“Yes,” said Lucy. “I could be the kind that parachutes over the jungle and saves people from bad soldiers. But … I don’t like the part where you can’t”-a faint blush and a wriggle-“have babies.”
Straight-faced, Marlene responded, “You want to have a family?”
“Only when I’m real old, like thirty-five or something. But maybe they’ll let nuns have babies.”
“Maybe,” said Marlene. “In which case you could found your own order. The Little Sisters of the Fruitful Womb (Airborne).”
Lucy looked at her mother sideways, decided that she had been made fun of, sniffed, and fell silent for the rest of the drive. Marlene sighed. Their relationship seemed to be transforming itself into a wisecracking rivalry rather than the warmly supportive figment of Marlene’s hopeful imagination.
That Marlene chose to go to Old St. Pat’s instead of to St. Anthony of Padua, where every other Italian in lower Manhattan went, or Transfiguration, which was closer, was part of the same contrarian spirit that (aside from her vow to raise her daughter in the faith) kept her going to church in the first place. It was not expected that someone of her education, politics, and behavior-Jew-wed and all-would continue to be a regular communicant of the nasty old patriarchal racket, and so therefore she was. St. Pat’s was also a venerable Gothic Revival pile, parts of it dating back to the War of 1812 (which antiquity she thought gave worship there an almost European style) and full of the ghosts of departed poor Irishmen and the present bodies of poor Latinos. For Marlene their déclassé presence took some of the sting out of doing something her mom approved.
They passed under the peculiar Gothic facade and into the echoing space, redolent of incense and damp stone. It was early, not much after seven, and they both joined the short waiting lines by the confessionals set out along a side aisle.
Lucy went in first. Marlene could not imagine what the child had to confess, not unless she really thought about it, and then she primly put the thought out of mind. In any case, Lucy had always been eager for that particular sacrament since she had taken first communion the previous year.
There were two boxes in operation. An old woman in shiny black emerged from the far one, and Marlene went in, wondering briefly whether it was manned by the pastor, Father Raymond, or one of his curates. In general, Marlene was not interested in the character of her priest, unlike many of her coreligionists, who were nearly Congregational in their concern with the style, character, and attitude of their pastors, and shopped around town for the one they considered most amenable to their own concept of Rome’s doctrine. She did not particularly care for Raymond, a sheep-faced man of dull and conventional views, but, she believed, either it was magic or it was bullshit, and since she was here, she had opted for the magic, which would work via an asshole as well as via a Thomas Merton.
In the dim familiar box, after the ritual acknowledgments, Marlene began her tour through such of the Seven Deadlies as had afflicted her in the past week. Wrath, as usual, was top of the charts.
“In my work-I run a security firm that offers protection to women against stalkers and abusive men-I get so angry at them,” she said, “the men, I mean. It frightens me. I want to hurt them and kill them. I sometimes do hurt them, in the line of duty, so to speak and … I get pleasure out of it.”
The voice said, “Do you hurt them for the pleasure, or as a means to an end?”
Startled, Marlene stared at the grille. It had not been Father Raymond’s voice, or that of any priest with whom she was familiar. The voice was low and husky, the diction precise with the flat accent of the outlands. New England? Not a New Yorker, at any rate. Marlene brought herself back to the question.
“I think it’s as a means to an end,” she replied hesitantly. “I want to frighten them away from the pattern of increasing violence. The law doesn’t seem able to do that. I want them to know that if they continue there will be consequences, horrible consequences, for them personally.”
“And does this work?”
“Sometimes. The shock works, I think. Like having blackouts works for a drunk sometimes. They have to choose between stopping drinking and losing their lives. But some drunks keep drinking and die, and some of these men keep after their women and kill them, and then they often kill themselves. Or I could kill them first.”
“But in providing this shock, you feel pleasure. What sort of pleasure?”
“Not physical. More like … I don’t know … moral satisfaction, the sense of meting out justice-now, you rat, you know what it feels like. Afterward, after one of these sessions, I feel depleted; sometimes, if it’s bad enough, I feel nauseous.”
A long pause. She could hear him breathing. She became aware of a growing interest in the priest, and a not entirely comfortable increase in that almost erotic feeling she always got in the confessionaclass="underline" sitting alone in the dark, telling your secrets to a man you knew, but who was professionally anonymous, a stranger, a stranger clothed in mystic powers, the best entertainment on earth, now closing in on its third millennium of continuous performance. Why all the churches were full of women.
“That’s a very good sign,” he said. “The sickness. I would be more concerned if you went out for a hearty meal afterward. It sounds as if you acted with good intention and when you caused pain it was to promote a greater mood. This is slippery moral ground, as I’m sure you know, but it seems as if so far you are keeping your feet. The rage is another matter. Please go on.”
She went on. Lust-stupid fantasies about men she’d met casually or seen on the street; sloth-a slight tendency toward acedia, the abandonment of hope; pride-yes, perhaps a serious problem there, more serious than Marlene was willing to recognize. Without quite knowing how she had started, Marlene found herself talking about her husband. This was another first, as the irregularity of the mixed marriage had always made her shy of bringing Karp and the church together in the same breath, and it came pouring. It was not complaint, precisely, but more like a spiritual confusion. Why did her life torment him? Why did his suspicions torment her? Where was the trust? Why did she feel stifled? Why did she feel compelled to lie to him-no, not exactly lie, as such; more a selective withholding of the truth?
“It sounds,” said the priest, “as if your marriage is far from perfect, and that you yourself have fallen far short of the perfection you have every right to expect from yourself.”
Marlene found herself nodding in agreement for a moment before it struck her that the priest’s tone had been ironic. Irony is not much met with in the confessional.
“I don’t understand,” she said, although she did.
“I think you do,” said the voice. It seemed to wait.
“You’re talking about pride, spiritual pride,” said Marlene.
“I’m not talking about anything. You’re confessing your sins.”
Who was this guy? Marlene took a deep breath. “Yes, right. I have been guilty of the sin of pride. I want to be perfect, and have a perfect marriage and perfect children and never make a mistake and save all the poor, poor women, every one of them. Yes, it’s true. What can I do!”
Marlene had to struggle to keep from raising her voice. She could feel sweat rolling down her sides and clammy on her forehead.
“You can sincerely repent and make a good act of contrition. For your penance, read the first four chapters of St. Theresa’s The Way of Perfection. Do you have it?”
In fact, she did and said so.
“I thought you might,” said the priest. “Now, is there anything more?”
There was not. Marlene said the ritual words with more fervor than was her wont-she was heartily sorry-received the absolution, and left the box.