Gabriel said an Our Father and unlocked the door at the rear of the sanctuary, directly beneath the hanging wood crucifix. He trudged down forty stairs, constructed with pride of prewar cement when they’d first built the church foundation.
The priest flipped on a light switch at the bottom step, illuminating the cavernous room. The only items in the entire space were a metal chair, a bookcase filled to overflowing, and an old wooden desk supporting an ancient table lamp and a large cardboard storage box.
The books, some of which were quite old, provided physical evidence of a decade-long search. Books on the kabbalah, Ezekiel, and the Talmud competed for room with volumes on Sufism, Buddhism, Rosicrucianism, Gnosticism, and Hinduism. The writings of Rudolf Steiner leaned against those of Padre Pio, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Merton, and William James. Except for an incongruous first edition of T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, all the books were nonfiction. Most of them displayed well-creased spines. Post-it notes written in Gabriel’s hand jutted out of their pages. These volumes obviously were not for show.
The books had great personal value, not only for what they said, but also because of the journey through which they had been obtained. Gabriel could not look at the books without thinking about Channa Gold, the woman who had managed the used bookstore, and their conversations (debates, really) through the years over religion, purpose, and, eventually, the meaning and limits of platonic friendship. Gabriel now thought of the books as Channa’s living breath—the continuation of a dialogue ended years too soon. He needed that breath with increasing frequency these days.
After the books, the box on the table was now Gabriel’s most significant possession. The box contained his visual memory.
He turned on the lamp, pulled the lid off the box, and removed a handful of photographs. These were in no particular order—a photo of himself at his seventh birthday party, of his mother near the end of her life, of his dorm at the seminary, of a softball game he had sponsored a year ago against the temple three blocks away. He went through the photos very slowly, trying to imprint each memory into his failing brain.
The last photo in his hand had been taken at that game. Gabriel had been covering first base when Channa hit a clean single. They were both on the bag, leaning forward toward the camera. Channa had draped her arm casually around his shoulder. Gabriel was grinning like an idiot. Someone, probably her husband Sidney, had snapped the picture. Sidney, in addition to owning the local hardware store, was the neighborhood’s historian and photographer. He had taken more than a few of the photos in the box.
Gabriel traced Channa’s photographed features with his finger. “Am I destined to forget you too?”
He heard the gentle footfalls on the stairs and saw her just as she saw him. The cat ran to Gabriel and leaped into his outstretched arms.
“Oh, Molly.” Gabriel squeezed her tight. “Have you come to help save me from myself?” Molly purred and pushed her orange tabby head hard against his chest.
“Is that what you’re really worried about, Gabe?” Channa stood next to him, her hand on his arm. “Forgetting?”
Gabriel let the question hang.
“Tell me,” Channa pressed.
Gabriel lowered Molly to the floor and the cat rubbed against his legs. “Forgetting is better than never knowing. I just want to see His face, Channa. I want to feel His countenance shine down upon me before I can no longer recognize it. I want to look upon Him before they put me in the home for old priests where I can drool in my oatmeal and mumble incoherently without embarrassing anyone. I want to be sure He is not that leering voyeur from the broken window upstairs.”
“Surely you have seen Him before now,” Channa insisted.
Gabriel shook his head. “I’ve felt His breezes and shadows, but nothing more. That is not enough after forty-five years.”
“Perhaps not, but whose fault is that?”
“You of all people know that answer. I have never witnessed my reflection in my own child’s eyes. I’ve never seen the sunlight break through a bedroom window and touch the face of a woman I love sleeping next to me. I’ve never known anything more than a platonic touch or experienced the mind-numbing exhilaration of flesh in flesh.”
“Those are all just sensory stimuli, Gabe. Those feelings don’t last.”
“No! You’re wrong. It is in these things—the living things—where the face of God truly resides. He does not dwell near the stale wafers and sour wine I have dabbled in.”
“So you believe your vows have kept Him hidden from you?” Channa snorted. “Were you always such a self-pitying ass, Gabe? Or did the collar do that to you too?”
“For a mere projection of my own rotting mind, you talk a tough game. Why don’t you go haunt your beloved husband?”
Channa waved him off. “Don’t be petty. You really want to see God? Look closely and without blinking into the faces of the forgotten, the frightened, and the unforgiven. Bear witness. Get down on your knees with them, spend time in their presence, hear their stories however they are told. Otherwise it is far too easy to believe they deserve their hell.”
“I have tried. I search for Him in their eyes just before the needle, but He never arrives. All I see is my own pathetic reflection.”
Channa placed her finger on the spine of the Book of Practical Cats. “Do you still remember what I said when I gave this to you as a Chanukah present?”
“Yes. You called me ‘Old Deuteronomy.’ And I still don’t get it.”
“Because you choose not to. Just accept what you by now must know; you have helped others, you have eased their pain. For that you have His blessing.”
“I have done nothing!” Filled with a sudden rage, Gabriel grabbed the box of photographs and threw it to the floor at Channa’s feet. “I have helped no one! I have mattered less than one dust mote in God’s eye.”
Channa shook her head sadly. “Then you really are lost to me.”
“Hey, Father Gabriel?” Andy yelled down from the top of the stairs. “You OK?” Andy shouted Gabriel’s name two more times and was halfway down the stairs with the dog before the priest realized what was happening.
“I’m coming up,” Gabriel called back as he quickly stuffed the photographs into the box and closed the lid.
Gabriel led Andy and the dog to the empty sanctuary. “Who’s this?” He dropped a gentle hand to the dog’s head. “Not a face I know.”
“A friend I met in the subway. I call him Little Bro.”
“I’m guessing there’s a good story there?” Gabriel said kindly. This wasn’t the first time Andy had brought a “friend” to the shelter or into the church.
Andy grinned and Gabriel saw the young boy that remained within him. “No better than the others you already know,” Andy said.
“I promise you no people were hurt in the rescuing of this animal.”
“Then I am comforted… slightly. What brings you by?”
“I heard shouting. Wanted to make sure you’re OK.”
Gabriel waved him off. “Just the television on too loud. Old ears,” he said, and pointed to the sides of his head.
“You don’t have a television in the church, Father.”
“Don’t call an old priest a liar to his face in his own sanctuary. Bad for business.”
“So let it go?” Andy asked.
Gabriel nodded. He and the boy had been through their share together and had come out of it connected in some comfortable way. “But it’s good to know that some shouting is all it takes to get you to stop by. Sam was also asking of your whereabouts.”
“I’m taking that as a question?”
“No offense meant.”
“And none taken,” Andy replied. “Classes, mostly.”
“Ah. ‘Mostly,’” Gabriel repeated wistfully. “One of my favorite words. I’m not trying to pry.”
“You are, but that’s OK,” Andy said without rancor.
“I actually call it caring.”
“I know and I appreciate it. But…”
“But you don’t want it. I get it.”
“It’s not that. I’m in a good place now. Working hard. Studying. You guys don’t need to worry so much anymore.”
“I think it’s more that we miss you.”
“Right,” Andy answered. “Me being such good company and all.”
“Compared to Greg?” They both had to laugh at that one. “I’m also more than a little worried about this virus.”
“You need to have faith, Father.”
“I believe in catastrophic thinking.” Gabriel’s eyes darted to the broken window.
Andy followed the priest’s gaze. “Not every hill is Mount Moriah,” Andy said. “Besides, I’m not a kid anymore.”
“You’re all kids to a decrepit relic like me. At least just check in once in a while.”
“I will be more mindful. I promise.”
“That’s all I could ask for.”
“Nope, but that’s all you’re gonna get, old man.” Andy winked at the priest.
Little Bro lifted his leg shakily and peed on the edge of a pew before Andy could stop him. “Sorry, Father. I’ll clean it up.”
Gabriel didn’t seem to care. He focused on the dog’s face—the confusion, disorientation, and shame. Gabriel recognized the look from his own mirror and it scared the crap out of him. “No, it’s OK,” he said. “I’ll mop it up. You should get him to the shelter and have Sam check him out.”
“Thanks.”
Gabriel offered a silent prayer for both boy and dog as he watched them leave.