The Priest's Madonna (11 page)

“You sound like Father,” said Claude, giggling.

“And what’s wrong with that?” I snapped.

“I understand your point, Marie,” Bérenger continued. “One can’t trust an institution run by men to be infallible. But the Church is not just a creation of man.” He turned toward me, his knee touching the edge of my seat. “It was established by Christ and is run according to the word of God. It is his Kingdom on earth, in the world but not of it. It is as holy a thing as we have.” He gripped my arm. I dropped my knife. “I hold tight to it, Marie, because it is from Christ. It is God’s unfolding revelation, and for that reason I will always, always defend it.”

We stared at each other as his words rang out in the silent room. His grip just above my wrist relaxed as the moment lengthened. I was aware of the others, but I dared not move, for I didn’t want him to drop my arm. I held his gaze until he released me. He looked at his plate, evidently flustered.

“Bravo, Monsieur
le curé,
” said my mother. Her eyes were wet. I feared she might applaud.

F
ORTUNATELY, THE PREPARATIONS for Michelle’s wed ding soon distracted all of us. To pay for the trousseau—a surprise for Michelle—my father spent his free hours fashioning several fancy hats to sell to old customers, and so was too busy to bear a grudge. Our house became civil once more. Joseph dined with us more regularly, which helped alleviate any persisting tension. In church, Bérenger resumed a milder tone in his sermons.

It was a hopeful time in the village. The harvest had been good, grain and grapes both. Bérenger declared it a blessing from God, and it did seem that way. The year’s plenty allayed ancient resentments: old foes shook hands, gossip became less malicious. The harvest festival was raucous that year. All the village turned out. The Verdiés opened the new wine and most of us drank until we were giddy or sick. Mme Ditandy, mistress of one of the larger houses in the village, made a gorgeous harvest bouquet—a cross of dried maize, lilies, and grass—and M. Ditandy hung it above the entrance to the square for all to see. M. Malet played his accordion, Messieurs Baudot and Fauré joined him on guitar, my father and M. Lébadou sang, and we danced into the early-morning hours.

Our family, as a kind of surrogate family for Bérenger, finally began to gain acceptance that fall. Mme Paul came out to chat with Mother as she was hanging the laundry; Mme Gautier, the butcher’s wife, became her good friend. And, most memorable of all, Michelle and Joseph married in a wedding that entranced the whole village. Michelle swept her beautiful black hair into a sophisticated twist and circled it with a garland of anemones. She wore a silk dress that Joseph had bought for her with a bodice of lace that lay like sea foam at her throat. Mother and I helped her dress, and I kissed her before the ceremony and whispered encouragements in her ear.

Then Toussaint came, and with it, the beginning of winter. The oaks, figs, and laurels were bare, the thistles flowerless. It rained for days at a time. The red soil absorbed the rain thirstily but still blew in the wind, dirtying the stucco houses.

One morning, as I was in the midst of preparing the midday dinner, M. Deramon, the postmaster, arrived with a letter for Bérenger. He refused to give it to me until I wiped my hands on a towel, and even then, he warned me to handle it carefully. “Can’t you see who it’s from?” he admonished, his arthritic finger poking the return address: Monseigneur Calvet, Carcassonne. “Monsieur
le curé
is not at his desk, otherwise I would have brought it to him directly.”

“Don’t worry, monsieur, I’m not going to add it to the stew.” I set it on the chair by the door. M. Deramon eyed me suspiciously before he left. He disapproved of young women.

I handed the letter to Bérenger after I served him dinner. He received it with raised eyebrows and opened it immediately. Mother and I ate as he read.

He gave a short laugh. “I’ve been suspended,” he said. He set the letter on the table beside his bowl.

“What?” said my mother. “What do you mean?”

“The Minister of Religion has suppressed my salary. I must leave immediately for Narbonne. The bishop has a teaching post at the seminary for me.” He slurped his stew as if the news were no more than a minor alteration in plans.

“What?” said my mother, her voice quiet with horror. “How can that be?”

“It is what it is. A priest does not make his own fate.” He did not look at either of us. I could tell from his brusque speech that he was wounded.

“But why would they suspend you?” I asked.

“Because I counseled my congregation on how to vote. Because I guided my flock in the appropriate direction for the faithful.” He slurped forcefully.

“But they can’t do that!” my mother said. She stood. “How can they do that?”

Bérenger shrugged. “The world is changing, Isabelle.” He finished his stew and set his spoon beside his plate, then looked at me pointedly, as if he had something important to tell me. I felt my pulse race. I could not tell what was in his mind, but his gaze was full of passion, and I began to hope—against all reason—that he might take me in his arms.

Finally, he set his napkin on the table. “Very good stew, Marie,” he said. Then he stood and declared that he would pack his bag.

That night, Mother and Father argued at supper. “This is just what you’ve wanted since he arrived!” said my mother.

“It is not what I’ve wanted,” my father said. “You know me better than that.”

“How do I know you weren’t the one who told on him in the first place?”

“Now, Isabelle,” said Bérenger. “Edouard would never have done such a thing.”

“Shut up!” my mother screamed at Bérenger, shockingly. Claude laughed with surprise. Mother burst into tears and ran upstairs, where she muted her sobs with a pillow.

“You’ll have someone else to continue your catechism, Claude,” said Bérenger. Claude nodded solemnly.

“We’ll miss you, Bérenger,” said my father.

“I’ll miss all of you,” said Bérenger, looking at me. “Very much.”

They reached Natzaret on the day before Shabbat, climbing the hill into town. Some of the townspeople welcomed them joyfully, but Yeshua’s mother—also called Miryam—ushered him into the house, her face tight with anxiety. “There are people here who want to kill you,” she said. “They have heard what you have been saying.” She pleaded with him to stay home that night, not to come to the synagogue at sundown, for she feared for his life. But he scolded her.

“So they’re not happy with me.” He shrugged. “Should this keep me from worshipping my Father?”

But Miryam was frightened. She watched anxiously as Yeshua and his brother Yakov donned their prayer shawls and phylacter ies. Miryam held the fringe of Yeshua’s shawl as he prepared to go to the synagogue, and when he shook her off and left with his family, she opened her throat and howled as loudly as a cow bearing her calf. Kefa struck her and she fell to the floor. He closed the door and barred the exit from the outside. “Do not open your mouth while we are gone,” he said, “or I will cut out your tongue myself.”

The fear came then, overtaking her like the quiet night. The air was cooling quickly as the light left the sky. She strained to hear voices, song, anything from the synagogue, but she could not. Only the crickets offered a respite from the unanswerable silence. But soon their chirping became louder and louder, swelling into a unison scream. She raced from corner to corner, knocking over stools and baskets like a trapped beast. She fought the urge to throw herself against the mud walls. She could not stay inside.

There was a small ladder leaning against the wall. This she perched on a bench, allowing her to reach the underside of the roof—a covering of mud-caked branches spread across several planks of wood. She scratched at the mud with her fingernails. The ladder tipped beneath her, causing her to fall twice. Once she caught her jaw on the edge of the bench and bit into her tongue, tasting blood. Eventually, a few branches came loose and fell to the floor. She tore at the roof then, pulling more branches onto herself and tossing them aside, until she had opened a hole large enough to climb through. Then she grabbed the edge of one of the planks and, exerting all her effort, pulled herself up through the hole. Yeshua’s family would be angry with her for destroying the roof—they would probably forbid her from entering the house again, but she did not care, so frightened she was by the night and his absence and by the unknown fate that awaited him.

She could see the synagogue from here: the door was closed, but a flickering light leaked from beneath it. She jumped to the ground and ran there, her skirts in her hand. The door opened with a creak, releasing the scent of the mint that had been sprinkled on the floor before the service. She hesitated at the entrance, afraid she might be discovered. But no one came, so she continued in, circling the inner room to find the stairs that led to the balcony, where the women sat. A ring of children played knucklebones at the door; she crept behind them and slid against the wall, trying to keep out of sight. Yakov’s wife sat with her daughter on her lap and Yeshua’s mother sat next to them, stroking her granddaugh ter’s hand.

One of the boys in the ring—the son of Yakov—ran to whisper something in his mother’s ear. She turned and then nudged Yeshua’s mother, who also turned. They studied Miryam curiously. Earlier that day, Yakov’s wife had asked Yeshua’s mother who “that woman” was. “Yeshua sits by her and walks with her,” she had said, her voice full of implication. “Has he found his new wife?” Yeshua’s mother had shaken her head and sighed; she did not know, she said, but she hoped not. She had seen Miryam twitching and whispering to herself.

Miryam could not see well through the screen, but she could hear. It was Yeshua chanting now. She knew his voice better than her own. It sang out with solemn passion the verse from Yeshayah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives. To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then there was a pause, and she felt her heart rise into her throat.

“Today,” he said, “this scripture is fulfilled.”

There was a tense silence and then an explosion of sibilant whispers. The children stopped their game and looked toward the screen.

Yeshua continued, “I speak to you in the Spirit of the Lord God of Yisrael. His day has come. The lame walk! The blind see! Demons flee from him! Rejoice in his name!”

“You are out of order,” said the
chazzan,
standing next to him on the bima. “Please.”

“I have come to tell you that the Kingdom of God is here. You’ve all been waiting—you need wait no longer!”

“Who are you to say that you speak in the Spirit of the Lord?” thundered a broad-shouldered man.

“Why do you question me?” Yeshua responded.

“You expect us to swallow what you’re saying? You, the son of Yosef the carpenter?”

“You think I am a charlatan because you have not seen my miracles for yourselves.”

Another voice spoke, low and gruff, “That’s right. We have people in need of healing here, among us, in your home country.”

Another voice: “Why did you not heal your father, if God gave you such a gift? Why not your wife?”

Several voices spoke at once now, some shouting. One finally emerged, the loudest: “Even if he can do such things, how do we know it’s God who has given him this power?”

Then there came a great crash. Miryam rushed forward with the other women and children, and pressed her nose against the screen. Yeshua had thrown the chair from the bima, and it had splintered on the ground below him. The men closest to the platform were covering their heads; one had fallen to the ground and was being helped up by another.

“I should have known this would happen here!” Yeshua roared. “I should have predicted you—the people of my own village—would receive me with hatred and loathing! But listen to me, Natzaret! In the days of Eliyahu, when the heavens gave no water for three and a half years, how many in Yisrael were made widows? How many starved? And yet God sent Eliyahu only to Zarephath in Sidon. In Sidon! And in the days of Elisha, when so many were lepers, how many were cleansed in Yisrael? Only one! Naaman the Syrian!”

“What are you saying, Yeshua?” someone shouted. “That God has no love for his own people?”

“When his people scorn his words, spoken to them in love, when they spit on his offering to them, how can he love them?”

The men’s voices then erupted in rage, a roar so loud it seemed to shake the foundations of the synagogue, even the bedrock of the mountain. Women grabbed their children and ran downstairs, fleeing the chaos. Only Miryam and Yeshua’s mother remained. They watched the men rush toward the bima in one movement, like water filling a hole. Five of them scrambled up the steps to the pulpit and surrounded Yeshua, yelling and pushing. One of the men—broad-shouldered and the tallest of the five—wrapped his arms around Yeshua’s chest and pulled him toward the stairs while the others followed, still shouting. They were met at the base of the stairs by several of Yeshua’s followers. Andreas grabbed the legs of the broad-shouldered man in an effort to topple him, but another man pulled him off. Kefa fought with another man and Yakov and Yochanan tussled with three others. More men leapt into the center of the struggle until the whole grappling body of men resembled a great beast, thrashing in pain.

The
chazzan,
still standing on the bima, shouted, “Stop! Stop! You are desecrating God’s holy day! You are desecrating Shabbat!” over and over, his voice breaking.

Miryam began to wail and the noise raised several heads. But the broad-shouldered man was dragging Yeshua toward the door, helped by two others who held his feet and legs. Several followed, though most were still engaged in the fighting. Miryam and Yeshua’s mother rushed downstairs.

The men dragged Yeshua to the escarpment just beyond the synagogue. Hundreds of feet below, past jagged, jutting rocks, a thin stream wound.

“Noah! Let go of him!” screamed Yeshua’s mother.