†
“D’ata, what has possessed you, son?” Monsignor Leoceonne raised his voice to an uncharacteristic timbre, making him sound almost female. “You disgrace me, you disgrace your father, and most of all, you disgrace God and the church!” He paced the floor, his robes whirling as he spun in front of the younger man.
The abbey was dark and quiet, and the Father’s voice rang hollow down the empty rectory halls like a lone cow, bellowing the loss of her calf. The other clergy prayed in the private confines of their own chambers, silently…so they could hear.
Never had there been such a scandal as this. The lovers had been caught naked in St. Aloysius, and the ornamental rug was now stained with the virgin’s blood! It was so unbearably scandalous! They had been separated—ripped from each other—wet with their sweat, blood, and carnal fornication.
D’ata’s chamber was small with low ceilings and a heavy wooden door. A single window was the only other access. A lone candle burned on the simple timbered nightstand, and the narrow bed had a solitary woolen blanket with faded linen sheeting. Hand written scripture lay on the nightstand, penned by the young priest these past weeks.
He held his head in shame, kneeling on the stone floor before the older priest, his hands clasped tightly in his lap. “Father, I don’t know what to say.” He looked up, his tormented eyes damp. “I love her, Father…I cannot bear to be away from her.” He gestured with his palms up, adding hurriedly, “Perhaps it is a horrible mistake that I have chosen this path. I think my father may be mistaken too! I have prayed…” His dark eyes were bloodshot, his face gaunt, his hair dulled from the emotional anguish he so recently suffered. “It is not unheard of for a priest to—”
“Silence!” The monsignor waved him quiet. “Do not disrespect everything that has been done on your behalf!” He shook a stubby finger penitently. “Have you any idea the work that has gone into bringing you to this station?” He slashed the air with his finger. “It is not open to debate; you will accept your ordainment without argument!”
At long last, the Monsignor stopped, breathing heavily. Missing his front teeth, his incisors intact, he looked oddly to D’ata like a fat, old walrus in a black dress, complete with white collar. He shook the image from his mind and cradled his face in his hands.
“Please…just tell me,” he whispered, imploring the Monsignor with all the heartache in the world. “Where is she? Please?”
* * *
Upon their discovery, Monsignor Leoceonne had flown into a fury. Part of his anger came from the fact that he’d been entrusted with the young man’s ordainment, and evidently failed miserably, and part of his anger was because his beloved church had been so flagrantly defiled. After he raged for a good long while, he burned the lovely, ornate rug with the now truly bleeding heart behind the sanctuary. The flames had lapped hungrily at the thick wool, and it burned scarlet red—Satan’s fire.
The other priests had been summoned; the girl had been removed. D’ata was forced into his quarters and locked inside until it could be decided what next to do with him. Monsignor Leoceonne, after his initial outrage at finding the two in such a compromising position, thought hard about what the best choice might be. He met with the other priests to decide what steps should be taken to defuse the situation. It was without dispute that the papacy in Rome must be notified. Monsieur Cezanne would have to be notified of his son’s transgressions as well.
It was a very volatile affair. The church in Nimes could be punished, and there was sure to be an investigation, but the goal should not be to remove D’ata from his theological schooling. It was more prudent to force him into submission, to break and rebuild his heart. If they could do this, then his character would be more useful, more faithful than he would have ever otherwise been.
“What do you mean, ‘Where is she?’” the monsignor yelled at D’ata, his fat jowls shaking as he shook his head. Secretly, subconsciously, a certain element of the monsignor’s hostility had been due to the carnality of the situation, a desperate act that he himself would—should—never taste. “She has been sent back to her family, and her father will know of this! Believe me!” He ranted on, “You have seen the last of her, D’ata! Furthermore, if I witness another confession of the sorts which you have given me in the recent past, it will be God’s will that you shall be blinded, never to look upon one such as her again!”
“I have only told the truth!” D’ata insisted. “Surely truthfulness cannot be abominable in the eyes of God.”
“You, my son, are arrogant, disobedient, and insisting on destruction!” The monsignor paused to gasp for air, licking his lips from between his toothless gap. His tongue snaked out, curiously small for the size of the rest of him, especially considering the volume of what must pass over it daily. “You are chosen! You were given by God, and to him you will return, alone!” Sucking air across his walrus teeth, “Your disobedience has hurt many, not the least of which is the young woman you profess to love so much!” He whirled again, his robes brushing D’ata’s knees. “And do not think that your honesty makes right with our Father the abomination of your thoughts. I cannot allow you to destroy yourself and damage so many others as you do!”
D’ata pleaded, “Please forgive me; I don’t mean to hurt anyone. It’s just that…” His head fell and he shook it, falling silent, a desperate broken figure on the cold stone floor. Outside, the winds died down, the storm fading with melancholy sympathy.
Father Leoceonne harrumphed, accepting the humbled gesture as contrition. “Good—it is a start. However, do not think your repentance will right everything overnight. There will be a summons, disciplinary measures, and your father will be notified.” He gestured smugly, arms crossed. “This could go very poorly for you, D’ata.”
“No! Dear God, no; please don’t bring my father into this…not yet!” D’ata begged.
The Monsignor would hear none of it. “It is done. There is no one to blame but yourself!” Satisfied that he’d chastened the younger man sufficiently for the evening, he believed that the horror on the young man’s face was, in fact, submissive remorse. Monsignor Leoceonne pressed his fat smooth hands together in front of himself and swirled one last time, sweeping from the room like a great juggernaut. He locked the door behind him, pocketing the key.
* * *
D’ata rose from the floor and moved slowly to the window. For a long while he just stood, his sad, slender hands resting gently against the plastered sill. His heart broke as he remembered Julianne and the terrified look on her face as they’d dragged her from the church. She’d reached for him and kept saying, “No! No! You can’t!” She kicked and thrashed at the men, berating them for their narrow mindedness. She’d even called them fools!
How can the heart ache so? For D’ata, it was a crushing, suffocating ache. Once more, she was gone. He’d promised her he would not let that happen. And after she’d come so far to find him!
Looking out through the crack between the wood of the hinged shutters, he squinted to see the night, blinking to adjust his eyes to the darkness. There was no moon as the night sky was blanketed behind what was left of the summer storm.
The window was barred from the outside. He sighed and placed the candle on the window’s narrow ledge. In the dim light of the solitary flame, he lifted the crucifix and gazed sadly at the cross. Then, his eyes cleared as he thought returned to her.
With one move, he yanked, breaking the cord that fastened the heavy, leaded crucifix about his neck. Rosary beads fell to the floor around him, and along with them his uncertainty. A calm settled over his heart. He thought only of her.
Raising the cross, he began to use it to pry loose the mortar that cemented the window frame to the wall. It crumbled easily away. The plaster was a bad mix; not enough sand had been used. Even so, it was well past midnight when the heavy wooden sash finally fell away and the window frame hung jauntily from the structure. With one final heave, D’ata thrust the timber aside. For a quiet moment, he leaned on tiptoe, straining to see left and right, listening. Swilled with wine and most likely masturbated to exhaustion, the remaining priests were slumbering deeply.
Satisfied that all was quiet, he thrust the mangled crucifix into his pocket and hoisted himself onto the window ledge, shimmying easily out the little opening. Tumbling quietly to the blanket of wet leaves below, he glanced about then moved away, into the shadows of the buildings.
D’ata’s mind was made up. He must find her and make everyone else understand. His hand slipped to his pocket, and he palmed the crucifix. Mouthing a silent prayer, he stole quietly into the night, praying that God would understand, forgive, and help him.
The hand written scriptures remained face down on the bedside table. The passage was Corinthians, written over and over, nearly four hundred times. “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
Julianne had found him. Now, he would find her. The young lover made his way cautiously to the edge of the village before quickening his pace. The black of the woods reached out her long fingers, wrapping them invitingly around the dark figure. The faintest smile spread across his lips as he realized the eminence of his escape. Smiling tenderly back at him, the forest received him, pulling him in, swallowing him whole.
By morning, D’ata was well away from the township and wandering south and east. He was many days from his hometown of Marseille, but he possessed nothing other than time and the courage of a desperate heart. The fire in his soul fueled any weakness in his legs.
He tripped along, staying well away from paths and roads, obscuring himself in the densest regions of the forest. The beasts of the night only watched him pass, giving him safe berth. D’ata was uncertain of his whereabouts, only having a general idea of the proper direction, but this was comforting to him. He felt safe and hidden in this uncertainty, sure that each step brought him closer to his love.
It was well into the next afternoon before D’ata paused, weary in his tracks. He sought a secluded spot to rest. Finally, he came upon a particularly friendly woodland spruce with its branches reaching and brushing to the forest floor. Crawling beneath the blanketing foliage, he scrambled up against the trunk of the tree and stretched out, completely concealed from any unlikely traveler who may remotely pass by.
The dense umbrella of needles effectively obscured any of the afternoon light from disturbing his rest, and the forest became a friend to him, a keeper of his secrets. It swept him into its silent, hidden arms.
With a last simple prayer, the clandestine traveler pulled his robes over his head and lapsed into an exhausted slumber, his belly empty and his heart full. He dreamed…of their baby.