Chapter 1

If we conclude that only the things which are in our power are good or bad, we have no reason for finding fault with God or taking a hostile attitude to man.

—Marcus Aurelius

 

Father Luke Free encountered the line for confessions a block from Mary, Mother of Mercy Cathedral. He picked his way through the stalled traffic on the Avenue of the Martyrs and joined the line for confessions in the slim blade of shade beside the cathedral. He straightened his cassock, blotted his sweaty forehead with a sleeve, then walked slowly up the line, working his way against the flow of rosary vendors, holy-card vendors, Pope comic book vendors. He heard nothing but the blare of car horns, boom-boxes and hawkers as he walked, his gaze fixed a few paces ahead. The crowds and vendors parted for him with silence, a nod, a sign of the cross.

He knew better than to look up. Some people got nervous if the priest saw them in line. More than once when he stepped out of the stifling confessional for air, Father Free noticed that the first few in line when he left had moved to the end when he came back. Or to another priest’s line, on those rare occasions when there were two priests to spare in one region. Here, in La Libertad, there were the embassy priests, the seminary priests, the university priests and the hospital priests. Confessions would be heard in the capital city in time for Easter Duty, but in the campo, where he felt he belonged, there would be silence.

Father Free carried his Breviary in his left hand and a packet of schedules for the archbishop’s Broadcast Ministry. His turn in the hot seat began in a few minutes, and he hoped that Father Umberto had not spent his two hours eating raw onions again. Two Innocents charged batteries on a tandem Lightening just inside the double doors, the rasp of their chain and the squeak of their pedals a mantra to the god of electricity.

He set his straw hat and Breviary on the table in the vestibule. He placed most of the radio/TV schedules into an empty slot in the pamphlets rack, then fanned a few and laid them out for display. He heard with satisfaction the quick hands that snatched them up behind his back as soon as he entered the cathedral. The little broadcast station was popular enough that it just might get him killed.

The clamor and glare outside gave way to the cool spaciousness of the granite church. All of the statues huddled in their Lenten shrouds as two young seminarians prepared the altar. A penitente left one side of the confession-box, another entered, and Father Umberto heaved himself out of the center cubicle. He knelt for a moment, dripping sweat in the nearest pew, then greeted Father Free inside the doorway.

“Lo siento” Father Umberto whispered, fanning his face with his hat. “I have been an hour thinking about the bathroom.”

He winked, availed himself of the holy water, genuflected and then left Father Free with a sweaty pat on the back and the unmistakable ripeness of raw onion in the air.

Father Free knelt for a moment, as Umberto had, gathering himself in the near pew for another bladder-busting marathon of guilt and despair. He used his hat and fanned the thick air out of the confessional before entering, and heard a few giggles up and down the line. He latched the door and sat on the bench, which switched on the light outside, identifying his presence.

How long will some Innocent have to pedal to keep my light on for two hours?

Father Free’s boot kicked against an empty bottle. In the dim light he saw the empties that Father Umberto left behind under the bench: EdenSprings Water. He himself never drank anything in the confessional; it was too risky on the bladder. And if he did, he wouldn’t drink EdenSprings because it was made by the competition, the Children of Eden. Competition who played dirty, very dirty.

He took a deep breath, let it out, touched his rosary and slid back the black wooden barrier.

“In the Name of the Father…”

Father Free recited his introductory in his most dispassionate voice, reserved for confessions and for the army roadblocks.

Mezcal, he thought. He also smelled tobacco, sweat, Mayan incense.

The young man’s Spanish was bad. Father Free switched to Kakchiquel.

“Speak, Nephew. I am the ear of God.”

“Well, Holy,” he began, “I confessed two months last. I lied to my brother.”

Father Free waited the accustomed time.

“You lied to your brother,” he said. “What else?”

In the silence between them, Father Free felt the young man’s perfect posture, heard the liquid click of his eyelids and the skitter of something across the ceiling.

“I did the man and the woman thing with my brother’s wife, Holy.”

Kakchiquel was an adequate language for theological discussion, but not Father Free’s grasp of Kakchiquel. He did his best.

“Stay away from her,” Father Free said.

“Well, Holy, it is good. But we share a room, and I have to sleep some time. And that is when she has me, when I am asleep and can fight no more. She straddles me under my blanket, then takes my member. . . .”

“Wait, Nephew,” the priest interrupted. “You say you were asleep. Is this a dream? Did you commit adultery with your brother’s wife in a dream?”

“Well, Holy, it is true, when I wake she is not in my blanket. But it is so real! Every morning I must face my brother. Now he wonders what I, his closest of brothers, am keeping from him.”

“How often does this happen? Every night?”

“The once only, Holy.”

“You are confessing you had an affair with your brother’s wife in a dream one time, and you lied to him about it. It’s affecting your life with your brother.”

“Yes, Holy. And we work the coffee together.”

“So, this also affects your work, your pay.”

“Yes, Holy. It is a difficulty.”

“Well, Nephew,” Father Free said, “go home, and ask your brother and your sister-in-law to say a rosary with you. Tell them it is something I asked of you, that the three of you pray together that you might find a suitable bride.”

The miasma of tobacco and mezcal burst through the screen: “Yes, Holy.”

Father Free imagined a blushing smile on the slight figure behind the curtain. He coached the young man through his act of contrition, and passed absolution as he slid the barrier closed. He hesitated only a moment before sliding open the barrier on his other side.

As the barrier banged open in its slot, a tremendous explosion popped Father Free’s ears and set the confessional to rocking.

A woman across the screen shouted, “Jesus, Mary, Mother of God! Oh, I’m sorry, Father!” She hurried on, in a whisper, “If they’re going to kill us, please hear my confession now.”

He began, “In the Name of the Father . . .”

Many running inside the church. A knock on his closet door.

“Yes.”

“It is the embassy, Father. The U.S. Embassy. Many will be wounded and dying.”

“Thank you.”

“Aren’t you coming?”

“These people, too, are wounded and dying,” he said.

Another knock, but Father Free ignored it. He turned instead to the mango and hot tortilla smell of the frightened woman sobbing her tiny sins into a handkerchief across the curtain.