The Priest's Madonna (22 page)

I led him to the church porch, where Bérenger was sketching plans in a notebook. Seeing us, he set down his notebook and pen and greeted the stranger cordially. When the man introduced himself, Bérenger appeared momentarily horrified. “So glad to finally make your acquaintance, monsieur,” he said, recovering and offering his hand. “What an honor.”

“The honor is mine, Monsieur
le curé.
”

“I hope our humble village has not disappointed you.”

The Austrian laughed. “The walk uphill has already offered me more beauty than I could have imagined. What a glorious place.”

“I thank you,” Bérenger responded. A silence ensued. Bérenger looked like one of his hunted hares, eyes unblinking, caught off-guard at the moment of his death.

“Perhaps the gentleman would enjoy a tour, Monsieur
le curé,
” I offered.

“A fine idea.”

“Yes, yes,” Bérenger hurried. “Just the thing. Though it’s a shame your arrival could not have coincided with a sunny day, when the views are more splendid.”

“We might start with the church,” said the man as he walked toward the door, eyeing the exterior.

“Of course. We’ve been very busy with our efforts at restoring the building, as you can see.” Bérenger followed the man inside.

I longed to go with them, but it would have appeared strange, so I set to work preparing a suitable meal for their return, congratu lating myself for having dusted thoroughly that morning. They remained in the church more than an hour—longer than even the most detailed tour warranted. I was making an errand home when they emerged, and I noticed that Bérenger’s expression had grown dark and guarded. Deep in discussion, they continued past the presbytery to the fields beyond, where they might catch a glimpse of the red roofs and smokestacks of Espéraza beneath the cloud cover.

When they returned, another hour later, the top leaves of the salad had already wilted. I picked them off, setting them aside to feed to the rabbits, and laid out the bowls for the stew. Bérenger gave me a grateful grimace.

“You must understand my position,” the Austrian was saying. “Certainly, I don’t require you to agree with it. I have nothing against priests. Far from it, in fact. The priests I knew in Vienna have been some of the most outspoken voices, the most daring minds I’ve known. Though there were a few whose souls belonged not to God but to the emperor. In any case, my question is this: Why the inconsistency? How can both Saint Paul and the gospel accounts be true? It seems to me that either Christ rose to heaven, body intact, and that explains the disappearance of his corpse from the tomb, or he didn’t—his rising was purely spiritual and his body remained here, below, as Saint Paul has it.”

Bérenger answered immediately, his face charged with the passion of his argument. “Saint Paul says, as do the gospels, that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. And that he appeared to Peter, the apostles, and then to more than five hundred brethren at one time.”

“But what does ‘rose’ mean? Or ‘appeared’? We speak of them as if they mean ‘in the flesh,’ that he appeared in the flesh to the apostles and the crowd of five hundred.”

“And so he did. ‘See my hands and feet,’ ” Bérenger quoted. “ ‘A spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ ”

“Exactly my point,” exclaimed the Austrian. “We read that passage in Luke. But Paul says, in no uncertain terms, ‘Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.’ Flesh does not rise, then, in Paul. It’s impossible there, but possible, even imperative, in Luke. It’s contradictory, my dear
curé.
You can’t deny that.”

“I can and will. Paul preached the resurrection. It was the essence of his message. ‘If the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised then your faith is futile.’ ”

“But raised
how
? Paul says, ‘We shall all be changed.’ From the perishable to the imperishable. From the flesh to the spirit. As Christ was. His
spirit
is what ascended. Is that not right?”

“
Noli me tangere,
Christ said to the Madeleine. ‘Do not hold me back, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.’ How could she hold back a spirit?”

The Austrian leaned back in his chair. “Never get into a quoting match with a priest,” he laughed. “I still haven’t learned that lesson.”

Bérenger’s eyes flashed, his fingers kneaded the table. “Christ ascended to the Father bodily, and was changed from flesh to spirit after his ascension.”

“A-ha,” the Austrian said, sitting upright once again. “So the magic happened then in heaven?”

“Yes,” said Bérenger, though his eyes were wary. “Most likely.”

“Most likely?”

“You concern yourself too entirely with the literal. These are matters for God, not man.”

“Agreed. Man is concerned primarily with the flesh. And does not flesh imply sin?”

“As it is commonly used, I suppose,” Bérenger conceded.

“Jesus, then, being born into the flesh—could he have been fully free of sin?”

“What a question.”

“Pardon me, Monsieur
le curé
—I don’t mean to cause you offense. It is a question that has fascinated me for years now, and I can’t help but ask it of one who is better schooled in theology than I. Having lived as many years as I have and seen much of the world, I have the notion that one of the characteristics that defines humanity is sin. We cannot escape it, it seems.”

“You’re wrong,” Bérenger replied. “It may be rare, but it is possible. Think of our saints. Bernadette, Germaine—”

“Yes,” the man interrupted. He rubbed his forehead vigorously. “Is it not possible, though, that Jesus was born into the flesh as a man, lived a man’s life, complete with sin and repentance, and then rose above it, as a saint does—perhaps even higher in his devotion and communion with God until he ultimately achieved union with the divine?”

“Jesus, as you know, was not born through sin, nor was his mother, the blessed Virgin. They were, therefore, not subject to the same tendency toward sin as the human race is, who are conceived in sin. It’s difficult for most people to apprehend the mysterious union of mortal and immortal that characterized our Savior—that he could be fully man and fully God at once. Too commonly I have seen people try to reduce Christ, to make him into something smaller than he was, because their minds are small themselves, too small to contain the enormity of Jesus. You are trying to make him common. You should look to the Madeleine, if that’s the kind of holiness you desire, the rising above sin. She’s the very model of a penitent sinner.”

“A wise comment. Yes, perhaps.” He sipped his wine and nodded again. The argument seemed to be finished, and I was about to step forward to clear the plates when the Austrian spoke again. “Forgive me once more, Monsieur
le curé.
For argument’s sake, grant me an assumption. If Saint Paul’s declaration, that the flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of God, is in fact the truer statement—”

“One is not truer—” Bérenger protested.

“Please.” He smiled hostilely. “Allow me to finish my thought. If we assume that in fact Christ did not rise from the dead in his own flesh, but rather in spirit, then the question remains: Where did his body go?”

“I can’t argue according to false assumptions.”

The Austrian pressed further. “Wouldn’t you admit that it’s possible the body might have been stolen—by those closest to him, perhaps, who wanted to give it a proper burial?”

“No. I would not admit that. Then the message the apostles preached throughout Palestine for the rest of their lives would amount to pure lies. I will never admit such a thing.”

“No, I suppose not.” He smiled again, smugly this time, and I felt a keen dislike for him and his aggressive grinning. “Others do, though, or did. The Knights Templar, for example, may have held fast to just such an idea.”

“Then they were blasphemers, and earned their fate.”

The Austrian paused, letting the viciousness of Bérenger’s statement penetrate the moment. The Templars, a medieval monastic order who had acted as a kind of police force in Jerusalem during the Crusades, had been arrested
en masse
in France, tortured, and many killed. Then he leaned forward and said gently, “Forgive me, Father. I see I’ve angered you.”

“Not at all,” Bérenger insisted, through clenched jaws.

“I have a reputation for incorrigibility, as you can see.”

“His body was raised to heaven,” Bérenger said in his sermon voice. “You need trouble yourself no longer with the question. Get rid of such crazy notions. That old priest—he had obviously lost his faith to suggest such a thing. It happens sometimes, sadly. Such people are deserving of pity and care, but not respect. Put him out of your head.”

He gave a sinister smile. “I will do my best to follow your advice,” he said. He slipped his hand beneath his coat pocket and removed a silver cigarette case. He offered the open case, fragrant with tobacco, to Bérenger, who refused. Striking a match on a flint the size of his thumbnail, the Austrian said, “I am a man of the world, Monsieur
le curé.
I do not go in for holiness, as you have undoubtedly already observed. Things that pertain to this world interest me. I remain interested in your lovely little church. Despite our differences, I do hope you will continue to keep your eyes open for me. There are five thousand francs available for your projects if you agree.” He bowed his head in a feigned sort of deference as he made the offer.

This astounded me, and I could not help but gasp—audibly enough that it startled Bérenger from his prideful fury. He turned abruptly to where I stood by the hearth. “Marie! Leave us at once,” he said.

Humiliated, I followed his order. I saw the Austrian only once more, from my kitchen window some hours later, when a dusty pink had begun to color the low-lying clouds. He carried his jacket over his shoulder and whistled as he walked.

I found Bérenger in his office as soon as the man had gone. “Did you take it?” I asked. “Did you accept his offer?” I had chosen—rather graciously, I thought—to ignore his abrupt dismissal, as it evidently stemmed from his tamped-down rage at the archduke.

“You should have removed yourself, Marie,” Bérenger replied angrily. “It wasn’t appropriate for you to be there.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you every time I need privacy.”

“How was I to know he was going to offer you money?” I retorted.

Bérenger glared at me. “It has nothing to do with money. Our conversation was not for your ears.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve had conversations like that ourselves.”

He remained silent.

“All right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to trespass on your privacy.”

Bérenger grunted an acknowledgment of the apology. He was busying himself with his papers, avoiding my eyes. I waited in vain for him to offer more information.

“Pardon me,
mon cher,
” I ventured again when he remained silent, “but you must allow me my curiosity. Did he speak of the letters we sent? Did he say why he hadn’t responded?”

“He was away at war.”

“Oh. A soldier.”

“A blasphemer,” Bérenger muttered.

“He’s ruffled you.”

“He’s no friend to the Church, Marie.”

“Was he angry you’d sold the old church things we found beneath the stone?”

“No. He seemed uninterested in them. He was far more taken with slandering Christ’s holy name.”

“Did you show him the stone?”

“Yes,” he said. “In fact, we lifted it together. He wanted to make sure there was nothing else beneath it.” He sighed. “The man gives me a headache.”

“But why is he so interested in our church?”

“He’s been entirely brainwashed by rubbish fed to him by the Freemasons. It’s a terrible pity, really. All the rest of the Hapsburgs are faithful Catholics. He’s a lost sheep. Sometimes this happens to royalty, sadly. They do have a tendency to fragility in their blood. Occasionally, a child is born a bit off.” He shook his head. I waited for the story I could sense was coming.

“It turns out,” Bérenger began, “that he first heard of our village not from his sister the abbess, but from an old French priest he had met as a young man. This priest used to sit by the fountain in the central plaza in Vienna, blessing everyone who passed, forever smiling. They called him
l’abbé des sourires.
He slept beneath the church eaves. Most people paid him no attention, but our young prince befriended him.
L’abbé des sourires
had fled France after the Revolution. There was only one thing he had left undone, a task he had promised to complete for a friend of his but couldn’t, so quickly had the violence erupted in his village.

“This friend, a priest
l’abbé
had known in seminary, had written to him often of a particular parishioner of his—the lady of the village, and a great patroness of the church—who had grown sadly deranged. She insisted on her own divinity, insisted that she and her family had descended from Jesus, who she believed, God forgive me, had sired a child with Marie Madeleine.”

“A child?”

“I told you the man was off.” Bérenger spoke heatedly.

“Evidently,” I said. I would have to proceed carefully if I wanted to hear the whole story.

Bérenger sighed scornfully, then continued. “The village dismissed the woman as mad, and the priest was inclined to agree, except for the fact of the woman’s repeated visions. The woman had episodes, it seems, moments when her face was transformed. This was what convinced the priest apparently, after he witnessed one of her episodes—the appearance of her face. Normally wrinkled and troubled, it grew still and gentle, like a child’s, and a smile of such grace and blessedness grew on it that she appeared to be welcoming our Lord himself.” Bérenger himself appeared momentarily transported, and I thought I glimpsed the light of curiosity in his eyes. But he collected himself and added, “Those were the words the archduke used.”

“Of course,” I said.