I started stealing on Christmas Eve.
I stole from the offerings given by the faithful on the holiest of nights. I did it fast, I didn’t want to think about it too much. For a church, Christmas Eve is also the richest night; everyone’s feeling good. I figured nobody would notice.
Two hundred dollars was all I needed. I wanted to give Lisa a present, to celebrate her femininity. And then to take her out to dinner on the evening of the twenty-fifth, after having forced her to spend Christmas Eve and all of Christmas Day alone.
It was one of the few times when we showed ourselves in public together. Nobody goes out on Christmas night, or if they do, they go to a movie. In a deserted midtown restaurant I gave her a turquoise shawl—turquoise is her favorite color. She put it on at once and stroked my hand. Then she squeezed it and kissed my fingers. Her eyes were full of tears. I didn’t withdraw my hand when the old waiter who had taken our order shook his head. He’d seen it all before, in this defeated world.
I was barely breathing, she looked so beautiful in her turquoise shawl, and I thought that no God could be so cruel as to deprive me of what I was experiencing. At that moment I felt love for everything: for the empty restaurant, for the waiter who had grasped the whole situation, for the red, intermittently flickering neon light on the building across the street, and for the radio, which was repeatedly playing “Feliz Navidad” and “Silent Night.”
I imagined her already naked, and then, after our lovemaking, with her head resting on my heart, which was still beating like mad. Everything I’d done in the past several days disappeared: the preparations for Christmas, the meditations, the confessions, the vibrant sermons I’d given, my heart moved by the age-old rite, which invokes renewal and purity and the will to change—indeed, the certainty of changing—the world. And the mystery of a God who sends his son off to be born in a stable after his parents have been refused lodging everywhere.
Maybe there’s nothing sacred except for our emotions, our pleasures, I thought. And so my theft had generated a beautiful, unique moment; it was, after all, an act of love, meant to please one person alone. It was only the next morning, when I returned to my parish church, that I became aware of how good we are at telling ourselves a suitable story about our wretchedness, and I had an empty sensation, like what I feel when I think that death’s not a passage to anything, it’s the end of everything. Then I delivered my homily for Saint Stephen’s Day and wondered how low I would continue to sink.
Since dishonoring that holy day, I’ve stolen again, on many more occasions—almost every Sunday. On Sunday evenings I have dinner at Lisa’s, and I always bring her flowers and sweets. Lisa loves marrons glacés, and now I’m crazy about them too. In earlier days, I used to bring wine as well, but then I lost my nerve for doing that: A priest is supposed to do something quite different with wine.
Every Sunday evening, Sister Lorraine shoots me a look that makes my soul bleed; yes, she must have figured everything out. I avoid her artless eyes and say I’m going to visit my mother, and then, as soon as I’ve left, I think that now I’ve told a new fib, or rather that I’m living a lie. But later, after I’ve made love with Lisa, I feel fresh anger toward life and God Almighty, who would take away from me the joy of being inside her.