Despite the mockery and many conjectures, the citizens of Newcastle West at least agreed that no one honestly knew what was behind the young priest’s distant appearance. David, slightly above average Irish stature and neither thin nor fat, had brown hair a little too long for the priesthood. At thirty-two, his pale and freckled face showed early wrinkles around his eyelids. An asymmetrical yet attractive front contained faded blue eyes and a slim and softly bent nose. Despite his uneven teeth, his tender smile was charismatic—a powerful weapon that David seldom resorted to.
Years back in the seminary, a grumpy old professor whose words were puerile and quickly forgotten, had taught the students how smiling could make you look untrustworthy. The message had not hit home with David, who at the time had been looking out the window, confident that the memory of his sweet Karen’s laughter would never expire.
In the days following the fateful wedding, David tried hard, but could not wholly escape the speculative glances being thrown his way whenever he ventured into public. Contrary to the current opinion about his physical and mental state, he was sure that he was not depressed. He had gotten to know this psychological disorder very well while nursing his mother through her growing apathy for daily activities and insomnia. Conversely, his dismay was only a thin layer to cover up his voluntary introspection—a firm resolve to get away from things and people to better evaluate the whole that surrounded him or the reality behind appearances. If some sadness overcame him during this process, it was not baseless melancholy but rather a result of the revelations about the human condition.
One morning, not long after David’s public confession, a cheery and well-disposed Elizabeth brought new daisies to his front garden. She hoped that a handful of Bellis Perennis, freshly harvested in a grassy pasture, would invite David to celebrate the beginning of a new day in communion with renewed thoughts of faith and fulfillment. As usual, she believed that the exterior of Father Callaghan’s residence was her domain, and thus took great care to ensure that the beauty of the flowers and their overwhelming sweet aroma would operate a small domestic miracle on this part of the property.
On her knees and excited by her gesture, Elizabeth did not even notice David’s shadow cast on her back.
“My dear lady, you must have forgotten to look at the clock this morning.”
“Our mother, what a fright! You’re awake, Father?”
“Planning a little surprise?” said David, gently tapping on her shoulders as an invitation to come inside the house.
As a child, Elizabeth had devoted herself entirely to the Catholic faith. At the age of eleven, while at boarding school, she was proud of her knowledge of doctrines, liturgy, and ethics. Her naïve and unmistakable joy in her moral elevation, however, once led the catechism teacher to inflict a fierce reprimand. The old lady, who was also the senior nun at the school, believed to have spotted in the girl the malevolent shadow of the ego and its side-effects. That was when Elizabeth, for the first time in her life, looked at herself in the mirror and saw the reflection of a sinner. She wept copiously. When she recovered, she vowed never to speak openly about her gifts again, but rather to express them solely through her actions and prayers, thus hoping to operate not by word but by example.
It was precisely that decision taken during her childhood that enabled her to be the mediator of religious debates in the parish and to soothe troubled souls at Tea Club meetings in her house. People who knew her intimately would say that Elizabeth’s compassion was unbreakable; her generosity, authentic and inspiring.
David recognized all these virtues in the seventy-year-old woman—twenty of them separated from her husband by “the Lord’s will.” Besides, the affection that Elizabeth showered on David mostly filled the maternal void left by his mother’s passing. Despite his gratitude, and especially that morning, Elizabeth’s presence did not bring him any satisfaction. Noticing the young priest’s reserved mood, she endeavored to extract attention and words from him, while organizing the coffee table, as she did every Monday (repeated on Wednesdays, Fridays, and whenever physical therapy did not occupy her mornings).
“Listen to this story about daisies, Father. In the Middle Ages, it was customary to feed the flowers to children to prevent their growth. People believed that the children would become dwarfs, and eventually serve as entertainment for nobles.”
Elizabeth had hit a nerve. The story of that medieval stupidity drew David from his distant musings, and he replied, “I don’t know why I’m still surprised by human folly.”
The sincerity of his words, coupled with his gaze firmly fixed on the bookshelf, confused Elizabeth, who decided to venture into a more robust and tangible arena. She reminded David that later that day, at a community hall near the church, the local society would participate in the national debate on the civil rights of homosexual couples. She had been recruited to mediate the meeting.
Since December 2012, when Ireland established the Convention on Constitutional Changes, the Catholic Church had had to cope with the forthcoming referendum on the legalization of same-sex marriage. A year later, the Irish government announced that the national poll would take place in the first half of 2015. So, by late summer 2014, the Newcastle West community had immersed itself in the discussion.
“I don’t feel able to chair the debate,” Elizabeth said with a sigh, looking at the floor and scratching the back of her neck. “Honestly, I have no idea why they asked me in the first place… It’s too much for my moderate spirit… While praying this morning, David, an inner voice convinced me that I wouldn’t be neutral enough and should rather withdraw from chairing the meeting. I just won’t be able to do it!”
Elizabeth seldom called him by his first name, and when she did, it was clear that she was going to abandon her usual emotional restraint to get full validation of her acts. In those rare moments, even her countenance ceased the elegant lines as a lump rose in her throat.
The news of Elizabeth’s resistance immediately tore David from his comfort zone. It was not entirely for religious or dogmatic reasons that he wished to stay away from the debate. Father Duane had taught him that every clash of ideas was merely an assertion of the ego, and that was why, above all things, he could not stand politics. “It’s the office where one most notices the fraternity of the Greek god Narcissus,” he remembered Michael Duane saying. “The so-called interest of politicians in the collectivity,” continued the old priest, “is the most cynical formula for fattening up their egos; they just never learned to love their neighbor as they love themselves, and perhaps they never will.”
David drew in a deep breath to divert the wave of dark thoughts that had begun to fill his mind again, while Elizabeth cleared the dishes from the table. In her comings and goings, she used her fingers to test the layer of dust on the shelf and the piano, forgotten in the middle of the hall. For some reason, the musty smell was concentrated precisely in the space between the living room and the kitchen, a narrow passage of air and a transition of moods.
“I think that Lis will give us a nice smile from heaven if we take better care of her bells,” Elizabeth said as she patiently wiped each of the small chimes on the piano.
David stopped counting the number of times the old lady resurfaced in the living room and glued his gaze to the ceiling. Mrs. O’Brian, even with her senses occupied, had eventually realized how much Father Callaghan was talking to himself and resigned to the fact that he was unlikely to abandon his monologue. She left the house sooner than usual. Just before stepping out, however, she looked back and saw less melancholy in David’s face than she had expected.
“So, can I count on you for the debate this afternoon, Father? I know you’ll be there, but do you think you can replace me? You are a priest… you have a great ear...”
He had anticipated the question, but that did not make it any better. David stood up and looked down at her. That five-foot-tall woman, handsomely overweight, with a flushed face, firmly set eyes, and wide cheeks, was still the closest embodiment of an angel he had ever known. David did not have to answer, and Elizabeth left the house with her shoulders unloaded.
When he heard the door close, he sighed with relief. During the past weeks, only his own presence had been tolerable. His plan now was straightforward. All he had to do was keep himself together until the mediation of the debate. A simple thing can be, however, the most uneasy task to bear. He returned to his couch cocoon and lay down.
Anything—or rather, everything—happened. Back were the ghosts of dark thoughts—emotional violence, physical damage, shouting, torture, panic, raping, torn bodies. David felt vulnerable, claustrophobic. Uncurling from his fetal position, he dashed to the bathroom, putting pressure on his stomach as if that would hold in the vomit.