own conscience. I’m not dogmatic when it comes to sexual behavior in the modern world. The church can proscribe anything and everything it wants to, but the church is still made up entirely of human beings. Heaping rule upon rule on our congregations isn’t going to make anyone holier. It’ll serve only to add to the guilt that is endemic in our churches.”

Eleanor pointed at the sanctuary doors.

“You said five minutes ago you were imposing new rules on the church.”

“The rules are not for the church. They are for me. If I were to allow you and I to be alone together in my office, I would be breaking the rule, not you.”

“So what are all these rules?”

“Nothing burdensome, I promise. Actually, you might be able to help me with one of them. I have a feeling it’s not going to go over well.”

“Oh, no. What are you doing?” Eleanor knew her church well enough to know any sort of big change would be met with fear, anger and confusion. She couldn’t wait to see everyone freak out.

“The rectory. I’m closing it off to parishioners.”

“Whoa. Wait. You’re closing the rectory?”

“No church members will be allowed inside it.”

Eleanor’s eyes nearly fell out of her skull.

“I take it from you look of wild-eyed horror that such a declaration will ruffle a few feathers?” Søren asked, a slight smile on his lips. He didn’t seem the least bothered by the prospect.

“If you turned the church into a McDonald’s, that would ruffle some feathers. This is going to ruffle the whole fucking turkey. Pardon my French.”

“Pardoned.”

“Why close the rectory? The church uses it all the time.”

“This church has a sanctuary, a chapel and a large annex. There’s no need to use the rectory for church services. I, however, will need a home. I’ll no more hear confessions in my bedroom than I’ll take a bath in my office.”

He said the words without a hint of flirtatiousness, but that didn’t stop Eleanor from mentally conjuring the image of Søren lying wet and naked in a bathtub. Or was it laying wet and naked?

“Eleanor?”

“Sorry. I was trying to remember when you’re supposed to use lay versus lie,” she lied.

“Lay requires a direct object and lie does not.”

“Oh, that makes perfect sense. Thank you. Also, no. You can’t close the rectory. You’re going to piss off the entire church.”

“I had a feeling. Your prayer service you’re supposed to be at is meeting at the rectory right now. A sanctuary, a chapel, and for some reason neither of those will work.”

“The rectory is cozier. Father Greg always had snacks.”

Søren tapped his knee. “That’s unfortunate, but I’ve made up my mind. It’s important for a pastor to have strong boundaries with his church. I’ll do my best to explain my logic to them.”

“Logic? You’re going to use logic on Catholics?”

“Do you have a better idea?” From anyone else, the question would have sounded sarcastic or like a challenge. But instead from Søren it sounded like a genuine question. If she had a better idea, he wanted to know it.

“Look, I know these people. I grew up with them. They don’t really like outsiders. Everyone’s already freaking out that you’re a Jesuit instead of a regular priest.”

“They’re afraid of Jesuits?”

“They say Jesuits are really …” Eleanor waved her hand to beckon Søren forward. He leaned in and she put her mouth at his ear. “Liberal.”

Søren pulled back and looked her in the eyes.

“I have to tell you a secret.” She leaned in again toward Søren and inhaled. In that inhale she smelled winter, clean and cold, and briefly she wondered if someone had left a window open. “We are liberal.”

He sat back in the pew again and brought a finger to his lips.

“But you didn’t hear that from me,” he said and gave her a wink. Eleanor’s body temperature, already running a low-grade fever from being in the same room as him, shot up even higher. “But that’s beside the point. You were going to give me a better idea than logic.”

“Yeah … no. Logic won’t work. What might work is if you trick the church into thinking closing off the rectory was their idea.”

“How so?”

She shrugged and raised her hands. “I don’t know. Tell them you heard from concerned members of the church who want more rules and safety procedures or whatever?” They were always talking about safety procedures at school. “And you can say you heard the cry of the people and have decided to take their advice and add some new rules so you can keep everyone safe and avoid all appearance of evil. Nobody wants to be in a church with a scandal, right? You’re doing what they asked.”

Søren raised his fingers to his mouth and slowly stroked his bottom lip. It seemed an unconscious gesture, as unconscious as her lip-biting. But whereas her lip-biting apparently made her look like an idiot, his lip-caressing made her want to straddle his lap, wrap her arms around him and put her tongue down his throat.

“So you’re telling me I should manipulate the church into thinking that closing the rectory was a suggestion they made me?”

“Or just flat-out lie. Or lay. Whatever.”

“I could lie. That would be a sin, but I appreciate that suggestion.”

“You don’t sin?”

“I try not to.”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t sin?” Søren sounded so skeptical she would have been insulted if he weren’t entirely right to be that skeptical.

“No, I don’t try to not sin.”

Søren closed his eyes and shook his head.

“What?” she asked.

He held up his hand, indicating his need for silence.

“What?” she whispered.

“Do you hear that?”

She tilted her head and listened.

“No. I don’t hear anything. Do you hear something?” she asked Søren.

“I do.”

“What?”

“God laughing at me.”

Eleanor rested her chin on her hand. “You hear God laughing at you?”

“Loudly. I’m quite surprised you can’t hear it.”

“He’s laughing at you, not me,” she said.

“Excellent point. And you made another excellent point about handling the church. I’ll consider your suggestion.”

“You will?”

“It’s a wise and Machiavellian strategy.”

“Is that bad?”

“No. It’s biblical. Matthew 10:16. ‘Behold, I send you forth as a sheep among wolves—be therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.’”

“Sheep among wolves. That makes the church sound dangerous. You think we’re dangerous.”

“I think you’re dangerous.”

Eleanor sat back on her heels. They’d been joking the entire time they’d been in the sanctuary, but what he’d said and how he’d said it? That was no joke.

“Me? Dangerous?” she repeated.

“You. Very.”

“Why?”

“Because you want to be. That’s part of the reason.”

“I also want to be six feet tall and have straight blond hair, but wanting something doesn’t make it real. I’m not dangerous.”

“I’d explain my reasons for saying you are, but I have to get back to packing. I promised Father Gregory’s sister I would have all of his things ready to pick up tomorrow.”

“You know there are like a million old ladies in this church who would have packed up the office for you.”

“I know, but I said I would do it, and I feel only another priest should take care of his personal things for him.”

“That’s really nice of you.” She winced. Really nice of you? Could she sound like a bigger suck-up or idiot? “I should go home, I guess. Mom might call and wonder where I am.”

“Where is your mother?”

“Working.” Eleanor followed him out of the sanctuary.

“She works this late often?”

“This early. She works the late shift a lot. It pays more.”

“Does your father not help out financially?”

Eleanor stood in the doorway of the office again while Søren got back to work packing the boxes.

“Mom won’t take a cent from him even if he offered, which I doubt he would. He says he’s broke.”

“I take it the divorce was not entirely amicable.”

“She hates him.”

“Do you?”

“Hate Dad? No way. I love him.”

“Why does your mother hate him? If these questions are too personal you don’t have to answer them.”

“No, it’s okay.” She liked answering Søren’s questions. They were personal but not embarrassing. “Mom and Dad got married when she was eight months pregnant with me.”

“Eight? Talk about waiting until the last minute.”

Eleanor tried to smile but couldn’t.

“What is it?” Søren asked.

“She waited that long because she was hoping she’d have a miscarriage.”

Søren dropped the book on the desk with a loud thud.

“Surely not.”

“It’s true. I overheard her talking to my grandmother one night about some guy named Thomas Martin. She said she felt bad about thinking it, but she had once wished God would handle the pregnancy the way he handled Thomas Martin, whoever that is.”

“Thomas Merton,” Søren corrected.

“You know him?”

“He was a Trappist monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Bardstown, Kentucky. He’s arguably the most famous Catholic writer of the twentieth century. When he was a young man, he fathered a child out of wedlock, but the mother and child were both killed during an air raid in World War II, which allowed him to eventually become a monk without the familial obligations of fatherhood.”

“Makes sense, I guess. She was hoping God would kill me so she could be a nun.”

Søren gave her a look of such deep and profound sympathy she couldn’t stand to look at it.

“Eleanor … I’m so—”

“Sorry. I know. Don’t be. She loves me now. I think.” Eleanor laughed. “Anyway, it was young lust with Dad. She was seventeen. A year after she had me, she found out what my dad does for a living. They got divorced. She didn’t want any of his money because she said it’s all dirty.”

“Dirty money? What does your father do for a living?”

“He …” Eleanor paused and considered the best way to say it. “He’s a mechanic, sort of. Works with cars.”

“Nothing to be ashamed of.”

“They’re not always his cars.”

Søren nodded. “I see.”

“He’s been in prison a couple times.”

“Does that trouble you?”

“No,” she said. “Not too much anyway.”

They looked at each other a moment without speaking. It wasn’t an awkward silence, but a meaningful silence.

“Anyway, I’ll let you get back to packing.” Eleanor wanted to stay and keep talking to him. But she didn’t want to be a nuisance either, and wear out her welcome.

“I’ll see you Sunday?” he asked.

“What’s Sunday?”

“Mass? Church? Holy Day of Obligation?”

“Right. Sunday. I’ll check with my secretary,” she said. “You know, see if I’m free.”

“Do you have the office number here?”

“It’s on the fridge.”

“Call my number when you get home. I want to know you’ve arrived safely.”

She stared at him.

“Seriously?”

“How long does it take for you to walk home?”

“I don’t know. Twenty minutes?”

“Then I’ll expect to hear from you within the half hour. Please be safe.”

She gave him a wave and took a step back. It hurt walking away from him. That cord she felt last Sunday, she felt it again now, felt it in his presence, felt it even more when she moved to leave him.

“Three more things, Eleanor, before you go.”

“What?” She turned back to face him. Once more he stood in the doorway to his office.

“One.” He held up one finger. “Earlier you said you wished you to be six feet tall and have long straight hair. Don’t ever wish that again. God created you. Don’t argue aesthetics with the Creator. Do you understand?”

“Sure, I guess,” she said although she didn’t.

“Two.” He held up a second finger. “Don’t be troubled I said were you dangerous. It wasn’t an insult.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. And three.” He took a step back into the office. “I’ve been at Sacred Heart four days and already half the parish has made it abundantly clear to me that I am not wanted here. Father Gregory is much beloved. The parish is not ready to let him go and accept a new pastor. You aren’t the only one who knows what it’s like to feel unwanted.”

Eleanor felt something funny in her throat. It burned so she swallowed it. The burn remained.

“The church isn’t your own mother.”

“No, it isn’t. And I won’t minimize your pain by pretending the church’s distrust of me compares at all to your pregnant, terrified seventeen-year-old mother making a desperate wish that her problems would magically disappear and the dream she lost would be hers again. But I will say that it doesn’t matter anymore if your mother wanted you at the time or not. Nor does it matter if this church wants me here or not. We’re here, you and I. We’re not going away. We’re here, if for no other reason than God wants us here, and He gets the final say.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I want you here.”

Søren picked up one of Father Gregory’s books again.

“That does make me feel better.”

“Thank you … Søren.” She still couldn’t believe she was calling a priest by his first name, no “Father” attached.

“Good night.”

She turned and started to walk away from the office.

“Thirty minutes,” Søren called out, and Eleanor allowed herself to give free rein to the ear-to-ear grin she’d been holding back for the past hour.

The second she entered her kitchen, Eleanor picked up the phone. She had to stretch the cord all the way to the fridge so she could read off the office number to Sacred Heart.

Søren answered on the first ring.

“I’m home safe,” she said.

“Good.”

“Thanks for talking to me tonight.”

“I enjoyed our conversation, Eleanor.”

She smiled at the phone. Usually she hated being called Eleanor. Why did it sound so right coming from him? Eleanor … sounded so classy the way he said it, so adult.

“Can I ask you a quick question?”

“Of course,” Søren answered, and she heard the sound of books dropping into boxes.

“Are you dangerous, too?”

She held her breath waiting for his answer.

“Yes.”

“Thought so,” she said. Søren said no more.

“Good night, Søren. See you Sunday.”

“Try to avoid doing anything to prove I’m right about you being dangerous between now and Sunday, please.”

Eleanor would have laughed, but she knew he wasn’t joking. She wasn’t joking either, when she answered.

“No promises.”