Daniel Kehlmann - F

The Eucharist. The altar boy pours water over my fingers, the organ sounds the hymn, I lift the chalice with the Host. It is a moment of drama and power. You could almost think these people actually believe that a wafer is transubstantiated into the body of a crucified man. But of course they don’t. You can’t believe any such thing, you’d have to be deranged. But you can believe that the priest believes it, and the priest in turn believes his congregation believes it; you can repeat it mechanically, and you can forbid yourself to think about it. Holy, holy, holy , I chant, and actually feel surrounded by a force field. Magical gestures, thousands of years old, older than Christianity, older than steel and fire. The first humans were already fantasizing about gods being torn limb from limb. Then later the legend of Orpheus, torn apart by the Maenads, then the tale of Osiris descended into the kingdom of darkness and emerging again reassembled as a living body, only eons later came the figure of the Nazarene. An ancient, blood-soaked dream, repeated day after day in countless places. It would be so easy to declare the whole procedure of transubstantiation to be mere symbolism, but that precisely is what constitutes heresy. You have to believe it, for so it is written. And you can’t believe it. You must, you can’t. Lift up your hearts , I say. We lift them up to the Lord , they say. Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life. Lord Jesus, come in glory . The altar boy rings the little bell, its sound trembles in the air, the pews creak as my congregation goes down on its knees.

I lift up the Host. It is so quiet that you can hear the cars outside. I lay the wafers down again and perform the ritual genuflection. I immediately start to sweat, it’s hard for me to keep my balance, I fell while I was doing it last week, it was dreadfully embarrassing. Hold on, Martin, keep your back straight, hold on! Shakily, dripping with sweat, I get back on my feet. Let us pray with confidence to the Father , I pant, in the words our Savior gave us .

Our Father, hallowed be, Thy Kingdom, Thy will, our trespasses , phrases polished by a thousand years of repetition, deliver us, amen . I break the Host, push a piece into my mouth, and savor the dry, salty taste for a moment. It’s not exactly God’s body, but it tastes good. The organ begins the Agnus Dei, the five members of my congregation present themselves for communion. I’m afraid of the old people, who want the transubstantiated wafer laid on their tongues, the way it was always done before Vatican II; it’s hard to lay something on a tongue without touching it with your fingertips. But I’m in luck today, three pairs of hands and only one wrinkled ancient tongue. The last one, as always, is Adrian Schlueter.

The body of Christ , I say.

Amen , he says, not looking at the Host as he does so, but straight at me, unblinking, as if he had to prove something to me. He will come back, this evening, early tomorrow, tomorrow evening, every day, he is my trial.

The organ ascends to the final chords and stops. I begin the concluding rite. Bow your heads and pray for God’s blessing .

Go in the peace of Christ .

Thanks be to God .

I hurry to get to the exit first and position myself in the incoming blast of hot morning air. Martha Frummel’s hand feels like sandpaper, and Frau Wiegner is all hunched over, her heart isn’t good and nor is her back. Frau Koppel looks well, but as lonely as ever. Frau Helgner won’t be back as often, she’s very weak. Who does this to people? I’d really like to hug them, but I’m fat and I sweat, and they wouldn’t like it. So I just shake hands and smile. They’re gone already, only one person is still standing here.

“Dear Herr Schlueter, I’m afraid I’m in rather a hurry.”

“A question of belief, Father Friedland, it won’t leave me in peace.”

I try to look at him as if I’m interested.

“The Trinity. I’ve read Tertullian. And Rahner. And His Holiness Ratzinger, of course. But I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“The Holy Ghost.”

I look at him despairingly.

“I understand the Son, I understand the Father, I also understand the difference between the Holy Ghost and the Son. But what is the difference between the Holy Ghost and the Father? Barth says God is the subject, the Spirit is the content, and the Son is the act of revelation.”

“It’s a Mystery.”

It works. He blinks. Where would I be without that word?

“It was revealed to us!” I hesitate. “Revealed” or “made manifest”? I’d better check that one out soon.

“God has said to us that it is so. We can try to penetrate it by using our reason, but reason has its boundaries. And where we reach those boundaries is where we encounter belief.”

“I don’t have to understand it?”

“You don’t need to.”

“I shouldn’t even try?”

“You mustn’t.”

His hand is soft and dry, his handshake isn’t even unpleasant. I’ve gotten away with it for today. He goes off and I head for the sacristy in relief.

The altar boy helps me to take off the chasuble. As soon as I’m standing there in my shirt, my eyes avoid my reflection in the mirror. All the same, it’s not so bad: Chesterton, that great Catholic, was well nourished too, and I imagine even Thomas Aquinas as having been round and wise.

Compared with them, I can almost get by as being lean. I sit down on the couch. My Rubik’s Cube is sitting on the arm; as always I’m happy to see it, and my hands reach for it of their own volition. The altar boy asked me recently what it was and why anyone needed one. Sic transit gloria . Twenty years ago it was the most famous object in the world.

“Do you have to get to school now?” I ask the boy.

He nods, and out of sheer sympathy I lean forward and pat his head. He flinches and I immediately take my hand away. How stupid of me. A priest must be careful these days, there are no such things as harmless gestures anymore.

“I have a question,” he says. “Last week in our religion lesson. It was about God’s foreknowledge. How He knows what we’re going to decide, even before we decide it. How can we still be free?”

The gauze curtains belly, flecks of light dance across the parquet floor. The cross on top of the cupboard throws a long shadow.

“It’s a Mystery.”

“But …”

“Mystery means that it was reveal … I mean made manifest to us. God knows what you’re going to do. But you are still free. That’s why you’re responsible for your actions.”

“That doesn’t go together.”

“That’s why it’s a Mystery.”

“But if God knows what I’m going to do, I can’t do anything else. So how am I responsible?”

“It’s a Mystery.”

“What does that mean?”

“Don’t you have to get to school?”

“Excuse me.” The acolyte is standing in the doorway: a Cistercian lay brother named Franz Eugen Legner. He has small eyes and is always badly shaved. He’s been working for two months; before that he was buried somewhere deep in the Alps. He keeps the church clean, updates our website, plays the organ, and, I can’t rid myself of the suspicion, reports on me to the bishop. I’m waiting for him to make a mistake so that I can lodge a complaint about him myself — a tactical preemptive strike. But unfortunately he doesn’t make mistakes. He’s very careful.

“You know what you did yesterday,” he says to the boy.

“So what did I do?”

“Never mind. You know. You remember.”

“Yes.”

“And yet you were free. You know, and still you could have behaved differently.”