Laura Resnick - Confessional.pdf - Laura Resnick - margozap

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Confessional

by Laura Resnick

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First published in Deals With the Devil, DAW, October 1994

Fictionwise Contemporary

Fantasy

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I do not recall the moment in which I knew I would sell my soul to have

him, nor even the first time his smile brought a flush of mingled shame and

desire to my skin. But I will never forget the very first time I heard the

voice, the one which answered my prayers and damned me for all eternity.

The soldiers came with the summer that year, chasing out the Nazis and

the Fascists as the hot winds from Africa blew fine red dust from the Sahara

across the rocky hills and ancient towns of Sicily. After nearly eight years

of sleeping alone, I had thought myself accustomed to barren nights, joyless

mornings, the cold, empty space beside me, and the undisturbed purity of my

virgin white sheets. My husband had disappeared into the belly of the war in

Ethiopia in 1935, and I had been unable to learn his fate ever since. I prayed

for him three times daily, left weekly offerings on the shrine of Santa

Rosalia in the Via dei Miracoli, and begged the Blessed Madonna to care for

him tenderly if he were already in heaven. To Saint Monica, patron saint of

wives, I prayed that he still lived, that I was not yet a widow, that some

word would come soon. Monica, too, had lost a husband in North Africa, and I

had believed for so long that she would show me mercy; but now I began to

wonder bitterly if I should instead be praying to Saint Paula, she who watches

over widows.

All my piety, of course, was as nothing compared to the fervent

devotion shown by my husband's mother. Widowed long ago, she now slept in a

narrow bed in a small room above me, the room which had been my husband's in

childhood. Of her four children, only my husband and one sister -- now living

in America with her husband and children -- had survived infancy, and now it

fell to me to be the old woman's daughter. But the value of a daughter is

negligible compared to the worth of a son, and the old woman's life was now

spent praying for my husband and seeking comfort from the Jesuits at Casa

Professa, who repeated to her Saint Augustine's assurance that it was not

possible to lose a son of so many tears. It was left entirely to me,

therefore, to attend to the grueling and mundane matter of our daily survival.

Actually, I preferred it that way. The hard work, the hunt for black

market goods, the struggle to secure bread and pasta for another day, and the

careful management of too little money were all occupations that prevented me

from dwelling too long on the desert which my life had become. In some strange

and perverse way, I even welcomed the bombing of Palermo during the battle for

Sicily which raged for five weeks that summer. The thundering of the skies,

the fires which engulfed whole sections of the city, the trembling of the

earth, and the terror of death all quickened my blood and assured me that I

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was still alive. And if I clung to life so tenaciously, surely it must still

be worth living. In the numb years following my marriage, I had often

wondered; I might have even contemplated ending my own bleak existence, did I

not know it to be a mortal sin.

Perhaps it was that renewed vulnerability to life -- the rediscovered

sensation of my heart pounding with fear, the limp pleasure of relief, and the

profound gratitude I knew when experiencing the simplest sensations after

enduring the threat of annihilation -- that plunged me again into the warm and

turbulent sea of human desires after I had spent so long sitting indifferently

on its shores. Perhaps I was seduced by the breath of hope that blew across

our hungry land after the brutal years of war. Perhaps I was swept away by the

exuberance of the young men who conquered Sicily like the Crusaders, those

ancient heroes of so many marionette spectacles and folk songs from my

childhood. Maybe it was the late-blooming scent of the season which awoke me,

the fragrance which escaped from a million unfurling blossoms, the aroma of

ripening crops, the promise of rebirth, the release of Persephone from the

dark underworld where Pluto held her captive.

Or perhaps it was only my first glimpse of _him_ which changed

everything. Was it a sign, I wonder, that I first saw him at the Fountain of

Shame, in the Piazza Pretoria? The nude statues, which had so horrified the

_palermitani_ when first unveiled by the northern artist who had created them

centuries ago, seemed to glow like living things beneath the dazzling

Mediterranean sun on that hot, quiet afternoon. I had expected to be the only

person at the fountain at that hour; everyone else should be either eating or

sleeping. But Americans, he explained to me later, believe it a sin to sleep

in the middle of the day.

Surprised to see him, I stayed in the shadows and stared at him as he

walked around the fountain, studying the voluptuous figures with the intent

interest of a healthy young man. Young, indeed, I thought, feeling a sweet,

forbidden stirring.

Alone and entranced, he gave into his longing and touched one of the

statues at last, running his palm along the smooth swell of her naked breast,

testing the fecund bulge of her marble belly, stroking the eternal grace of

her plump thighs. I swallowed and felt my eyes sting. My heart pounded as if

Palermo were being bombed again, and sharp memories of my wakeful nights as a

bride burned the hollows of my body. My breath became trapped in my lungs as I

watched the young soldier's hands explore the shape and texture of the marble

goddess, and my skin tingled as if the hands of my husband were once again

touching the paler skin of my belly, the round cushion of my buttocks, the hot

flesh between my thighs.

But my husband's face was lost in my memory, and the grainy photograph

I kept beside my bed could no longer help me recall it. I remembered, because

I had once taken great care to remind myself daily, that he had courted me

with charm and boldness, that he had married me within two months of first

noticing me at a festival in my native village, and that he had swept me away

from my home, my family, and all that was familiar on the day after our

wedding. I had gone willingly, barely eighteen years old, confident in his

ability to care for me, proud of my place at his side, determined to merit his

love, and fierce in my passion for him.

But the bride and groom who posed formally in the photograph on my wall

seemed like strangers now, and when I thought of them at all, it was as

children I hadn't known very well. Even the foreign soldier, unaware that I

watched him as he caressed a lifeless nymph in the Piazza Pretoria, did not

seem as young as the impetuous couple in my memory.

Afraid that I would be missed at home if I stayed too long, I crushed

my longing, and stepped into the sunlight. The soldier turned suddenly,

startled. But, young though he was, he neither blushed nor looked embarrassed.

It was as if he saw my hunger, the emptiness of my womb, the stainless sorrow

of my bed, and knew how guiltily I had admired his secret seduction.

And so I wasn't surprised to find him waiting for me again the next

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day, alone beneath the blinding sun, watching through heavy-lidded eyes as I

crossed the warm, smooth stones of the piazza. I kept my eyes lowered, as was

fitting, as any proper woman would do, and silently ignored him as he shared

the task of filling my water bottles.

He didn't try to speak to me until the third day, and by then, I

suppose it was too late for words to protect me. He had very little Italian,

and I, of course, spoke no English, but it didn't matter. Every smile and

gesture called my soul from my body, and every glance told me he knew it, knew

the force of my longing. Everything I said or tried to say was smothered by

the heat between us, and I felt more like a clumsy girl than a respectable

matron. Finally, fearing temptation more than I had ever feared death, I

forced him to admire my wedding ring while I spoke of my husband.

There was little enough to tell, and even less that he could

understand. I had been a wife for less than three months when my husband was

taken from me and sent far away, to kill other women's husbands or be killed

himself.

Perhaps it was a mistake to tell my story to the American boy.

Temptation merely grew stronger now that I had added intimacy to the struggle,

for the expression in his blue eyes entered my heart and stayed there long

after I had left the piazza. That night in my bed, the bed where my husband

had not slept in eight years, I dreamed, for the first time ever, of another

man. I awoke curled around the pillow, feeling the breeze drift through the

window and across my back, aching with yearning for a man I could never bring

to this bed. All that morning I worked in a daze, bartered for food as ineptly

as a foreigner, mended clothes in a trance, and cast my eyes again and again

to the morning sky, longing for the sun to climb to its zenith so that I might

go to the Fountain of Shame and see him again.

Just before I was to creep silently out of the house, my mother-in-law

had a seizure and began coughing up blood. Though accustomed to caring

indifferently for her, today I longed to strangle her, to crush her withered

throat between my hands that I might be free to go to the soldier, free, even,

to bring him home to my bed. The time for our meeting was long past when the

old woman finally stopped coughing and slept peacefully at last. I stumbled to

my room, where I flung myself upon the bed and wept violently with

frustration.

The power of this thing inside me terrified me. To soil my husband's

sheets with dreams of another man, to long for a gnarled old woman's death

that I might fornicate with a stranger... With tears still blurring my vision,

I wrapped my best shawl around my shoulders, left the house, and headed for

Casa Professa, that I might confess my sins before God.

* * * *

"If he saw us talking like this, what would he do?" the soldier asked me the

next afternoon, his Italian slow and awkward.

I sat beside him, my shoulders slumped, my cheeks dampened by droplets

of water which the wind carried from the fountain to cool my hot skin. "Who?"

"Your husband."

I shrugged.

"Sicilian men are..." He searched for the words. "You belong to him."

"Yes," I agreed dully, trying to remember the man to whom I belonged,

trying to ignore the scent of this stranger to whom no decent woman should

even be speaking. I glanced up at his face. He was assessing the risks,

calculating the possibilities. I could easily convince him that the penalty

for a night of unwed pleasure would be too great, especially considering how

difficult it would be to arrange such an opportunity in the first place.

Sicilians did not look tolerantly upon a faithless wife.

The wind blew more drops of water onto my cheek. He reached out and

brushed them away, and this first feel of his fingers on my skin made me

quiver like an animal. "I tried to confess yesterday."

"Confess?" He frowned, puzzled.

"My sins. To a priest."

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But, as I sat in the dark womb of the confessional, the words had not

come, for I was not truly penitent. Whatever I said, whatever penance I might

be given, whatever absolution the priest might grant me, I knew in my heart

that I intended to come to Piazza Pretoria again today. I longed to continue

committing adultery in my heart. In a life so devoid of other pleasures, I was

unwilling to sacrifice this small one. In a world so full of sin, could my

near occasion of sin really matter so much? And so I had left the confessional

suddenly, unblessed and unshriven, startling the priest in my haste, avoiding

the accusing eyes of the Virgin as I rushed out of the Church.

All this I told the soldier, and although he understood none of the

words, he knew the heart of my story, and the comfort he gave me, his tongue

restless and sweet in my mouth, was both a balm and torment to my embattled

soul.

* * * *

"May the Lord be on your lips and in your heart that you may rightly and

sincerely confess your sins."

I did not know the voice that reached out to me through the dusty

screen as I sat again in the somber darkness of the confessional.

"Bless me father for I have sinned," I began. "My last confession was

three weeks ago. Since then I have committed the following sins ..." My heart

tried to force its way through my chest, through the sullen black dress I

wore in mourning for my parents.

"Yes?"

I opened my mouth, afraid to speak, afraid to part with my joy and be

punished for it, yet afraid to carry this secret within me any longer.

"What sins have you committed, my child?"

I swallowed. No words would come. This was my fourth visit to Casa

Professa since first seeing the young soldier who haunted my dreams, destroyed

my peace of mind, and made me waste my days in longing for those few moments

stolen at the Fountain of Shame each afternoon.

_May the Lord be on your lips and in your heart ... _

On two previous occasions, I had known the priests giving confession,

and I could not bring myself to reveal my treasured secret to them, no matter

that my confession would be a sacrament they could not violate. They would

make me give up the soldier, and I was not ready.

_... that you may rightly and sincerely confess your sins. _

I had come to the Church today at the hour I normally met _him_,

knowing that no one would be here, intending to silently confess to God

Himself. I hoped that He would understand, that He had granted me this

pleasure to keep, rather than to throw away in guilt and sorrow. So I had been

shocked, upon passing the confessional, to hear a voice from within.

"Come, my child, come and confess to me. Come, your heart is troubled,

and you are alone. Let me bear the weight of your sins for you."

The voice was so soft, barely louder than the whisper of the morning

breeze through the lemon groves of my childhood, yet it seemed to echo

throughout the Church, bouncing off the cherubim to whirl around the skirts of

the Madonna. The candles seemed to flicker beneath its force, then grow

stronger in its wake.

I had walked forward and entered the confessional as if pulled by

desire, the way I entered Piazza Pretoria each afternoon. But now, as before,

my heart pounded with rebellion and my tongue would not make a penitent

confession to this soldier of Christ.

"You are troubled."

How soothing, how gentle was that voice! My eyes misted as I admitted,

"Father, I have taken Holy Communion three times now without confessing to the

sins which weigh on my soul."

I expected a lecture, possibly anger, and certainly a heavy penance for

this alone, regardless of the nature of my other sins. So I was surprised into

a watery sob when the priest said only, "Then surely you have only taken

comfort from your Savior in your time of need, as He intended."

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The teachings of my youth forced me to explain, "Not really, Father. I

just didn't want my mother-in-law to know that my soul is stained with sin,

and she would if I didn't take Communion." There. My cowardice was out in the

open, my guilty fear of the old woman's critical gaze and sharp questions.

"Well, it's understandable that you wouldn't want to fight with your

mother-in-law."

I shifted uncomfortably. "Do you really think so, Father?"

"Of course. But wouldn't you like to share the nature of your sins with

me?" he prodded gently. "Wouldn't you like to be absolved?"

Unlike the other priests, who I believed would merely condemn me as a

faithless woman, he sounded as if he would truly forgive me and bestow the

blessings of the Church and all her saints upon me, freeing me from this

insane thing that drove me. So I told him my story.

"But this isn't a sin," he said at last, his voice as smooth as silk,

as sweet as almond wine. "All you've done is fetch water in the piazza each

day. It's not your fault that he's there."

"But, Father, I long to see him. I would go to the farthest fountain in

the city every day if I knew he would be there. I dream of him at night, I

think of him all day. I imagine... I imagine him doing things I should only

allow my husband to do."

"But it's all in your mind," he argued. "You haven't harmed anyone."

I told him of how I had wished for my mother-in-law's death, even

wished to kill her myself.

"She's an old woman," he said soothingly. "Irritating, narrow-minded,

and obsessed with her son."

"Yes," I whispered, wondering how he knew.

"She has only survived for so long because she's too mean to die and

too stubborn to give up hope that your husband may still be alive."

"That's... true," I breathed. It was as if he had read my mind, as if

he could see the old woman scolding the children who played in our street,

scowling at the dinner I had prepared, mending and tending masculine clothing

which would probably never be worn again.

"It's no wonder you sometimes think about killing her."

"Not sometimes, Father. Just the once."

"Really? Just once? Are you sure?"

I frowned. "I ..." Had I thought of it more than once, perhaps? "Well,

I've often thought I would rather not live in the same house with her, but I

never..." I sighed softly and closed my eyes. Had I wished for her death

before, but just been too afraid to acknowledge it? Had I wanted to kill her

more than once, but never admitted it to myself?

"I guess I _do_ sometimes think of killing her," I said slowly.

"Yes, I thought so."

"Oh, Father!" I started to cry.

"Shhh, shhh. It's all right. You've confessed. Now these sins are

lifted from you."

"But, Father, I must tell you... I'm not repentant. I want to see him

again. I will go to Piazza Pretoria again. Even as I confess myself to you, I

am thinking about the next time I will see _him._"

"I know."

It was all he said before absolving me.

"Don't I have to..." I paused, confused. "Don't you want to give me a

penance, Father?"

"No, I don't think so. Just come see me again. Soon."

"When will you be here again?"

"I will be here whenever you want me," he whispered.

The Church was still empty when I left. No priests, no sinners, no

faithful. Only me.

* * * *

"You sound troubled today," the priest said to me, his voice floating smoothly

through the screen that separated us.

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