Quirke 06 - Holy Orders

his bones.
    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. “ Y ou’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,