Benjamin Black - Holy Orders

The nave was dim and draped with tall shadows. Crossing himself, he proceeded with grave tread from the altar and down the side aisle towards the confessional, counting out of the corner of his eye — one must not be seen to look directly — the number of penitents awaiting him. There they knelt in line, hunched and meek, the two old biddies who were his regulars, a bald, portly fellow he had not seen before (a Guinness clerk, he surmised, or something lowly in a bank), three schoolboys, and a woman in a fur coat and a hat with a black veil. He set his name tag in the slot above the door of the confessional, and stepped into his place in the central box, which always reminded him of an upright coffin. He was pulling the narrow double doors closed before him when he glimpsed a young woman approaching along the aisle. She was plainly pregnant. His heart sank deeper in his breast. Pregnant girls were always difficult.

In the gloom of the confessional he settled himself on the narrow seat and heard the two old women enter the penitential boxes to right and left of him, and kneel. He slid back the wooden panel by his right ear and dimly glimpsed the vague old face beyond the grille. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned … He knew already what the list would be — envious thoughts, inattention at Mass, a sixpence diddled from the greengrocer — and he let his mind wander. Africa. His beloved Nigeria, where he had spent three happy years as a missionary. Big-bummed women, the men all grins and gleaming teeth, and the children, with their chocolate skin and potbellies. Simple souls, eager to please, yearning to be loved.

He closed his eyes. Loving, that was the problem. The image rose before him of two native children, a boy and a girl, brother and sister, naked, standing hand in hand in sunlight with their backs to him, their faces turned, smiling at him over their shoulders. He recalled the feel of their dark, gleaming skin, the softness, the velvety warmth of it. Such innocence, such — such fragility. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

He had forgotten about the young woman until her turn came. He was tired, tired of people’s petty weaknesses, of their earnests of contrition, of their self-delusions, their evasions. In Africa, sin was colorful, a joyful glorying in all the dark possibilities the world had to offer. Here, these poor people, his own, were too small in spirit to be damned. Yes: Africa. He was glad to be returning there.

At first the young woman said nothing. He supposed she was steeling herself, working up her courage. Unmarried, no doubt. “What is it, my child?” he asked softly, leaning his ear towards the grille. “Are you in trouble?”

“I don’t go to confession anymore, Father,” she said.

He smiled, sitting there in the shadows. “Well, you’re here now. What have you to tell me?”

Again she was silent. He tried to make out her features, but she kept her head lowered, and anyway it was difficult to see through the grille. He caught a whiff of her perfume. She was nervous; she seemed to be trembling. This was going to take a long time and require much finesse on his part.

“I’ve nothing to tell you,” she said. “But I want to ask you something.”

“Yes, my child?”

She paused, then gave what seemed a laugh, bitter and brief. “Who forgives you your sins, Father?”

He felt a shivery sensation, as if a drop of icy liquid had coursed down his spine. “God does,” he said. “Who else?”

“And does He see into your conscience, do you think?”

“Of course. God sees everything, inside us and out.” He let his voice go gentle. “But it’s not my conscience we need to speak of here, is it?”

“Oh, yes, Father, it is.”

He drew near to the grille again and tried to see her. “Do I know you, my child?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “And I’m not your child.”

She was doing something to her clothing, fumbling with something. He saw a glint of metal, too. “You’re troubled,” he said. “Tell me what it is.” What was she doing? What was it she had in her hand? “Who are you?” he said. “What is your name?”

She did not speak. He turned his head away from her and looked down at his clasped hands where they rested on his soutane. The stole around his neck, a tasseled silk collar, was as white as bare bone.

* * *

She was afraid her nerve would fail her. She had thought everything out, had gone over it again and again in her mind, hardening herself. This was, she knew, the only way. Phoebe’s father would not do anything; neither would the police. It was up to her to make sure justice was done, and now she was going to do it. Were there people outside, she wondered, in the church? She had waited for nearly half an hour, loitering in the dimness just inside the door, until no more people were coming to join the line awaiting confession, but she could not be sure that latecomers had not arrived since she had slipped into the box. Anyway, a church was never completely empty; there were always those vague old men who tended to things, lighting candles, putting fresh flowers on the altar, whom no one ever noticed. Well, she would have to risk it. Even if she was seen, who would remember what she looked like? The place was barely lit, and people never remembered details, or if they did they always got them wrong.

She pulled the cushion she had taken from Phoebe’s flat from under her blouse, not without difficulty — there was so little room — and wrapped it around the pistol. He had turned aside, offering her his profile behind the grille. She heard him sigh. Should she say something, give him some warning, however brief? He would want to pray, make an act of contrition. She did not believe in any of that stuff anymore. She drew the cushion tighter around the gun. Her finger was on the trigger.

James, she said to herself. Oh, Jimmy .

* * *

It was a terrible noise. It seemed the confessional had exploded around her, and she was deafened for a moment. The flame from the barrel had set the cushion on fire, and she dropped it quickly and trampled it with her knees, singeing her stocking. The smell too was awful, of powder and burning feathers. She glanced in through the grille, in which there was a ragged hole, the tips of the torn wires still smoking.

He was slumped to the side, a dark stain spreading below his ear. She heard someone shout, “Oh, Jesus!” She scrambled up and pushed open the narrow door of the confessional with her knee, almost tripped on the smoldering cushion, then was out and running down the aisle. The gun fell out of her hand and skittered along the flagstones; she ran after it and stopped it with her foot, snatched it up, ran on. There were voices behind her, a man shouting and someone screaming. When she got to the door a woman in a head scarf was coming in, and the two of them collided and grappled clumsily for a moment, before she freed herself and got through. She had an urge to keep running but knew that she must not.

Outside, a heavy shower of rain had started, and the people in the street were hurrying along through the gloom of twilight with their heads down. No one looked at her; no one paid her any heed. She walked on, with her hands in her pockets, clutching the pistol. It was still hot.

She got on a bus. It was crowded, and rolled drunkenly through the rain-washed streets, trumpeting now and then like an elephant. She watched the blurred windows of the shops passing by. Her mind was numb; she felt nothing, nothing. They would cover it up, she supposed, as they covered up everything, every scandal.

No, she did not care. Yet it came to her that of all the things she had done in her life, most of them could have been undone. But not this.

In the station she set off to collect her bags from the left luggage place, but first went into the ladies’. It was only then, looking in the mirror there, that she saw the speckles of blood on her face. His blood. She did not care. She had got justice for her brother. She had done what was needed.