The Priest's Madonna (14 page)

I felt winded, as if I’d received a blow to the stomach. I pressed my lips to the outside of my glass and held them there. When I lifted them away, they left a foggy print.

“I hope I haven’t betrayed your trust,” Madame continued. She set the cat on the mantelpiece above the fireplace and walked toward her desk. “I was not aware that
l’abbé
was a special friend of yours. Though, to be sure, I will not take Gérard’s word as to the truth of that.” Opening the top drawer of her desk, she removed the pistol from her pocket and replaced it in the drawer. Then she sat behind the desk on the edge of her chair and folded her hands on the ink blotter.

“Well, no, he’s not. I mean, not in the way Gérard says.” My cheeks burned. I sipped the brandy once more. “He’s family, really,” I muttered.

Madame nodded and looked at her hands. “I am sorry if I have caused you pain.”

I took a deep breath. “Why did you do that? Write to the Minister of Religion?”

She sighed again. “I did not agree with the opinion that
l’abbé
expressed in his sermon. I felt his ideas were dangerous. I still do.”

“Why?” I asked accusingly. I agreed with her of course, but was not in the mood to say so.

She smiled sadly. “I should have thought you would understand why.”

“Because you’re Jewish?” I said meanly.

“It has nothing to do with my origins. Religion must have no role in just governance.”

“But you didn’t even know him,” I protested. I felt the pulse of anger spread through my fabric-constricted chest as I spoke. “You never went to church except for that one day.”

“I only needed a day to hear what I heard.”

“You wanted to get rid of him.”

“Marie, I do not consider it wise for us to discuss this now. You are distraught and you must rest. Please come back tomorrow if you like.” She stood and walked to the door. I understood the cue and followed.

I did not return the next day, nor the next. Instead, I busied myself with helping my mother prepare the presbytery for Bérenger’s return. I told no one about Gérard. Mother did not ask why he stopped visiting; I suppose she figured he had finally come to his senses. Gérard, for his part, did his best to spread gossip about me, telling people he’d lost interest in me because I was frigid and mean. I endured dirty looks and cruel jokes from his friends. I missed Madame’s library, missed my afternoons of reading by the hearth in her rose fauteuil with Bijou purring on my lap, missed Mme Siau’s coffee and cakes, missed Mme Laporte herself and her gentle erudition. But I could not forgive her, regardless of how much I might have agreed with her assessment of the sermon. She had sent Bérenger away from me, and that fact overtook all reason.

I looked, instead, to Bérenger’s return.

H
E ARRIVED ON a July afternoon, almost exactly a year after he’d come the first time. The clouds were high, the air dry and warm. We all gathered at the door of the presbytery, where the mayor made a speech and my father and the other proud renovators stood aside, grinning. Bérenger shouted for joy when he saw the cleaned and furnished presbytery and clapped each man on the back. He hugged my father hard. “This was your idea, Edouard, was it not? Now I’ll be out of your hair.”

My father laughed. “I won’t deny it,” he replied, returning the hug.

M. Flèche, the baker, served an orange-chocolate cake with buttercream icing, and we all sat at the outdoor tables in front of the
tabac,
eating cake, drinking coffee and wine, and listening to Bérenger talk about Narbonne.

“I spent entirely too much time with adolescent boys! And the whole city smells of rotting fish. I prayed every day to be sent back here, to this beautiful village.”

“Come now,” my father prompted. “You’re misleading this group. What about all those wealthy new friends of yours? You planning to keep that a secret?”

Bérenger laughed. “I should have known you wouldn’t let me get away with it.”

“Did you really get to meet Imogène Lille?” asked Mme Fauré, her baby on her hip. Mme Lille was an actress whose fame extended even as far as our remote village.

“I went to several salons at her house.”

Mme Fauré gasped.

“She’s a very gracious lady. Very concerned with political affairs.”

M. Lébadou, evidently annoyed, said, “Why’d you come back here, then, if you were such a personage there?”

“Do you have to ask?” Bérenger replied, his eyes twinkling. “How could I stay away from all of you?”

“And tell us, Monsieur
le curé,
” began M. Baudot in his slow, husky old man’s voice. “Have you been forgiven? Has the State pardoned you?”

There was a tense silence as we waited for Bérenger’s answer. We were unsure whether he might take offense. But he smiled and said pleasantly, “Since when does the State have the power to forgive?”

We luxuriated in the warm afternoon as it extended into evening, drinking, snacking on the sausages and bread brought out by M. Ditandy, who owned the tavern, and reveling in the festive mood. Eventually, most of the women left to tend to children and supper. Darkness fell and a chill entered the air. Mother had gone, as had Claude, who was bored, but I stayed on, having assured Mother I would make sure Father didn’t drink too much. When it had gotten quite late, Bérenger, a bit tipsy himself, made an announcement. “I had planned to save this until Sunday, but I can’t keep it to myself any longer. We have the good fortune of being graced with a generous gift from a donor who has taken an interest in our village. The gift will provide us with enough money to replace the roof of the church and to begin to renovate the interior. Please, all of you, say a special prayer of thanksgiving tonight for the grace of God and the generosity of strangers.”

A murmur rippled through the gathered group. My father spoke up: “Who’s the money from?”

“The donor wishes to remain anonymous.”

Another murmur.

“We’ll have a true temple now,” Bérenger continued. “A fitting house of worship. Praise be to God.”

There was an awkward silence and then someone offered a “Hallelujah,” and a few people echoed him, joining in with applause, which swelled until the whole group was clapping. Bérenger beamed.

I tried to find a private moment with him in the next few days, not only because I wanted to ask whether the anonymous donor was the Austrian archduke, but also to provoke some kind of personal recognition from him, a special greeting for me alone. But it was impossible, for Mother had a thousand chores for me to do at home while she helped him get settled in the presbytery. And Bérenger himself appeared preoccupied, his thoughts almost wholly bent on the execution of his great project: the renovation of the church.

First, he hired a contractor and a team of workers from Limoux to repair the roof. The men hauled a cartload of tiles up the hill and spent sweltering September days laying the tiles beneath the hot sun. Old M. Baudot grumbled about how Bérenger had spent his money on Limoux workers instead of hiring some of the able-bodied young men in Rennes. “He’s the one who doesn’t like the young ones working in the factories.” But on the whole, the town was pleased to see that the church was being cared for.

My hope for a particular acknowledgment from Bérenger was not to be fulfilled. But I didn’t mind; his presence was thrilling enough. I performed my duties with a renewed dedication, knowing that now I was doing them, at least in part, for him. I julienned carrots and diced shallots with precision and, when it was my turn to cook, planned elaborate dishes: barbecued pheasant rubbed with rosemary and lavender, a
cousinat
from chestnuts I’d collected myself, rabbit served with cream sauce and juniper berries. On days when I tended to the church—Mother and I had taken to alternating our duties, to alleviate some of the monotony—I ironed the linens reverently, lingering over the stoles and chasubles. I swept and dusted, removing the layer of white silt that sifted into the nave as the men worked on the roof. I washed and dried the cruets, polished the chalice and paten and the candlesticks and trimmed the candles. I replaced the water in the font, which Bérenger blessed every morning before he said Mass. When the deliveries of the Host arrived from Narbonne, I opened them, handling the canisters as if they were baby birds.

I still half-believed in the transubstantiation of the wine and the Host into the blood and body of Christ, even though my anxious questioning had by that time undermined the edifice of my faith. It made no sense. I could argue against it easily, but I could not argue it away. I wanted it to be true, even as I knew it could not be, in much the same way that, as a child, I’d longed for Père Noël to be real even after I knew he wasn’t. Such a miracle, and yet so mundane! A daily incarnation. It was the final relic of my faith, and I held it in reserve, tucked deep in the tissues of my heart. Once Bérenger returned, I again went faithfully to Mass, huddling in the chilly nave most mornings at seven, along with my mother and a handful of other women. I scrutinized the dance of his hands over the Host and the wine as he recited the blessings and raised the paten and the chalice skyward, searching for a sign of disturbance, some evidence of the wafer and wine becoming flesh and blood: a drop splashing on the altar, a falling crumb.

Bérenger was pleased with my frequent attendance at Mass. “You’ve been gathering thistles, Marie,” he said, winking. I did not contradict him.

I plotted various methods of catching Bérenger alone, just to talk with him (as I told myself ), or perhaps to tell him something about what I’d been reading. I reveled in his presence when he stood close to me, breathing him in, rebelling against my desire to touch his arm, to take his hand. Had he given me any indication that such a touch would be welcome, I might have dared—I was that besotted. Thankfully, he was too consumed by the construction projects. After the work on the church roof was completed, another team of workers, also from Limoux (more grumbles from Baudot), set to work supporting the sanctuary vault, which was threatening to collapse. They bolstered the outer walls by building four new arches in the church interior. Bérenger rarely left the sanctuary all winter.

Despite our best efforts, the church interior was a mess. White dust coated every surface. Walking across the floor was like stepping in an enormous floured cake pan. The pews were sloppily rearranged to accommodate the steel structures that supported the half-built arches. These extended into the center aisle of the nave and blocked the view of the people who sat behind them during Mass. People began to complain, first to Mother and me, and then to Bérenger. We counseled patience. “Would you rather the roof fall in?” Bérenger cajoled. “Would you rather worship under the open sky, in the wind and the rain?”

It was at this time, in this dusty disarray, that I made our first discovery.

The night he finally healed her was moonless. He had spent the day preaching under the ruthless sun. She had gone to a nearby well seventeen times for water for him, and each time she had returned with an empty pail, for members of the crowd had stopped her and helped themselves. The last time, she had fallen on the ground in frustration and begun to weep. She could not bear the crowd, how ragged, how incessant it was. So many people, lame, disfigured, diseased. Children with distended bellies and kindling for legs. And everywhere, eyes, enormous eyes, beseeching, like the eyes of goats just before the sacrifice. How could all these needs ever be met? Miryam wept until her tears became shrill laughter and she rolled and thrashed about on the ground.

When her fit subsided, she saw that a small crowd of people had gathered around her.

“Isn’t she with him?” one man said.

“She’s his wife,” responded an old woman.

“Don’t be a fool,” said another. “How could a devil like that be his wife?”

“If she was his wife, don’t you think he’d have healed her by now?”

Miryam scrambled to her feet and ran across the field, away from the stares and condemning voices. She came to a boulder and tucked herself into its shadow, hidden from the crowd. There she stayed until dark fell and the crowd had dispersed.

She could see that the group had lit a fire and gathered around it, but she did not want to join them, for she knew that they were ashamed of her. She wanted Yeshua. She wanted him to heal her, but she was frightened. She had lived with her demons all her life. Who would she be without them?

Still, she wanted to be with him, to care for him. To put her own hands on his sallow, sunken cheeks and stroke her thumbs across his flaking lips, to rest her forehead against his and drink his breath like a tonic. She wanted to feel his rough palms against her skin, to feel them spread across her shoulders and back like wings, to feel them press her belly, cup her hips, to feel them hold her, keep her together, keep her whole, for she felt now that without his hands on her, she might separate from herself, her soul beading like oil in water, beading and then sinking into the dry earth.

“Yeshua!” she shouted. “Yeshua!” Again and again she screamed his name until she heard footsteps thumping toward her. She held out her arms for the embrace she hoped would come—but it was Kefa.

“He’s not here,” he said. “Can’t you be silent?”

“Where is he?” she asked.

“Gone off to pray.” Kefa carried a torch and held it close to Miryam’s face. She flinched and backed away. “Why don’t you bathe? You’re filthy.”

She hissed at him like a viper. After he left, she fell asleep.

Some hours later, she awoke. It seemed that something had changed near her, as if the wind had suddenly ceased to blow. She sat up and put her hand against the rock, which was still warm from the day’s sun. Her fingers brushed something hard and smooth—leather—and she scooted backward, afraid.

“It’s me, Miryam,” he said. He was sitting on top of the rock, his sandaled feet hanging where her hand had been. He jumped to the ground. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

She stood. “No,” she said. “I mean, thank you.”

“Why were you calling me?” he asked.