Her First Priest
Sicily, 2022.
The code of honour disdained attacks from behind, but this was a priest so Daria was prepared to break it. On his first circuit of the cloister, she satisfied herself that it was him; on the second, she struck. As he passed, she moved fast and silently out of the shadows in his wake. The breviary flew from his hands as she applied the full nelson; it caught flecks of his blood as she smashed his face into the finely carved, time-worn pillar. He made no sound as Daria forced him to the ground. She lay on top of him, smelling his fear, waiting for a note of another odour that would give her the strength to finish the job. Fleetingly, Daria wondered if he knew how this would end, while her mind raced back to how, for her, it had started.
Calabria, 2016
He was God’s representative on earth, and so it was right for her to love him, truly, fully, deeply as she loved her one true Lord. And as the Lord loved her, so it was right that he, too, love her, and that they express their overpowering love with every fibre of their interlocking bodies. The days of her early adolescence were thus suffused with joy and meaning.
Despite her parents’ coldness and the harshness of her second-rate teachers, the world seemed a wondrous place.
He had urged her not to speak of their love to anyone else – “the unfortunates”, he called them – and Daria had kept that promise. Yet her friends felt the glow of her blossoming happiness, and a few sensed the source, though they put it down to a run-of-the-mill crush instead of an all-consuming mutual passion.
It was Veronica who sowed the first seed of doubt. Veronica was not even her best friend. She was a few months older, decidedly prettier, far more self-confident. And fond of recounting improbable experiences with “men”, on whom she deemed herself an expert.
They had stopped in the park on the way back from school so that Veronica could practise her smoking. She was good at moving the cigarette languidly to her lips, but then had trouble getting the smoke in and out of her mouth quickly, before it made her cough. “It’s the only thing I won’t swallow,” she would comment.
That day, unusually, she seemed interested in Daria.
“Father Francesco seems to like you,” she whispered, leaning forward to add weight to her confidential tone. The mention of his name set Daria’s heart pounding. What to reply?
“Do you think so?”
“Not half! He drools at the sight of you. Mind you, he drools over anything in a skirt, if it’s short enough. Dirty old man.”
Daria was appalled. How could anyone, even Veronica, be so malicious, so mistaken?
“He loves us all.”
“And you in particular, is it? Don’t make me laugh!”
Daria felt the bile rising within her. What should she do to this … heathen? Let God punish her. It was not for us to take over His work. Besides, He would do it far better than she ever could.
Veronica looked at her tongue-tied friend with pity. A crush on a mature man would set back her development; the boys would sense she was weird and keep their distance. Not necessarily a bad thing: she might even keep –
“My God, you haven’t?”
Shock ripped the mask of sophistication from Veronica’s baby face.
“Oh no! Daria, why?”
Why deny it?
“The love of the Lord .. love … body and soul.”
“Yeah, right, your body and every other little virgin’s that he can con into his cloister. You think you’re the only one?”
Veronica saw from Daria’s face that she did. She strove for a way to help her. Best make her see the truth now, before it was too late, before she got knocked up. She was old enough, damn it.
“You want proof, I’ll give it to you. Cazzo!”
Veronica’s fingers jerked away the cigarette which had burnt down on to them. She saw Daria was crying.
“Jesus wept, this is real pain,” she said, flapping her scorched fingers. “I’m off home. Miss Father-fucker, learn to keep your legs crossed, advice from one who knows.”
As she stomped off towards the unfailing balm of her mother’s over-concern, most of the pain Veronica felt was for Daria.
The mobile phone that Francesco had lent Daria vibrated in her purse. This time the messenger was not him, though the message was. A sick feeling spread throughout Daria as she scrolled through the photos Veronica had sent her. She did not recognise the girl – someone perhaps younger, and certainly plainer, than Daria. The penis looked like Francesco’s, but perhaps they all did. The out-of-focus body resembled his, though it could just as easily be someone else’s. In fact, it could not be Father Francesco, because he’d sworn he was hers alone! Her fingers hurt as she jabbed the buttons: “Nice try, Veronica”.
She saw neither her friend nor her lover for nearly a week. Then, on Saturday afternoon, when Daria was busy with her maths homework, her phone vibrated and Veronica was back in touch.
“I’m downstairs waiting for you. Let’s go!”
“Where?”
“You’ll see, kid. This time you’ll really see.”
Daria closed the phone and left it on her bed. She went out through the kitchen without saying anything to her parents in the living room. Down below, Veronica was revving her scooter. They did not exchange a word as Daria clambered on the back of it. Veronica felt Daria’s strong fingernails digging into her shoulders as they accelerated away.
Veronica drove through the dusty town, then out along the road that hugged the coastline and narrowed as it rose from beachside to cliff. She pulled into a small car park behind the “Trattoria Belvedere”.
“From here, we go on foot. Quietly. Got it?”
Daria nodded and followed her friend. She knew where Veronica was taking them. Some two hundred metres beyond the restaurant stood a long-abandoned holiday cottage, a relic of the days when their bustling little town had been a picturesque fishing village on the tourist map. As they approached, Daria prayed that it would be empty. Even though Veronica’s voice came in a whisper, it startled her.
“You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen here.”
Daria stared at her levelly.
“I’ve never believed your stories. Any of them.”
It seemed a reasonable lie. Veronica’s face hardened.
“Well, this time, seeing had better be believing. Now shut up.”
Veronica halted them at the threshold, where a front door had once been. She gestured Daria to listen. Daria heard nothing but the pounding of her blood. Then a kind of squealing, and a heavier, more regular sound. Veronica propelled her through the entrance. Daria felt her feet dragging her towards the end of her short happy youth.
As she came into the second room, two faces, one above the other, rose to stare at her, each displaying a different shade of horror. The lower face belonged to the girl in the photos. It screamed when it saw the kitchen knife twitching in Daria’s right hand. The face above it, partly obscured by the girl’s hair, was Francesco’s. Emotion drained from it as he pushed down on the girl’s back to prise his body free of hers and raise it from the mattress. Daria’s eyes fixed on his glistening penis as he strode towards her. Her hand clenched on the knife, but a glancing blow from his elbow sent it flying from her hand – the first and last time someone would disarm her so easily – as he passed. He was out of the front door; Veronica had disappeared. Then the back of his naked body, receding, appeared in the window in front of Daria. The figure broke into a run, stumbled, regained its footing and its poise, went on as though it had a spring in its step. Daria’s ears were battered by Father Francesco’s scream as he leapt into the void beyond the cliff-edge. It sounded for all the world like a scream of defiance.
Sicily, 2022.
Daria realised she had been repeatedly hitting the man’s head against the flagstones. He was dead. But this was a knife job. She drew the stiletto from its scabbard inside her boot and plunged it deep into the priest’s back. She would leave it there for the Church. They had paid for it, after all. Calmly, Daria pulled off her mask and her outer coverall. She primed them to disintegrate and threw them into a corner as she slipped back into the shadows, circumnavigated the cloister and stepped through the main door into the empty street, an early-rising tourist shielding her eyes against the bright Southern light and looking forward to the sights the new day would bring. Somewhere close by, a bell summoned the faithful.