“Well, good morning, good morning. Yes?”
“I’d like to pay for my room, but I’m hoping I can leave my suitcase here until I’m finished at the cathedral chapter sometime this afternoon.”
“That will be fine. Yes, of course. You had a late night.”
“I must apologize if we disturbed anyone. It turned into quite a lengthy pastoral session. One of the drawbacks to my calling, to put it crassly.”
“Pastoral session?”
“Yes. When someone seeking help speaks to a priest.”
The desk clerk laughs right in his face. “That’s good. First time I’ve heard that one.”
The pastor sees this as the first station in today’s Via Dolorosa. Receives the ignominy graciously, lays his bills on the desk, thanks the man, and goes.
Straight out into the autumn morning’s stinging sunshine. His eyes ache and throb. Half blind, he walks to the restaurant and orders coffee, a glass of milk, and a cinnamon roll, in hopes that the sugar will give him a little energy. Compares his watch with the clock on the wall. “Is your clock right?”
“A little fast, but not much. If you’re starting at nine, you ought to make it.”
“Thank you.” But the chicory coffee tastes awful, the milk is tepid, and the roll expands in his mouth and catches in his teeth. He runs his tongue around his mouth, no chance to brush now. Leaves most of the food behind, takes his briefcase and leaves. He was ordained in this cathedral, received his appointment from this cathedral chapter. Neither the place nor the people are unfamiliar. He has met them all before—the dean, the priest assessor, the bishop himself, who personally congratulated Fredrik on his exam. He himself is a known face and name for them too, that’s what’s so awful. Once called promising, now about to be exposed as an utter mediocrity. He who’d thought to walk in with the stout heart and openness given him by the people of the Örlands, a priceless gift.
He has an open and unaffected face that he cannot hide. The secretary at the front desk greets him with an encouraging, comforting smile. “Pastor Kummel? Welcome. You’ve had a long journey from the Örlands. Has everything gone well?”
“Yes, thank you,” the pastor says.
She smiles maternally. “How nice. The dean is a little late, but he’ll be here, he always comes. Maybe you’d like to sit down and wait for a moment.”
He sits down in a chair with his briefcase like a baby in his arms. The nice secretary brings him a cup of coffee. “We have some real coffee from Sweden,” she says. “Have some, you’ll feel better.” There are two cubes of sugar on the saucer. He stirs them in and drinks the coffee leaning forward, afraid of dripping on his collar. His hand is shaking. The dean doesn’t come and then does come, noisily, through the door and up the steps. “Good morning, good morning,” to the secretary, “not terribly late am I? And this is Pastor Kummel? Hello, how are you. Yes, I remember you. I’ve found your dissertation very edifying. Come in, come in, we have a great deal to talk about.”
The priest assessor sits on his bench as if carved in wood, but he stands up and shakes hands. Both men are cordial, prepared for all to go well. They begin gently with some small talk about Örlands parish to put him more at ease. They ask him how he likes it there, and he answers honestly, “I love my congregation. I loved the work right from the start and have been hugely well received.”
At least he gets the words out of his mouth without slurring them and can form whole sentences. If he’s had a brain haemorrhage, it must be very small. The priest assessor asks him what aspects of parish life he would classify as particularly important.
“My first thought is High Mass, which is well attended on the Örlands, but there are also the other offices, paper work, and my work on committees and boards, where I have good people to work with. Then there’s the instruction of confirmation candidates, Bible readings and study in the villages, which brings us to the unofficial part of my work, in other words, a priest’s unscheduled activities in day-to-day encounters with members of the congregation. But if I’m to prioritize, then it’s Divine service that I consider most important. You gentlemen have certainly heard that Örland is a singing congregation, and consequently the liturgy is dear to their hearts. Sermons are no simple matter and require a lot of work, but they are gratifying because the congregation actually listens, and if I say anything they think is cockeyed, they let me know.”
They nod appreciatively, thinking that now they’ve got the pastor warmed up and the rest will be merely a formality. They have no reason to suspect that his energy has reached its limit, and that his answers in the discussion of his dissertation on the Sixty-eighth Psalm will grow steadily more and more fragmentary and incoherent. When they switch to an examination of his command of church law, they find troubling gaps in his knowledge and an uncertainty about terminology that they had honestly not expected. As regards the works of theology and church history he was required to master, they would have preferred a more comprehensive grasp of the material and a more coherent analysis of the passages under discussion. They don’t know exactly how much sweat is running down his back, pasting his shirt to his body, but experience does perhaps tell them that an abundance of sweat is his reason for sitting so stiffly and holding his arms at his side, knowing as he does that every careless gesture releases a cloud of body odour.
The session drags on and on because they are so eager to give him a chance to redeem himself. Both of them wonder silently if he is ill—he raises one hand and presses his thumb and forefinger to his eyes, as if to keep them from falling out. His face is rigid, and his mouth moves reluctantly. Very painful for all parties. Of course they can pass him, but he has simply not risen to the high marks that his dissertation seemed to promise. A real shame, since high marks are required for the more qualified postings.
The dean clears his throat. “The dissertation was excellent. On the other hand, the discussion regarding it was less rewarding. When it comes to knowledge of the literature, there are a surprising number of gaps. On the basis of the dissertation, I recommend ‘approved’, but without honours. What does my colleague think about his understanding of church law?”
The priest assessor clears his throat. “Somewhat sketchy, I have to admit. The terminology is insufficient. But there was good understanding of practical application. Commitment to the life of worship a plus. I too recommend approval without honours.”
“Then we’re agreed to give Pastor Kummel a grade of ‘approved’ on his pastoral examination?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” the pastor says. “Almost better than I deserved.”
A short pause. The dean: “Now that we’re finished and your answer cannot affect our judgment, may I ask you, Pastor Kummel, if you’re not feeling well?”
A pause and a sucking in of breath, a suppressed sigh. He focuses with difficulty. “I don’t mean to make excuses, but I have a headache that’s killing me.”
“We thought there must be something. It might have been better for you to have claimed illness and come back in the spring. But done is done.”