Mary Russel - A Thread of Grace

Watching until he disappears into the gloom, Claudette ducks inside the tiny hut and adjusts the army blanket Santino made into a door, to keep the light and heat inside. Rosy in the fire’s embers, her father lies curled, inert beneath another blanket, which steams in the warmth. She sits on the packed-dirt floor and listens to the hiss of the fire, watching the rise and fall of her father’s chest. His convulsive shivering has stopped, and he snores with comforting familiarity, relaxing into ordinary sleep.

Against her will, her own chest falls into the slow rhythm his provides. Noiselessly, almost calmly, the measured movement deepens. She looks up, to keep the tears from falling. “I miss you, Mama,” she whispers in the tiny voice that escapes her thickening throat. “Papa was sick. I was so scared.”

Don’t be silly, her mother would say. He was very tired and cold. He’ll be fine in the morning. Wipe your nose.

Was Papa handsome when you fell in love, Mama?

He was no Maurice Chevalier, I can tell you. But who is?

Santino’s short, Mama. He’s shorter than I am, I think.

Everyone’s tall on my side of the family. Height’s not important. Is he of good character? That’s important.

He’s Catholic, Mama.

Well, Moses married a shiksa. If it’s good enough for him…

Smiling damply, Claudette cleans her nose on the back of her bloodied sleeve and pulls in a shuddery breath. She adds another chunk of charcoal to the fire, lifts the damp and smoky blanket that covers her father, and crawls in beside him to share her warmth. “We’ll be all right, Papa,” she whispers. “Santino will come back, and everything will be fine.”

BASILICA SAN GIOVANNI BATTISTA

PORTO SANT’ANDREA

Boxed inside the confessional, Osvaldo Tomitz slides open the grille to his right, and yearns to hear San Giobatta’s bells toll five. Instead he hears a well-known voice whisper, “Bless me, Padre, for I have sinned. My last confession was a week ago, and I missed Mass last Sunday.”

In Osvaldo’s opinion, Catarina Dolcino has not confessed a single genuine sin since he arrived in Sant’Andrea, but every Saturday old Rina proudly presents a minor misdeed for absolution. “Why did you miss Mass, figlia mia? ”

“Padre, I was aching so much Saturday evening, I thought it might be typhus!” she whispers. “I decided not to go to Mass and maybe spread the sickness.”

“God does not expect you to come to Mass if you’re sick. You missed Mass for the good of others—”

“But I felt fine on Sunday morning. So it was a sin.”

“No, figlia mia, it wasn’t.”

“Yes, Padre, it was!”

“Look, this is not a debate. I am the priest, and I say you didn’t commit a sin when you missed Mass last Sunday.”

“Padre, I know it’s a sin!” Rina insists more loudly.

“And what seminary did you attend?” Osvaldo demands.

A patrician chuckle issues from another confessional a few meters away. “Surrender, Tomitz,” an authoritative male voice advises.

“That was the archbishop, you know,” the old lady informs Osvaldo unnecessarily. “You should do as you’re told.”

“Oh, all right. An Ave Maria, ” Osvaldo mutters. “And a Pater Noster— for arguing!”

Rina recites a victorious Act of Contrition, and Osvaldo surrenders to a headache. He expected lay confessions to differ from those of seminarians, but old women never cease to astonish him. They are fawningly deferential to priests everywhere but in the confessional.

Before she rises to leave, Rina drops her voice to ask, “Did you think about what my neighbor asked you, Padre? You wouldn’t have to do anything. Suora Marta and Signora Leoni and I will take care of everything.”

“Signora,” Osvaldo says softly, “your friend’s son is a criminal—”

“But— no! I mean, yes, he was in prison, but he went for someone else. Remember in ’38, when every city had to send ten anti-Fascist Jews to jail? All we had in Sant’Andrea was one Communist and a lunatic, but what does Rome care? Ten is ten! Serafino Brizzolari picked men at random— how else could you do such a thing to your own neighbors? One of them was Tranquillo Loeb, Padre. A war hero! An attorney with a family, with responsibilities! Renzo wasn’t married, so he went to the Palazzo Municipale and—”

“Volunteered to go in his brother-in-law’s place?”

“He thinks nobody knows, but I hear things,” she says smugly. “The Leonis are good people, Padre. Lidia’s husband gave money to anyone who needed help. Catholic, Jew. And Emanuele never took the money back. He’d tell them to give it to someone else who needed help.” The old lady pauses cagily. “A lot of people put those coins in the poor box, Padre.”

“Go in peace, figlia mia, ” Osvaldo commands firmly, but he adds, “I’ll do what I can in conscience.”

Sliding open the opposite grille, Osvaldo uses the movement to read his watch in a ray of light coming through a gap in the curtain. It’s nearly five, but the ones who wait until the last moment often have the longest list of the most repetitive sins and the most self-serving excuses. It’s the war, Padre. Always the war. Death is everywhere. Sordid solace beckons. The mind should focus on the soul’s nearness to eternity, but bodies yearn to experience each pleasure life offers— now, before it is too late. Babies are conceived while husbands are at the front; wives do desperate things. Lying and theft become a way of life. Rationing, the draft, a thousand deprivations… Osvaldo tries to be compassionate, but he can feel himself slipping into priestly middle age, becoming snappish and judgmental as his capacity for caritas erodes. A child next, he prays. Suffer the little children to come unto Thee, Lord. Grant me the blessing of hearing their earnest if unreliable promises to be better next week.

Instead he hears the impact of a heavy man’s knees, followed by the stifled groan when a bad leg takes up its half of this body’s burden. Serafino Brizzolari. A middle-level bureaucrat at the Palazzo Municipale. The man who sent Renzo Leoni to jail.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I missed Mass because the air raids kept me awake all night. It’s been a savage week, and I was too tired to go to church on Sunday.” (Poor thing! Osvaldo thinks, then berates himself for sarcasm.) “I skipped grace before meals ten times, and missed grace after meals about thirty times. I’m a busy man, Padre. I am often called away from my table by matters of state.” (Yes, yes! Osvaldo moans mentally. Come to the point.) “— impatient with my grandchildren about twenty times, and with my wife about ten times.”

Why, Osvaldo wonders testily, are sins always divisible by five?

“I was short a couple of times with my assistant, but he really is an ass! I had impure thoughts, and I enjoyed them.” (Finally! We’re getting somewhere…) “I forgot my morning prayers about twenty times and my night prayers about thirty times. I touched myself impurely, but didn’t enjoy it.” (There’s a lie, Osvaldo thinks, but he lets it pass.) “I used God’s name in vain about fifty times and slept with someone other than my wife three times, and I cheated a man on some black-market meat, but his flour turned out to be wormy anyway, so he was cheating me, too. What can I tell you? There’s a war on. For these and all my sins of my past life, I am heartily sorry, especially for being bad-tempered around my grandchildren.”

Osvaldo takes a deep breath. “Let’s go back to that one about sleeping with someone other than your wife, shall we?”

“Padre, my marriage is empty! My wife is—”