Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
Father Aleksander Milichuk pressed his fingertips hard against the sides of his forehead in an attempt to stop the throbbing in his right temple. Another Monday morning, another migraine on the way. He really needed to back off on the Sunday-night drinking at McSorley’s. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, as his mother was so fond of reminding him. Maybe she was right; he was nearing forty, and these days just a couple of drinks could bring on a wicked headache. He took a deep breath and cleared his throat.
“How long has it been since your last confession?”
“Three weeks.” The voice on the other side of the confessional was a breathy tenor, the voice of a young person.
“Is it a venial sin or a—”
“A mortal sin, Father.”
Something in the man’s tone made him lean forward.
“And what was this sin, my son?”
The answer came in a low voice, barely audible.
Father Milichuk sat up very straight on his narrow bench, his mind snapping into sharp focus. He was no longer aware of the throbbing in his head. Panicked, he tried to think of a response, but his tongue was dry as paper and stuck to the roof of his mouth. There was a rustling sound from the other side of the confessional, as though the man were removing something from a plastic bag. Crazy, improbable thoughts darted through the priest’s head. What if he brought a gun with him? His knees shook as fear flooded his veins. Say something! He tried to remember if he had ever heard this voice before.
“Aren’t you going to give me penance, Father?” The man’s tone was patient, weary.
The priest was very good at identifying voices and was certain he had never heard this man’s voice before.
“Uh, yes, of course,” he sputtered finally. “Say twelve Hail Marys—” He stopped, stunned by the feeble inadequacy of his response.
The man on the other side of the booth chuckled sadly. “That’s all?”
“H-have you confessed your sin to the police?”
“I’m confessing it to you.”
“Yes, I know, but—”
“I don’t want to go to prison.”
“Who did you—kill?”
“It doesn’t matter. I took a life; that’s all I’m required to tell you. Give me absolution, Father. Please.”
“It’s just that—”
“Please.” It was half entreaty, half threat.
The priest looked at the lattice of shadow cast by the metal grille between them, crisscrossed like miniature prison bars.
“All right,” he said. “But—”
“Deus meus, ex toto corde paenitet,” the man began, “me omnium meorum peccatorum, eaque detestor, quia peccando…”
He finished his flawless Latin recitation with a final “Amen.”
“Now will you give me absolution?”
Father Milichuk could see no way out of it. Crossing himself, he began to recite the familiar litany.
“May our Lord Jesus Christ absolve you—”
“In Latin, Father—please.”
The priest crossed himself again. His head throbbed, and his palms were sweating.
“Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat…” The words seemed to stick in his throat. He coughed and managed to complete the prayer, crossing himself one final time. But he failed to find the usual comfort in the gesture; it felt futile, desultory.
“Thank you, Father.” The man sounded genuinely grateful. Whatever else he was, the priest thought, he was a true Catholic who believed in the power of absolution.
“Say twelve Hail Marys,” he began, “and—”
“I will, Father—thank you. God bless you.”
“God be with you, my son.”
Before the priest could say another word, he heard the door hinges creak open, then the sound of rapidly receding footsteps on the stone floor of the church. Father Milichuk peered out through a hole in the carved design of the door, but the lighting was dim and all he could make out was the figure of a man dressed in dark clothing walking quickly away. Medium height, medium build; he could be anyone.
One thing the priest was certain of was that the mysterious supplicant was a Roman Catholic, not Greek. His perfect Latin was spoken in the Roman way, and he had said “I have sinned” rather than “I am a sinner,” which was the Greek manner. But why had he come here? St. George was a Ukrainian Greek Catholic church; surely this man had a Roman Catholic church he attended regularly. The answer came to Aleksander Milichuk suddenly: The man had chosen a place where he wouldn’t be known. His own priest was bound to recognize his voice and would perhaps pressure him to turn himself in. Here, he was guaranteed anonymity.
The priest sighed and leaned back in the cramped cubicle, which smelled of stale sweat and candle wax. He put a hand to his temple in an attempt to control the throbbing. What did it matter who the man was or where he was from? Aleks wasn’t a detective, and it wasn’t his job to hunt the man down. He felt the full weight of the sinner’s guilt upon his own shoulders. Perhaps that was what God intended—maybe he was doing his priestly duty now more than ever before, but the thought made him feel only more anxious.
The rest of the day passed in a haze of meaningless activity. There were parishioners to call, schedules to arrange, events to discuss—choir practice, the Wednesday-night church supper, vendors for the annual Ukrainian festival. He wished he could drown himself in the barrage of mundane details, but all he could think of was the terrible secret he would be forced to carry to his grave. He considered the idea that the man was lying, but rejected that hopeful notion. Either he was telling the truth or he was the best actor in the world.
Aleks gazed idly out the window, but even the sight of the white blossoms on the mimosa trees failed to cheer him up. He sat at his desk staring blankly, his head buzzing with apprehension. Normally he would now start writing his sermon for next week’s service, but he was unable to concentrate.
His secretary, the ever-intrusive Mrs. Kovalenko, noticed his mood.
“Are you feeling all right, Father?” she asked, one hand on her plump hip, the other clutching a freshly filled teapot. Mrs. Kovalenko was a great believer in the healing power of tea, and she had the persuasive ability of a used-car salesman combined with a Mafia enforcer. If she wanted to serve you tea, there was little you could do about it. He had briefly considered firing her for the sake of his bladder, but Mrs. Kovalenko was not the kind of woman you fired, so he had resigned himself to frequent visits to the bathroom.
“I’m fine,” he replied, but his heart wasn’t in it, and she continued to stand there studying him. “I just have a headache,” he added when she didn’t move.
She shook her dyed blond curls and clicked her tongue, then she brightened. “A good cup of tea is what you need,” she proclaimed. “Straighten you right out.”
“That would be nice,” he replied; at least it might throw her off the scent for a while. She had nagged him about his drinking in the past, but he had cut down recently—partly because of the headaches. She busied herself gathering the honey and cream, bustling about the office happily humming a Ukrainian folk song. He knew she didn’t speak a word of the language, but she liked to impress people with her knowledge of the culture, and had picked up a few songs and phrases here and there.
“I just bought this tea last week,” she said as she poured him a steaming cup from the ornate ceramic pot, decorated with chubby, beaming angels. She had found it at the weekly yard sale on Avenue A and had presented it to him with great pride. Father Milichuk gazed at an especially porcine angel and sighed. He hated angels. The angel leered at him with a self-satisfied smirk; he yearned to smash the pot and erase the grin from its fat little face.
He made a point of telling Mrs. Kovalenko how delicious the tea was. “What’s it called?” he said, taking a sip and smacking his lips.
“It’s Russian caravan!” she declared, clapping her hands with delight. “From the new tea store around the corner. I’m so glad you like it.”
In truth, it tasted like turpentine. But nothing tasted good right now, not even the butter cookies from the Polish bakery he usually adored. Still, to make Mrs. Kovalenko happy (and less suspicious), he choked down several cookies with his tea. They tasted like dust.
And yet when evening came, he left the church reluctantly. It would be even worse at home, when he had no happily bustling secretary, only his aged and morose mother. His father used to joke that his mother cooked like a Ukrainian but had the disposition of a Russian, dour and depressive, with occasional flights of high-spirited gaiety. She could be giddy as a schoolgirl, but her physical complaints could fill a medical dictionary. If it wasn’t the lumbago in her back, it was the arthritis in her knees. She also enjoyed regaling Aleks with the health problems of her friends at the senior center. Illness was her chief conversational topic, and her eyes would brim with tears of delight as she reported the latest grim pronouncements her friends had received from various medical professionals.
“Do you know that Mrs. Danek’s doctor told her that her heart valve could just pop like a grape? Like a grape, Sasha!” she would say, her eyes wide with amazement. She addressed him by his nickname but always called her friends by their last names, in the formal manner, which she thought indicated superior breeding.
He left St. George as the last rays of the sun slid across the windows of McSorley’s Old Ale House, across the street. He resisted the urge to head straight for the bar—he would go there later, after his mother was in bed. He turned east and walked the half a block to his apartment, trudging up to the third floor on narrow, creaky stairs worn by decades of feet. The hall always smelled of boiled cabbage; the Polish couple on the second floor seemed to cook little else.
He unlocked the door quietly, in case his mother was napping. He often found her asleep in the big green chair, their fat orange cat purring in her lap. He opened the door to the smell of homemade soup and the sound of snoring. After his father died, four years ago, Aleks invited his mother to come live with him—not that he had much choice. It was expected that a good Ukrainian son would look after his mother. After all, he wasn’t married and needed a woman’s touch around the place, as her friends declared over coffee and cheese blintzes.
He hung his hat and coat on the rack and crept into the living room, where his mother lay in her usual position, mouth open, her snores rattling the windowpanes. Their orange cat was perched on top of the back of the chair and regarded Aleks through half-closed eyes. A white lace antimacassar had slipped from the top of the chair onto his mother’s head. It sat at a rakish angle, like a lace yarmulke, the edges fluttering delicately with each racking snore. He stood watching her for a moment, then tiptoed to his room. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts.
It wasn’t long before he heard a soft tapping at his bedroom door. Aleks opened it to find his mother smiling up at him. She was a tiny woman, barely five feet tall, but sturdy and stout, with the broad, rosy-cheeked face of a Slavic peasant. She wore her thick gray hair in a long braid, and her blue eyes were clear and sharp. In spite of her obsession with illness, Aleks felt she would outlive everyone around her.
“Hello, myla,” he said, using the Ukrainian term of endearment. His mother liked that. “How are you tonight? It looked like you were having a nice nap.”
She sighed dramatically. “I’m feeling badly today, Aleksander.”
The heat rose to his face, and he fought to control his irritation. “You mean you’re feeling bad today. If you were feeling badly you would be having trouble with your sense of touch.”
She waved him away impatiently. “Don’t carp at your sick old mother, Sasha. Lord knows I have enough to worry about with Mrs. Petrenko’s boils acting up. I shall have to get up early tomorrow to make her my special poultice. She is counting on me; the doctors can do nothing for her, you know.”
Aleksander Milichuk had no idea if anyone counted on his mother for anything, and he murmured a vague response. Perhaps the ladies at the senior center were enjoying her ministrations whether her remedies actually worked or not. Sometimes it was just pleasant to have someone who cared enough to go out of her way for you. That was one reason he kept Mrs. Kovalenko on as his secretary. She was an incorrigible gossip and a busybody, but she fussed and clucked over him in a manner that both irritated and pleased him.
Dinner tonight consisted of homemade split-pea soup, brown bread, and cheese. His mother was a superb cook and enjoyed cooking for her “little Sasha,” just as she had for his father. Aleks knew that the standard Ukrainian diet was not the healthiest in the world, but there was little hope of training his mother in new cuisine techniques at this point in her life. He sometimes thought his father’s overindulgence in his wife’s excellent cheese and potato pierogi had contributed to his fatal heart attack—but in his darker moments, Aleks felt that his father had died of a broken heart.
As if reading his mind, his mother said, “I dreamed about her last night, Sasha.” He gazed down at his soup, which was so thick that the croutons didn’t so much float as perch on top of the viscous mass of dark green liquid.
“She came to me as I slept, Sasha—she looked just as she did that last day of her life.”
He continued to stare at his soup. Ten years had passed since his sister, Sofia, had been killed by a hit-and-run driver, and yet the rage shivered within him like a wind that would not be stilled. His father had never been the same afterward. When the police failed to make an arrest or even come up with a viable suspect, he began to wither like an unwatered houseplant, until finally his heart gave out. Aleks coped with the loss by drinking too much, and his mother… well, she had her physical ailments to keep her company.
Ignoring his silence, she rattled on, as if helpless to stop. “When she comes to me like that, I know something is going to happen. Mark my words, Sasha, something will happen—something big.”
“Yes, Mama,” he said. He was too troubled by the events of the day to pay much attention to his mother’s words. The last thing he needed was to think about his sister; it only made him angry. He refused a second bowl of soup and rose from the table. The cat lurked nearby, hoping for scraps of cheese.
“Are you going out tonight, Sasha?” his mother asked, slipping the cat a piece of cheese under the table.
“Just for a while,” he replied, putting on his coat. “I told Lee Campbell I’d meet him at McSorley’s for a drink.”
“That handsome policeman friend of yours?” she asked, all smiles.
“He works for the police department, but he’s a psychologist, not a cop.”
“As you say, Sasha—but he is good-looking, you have to admit.”
“Yes, Mama. Thanks for the soup—it was delicious.”
“Don’t be too late, Sasha. You’re looking a little peaked.”
“And you won’t have too many, will you, Sasha?”
“You know I’ve cut back lately, Mama.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
He kissed her and slipped out, locking the door behind him. Outside, the evening was crisp and sharp, the late days of April hugging the streets in a feathery embrace. It was the time of year when trees blossomed overnight and flower beds came alive with riotous bursts of yellow.
Inside the bar, Lee Campbell was sitting at a window table with four beers in front of him. Beer at McSorley’s came two at a time, in heavy glass mugs wielded by stocky, red-cheeked waiters—fresh off the boat, if they were young, and former policemen if they were older. Their waiter was a retired cop Aleks had seen numerous times here, a burly man with the heavy shoulders and head of a mastiff. He nodded at the priest, which made Aleks unaccountably nervous.
Aleks slid into a seat across from his friend, resting his elbows on the ancient, scarred oak table. McSorley’s Old Ale House was the oldest pub in continuous operation in the city, dating back to 1854. It hadn’t changed much since then: the floors were still covered with sawdust, and the potbellied woodstove in the front room still huffed out heat during the cold winter months. Decades of dust lay on strands of abandoned spiderwebs hanging from ancient knickknacks over the bar. There was hardly an inch of bare space on the walls, which were crammed with photos, paintings, and mementos.
“Sorry I’m late,” Aleks said, reaching for the icy mug of ale that Lee pushed across the table.
“I got us one of each,” Campbell said, nodding at the twin mugs, one dark and one amber. Only a single beverage was available at McSorley’s: ale. You could order it dark or amber, but either way you got two mugs of it.
“Thanks,” Aleks said, drinking deeply. “The next one’s on me.”
“It’s a deal,” Lee said. “I have a head start on you already.”
The two men had met at St. Vincent’s in the dark days following 9/11. Aleks had had a series of anxiety attacks, something he’d never experienced before, and by the time he showed up at the hospital for psychiatric treatment, he needed very much to talk to anyone who would listen. Because of his position, he was used to giving comfort and advice to others but was not very good at taking it himself.
In the weeks after the attack, a lot of people needed help, so he wasn’t alone. Psychiatric wards all over the city were seeing a record influx of patients. Lee Campbell was another patient at the St. Vincent’s clinic, and they struck up a friendship. Campbell’s position as New York City’s only full-time criminal profiler was unique, and Aleks was drawn to the tall, charismatic Scot. After all, they each dealt with matters of morality, good and evil, though perhaps from different viewpoints. They had other things in common: Both loved music, had played rugby in college, and, to top it off, lived on the same block of East Seventh Street. And, as they liked to joke, both had difficult and devoted mothers.
But what really united them was shared tragedy. Each had lost his younger sister in a misfortune with loose ends, the loss like an open wound that would never heal. The driver of the car that killed Sofia had never been caught, but Lee’s heartbreak was even worse, Aleks thought. His sister, Laura, had disappeared without a trace some years after the accident that took Sofia’s life. When Aleks thought about this, he took some small comfort in the fact that at least he knew what had happened to his sister. Lee Campbell’s tragedy had caused him to go from being a therapist to being a forensic psychologist, while Aleks had given up a promising career as an academic, turning from philosophy to the priesthood.
He looked forward to their monthly Monday-night meetings at the pub, where they talked about everything from Beethoven to Jakob Böhme, the seventeenth-century German mystic. Aleks had written his Columbia honors thesis on Böhme, and when he found Lee Campbell had read the German’s work, it cemented their friendship.
And, Aleks thought as he gazed at those deep blue eyes, it didn’t hurt that Campbell was a hell of a good-looking man. His mother was right about that, at least. Aleks had renounced ways of the flesh when he took his vows, but he had a weakness for Lee’s kind of looks: curly black hair, blue eyes, and ruddy cheeks. He sighed deeply as he drained his first beer and started on the second.
“Are you all right?” Campbell asked.
“Why do you ask?” Aleks said. Was it that obvious?
“You look preoccupied. And it’s unusual for you to show up late.”
The priest gazed into the glass of amber ale and cleared his throat, a nervous habit. “I just, uh—I had a few last-minute things at the church, you know.”
“Okay. I don’t want to pry or anything.”
“I had to take confession from someone, and—let’s order another round, shall we?”
He flung a hand into the air, and the waiter gave a tiny nod of his massive head. Moments later, four more beers were thrust roughly in front of them, a few drops sloshing onto the table. The serving style at McSorley’s was abrupt, bordering on surly. You would never find the androgynous, fey waiters here you saw elsewhere in the East Village. There were no metrosexuals working at McSorley’s Old Ale House.
Father Milichuk took a long swig and wiped his mouth. The beer was good, bitter and cold and comforting. The room was already starting to haze nicely around the edges. He gazed at the words carved into the cabinet behind the bar: Be good or be gone.
“So,” he said, setting the mug down on the table with a plunk, “how are things?”
Campbell smiled. “On one hand, I can sympathize with Sherlock Holmes when he claimed to be bored because there were no interesting criminals in London. On the other hand, it’s creepy to actually wish for something bad to happen.”
“But isn’t something bad always happening?”
“Sure, but in most cases it’s routine stuff the cops can handle without my help. It’s only the really weird crimes where I get called in.”
Father Milichuk drained his third mug and started on the next one.
“You’re thirsty,” Lee commented, raising an eyebrow.
“I guess I am.” Aleks felt his secret gnawing at him, carving a hole in his soul. He felt an overpowering urge to share it with someone. “I don’t suppose—” he began.
“What?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“When you were a therapist, if someone told you he had committed a crime, did you have to keep it confidential?”
“No. If I thought my patient was a threat to himself or others, I was ethically bound to report that to the police.”
“Oh.”
“Why do you ask?”
“No reason; I was just wondering.”
He knew his answer was unconvincing and realized that perhaps he wanted it to be. His friend peered closely at him.
“What’s bothering you, Aleks?”
“Well, we’ve talked about how our jobs are similar, and I—I was just wondering about that particular point.”
“You mean the seal of the confessional?”
“Uh, yes.”
Lee Campbell leaned his long body back in his chair and shook his head. “You’re a terrible liar, Aleks. I knew the minute you walked in something was wrong. You don’t have to tell me what it is—in fact, from what you’ve just said, I’m thinking you can’t. But if there’s anything I can do, let me know, okay?”
Aleks nodded, staring miserably at the empty glasses in front of him. He wanted more than anything to tell his friend everything about the mysterious supplicant and his cryptic confession. And yet he couldn’t; he was bound by his sacred vows.
“I wish I could talk to you about this.”
“It’s okay,” said Lee.
“It’s making me question… well, everything.”
“Your profession? Are you questioning that?”
Aleks took another long swallow and traced his finger in one of the deep hollows carved into the wooden table. “I don’t know.”
“You made a hard choice when you became a priest.”
Aleks ran a finger over the lip of his mug. “Sofia’s death changed everything. You must understand that better than anyone.”
“Yes, but I haven’t made the sacrifices you have.”
Aleks gazed out the window and saw it was raining. He watched the thin, hard droplets slice through the soft pink blossoms on the mimosa trees. “I’ve never told anyone this before, but a few days after it happened, I was lying in bed one night, and I had a vision.”
“In your sleep?”
“No, I was wide awake.”
“What happened?”
“Sofia came to me. She was standing at the foot of my bed, and she glowed, as though she were made of light beams. And I felt a sense of utter peace and joy come over me like I had never felt before.”
“Wow. Did she say anything?”
“No. She just smiled at me. And I knew that she was an angel, and that she was there because God had sent her to comfort me. Suddenly I saw the meaning of Sofia’s death: I was being called by God to comfort those in need, people who had experienced the kind of anguish I had. I knew that if I answered the call, this sense of complete peace might be mine again someday.”
“So you became a priest?”
“The next day I applied to seminary school, and I was accepted.”
“And Sofia? Have you seen her again?”
“No. But sometimes I have a sense that she’s nearby.”
Lee raised a hand to signal the waiter for another round. Aleks took a deep breath. It was now or never.
“I, uh, don’t suppose I could ask you a hypothetical question?”
“What is it?”
Is even that acceptable? Aleks wondered. If he told his friend the story of the mysterious confession as a hypothetical, would that violate the seal of the confessional?
He had never been faced with a dilemma like this before.
“You won’t mention this conversation to anyone, will you?”
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
Aleks looked around the pub to see if anyone was listening in. Luckily, Monday evening was the thinnest time at the popular watering hole. There were a few people in the back room, but only two other tables in the front room were occupied, one by a young couple too interested in each other to be eavesdropping. Sitting at the other table were half a dozen corporate types who looked as if they had been boozing ever since leaving work. Their jackets were slung on the backs of their chairs, their shirtsleeves rolled up, and their shiny faces were flushed from alcohol. Bursts of boisterous laughter erupted from their table from time to time.
He leaned in and spoke in a low voice.
“If one of your patients confessed to committing a terrible crime, would you report it to the police?”
“What kind of crime?”
Aleks looked down at his hands, which were trembling.
“Murder.”
Lee Campbell sat back, obviously nonplussed. It was clear he knew that the question was not hypothetical for Aleks. Lee shook his head.
“If I had taken a vow to respect the seal of the confessional, no, I wouldn’t.”
“Even if it meant a murderer would go free?”
“Yes.”
Aleks stared out the window; it was raining harder. He watched the pink mimosa blossoms fall under the cascading droplets, fluttering softly before surrendering to the pavement.
Lee Campbell leaned forward, resting his elbows on the ancient oak table.
“Is there any chance—in this hypothetical scenario—that this person is making up the entire thing just to screw with the priest’s head?”
The waiter shot an inquiring look in their direction, and Aleks nodded, though he knew all the amber ale in the world couldn’t fill the gnawing hole in his heart. He stared out the window at the soggy puddle of pink petals on the sidewalk, and knew it was going to be a very long night.
AT HOME IN bed later, he watched car headlights flickering across the walls of his room, unable to sleep, tormented by the unwelcome knowledge locked inside his heart. Finally he arose and thumbed through his volume of the collected works of Jakob Böhme. His eyes fell on a passage from Threefold Life of Man: Man, Böhme said, “cannot see the whole of God’s One,” and “it follows that a part of it is hidden from him.” In order to reach God, Böhme claimed, man had to go through hell itself.
These ideas, which had been little more than an intellectual puzzle to him when he was a philosophy student, now struck him as deeply personal. He felt as if Böhme were talking directly to him and that the key to solving his dilemma lay in Böhme’s words, if only he could dig deep enough to uncover the wisdom there. Perched on the side of his bed, he turned the pages, searching desperately for something to help him. One quote in particular gave him some cause for hope: “What now seems hard to you, you will later learn to love the most.”
Finally exhausted, he fell into a fitful sleep sometime before dawn. His dreams swarmed with disquieting images of masked murderers stalking their victims inside the stern marble interiors of churches, their steps echoing against the unforgiving floors. He followed them down endless corridors, but they always remained ahead of him, just out of sight. Finally he turned down one hallway to see his sister standing there gazing at him. She was glowing, as in his vision years before, but her large brown eyes were searching, beseeching him—to do what?
He awoke in a sweat, the book still in his lap, unable to shake the feeling that she wanted something from him. His eyes fell on the passage on the open page: “The anguished work of the creature in this time is an opening and a generation of divine power by which God’s power becomes moving and working.” He sensed the words had a deeper meaning for him, but he didn’t know what they were.
Later that morning, after a quick breakfast, Father Milichuk dragged himself to St. George and took his usual place in the confessional. His hours were rigid: He was at his post every weekday morning from ten o’clock until noon. He had a wicked hangover, and that combined with his lack of sleep had put him in a foggy state of surreal, dreamlike consciousness.
It felt even more like a dream when the door to the adjoining booth creaked open. He slid open the wooden cover of the metal grate between the two sides in order to listen and was stunned by what he heard.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
It was the same voice Aleks had heard the day before. More weary, perhaps, and more wary—but the same. There was no mistaking it.
He tried to speak, but no words came out. Finally, he croaked out a response. “B-bless you, my son.”
Jagged rays of light sliced through his field of vision, interrupting his sight—the familiar aura telling him another migraine was on the way. He pressed a hand to his forehead; he could feel the blood vessel in his head throbbing through his fingertips.
“What do you have to confess?” Aleks longed to peer through the metal grate separating them so he could see the man’s face, but he could hardly bear to keep his eyes open. Pain sliced through his head, and he stifled a groan.
“I have committed another mortal sin.”
“What is it, my son?”
“I have killed again.”
Father Milichuk’s intestines turned to ice. Cold sweat spurted onto his forehead, and he fought to control the buzzing in his ears.
To his horror, the man continued. “Not only that, Father, but I enjoy it. I like killing. Even now I’m thinking of the next time I can go kill again.”
“My s-son,” he said, hearing his voice shake, “you need help. Please—please tell the authorities what you have done.”
The man laughed softly. “That’s not likely to happen, Father. I’m not going to tell anyone else what I’ve done, and certainly not the police.”
“Then why are you telling me?” Milichuk cried, his voice ragged.
“I enjoy talking about it. And my secret is safe with you.” There was a pause, and then he said, “It is safe with you, isn’t it?”
When Father Milichuk spoke, it was the voice of a dead man.
“Yes. It’s safe with me.”
“Good,” the man said. “I would hate to be the cause of your breaking your solemn vows to God.” His tone was mild, but Aleks sensed the threat lurking beneath it.
The man went on to tell him the details of his crime. He preyed on prostitutes, he said, the unfortunate women who prowled Tenth Avenue near the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. Some were runaways whose families had no idea where they were; some were transvestites; and others were strung out on drugs, trying to earn enough money for their next fix. The man owned a nice car, and it was no problem getting them inside. Once there, the women were his prisoners; he could do what he liked with them. When he described just what that was, Father Milichuk’s stomach lurched and churned. The throbbing in his head crescendoed, and he vomited.
“Oh dear,” the man said as the sour smell rose to engulf them. “I’m sorry. I’d better go so you can get cleaned up. I’ll come back again soon—maybe even tomorrow.”
Before Aleks could respond, he heard the door latch click open and then the sound of retreating footsteps.
But this time something inside him rebelled. He whipped out his handkerchief and wiped his mouth, then stuffed the hankie back into his pocket. With trembling hands, he ripped off his soiled cassock. Dropping it to the ground, he threw open the door to the confessional and charged out into the church.
He dashed down the aisle just as the man reached the front of the church. Not noticing his pursuer, the man pulled open the heavy front door. Daylight streamed into the foyer, and he was briefly silhouetted in a blinding halo of sunlight. Shielding his eyes as pain shot through his cranium, Father Milichuk staggered after him, following him out into the street, where the man headed west, toward Third Avenue.
To his relief, the man didn’t look behind him as he rounded the corner to join the parade of people on the avenue. Aleks put his head down and shoved his hands into his pockets, losing himself in the crowd, just another pedestrian in New York. All the while he kept an eye on his quarry, following half a block behind as he headed for the Astor Place subway station. As before, the man was dressed in dark clothing—a straight black raincoat over gray slacks. His head was bare, with curly brown hair and a tiny bald spot in the back. Aleks focused on the bald spot, following it through the thick weave of bodies. As Aleks walked, Jakob Böhme’s words echoed through his aching head. God’s power… moving and working…
He followed his quarry past the Cooper Union Building to Astor Place, where people were lined up in front of the pumpkin-colored Mud Coffee truck, waiting for their caffeine fixes. The man took the stairs down to the uptown-subway track. Aleks hung back, head lowered, blending in with the crowd, keeping an eye on that bald spot. The jagged interruption in his vision narrowed his line of sight, and he held on to the railing as he stumbled down the steps, heart pounding.
Joining the swarm of people on the platform, he could see the man in the black raincoat ahead of him, peering down the track in the direction the uptown train would be coming from. Aleks slowed his pace, then strolled toward him in a deliberately casual manner. He stopped in front of a map of the subway and pretended to study it, glancing up from time to time to see if the man had moved. But he still stood in his spot, waiting patiently for the local train. Aleks stared at the map, the colored grid of the subway lines dancing in front of his eyes as he fought to focus, trying to control the blinding pain in his head.
There was a faint rumble from the tunnel, and a shaft of yellow light spilled across the tiled wall of the track. The train was arriving.
The crowd surged forward, a great mindless beast driven by force of instinct and habit. The priest saw his chance. After quickly slipping into the mosaic of bodies, he pushed through to the front until he was just behind the yellow warning line. Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he saw he was only two people away from the man with the bald spot. The rumble of the train was louder now, the wall awash with the headlights of the oncoming train.
It was now or never. God’s power… moving and working…
Aleks weaved quickly between the people separating him and his prey until he stood directly behind the man with the bald spot. He was slightly taller than the priest, and smelled of Old Spice. Aleks leaned forward and whispered into his ear.
“Thy will be done.”
Before the man could turn around, Aleks gave him a quick, hard shove in the small of his back. He watched as the man lurched forward, his hands clawing uselessly at the air, watched as he fell onto the tracks. The train was upon him before anyone could react.
There was a roar in the priest’s head, and the sound of a woman screaming. The crowd recoiled, and a man yelled, “Someone call nine-one-one!” A young student standing next to him covered his eyes, and his girlfriend began to cry.
In the pandemonium that followed, nobody was in charge. Aleks fully expected to be apprehended, but no one seemed to know exactly what had happened. Everyone looked dazed, except for a man in a business suit who whipped out his cell phone and dashed up the steps two at a time. The priest followed him, gripping the railing to steady himself. To his surprise, no one came after him. He staggered out onto the street and sucked up a lungful of fresh air.
Out on Astor Place, there was a disquieting atmosphere of normalcy. Taxis shot up Lafayette Street, careening around the curve in the road where it turned into Fourth Avenue. The orange Mud Coffee truck still sat at the curb, dispersing the aroma of French roast into the surrounding air. With a final glance behind him, Aleks walked quickly toward the Cooper Union building, then cut through the small park in the back.
His cell phone rang. Panic tightened his throat; he thought wildly that the police had found him. To his relief, the caller ID read Lee Campbell. He pressed the Talk button with trembling fingers.
“Hello?”
“I’m just calling to see if you’re okay.”
Aleks hesitated. Above him, a moody gray cloud slid across the sky, obscuring the sun. A pigeon pecked at a few scraps of bread on the pavement, then cocked its head and gazed up at him with its bright orange eye.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Thanks for asking.”
His friend seemed unconvinced. “Look, I have some time later today if you want to get together.”
“I have something I have to do, but maybe I’ll call you later.”
“Please do, all right?”
“Sure, thanks,” Aleks said, and snapped the phone closed.
He headed east, toward the river. It was a quick ten-minute walk to Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church on Third Street. He had been there several times, though not for some years now. He did not know the current pastor or any of his staff.
The front door was open, and his footsteps clicked a stark echo as he strode down the aisle to the back of the church. The air smelled of incense and lilies, and he was reminded that Easter was only a few weeks away.
He stepped into the confessional and closed the door behind him. Welcoming the dim lighting, he leaned back in the narrow cubicle. He could hear the sound of gentle snoring, then the rustling of the priest’s garments as the man awoke.
Father Milichuk leaned forward, his face nearly touching the grate between them. He took a deep breath, relief coursing through his veins like holy water.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”