Skins

Part Eight.

When she continued her job in southern Karnataka, he had nothing but a melancholy fit for a Shakespeare tragedy. He walked to the market for his grandmother, and took the long way around to stand where she had. She was beautiful in all of her confusing philosophies, not strictly attractive, but pretty in the way words can be. Siddhanth stood outside the Lady of Lourdes in a daze of grief and found solace in the solemn statues of Christ.

Siddhanth had never been inside. In fact, he'd never considered it. The church existed in his world to remind him of the pain and re-inflict it. Like her letters. Like his collision memoirs.

*

Father Romero's hands shook. He held it lightly and ran his fingers along the leather cuts. The sandalwood. Unclasping it gently, he took the letters from it.

His lips trembled as he read. He laughed weakly at some passages and touched the words as if to get closer to their feeling. What his Catholicism had buried clawed its way to the surface of him.

He cried.

Stowing the letters away hastily, he crossed himself and stuffed the leather box into a timber desk drawer. One peculiarity he had noted, however, lingered on his mind.

Why hadn't she signed her name?

Father Romero didn't try to warm himself up that night. His feet ached and temples throbbed in rhythm with his pulse. He lay in the narrow bed provided for him and remembered the vows he'd taken.

Poverty.

Celibacy.

Obedience.

He thought of his brother's daughter who had his mother's eyes and skin. Ten years old. Her smile was white flowers and dappled sunlight through the stained glass of his dreams. She was lukewarm and calm. When she had visited from Milan she sat in the church and beamed at him. When he spoke gravely of sin, she touched his face with soft brown hands and whispered,

'Non ti preoccupare, zio.'

Don't worry, uncle.

'Gesù ti ama.'

Jesus loves you.