What do you think you’re doing?
He is looking past me. Were it not for the cigarette, I could believe that he was sleepwalking.
He seems limp but then makes a sudden squirming move, and I feel a jolt. The anticipation of being struck. That’s how it is. I feel the blow before it happens. A gift, they said in town. I could have been a boxer. I have anticipation. I hit the closest part of the face that is his face, our face, on the jawline, and he slumps to his knees. I hear a clatter, then I see the knife near his hand and I step back, shocked in the rush of satisfied awareness. The swiftness of it. A flash.
He is making an odd gasping sound between the coughing and sobbing. I think he is going to gag. Now feeling calm, I squat beside him and carefully move the knife.
I didn’t know it was you, he says, breathing hard.
He reaches through the darkness, lays a trembling hand on my temple, fingers searching through my hair.
I see my sister standing in her doorway, hands concealing most of her face.
He sees her and jerks back.
There she is again, he says.
He is on his knees, groping for the knife. I grab it, quickly move away from him, hiding the blade behind my back.
That’s her again. Look out!
There is a wildness in his face.
Effie is sobbing. Runs back into her bedroom. Door slams.
“And the friend, who was with him in Holland. Did you know him?”
“Yes. He was a neighbour.”
“Ever speak to him?”
“No.”
“Where is he now?”
“He … died.”
There is a very, very long silence. The doctor seems to be expecting more. But I am finished.
“You think your dad was having flashbacks?”
“Obviously. What else could it have been?”
He stares, nodding, unconvinced. “And it was after that … you had some issues.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe that’s enough for now. We can always come back to it.”
I shake my head. “No. I put all that behind me a long time ago.”
“Dunc, Dunc, Dunc,” the voice is saying in my ear.
And then Jude is leaning over me, whispering fiercely. Hushing me like a father. I sit up quickly and he steps back.
“That’s better,” he said. “That was some dream.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaken.
“I’m going to have a smoke. I don’t care what they say. Okay?”
“Go ahead,” I said.
He eased the window up a few inches and pulled a chair close, stared out at the night, puffing thoughtfully, blowing the smoke out through the crack. My sweat became a chilly second skin.
“You can talk about it,” he said. “That is, if you feel like it.”
“It’s an old dream. About an altercation I once had.”
“An altercation?”
“It was with my father. It keeps coming back …”
“Ah, well. Altercations with our fathers. An old, old story.”
“I guess so.”
“You called out … your sister’s name. That was what woke me up.”
“Yes,” I said. “She was there. What else did you hear?”
“Nothing intelligible.” He bent to the window, puffed and exhaled through the narrow space into the impenetrable night outside.
“You didn’t say what kind of pills,” I said.
“Pills?”
“The ones you took when everything got to be too much.”
There was a long silence. Then he made a list. Dilaudid. Percocet. Even Tylenol. Anything he could lay his hands on. Powdered and snorted. “Some inject, but I’m not into that. Have you ever heard of OxyContin?”
“I think so.”
“The answer to everything,” he said.
“I didn’t realize.”
“If heaven will feel that good,” he said, shaking his head slowly, “I can hardly wait. I couldn’t begin to describe it to you.” His voice was sad. “It doesn’t seem fair.” Then he laughed in the darkness.
“What?”
“Any time you think you’ve found heaven on earth, some bastard comes along to inform you that, sorry, it’s really hell.”
Jude finished his cigarette and squeezed the ember between a thumb and a forefinger that were yellowed to the knuckles. Closed the window but remained sitting, staring out.
“Do you say Mass here?” I asked.
“Sometimes.”
“Tell me the next time. I might go.”
“Tomorrow, after breakfast. Have you ever been an altar boy?”
“Long ago.”
“I’ll need a server.”
“Oh, no,” I said quickly. “I couldn’t—”
“Come on. Do me a favour.”
“Okay,” I said, suddenly feeling trapped.
“I’m going to try to grab a couple of more hours before the bloody gym-nuisances start at it again.” He was quiet for a moment. “Your sister’s name is Effie, right?”
“Yes. Did I tell you that?”
“You called it out just now. A lovely name, that. It makes me think of something solid but still … mysterious, wild and beautiful. Like the escarpment in the distance.”
“It sounds like you might have known an Effie once.”
“My dear man, yes, indeed I did.”
I thought he was asleep, but he spoke from the darkness once more. “The once I should have gambled … I never did.”
Dr. Shaw asked: “And did you ever discuss it with your sister? Why he was going to her room? What else might have happened?”
“No. We were kind of distant by then.”
“I have to ask you: did you think she was being abused?”
“I don’t know. Probably. Depending on how we understand abuse.”
“But you never asked? Not even after you became a priest?”
“She moved out before then. And shortly after that, everything became complicated.”
“The suicidal impulses. They began after this … altercation with your father?”
“Not immediately.”
“Do you recall when?”
“Yes. My father’s friend, who was involved in the incident. The man who died. He killed himself, actually.”
The doctor raised his eyebrows.
“Later, in my own life, I’d find myself thinking a lot about what he did. And one day it came to me, objectively … that he’d made a reasonable choice, his way of escaping memories he couldn’t live with. It just seemed to me to be a legitimate solution. A final fix. For everything.”
“There is nothing reasonable about suicide.”
“I know that now.”
“And what do you think prevented it … when it seemed to make sense to you?”
“I didn’t have the balls to do it myself.”
“And when did you decide to be a priest?”
“Around that time.”
He sat silently, thinking. The silence stretched.
Finally I spoke: “So you’re thinking that the priesthood was a substitute for suicide?”
“Actually, no. But is that what you think?”
“It never crossed my mind before.”
After Mass, I put away the cruets and bottles as Jude was folding his vestments. It had been a small congregation. Three people in the tiny chapel. A small, piney multi-faith room without any of the usual stations and statues out of consideration for the Protest-ants and Jews who might be inclined to go there for prayer or meditation. Wouldn’t want to distract them with our idolatry.
Jude had a thoughtful approach to the liturgy, but I noticed that his hands and arms were shaking during the consecration.
“Thanks for that,” he said.
“My pleasure,” I said.
He was carefully arranging his chalice in a box with a velvet lining. “This is just about the only thing I didn’t pawn.”
“It looks expensive.”
>
“My father gave it to me. That was why I couldn’t bring myself to let it go. The poor old skipper. Hardly something he could afford.”
“You and your father were close.”
“Not really.” He snapped the case shut then turned to me. “So, how long were you in the business?” he asked with a small smile.
“Business?”
“You know what I mean.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Maybe just a guess. You’re the first altar boy who knew my part better than his own.”
“I didn’t realize.” I could feel my face burning.
“It was at the consecration. Maybe you didn’t notice. I just stopped. You kept going.”
I felt a surprising sense of loss. Then guilt. “Another priest in denial,” I said. “What does that tell you?”
“Oh, I’ve done it a hundred times. When I’d be playing the tables at the casino, obviously I dressed and behaved like a layman. I think that was half the addiction. The thrill of becoming somebody else. It feels good. We’re natural performers, in a way. Always acting in a role of one kind or another.”
† † †
I can still see the intensity in the doctor’s face. “These suicidal impulses. Did you ever discuss them with anybody?”
“Yes.”
He sat, waiting.
“Years later. With a friend. A woman friend.”
And then I asked Jacinta directly: “When will you come back? I have learned that it is the only way to the truth. A straight line. I want to know when you will come back from Aguilares. I want you to tell me honestly.”
She studied my face for a long time, the eyes exploring. “I will tell you honestly. I don’t know.”
“Do you want to come back?”
“I want to be here more than I want anything. But there are other factors. There is work to do.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
She smiled softly, placed her palm on my cheek. “They sent poor Alfonso here so nothing would happen to him.”
“If you come back … I promise that I will become whatever I must become.”
“You must become the man Alfonso saw in you. And that man is, for now, a priest.” She placed her hand on my forehead to read my thoughts. The way the blind read Braille. “Your dreams rise to my fingertips. And I am not among them.”
“I need you.”
She shook her head.
“I’m afraid.”
She moved the fingers to my lips. “You have everything you need already. There is nothing to be afraid of.” She smiled.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“That we will never meet again.”
“But we will. I’ll make sure you’ll always be able to contact me. I promise.”
“Okay,” she said. “You must stay safe to keep the promise.”
“But you’ve never tried to stay in touch?”
Shaw had been busily taking notes, but at this point he was just listening, watching me intently.
“I heard from her once.”
“After that?”
“Nothing.”
“And was the death of your friend … the priest … was that officially resolved?”
“It was.”
He studied me, waiting for more, then finally looked back down at the file. “Let’s talk some more about your father.”
“My father?”
“Don’t you see the connection?”
“Connection?”
“Your father and the young woman. Your priesthood. They occupy the same place in your memory.”
“Place? What place?”
“Despair neutralized by hope,” he said.
Dear Pelirrojo:
I hope this letter finds you well and that you will not be surprised to discover that I am still in El Salvador. I have been here for three weeks and plan to stay. I am writing to reassure you … that I am fine, and to remind you of your promise to be strong.
† † †
Effie came to see me unannounced halfway through my third week. I was reading in my room when there was a gentle knock on my door.
“You have a visitor.”
She wanted to take a walk, so I led her toward the look-off, where Jude and I would sit and contemplate the impenetrable escarpment.
“My God,” she said. “It’s almost worth provoking a crisis to be able to enjoy a little bit of this.”
We just sat in silence for a while. Then I told her as much as I could remember of what Jude told me about the geology of the massive ridge. And then I told her a little bit about Jude.
Abruptly she said: “I couldn’t believe it when I heard you were here.”
“Who told you?”
“Sextus.”
“How much did he tell you?”
“Just that he thought you were having some kind of breakdown.”
“He should talk.”
“I know,” she said. Then slipped back into her thoughtful privacy. Abruptly again: “Where do you think it started?”
“I don’t know. There’s a shrink here who thinks it originates with our parents.”
“Very original.”
“A fantasy mother. A tragic father. Archetypes, he calls them.”
“I went to a shrink once,” she said.
“I didn’t know.”
“After I broke up with Sextus the first time. I figured it was time to look for some new answers.”
“New answers?”
“The old ones weren’t working for me anymore. They basically all started with two depressing words: ‘Poor me.’”
Without thinking, I put my arm over her shoulders and drew her close to me. She said nothing and we just sat like that, silently watching the sun and the escarpment as they drew closer together.
“What else did Sextus have to say?” I asked after a long pause.
She sighed deeply. “If anybody needs therapy, it’s poor Sextus.”
After another silence I asked: “So what did you tell your shrink about our father?”
“I told him how guilty I felt. For how I despised him.”
Before she left, she held my hand for what seemed like an unusually long time. “I realized in the end what our father’s problem really was … and I’m not talking about the war. He had a bigger problem than that.”
“Oh?”
“Wondering who he was. Something as simple as not knowing who his grandparents really were. Not knowing who his father and his mother really were. Just having the name, without the substance or the history. Abandoned in time. Can’t you see that?”
I laughed. “When did you learn all this stuff?”
“I’ve always known the basics, just like you. I never really put it all together until the day I spoke with old Peggy in Hawthorne, last year. You remember?”
“I remember.”
“Did you know that Daddy’s mother tried to leave him with her parents in Hawthorne?”
“You told me. Who was it you referred to? Hester something.”
She smiled. “It must be hard to handle that kind of rejection.”
“Does that explain the anger?”
“Partly, I suppose.”
“And it’s why you’ve forgiven him?”
She gave my hand a rough little shake before letting it go. “No. I forgave him long before I knew that.”
Danny is contemplating the ceiling, arms folded. He seems relaxed.
“I don’t suppose … doing away with yourself would ever enter the mind of a priest,” he said. And then laughed at the absurdity.
“I’m sure it’s happened,” I said.
“I doubt that.”
“What makes you so confident?”
“It couldn’t happen. Not with the Holy Ghost looking after you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said.
On a Saturday morning at gym, Jude whispered excitedly: “I’ve got a pass! Probably because of what we are. They ga
ve me a pass. We can go out for the afternoon. We’ll take my car.”
“Where are we going?” I said, feeling the sudden surge of childish anticipation.
“There’s a place I want to show you. It’s on the escarpment. Rattlesnake Point, it’s called.”
“Sounds inviting.”
“We’ll stop somewhere for lunch.”
We drove in silence, eastward, for almost an hour. In the distance I could see a pinkish haze hanging over the metropolis.
“Imagine living in Toronto, under that,” Jude said, pointing.
“I suppose we could just keep going,” I said.
“We could. Just make tracks for the coast, eh? Imagine what it would be like down there now. Snow to your knees still, I’d bet. That’s what I don’t miss. The long winters.”
He turned onto a smaller road that disappeared in trees, up the side of what seemed to be a low mountain.
“We’re actually going into the escarpment,” Jude said. “You should see this place on a nice fall day. The colours … it’s like fire in all directions. Then it would be crowded with sightseers. It won’t be too crowded this time of year.”
There were only a few people there that day, older couples with dogs, a few solitary hikers. Taut ropes, attached to trees, disappeared over the edge of a high cliff.
“Rock climbers,” Jude explained. “They practise here.” He pointed toward Bronte Creek and described the remnants of an ancient Indian village nearby. “A nice brisk two-hour walk. We’ll come back to do that some other time.” Two large birds hovered in the pale blue sky. “Turkey buzzards,” he said happily.
“They look like hawks or eagles,” I said.
“No. Just vultures. Scavengers like the others … but not as nicely named.” He was smiling. “It’s all in the name, isn’t it? If you called an eagle something else … he wouldn’t be an eagle, would he?”
I sat down on a large rock, not far from the precipice.
“You know the eagle’s secret?” he said. “He never lets us see him scavenging. You only see him soaring. Or sitting high up, somewhere out of reach. Kind of superior. He’s very discreet about the mundane, the mortal. Like the priesthood used to be. Out of reach. It’s easier to mythologize that way, priesthood and eaglehood both.”
We were silent for a moment, watching the floating birds.
He stood and stretched. “Nature calls. I know there’s a parking lot with a toilet not far from here.”
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