The Divine Economy of Salvation

by Priscila Uppal

  I offered him back his medal as if holding a mouse by its tail.

  “You had to kill the Germans to save the others,” he said. “It’s a trade-off, you see. Not really for the Jews, but for everybody. The Protestants too.” He riddled the air with imaginary bullets.

  “What about the Catholics?” I asked. I was getting colder and thought that as soon as he took a break from talking I would go inside. My legs felt numb and my teeth had begun to chatter, but if he noticed, he didn’t mention it. He was beginning to frighten me a little, and I wanted to return to the gymnasium.

  “Everybody,” he said seriously, slipping the medal back into his pocket after holding it up to admire it a second longer. Then he shrugged, kicking up his legs to keep them from getting stiff. “So, what do you want to be?”

  The question was beyond my reach to answer. I had no idea where I might end up, and the only work I’d had any real contact with was teaching. Before arriving at St. X. School for Girls, I had told my mother I wanted to be a nurse so I could save her. The only other person I’d shared my wish with was Rachel. I didn’t want to explain myself to a boy I’d just met. Besides, I was no longer hopeful that if I did become a nurse my mother would recover. “Do you want to be a soldier?” I asked.

  “No way. If the world goes to war again, it will be suicide. They can blow up the planet with the kinds of weapons they have now. I know a guy who went to Vietnam, and he paces up and down our street in his track pants and ripped T-shirt, winter or summer, and yells at people walking by that he has seen hell.” He made little exploding noises into the air and then laughed wildly until he saw I wasn’t joining in. “You got pretty eyes,” he said, approaching my face with his own.

  He kissed me quickly on the lips. A small peck, just his lips touching mine, fast, like my father did when he was very pleased with me. A bit of salt was all, and a smell like that of Rachel’s gin, and it was over. I couldn’t believe my first kiss could be so disappointing. I wasn’t prepared; I didn’t pout my lips seductively like in the movies or fling my hands around his waist in rapture. For all the fuss of my adolescent dreaming, it could have been a mosquito taking a bit of blood from my skin. He slung his left arm over my shoulder, and I wanted to go back inside and find the girls. I pulled at my scarf, trying to cover up my arms, the fine hairs standing up, my flesh irritated by the wind.

  “You want to smoke,” he said, his free hand pulling out a hand-rolled cigarette. “It’s good stuff. I had one earlier.”

  “No, thanks,” I replied. “I should get back soon. My friends . . .”

  “Yeah, I guess they’ll wonder where you are.” He put the cigarette back in his pocket, wrapping it in a bit of tinfoil. “I probably had enough of this earlier. The stars on your scarf seem brighter than the ones in the sky.” He chuckled to himself and let his palm drop an inch to rub my left nipple, hard from the cold.

  It pained a little, like a tickle. I held my breath. He rubbed lightly, circularly, and I started to feel a pressure between my thighs. I laid my head against his shoulder and moved my body towards him to ease the throb. I thought of Esperanza and Mr. M., the way they strove towards release and how badly I too needed salvation. How badly I wanted to find joy and feel such serenity. How badly I needed love. He kissed me again, this time parting his lips and licking my mouth with his tongue, forcing it upon my front teeth. I gasped. My hands roamed over his body, and he was bony, his fingers, his back, his arms. This boy who could speak of killing in one breath and then forget about it, kiss a girl he barely knew and rub her breast gently in the night air, was practically a skeleton.

  A noise startled us out of our kiss. Or, more correctly, his kiss. I didn’t kiss back, just moved my arms a lot the way I’d seen other people do, kept my mouth open but my tongue and lips still. He was wet and slightly slobbery. I couldn’t believe I had anything of his in my mouth. I started to feel a bit shameful, giving in so quickly, without the façade of a fuss, and was glad for the noise. It was the fire alarm. A prank. The same boys who had been out smoking earlier were hiding behind a truck as the gymnasium cleared out. I rose from the concrete divider and straightened out my dress. He tucked in his shirt and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. I was about to leave him there.

  “Hey,” he said. “What do you want to do with your life?”

  I said the only thing that came to mind, stealing Francine’s mother’s wish for her daughter. “I want to be a nun.” My own mother would have been proud of my response. She believed nuns were chosen people.

  Then I ran away from him to the entrance, where Caroline, Rachel, and Francine had found each other and were searching for me. It was getting near curfew and we needed to hurry back. Caroline had told Sister Marguerite, who would be waiting for us in the dormitory, that her sister was taking us out and we were coming home in a cab. As we took a shortcut along a trail beside the soccer field that led to a road where we could catch a bus, Caroline spotted Karl Z. the Third smoking behind some bushes with one of his friends. They were howling with laughter, then stifling it under a few short coughs. The air was filled with a strong scent, sweet, like pine.

  “You see that guy?” she said.

  We all turned around. I recognized my first kiss instantly and was about to brag to the girls, sensing the right opportunity to divulge my secret, to have them include me in their praise.

  “That guy,” she said, pointing at Karl Z. the Third, “told me he wanted to show me something outside. I told him to get lost.” She flipped her long hair over to one side and braided it as we walked.

  “Good for you,” said Rachel, slapping her back.

  “I know a pervert when I see one,” she replied, nodding for approval from the rest of us.

  “Cute, though,” said Francine.

  “Yeah,” Caroline added. “He’s cute. But he probably thought I was easy or something. It’s his school, you know. He’d know where to take you and you could end up chopped up in the back of the field somewhere. If it was at a place I knew, it might be different.”

  The fire alarm had stopped, although a single fire truck had been dispatched to the school, and we could hear its siren approaching, ringing loudly in our ears. “Where were you, Angela, when the alarm went off?” Rachel asked as she counted the number of boys she had met on her fingers.

  “Me?” I was disgraced. I wouldn’t be able to tell them now. “Oh, I was having a smoke with the guys out there, just underneath the lamp.”

  “You bad girl!” she teased. “Trying to keep them all to yourself?”

  She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. I held onto Rachel’s fingers tightly, afraid of letting go. I hadn’t been chosen at all, only there and willing. The difference between Caroline and me was I had believed I was special. Karl Z. the Third’s skeletal kiss dug a deep pit into my stomach the whole ride home.

  AS CHRISTINE AND I walk to find a place to eat, three young boys all around the same age, retrieve plastic bags of stale bagels and doughnuts out of the cardboard trash boxes outside. They are obviously hungry, their bodies thin and their hair matted, legs shaking with the cold. They are wearing flimsy windbreakers and the baker is shooing them away, pointing to the alley beside the building. She continues to bellow as they run down the alley, pushing each other, the bags smacking against their sides. They laugh. Laugh amidst their hunger.

  I am tired and do not wish to walk. I’m not fond of the bus service, but I have money in my pockets and Christine is struggling with her luggage. Under other circumstances, I would offer to carry it, but today I have a tote bag of my own. Christine says she wants to walk. She wants to see a bit more of the city before she leaves. The neon lights from the bars and restaurants, the lower-scale shops and dollar stores, and the churches with their sandwich boards and bells and stained glass, assault the eye. There are many races and religions competing to draw in crowds. All claiming to make something better out of what we’ve been given. Everyone is pulled by one thing or another in the city. By the
lights or the advertisements, by the promise of food or the lure of music. We are in a poorer section of the city than I normally frequent. There are children here who should be in school.

  A group of teenage boys and girls with a portable stereo between them smoke by the front entrance of an abandoned discount store, the debtor’s notice taped inside the window, the rest of the glass plastered with newspapers and pieces of bristol board.

  Christine suggests we turn at the corner. On the west side of the street is a sign announcing a buffet lunch under a green awning. There are petunias inside the window and a couple finishing up coffee. We can see no one else from outside the restaurant and decide to try it.

  We enter and a middle-aged waitress, with deep wrinkles around her eyes, seats us near the back, beside a painting of an exotic landscape, the kind Christine likes to bring back from her trips. A tropical landscape with palm trees and large fruit hanging off the leaves, static and perfect, the colours bold and unblurred. A woman’s sarong skirt is unravelling. She is walking towards the inviting blue ocean, caught by the painter in mid-step, her back tanned and contrasting with the bright blue of the waters. Her dark hair is swept around one shoulder, slightly damp. She is utterly perfect, I think, and look over at Christine, whose figure has turned frumpy.

  The waitress serves two plates and directs us to a salad bar and a row of metal dishes not unlike those of the cafeteria back at the convent. I pile my plate with a Caesar salad, penne in tomato sauce, and a side of cooked broccoli and potato salad. Christine goes for the meat; she fills her plate with chicken in a white sauce, ham with bits of pineapple sliced onto it, a few shrimp in a fried batter, and a hot potato with sour cream and chives. She spoons a little coleslaw into a separate dish. We return to our table. We do not speak for quite some time. Christine chews quickly, barely waiting to swallow before grabbing for her glass of water to wash the food down. I enjoy the Caesar because the lettuce is fresh and the croutons have not yet grown soggy, but the penne is terribly dry and overcooked. I imagine Christine made the better selections.

  “Looks like your food is good,” I say to her.

  “Not really,” she replies, wiping the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “These buffets always look better than they taste. I guess that’s what happens when you make things in bulk.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I say, forcing down the potato salad, which is too sour for my liking. However, having eaten all the pasta, I am full before my plate is clean. Christine leaves some sauce on the bottom of her plate and drags her last shrimp through it. She then gets up from the table while the waitress retrieves our plates.

  “Can’t go without dessert,” Christine says, but I remain seated.

  She returns with a slice of apple pie, a jello cup, and three chocolate chip cookies. I try not to gawk at her while she eats, but I do. Her hand hits her water glass, the ice cubes clinking. She drops her napkin, stops eating, but protects her plate from being removed from the table with her elbow. Cookie crumbs litter the front of her dress, and a smear of whipped cream is on her chin. I reach across with my own napkin to wipe it off.

  “Don’t mention it, Chris,” I say, softly brushing her face, a little red lipstick smudging onto the napkin with the cream.

  “Oh, God,” she replies, her voice cracking, a tear falling from her left eye.

  “It’s only a little smudge,” I tell her. “Nothing much, I swear.”

  “No . . .” she replies. “No . . . it’s not that. I . . . I’m a pig.”

  Her hands fall from her face and now she is fully crying, turning from me, reclaiming her napkin to wipe the mascara and tears underneath her eyes. She sniffles and struggles to keep her voice down. I do not know what to do. It has been decades since I’ve seen Christine cry.

  “You’re not a pig,” I say, as her hands brace against her stomach. “You’re just . . . just hungry. You’re tired from your trip.”

  She chuckles hopelessly and I feel sick. Her mouth is open and there is brown cookie on one of her bottom front teeth. She blows her nose, pressing the way one does with a nosebleed. She turns her chin up.

  “Can I confess something to you?” she asks softly, her eyes upon the ceiling. “No more secrets.”

  “I’m not a priest,” I reply.

  “You’re my sister,” she says, leaning across the table, tugging on my sleeve the way she did when we were children. “I don’t have any use for a priest.”

  At last we have found common ground. Neither do I. In all the years I’ve been holding my guilt like a huge crucifix across my back, I have never been able to tell a priest about it. I tried several times, going into churches where no one knows me, in regular clothes, and walking into the confessional, ready, determined to unburden myself, face God’s penalty for what we did. Reveal it all as in a book. The words pressed into my heart like a prayer. Yet I was never able to. Instead, I would open my mouth and find myself confessing a relatively meaningless sin committed that week—coveting something or lying—express my dissatisfaction with myself and my failings, but never what happened that night in Room 313. I thought I was being a coward, and surely I was in some way, as if my guilt were my child and I was unable to let go of her. But I couldn’t tell them, those men, what had happened. I know the priest would stress the fact we were girls, that we had committed a serious sin but judgement is in God’s hands. I’ve never believed it. Not truly, not utterly, that it is in God’s hands. In my nightmares it is never a man’s hand seeking to touch me. It is a distinctly feminine hand, from its hairlessness, its fine knuckles. The smell of lilies. And here, after all these years, after all our fights, I only now realize that my sister can be wise. She is teaching me it doesn’t matter what you confess, it matters only who you confess it to.

  “I’m a horrible wife . . . and mother.” She speaks slowly, with difficulty, and I can sense her gathering her strength, her resolve to continue without giving in to tears or self-pity. She has dignity in her posture, her body gathered like tailored cloth. She wants to tell it straight. No dramatics. Facts are facts. But I dread her words.

  “No, Christine, no—”

  “I need to tell it my way! Don’t interrupt me. Please . . .”

  “All right,” I say, and the waitress returns with cups of coffee and a pitcher of milk. She ignores us and goes back to the kitchen.

  “I cheated on Anthony,” Christine whispers to me, then slices into her apple pie with her fork. She lifts the flaky crust to her mouth, biting hard. “I can’t believe I’m still eating . . . I’m going to be sick . . . shit . . . What the hell? I’m admitting I’m a pig, aren’t I? I act like a pig.”

  I am shaking. I know in our litany of arguments there have been many times I wished Christine would just crack, unveil her immense weakness in front of me, let me in. She can dismiss me with a flick of her hand. A simple gesture to keep me out. And now what I’ve waited for is in front of me: Christine in all her distress. I am uncomfortable, despicable, wishing she would stop. I am the one collecting more shame.

  “You don’t—”

  She slams her hand against the table. It makes a loud, hollow thud. Christine is not hysterical, only intent, and it’s the intensity of her need that repels me. She can no longer keep it to herself. The weight gain, which I’d tried to avoid mentioning but wanted to acknowledge, is her weapon now.

  “I’m going to tell you something. Haven’t you said to me before I don’t really say anything? Well, I want to say something. I want to say something, because I can’t take it any more.”

  I keep my mouth shut, bite the inside of my cheek to remind myself not to interrupt her. I stir my coffee after filling it to the brim with milk.

  “I’m cheating on Anthony . . . with our neighbour.” My eyes widen despite myself. “It’s not him. I’m not in love with him or anything. He just talks to me, and at home I feel like I’m speaking to babies all the time. Peter’s older, I know, but it’s still not like a real conversation. And he asks me how I
am and what I think, and sometimes I lie and sometimes I actually tell him something.”

  She pauses to take a bite out of her last cookie and I wait, in silence, for her to continue. I think of her lovely turn-of-the-century home, with backyard and terrace, sunflowers on the front lawn, a welcome mat and tea cozies, fireplace and polished wooden banisters. Everything in her life perfect. Like the painting behind her.

  “I look at him. Anthony, I mean. Look at him at night, snoring beside me. He’s an attractive man. Better looking than the neighbour. And I wonder why I’m not waking him up in the middle of the night to run his hands all over me, why I barely kiss him on the lips any more, or why I’ve started to think of our children as his children. It doesn’t make any sense, I think, because I have this ache inside me,” she says, pointing to her belly, “this ache that isn’t being satisfied. Hunger pains.”

  She has stopped sniffling and crumples her used napkin in her hands, wipes her nose intermittently. I notice she has a scratch underneath her eye, the thinness of a paper cut.

  “But it doesn’t help. I thought it would. Because he is there, and I am hungry. I have needs. I know you might not know about that—”

  I lower my gaze from hers, move a coaster across the table.

  “No,” I say. I do not lie. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand the feeling.”

  “True, true . . .” she says, but I don’t think she believes me. It isn’t important anyway, the sex. Not to me and not to her. That’s not what she is trying to tell me, I gather. She is talking about something that motivates the sex or cancels out the sex or redeems the sex, but I’m not entirely sure which. Unfaithful. Christine has lost faith in something. She needs to find out what it is.

  “Anyway, I thought I could do something about it. But I can’t. And now I eat. Constantly. I know you’ve noticed. How could you not? Anthony has too. Blames it on the children and the fact I don’t get out much any more. Says it doesn’t matter, that Italian men like a little meat on their women. Tries to make me laugh. But it’s not that. It’s that I’m just hungry all the time and there’s nothing to stop me from eating. I’m guilty too, I guess. He doesn’t deserve this from me. It’s like I’m paying for something. Does that make sense? Do you understand?”