Martin Sloane (21 page)

You’re a big boy now.

Were they going to have a beer together? Martin wondered. He didn’t like beer, but he would be happy to share one with his father. I think so, he said.

Then I want you to come inside.

He meant the church. Martin reflexively pulled back on his father’s hand, and then let go. Churches were strictly off-limits. He had never been inside one before. Nor inside a synagogue. When his friends asked him which God he believed in, Martin didn’t even know what the options were.

I don’t think we should.

I know your mother wouldn’t want us to, but I can’t have my only son afraid of churches. Not in these times.

He walked uncomfortably under the stone buttresses, and it was dark there, before the door. Martin didn’t want to go through that door; it meant telling a lie, but his father was standing there, and then he was holding the door open, and the whole interior of the church gaped like a cave.

Martin, I’m not asking you now. Take my hand. He did, and they went in.

It was dusty and dark and white specks went pinwheeling through the air wherever the light was. The ceilings seemed higher than the building appeared from the outside, and huge wooden beams criss-crossed above the nave like swords. Some people were sitting alone in wooden chairs that had been placed along the stone floor; a few knelt with their heads on their clasped hands. Colin led Martin slowly into the great hall, their footsteps swallowed into the space above their heads. Martin placed his feet as quietly as he could. On both long walls, the stained-glass windows he’d always seen from the outside of churches glowed as if alive. The red and green glass panels looked like they had been lit up from behind, and a thick, lambent light filled the place.

Those are the stations of the cross, his father said. They depict the twelve places Jesus stopped on the way to the crucifixion. And these are graves — people are buried here, great people. This man was a bishop, you can tell by his hat. It’s called a simple mitre. Not anyone can make one. I’ve never made one.

His voice trailed off. Martin could hardly hear him over the roar in his ears anyway. He wanted to walk softly, invisibly, and he felt that if he touched anything but the floor his visit here would become a fact. They passed down the aisle between the two columns of chairs. Some people looked casually at them as they went by, some nodded. They were getting closer to the big cross at the front. A large table stood in front of it with vases to either side, and a spiral staircase rose to the right. Wooden pews faced into the centre of the space before the altar.

The priest prays here, this is the chancel, his father said. He was gesturing with his long, tapering fingers. He stands in front of the congregation and says the prayers, and then he leads them through the eucharist, when they consume the body and the blood of Christ. A reader stands here, at this lectern, and reads passages out of the prayerbook or the Bible. It’s a very beautiful service. The music is lovely. Your mother would love the music.

The body and the blood? Always these things became more complicated. He’d once believed the human body was like a confection of some sort, and now it seemed, at least in church, that it was. What would his mother say? Her face was rising in front of him and she was staring, her eyes white like the boy’s in William’s story. He saw her shake her head slowly, from side to side, her lips pulled up over her teeth. She opened her hands in front of him like she was going to grasp his face —
how, how could this have happened?
He looked away, and saw her again, but it was the statue of a woman under a thin light. Was it the Virgin? He’d seen the Virgin Mary before, but this one looked younger and sadder than the one outside the church on Cabra Road. He blinked at the figure. He heard horses going by on the road outside.

That’s her. That’s the Mother of God. See — it’s not so frightening.

His father took his hand and they walked into one of the transepts, and the horses passed close by on the other side of the wall. They were alone there. He kept his hands tight to his side.

This is a smaller chapel. Special services are held here. Private funerals, the like.

He let Martin take it in. The boy walked up to the black iron gate at the front of the small room. There was a book on a table open to a yellowed page. It looked like there were signatures in the book, faded signatures. The room felt like no one ever came into it and the table with the book on it was like the front table they had in their hall, the one that always had keys and circulars on it. His father was standing behind him in the doorway, watching him. He said quietly, Do you know what sin is?

Martin started from the book. It means doing something bad.

It’s something you do that’s bad, yes, even if you don’t know it’s bad.

How can you not know if you’ve been bad?

Because you’re human, his father said. You can only know you’ve been bad if God punished you.

His father came closer now and made as if he wanted to look at the book. He leaned over the railing and studied it for a moment, then looked at his hands and rubbed some dust off one palm with his thumb. It’s human to sin, he said. Everyone does it. But only God can decide to forgive us.

How do you know if He has?

We do our penance regularly and we cleanse ourselves. We
atone
even before we have sinned. Do you know what it is to be damned, Martin?

William told me.

Then you understand how important it is to be cleansed.

We should try to be good, Martin said, wanting to be helpful.

We can’t just try to be good, his father said. How do we know what’s good?

Martin shrugged slowly. Didn’t he know when he was being good? He knew when he wasn’t.

Only God knows what’s good, and when we’re being good. We have to say we’re sorry for not knowing. That’s what churches are for. To thank God for trying to show us the right way to live and to say we’re sorry for not knowing it, and beg Him to spare us.

An older couple came into the room. She ran a gloved finger over a wall sconce and he stood near the door, leaning in, but not wanting to enter. Martin’s father stopped speaking while they were there and it made Martin’s fear turn white. Why couldn’t these people hear about sin?

It’s not a very good one, is it, said the woman.

Let’s go, then.

I mean, it’s not even as impressive as St. Michan’s.

Well, let’s go then, said the man.

They left. Martin couldn’t think of anything to say. He wanted to leave. His father’s face looked wet. He began whispering, as if the people were still in the room.

Martin — we could die at any time. We could walk outside and get struck by a car, or a bomb could go off in the street. You got very sick, you know. You could have died.

But I didn’t.

But you could have. And you would have died in sin.

Martin stepped into his father’s shadow and put his face against him. But I
didn’t
, he said and he clasped his father to silence him. What could it matter what might have happened? He didn’t die. Many other things had happened that were bad, but he hadn’t died and that was a good thing. His father slowly put his arms around him and Martin could smell him: a sharp leather smell, and another scent, a kind of blossom.

Do you know the story of Jesus in the wilderness? his father said. Martin shook his head. God sent Jesus into the wilderness so Satan could tempt him. Forty days and nights Satan tested Jesus, to make him turn, but Jesus was steadfast in his devotion to God. Martin quaked against his father. Never had he heard him speak of these things, or in this tone of voice, which sounded like it was imparting serious and unhappy secrets. The way we live, as modern people, is like that wilderness, Martin. We are tested every day, and if we fail that test, we belong to that darkness. I want more for the ones I love, do you understand?

Martin nodded.

You’re entitled to God’s protection, no matter what your mother says, and refusing the gift of His love is as bad as succumbing to temptation. I want you to remember that for always. That’s something that’s between you and me and God, you understand, for always.

Now he was silent, and Martin held himself still, waiting for it all to be over, but then his father pushed him back abruptly and with a damp, hot hand on his shoulder steered him out of the transept. Martin could suddenly smell perfume, and there was the sound of music-stands being moved about: the choir arriving for its practice in the crossing between the pews. There was too much movement, too much happening, and Martin felt he had to sit down, and he even dropped his back as if he would, but his father’s powerful hand on his shoulder was sweeping him back through the nave. A woman dropped her purse as they passed her and his father lunged down to pick it up and hand it back. There were three sounds: the rough hiss of the purse’s brocade scraping against the floor, the heavy sound of the coins in the purse being clasped, and the faint slap of the purse being pushed into the woman’s hand. Martin heard all three sounds like they were being made separately, and it felt like everything inside the church was being divided into separate sounds and visions. There were two people walking slowly down the narthex, the sound of a book being closed, and the main door to the church being opened, admitting people and light. The door, the light. The door.

But instead of turning left and leaving the church, his father turned right, and Martin saw a man dressed in black robes standing at the back, near some blocked doors. He came forward and greeted his father:

Peace be with you, Colin.

And his father replied, his tongue dry against his teeth, And peace be with you.

I’m Father Stirling, said the man. I’m the priest here. I’m like a rabbi, you see?

I don’t think he’s seen a rabbi. Have you?

A picture.

Your father asked me to come and say hello and welcome you to St. Alban’s. Do you like our church?

Martin said it was large and dark.

Dark to allow people to be with their thoughts, and large so God can get in. The sun was so low now that some of the slits of light were coming sideways through the air. He watched Father Stirling’s face move through one of the white bands, and the dust was like starlight in a morning sky.

His father and the priest shook hands, and Father Stirling walked toward another transept behind him. Martin’s father took his hand and they followed. This transept had a stone birdbath in it and Father Stirling swirled his finger in it and gestured for Martin to come to his side. He told Martin again that he was welcome to St. Alban’s. He touched a wet finger to Martin’s forehead and to his chest.

You’re a good boy, I can tell, said the priest, and he and his father shook hands again, although now the priest was not smiling. Father Stirling crouched down in front of Martin.

I know you’re leaving for Galway in a matter of days, son. But there are churches there should you ever want to talk to anyone about anything. Your dad will know which ones you should go to, if you like.

I’m both, though, Martin said. I’m Jewish too.

God will recognize you.

They walked together out of the church and Father Stirling wasn’t standing there when Martin cast his eyes back into the dark space. People continued to swirl in and out, many of them were old ladies with soft faces and black eyes. Outside the air was much fresher and the streets were bustling, although it had begun to get dark. The sun between the buildings was airy and seemed filled with a green light, like the afternoon light on a lawn. His father let go of him and wiped his hands on the sides of his pantlegs. He said they would have to get home quickly now. A man who knew them called out hello, and when his father lifted his hat, Martin saw that his hair was stuck down to his head, gleaming and damp. Then he put his hat back on and turned to Martin, the blacks of his eyes wide as pennies —

I left it on the whole time! I left my hat on the whole time we were inside the church. He laughed to himself, like it was the strangest thing a person could do, and he blinked a drop of sweat off his lashes. Then he drew his fingertips across his brow and rubbed them against his thumb. Martin touched his own forehead — it was dry. The water had already been absorbed by his skin.

On May twelfth, the day of the London coronation, they woke for their last day in the house on Iona Road. For the last time, they ate breakfast at the table (the one someone had purchased and would pick up by lunch), and for the last time Theresa went to school, glaring at Martin by the door. Tomorrow at this time, they would already be in the car, eating scones their mother would pack before they left. The scones were baking right now, and the sweet, sweaty fragrance came up the stairs to where Martin was sitting.

He had already been taken out of school. He’d missed so much with his illness that he had been removed from his classes. He would begin third form again in Galway. Through the fanlight above the door he watched Theresa cross the road toward her school on Connaught Street. She joined a pack of girls there and they enveloped her. It began to rain, just a little.

His parents were moving slowly around the house, not speaking much, although sometimes passing him on their way to a half-filled box, one of them would smile or touch him. Every time his mother or his father offered him a weak smile, he wanted to leap to his death from the top of the stairs. The morning seemed to last hours and hours, and although he was supposed to be helping (or at least packing the remains of his own things), he did very little but sit on the landing between the main and second floors, watching his parents go up and down. Around noon, his mother called him downstairs where his father was sitting beside the radio, and they listened to the broadcast from Buckingham Palace.

And now we hear the voice of His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury as he enters into a solemn dialogue with the new king. They are standing twenty deep along Whitehall listening through the loudspeakers. There are the trumpets! The next voice you hear will be the Archbishop of —

Will You solemnly promise and swear to govern the peoples of Great Britain, Ireland —