Robert Knightly - The cold room

‘Father,’ I said, ‘do you remember a prize fighter named Joe Frazier?’

The priest nodded once. ‘Smokin’ Joe Frazier. He fought Muhammad Ali three times. What about him?’

‘Well, I saw him interviewed on television once, at a Golden Gloves tournament, and I remember he was asked if he had any advice he’d like to offer younger fighters. “Fire back,” was what he told the kids. “No matter how bad you’re hurt, get up and fire back.”?’

‘Is this another confession?’

I gestured to the painting. ‘If I was God, nobody would crown me with thorns, or whip me, or force me to carry my own cross.’

‘Not even if you could offer mankind the hope of redemption by submitting?’

‘Not even then.’

‘Maybe that’s because you’re only a man.’

‘And maybe it’s because I’ve spent most of my adult life protecting society from the unredeemed.’

Father Manicki led me out of the church and down the sidewalk, retracing the route I’d taken with Sister Kassia a few days before. He walked with his hands behind his back, leaning forward as though into a wind. But there was no wind that day, only a layer of haze and humidity that seemed to grow thicker, step by step.

‘You’re much more subtle than I gave you credit for,’ he said, his eyes fixed on the horizon, his voice hinting of a resentment he wasn’t supposed to feel.

‘How so?’

‘When you suggested that Mynka came to me for counseling, I failed to register the comment. Perhaps because you followed it with a very ugly accusation.’

I smiled. In the Fornes case, Father Towle had evaded the seal of the confessional by claiming that counseling, not absolution, had been the purpose of his encounter with Fornes. My lawyerly argument was that counseling and forgiveness were also separate events in Mynka’s encounter with Father Manicki.

Because I’d chosen them carefully, I could still remember my exact words: I’m thinking that she was confused, that she sought counseling from the only counselor available. That would be you, Father.

‘I showed you a photo of Mynka,’ I said, ‘with her belly ripped open, but I never told you why she was gutted.’

‘Actually,’ the priest was good enough to point out, ‘you led me to believe that she was mutilated by a psycho.’

‘Well, she wasn’t. Aslan sliced her because he wanted to be certain we couldn’t use her child to establish paternity through a DNA test. His objective was entirely rational.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because the man has to be stopped.’

We trudged on, eventually circling the block. Only when we were within yards of the church did Father Manicki speak again.

‘The truth,’ he announced, ‘is that Mynka did come to me for counseling, exactly as you suggested. I’ve examined my own conscience and discussed the matter with my superiors. We’re all on the same page. Nevertheless.?.?.’ The priest hesitated, his mouth continuing to work. Then he took a deep breath and smiled. ‘Nevertheless, my superiors would prefer that my.?.?. my contribution.?.?. not be made public.’

I laughed out loud. ‘If I remember right, I already made that offer.’

There was nowhere to go now. We were standing by the church doors. I watched the priest straighten himself, then jam his hands into his pockets and suck on his lower lip. Finally, he said, ‘You were right. Mynka was being pressured to have an abortion, by Aslan and by the family she worked for, and she didn’t know what to do. But I did not, as you suggested, tell her that abortion is murder and that she was obligated to resist. I told her that if she ran away, we’d protect her and her unborn child.’

‘I know that, Father.’

‘Then why.?.?.’

‘It was just a ploy, a wedge, the kind of thing I do every day.’ I motioned for him to continue.

‘Well, she came into the confessional in early June. She didn’t tell me much. I don’t even know the name of the baby’s father. But she did tell me that she and the baby’s father were in love, and she also mentioned the name of the family, Portola. They live somewhere on the upper west side of Manhattan.’

I felt an onrush of powerful emotions at that moment, just as I had when the priest revealed Mynka’s name. Though I was careful to show nothing of what I felt — neither joy, nor triumph, nor even cold-blooded calculation — I doubt that I fooled the priest.

‘Anything else?’ I asked. ‘Anything at all?’

‘Only this. There’s a large refrigerator somewhere in the Portola home, large enough to step into. Mynka kept referring to it as “the cold room.” That was the threat, you see. If she didn’t work hard enough, if she wasn’t properly subservient, if she refused to abort her child, she would be confined in the cold room. Sometimes the baby’s father would intervene, but he wasn’t always present. Detective, the way she described it, the cold and the absolute darkness, it must have been hell.’

‘Who put her there?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask and she didn’t say.’

I recalled John Roach, the NYPD profiler, telling me that there was a sadist in the mix. Now I knew where to find him. Or her. Or them.

‘At this point,’ I said, ‘I’m supposed to say something like, I know how difficult this was for you. But.?.?.’

‘But, in fact, you don’t give a damn how hard this might or might not have been.’

‘I get paid to produce results, Father, and I’ve lost track of the lies I’ve told you.’

The priest laughed at that point. ‘Most people, every day they go out to a job they don’t want to do, motivated solely by a pay check at the end of the week. But that’s not your fate. No, no. You’re one of a small number of men and women who’ve found their true calling.’

‘One of the lucky ones?’

‘Vocation and talent are not free passes. There are always unforeseen consequences, penalties to be paid, a soul to be healed. For instance, didn’t you, at some point, think it might be possible to persuade me with reason?’

‘I did.’

‘Yet you chose to assault me, with the accusations and the photographs.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I felt, on balance, you’d be easier to persuade if I softened you up first.’

I was up and out at seven a.m., riding the L Train cross-town, then the A north to 72nd Street. Both trains were packed on the first day of the new week, even at that early hour. I rocked along, alone with my thoughts despite the crush of bodies and the commingled odors, fair and foul. I’d spoken to Hansen just before leaving my apartment. Though I didn’t ask, I simply assumed that at some point he’d explained the facts of life to Aslan, then suggested deportation in lieu of prison. If so, Aslan had refused.

‘We don’t have enough to hold him,’ Linde told me. ‘Come noon, he’ll walk out the door.’

I liked the sound of that.

The A Train came to a stop in the tunnel between Penn Station and Times Square, remaining motionless for several long moments. Rush-hour delays are common enough, and I wasn’t particularly concerned, but I found myself looking down at my watch, shifting my weight from foot to foot, as if the Portola household would simply vanish should I arrive at eight o’clock. In fact, the household was entirely unsuspecting and it wouldn’t matter if I got there tomorrow. All the question marks concerned their maid; assuming they still had a maid, assuming that Aslan was still supplying that maid, assuming all of Aslan’s little maids weren’t on route to some distant land.

The train began to move, a sharp jerk, first, then the hiss of the air brakes, then a slow steady roll into the station. Automatically, I gauged the number of passengers about to get off, the number coming on, the many directions from which they would go and come, finally adjusting my position to impede as few as possible. I thought of Adele, then, very briefly. Raised in the New Jersey suburbs, Adele hated the subways. Her objections were perfectly reasonable. The subways did stink, and they were always filthy, and the scream of steel on steel when the trains rounded a curve was, indeed, loud enough to cause hearing damage. Myself, I wasn’t bothered. I’d been riding the subways all my life and knew that subways were very private places. No one spoke to you, or even looked at you, and the tendency was to withdraw into yourself, as I did on that morning, my focus gradually narrowing. Adele was gone before I climbed to the surface at 72nd Street.