“The way they are! You can say that again, Father. If I’d known you were coming, I would have dressed up a little, done my hair ... You’re always doing us such good!”
“Well, exactly! I didn’t want to put you to all that trouble. After all, the Good Lord always sees you exactly as you are. Why should his priest have any extra privileges? The Church, you know, Lucie, has changed a great deal since Vatican II. It’s closer to the people now. All that pretense is over with! It is the soul that matters to the Church.” His voice sounds somewhat weary, with a hint of irony moderating his position’s mandatory inflexibility. He seems to live by rote, driven by a duty that time has adapted to fit any situation. “Little Fernand is giving you a catechism lesson?” he continues, feigning detachment.
“Oh, Father, that one is going to drive me crazy! Can you tell me where he gets those twisted ideas, which he trots out just to make us angry?”
The priest appears to ponder for a moment, then directs a cold stare at her. “Upon my word, my good woman, I think I know. In fact, that’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”
A little anxious, she keeps her gaze steady as he draws out an adroit pause. He opens his mouth just as she’s about to speak. “Sometimes, my dear Lucie, acts of charity can lead to precisely the opposite of what you’d be entitled to expect. If you’ll permit me to indulge in an analogy in the style of the great Lafontaine, if a mother dog brings two wolf cubs into her litter, even though she treats them just like her own puppies, one day she’ll be surprised and grieved to discover that not only are the two little adoptees actually wolves, but they’ve also had a bad influence on her children. There, I think that’s perfectly clear.”
Stunned by these brutal words, Lucie is at first speechless, then a gnawing anger begins to rise within her. This isn’t the first time the priest has voiced such observations, but this time he’s gone too far. With her most generous instincts under attack, she turns suddenly, like a cornered animal. “Do you mean to say, Father, that I shouldn’t have taken in those two children, children who were abandoned heartlessly, who suffered torture at the hands of their parents? Do you mean to say that I should have let them go to foster homes, where things could have been even worse? Aren’t you happy, Father, that these children now have a decent home, a home that has taken them in with love and not for money?”
“My dear woman, when it comes to charity, I believe I know a bit more about it than you do.”
Seeing her protector’s vexed demeanour, Lucie opts to defuse the discussion with her most inane titter. “Father, of course I didn’t mean to lecture you!”
“I am fully aware — perhaps, you will agree, more so than you are, since I am a priest — of our sacred duty to help our neighbours. However, while generosity is perfectly praiseworthy in and of itself, it shouldn’t blind a benefactor to the risks it can entail.”
“But really, Father! Children! Seven and eight years old! They don’t even know what sin is yet.”
“My dear Lucie, you’d be surprised to know how much iniquity and filth can be lurking behind those angelic faces. These little ones were born and raised in vice. Certainly, they aren’t responsible for the seeds of sin that were planted in them, but they’re dangerous nonetheless, just like a rotten apple that, carelessly left in a barrelful of good ones, quickly spoils them all!”
“I beg your pardon, Father! You’ve been here for five minutes and I haven’t even offered you a seat. There’s the rocking chair, you like that one. Just a second and I’ll clear it off.” The chair is covered with crumpled clothing, and she carries the pile into the next room. The diversion does not fool the priest, and he sits down, resigned. “It’s already quite warm out. What can I get you? I’ve got some nice cold lemonade. Here, let me take your hat.”
“No, thank you, I’ll just hold it. But lemonade now, some lemonade would be nice.”
“Right away, Father.”
His hat, a panama, lies on his knees. He can’t bring himself to put it down anywhere. Everything is so messy that the hat might get sullied, or even infested with vermin.
“Here you go, Father. It’s really quite hot out today.” The priest takes the glass, holding it by his fingertips as if he were afraid of getting dirty. He looks at it despondently, then deposits it on a nearby buffet. “Don’t you like it, Father?”
“I’m not thirsty anymore. My dear Lucie, I’ve come this morning —” He breaks off, appearing to examine his thoughts, organizing them the way he does when he is about to give a sermon. When he continues, his tone is as even as a mechanism that will drone on until it reaches the end of its wooden lament. “— to inform you of how dissatisfied — the word is not too strong — some people are with you. This is nothing new. When you were living in the village, I often had to act as your neighbours’ spokesman, tell you about their observations and even their complaints, which, by the way, were completely justified. I thought, however, that moving you here would make a difference. Moreover, you solemnly promised that you would mend your ways and do everything you could to make your generous benefactors happy, particularly the mayor, since I myself seem to have little influence over your decisions.”
“Father!” objects Lucie, fixing him with her large, limpid eyes. “How can you say that!”
“Please, don’t interrupt. I have a lot to say, and I want to get through it. Where should I begin? Oh, yes! The mayor, my good Lucie, is very disappointed. When he arranged for you to get this house by the water, a dream house, the perfect place to raise your children in peace, safe from bad influences — you know what I mean — he thought that you would maintain the place, if only out of gratitude, and maybe even improve it by taking care of the yard, putting in flower beds, that kind of thing. It’s clear that gardening is not your strong suit, but, like the mayor, I’m appalled at the fact that your lawn has become a wasteland of weeds and hay, and worst of all, that the yard is now a veritable garbage dump. That’s not too strong a word ...”
For the first few moments, Lucie attends to his remonstrances, but she slowly starts to daydream, though she pretends to listen deferentially to the priest. The pale hat on his knees distracts her, it is such a contrast to his dark garb — black pants and jacket, a deep purple shirt that reminds her of Good Friday. How can anyone brave summer like that, wearing night’s attire, with the heat of day blasting out like a furnace? Poor man! He must be really hot! She would like to take him into her room, undo his buttons one by one. His chest would peep whitely through his greying hair, then his belly button, a tiny baptismal font. Then she would undo his belt, and his pants would fall to his ankles, and she would uncover him completely, lay him bare, and he would let her, like a child. She would lay him on his back and, with the powerful femaleness that radiates from her bobbing nipples, her consuming abyss, she would transform this chubby fifty year old into a turgid, steaming prayer, perform the ritual sacrifice to the gods of pleasure. She would make this venom-filled preacher a happy man, ecstasy bubbling from his lips like milk. Sated, replete. He would hum, wearied, in a ravished, prone stupor. A true priest, purged by her expert care, as gentle and humble as an old-fashioned choirboy embarrassed by his robes.
“Are you listening, my child?”
“Yes, yes, Father, but ...”
“You’ll have your turn to speak, if you think there’s anything to say. I’m simply passing along the mayor’s warning. The complaints he’s received are very serious; I hope you understand that.”
“Well, complaints ...”
“Thoroughly justified complaints. Do you know what’s stopping some of your neighbours from putting their houses up for sale? For one thing, their value has dropped so much that they can’t bring themselves to take such a disastrous step. For another, they don’t know what kind of people would want to buy a house in such a rundown neighbourhood. Then there’s the risk of disreputable purchasers jumping on the opportunity