Skins

Part Eighteen.

The man on the opposite side of the grate held his face in his hands and listened to the angry sounds of a young man leaving the church. He pitied him. Instead of waiting, fold-legged, looking slightly odd in his Western clothing, for the next confessor, he climbed out through his exit. He fell on his knees at the chipped statue of Mary. Their Lady. Our Lady. Never his. Not that much was, in the first place.

He thought incoherently through his soft prayers for the angry youth. He thought, perhaps, the missionary he had confessed was a Catholic. For a glimmering second, vows crossed his mind. To break them in the name of revenge? To give sinners wailing, spitting fire and gnashing of teeth? A strange pleasure coursed through Priest Vipin at the thought.

Playing God.

*

It was three in the morning, when the night stained everything like spilt black ink. Father Romero's old corded telephone rang and cut his dreams cleanly in half. He creaked out of his bed and unhooked it.

'Hello?' he coughed.

'Romero?'

'Yes? Who's calling? It is late.'

'I don't mean to disturb, Father. It's Vipin,' the voice hissed down the line. 'There was a very strange confessor this morning. What he testified seemed rather incriminating.'

Romero recognised the priest's rolling accent and cleared his throat. 'The Lady of Lourdes?'

'Yes.'

He sat down on his bare wooden chair and leaned over his desk. 'Well?' he said.

Priest Vipin's voice was shaky. His story spilled out in great rushes, interrupted by his breathing. 'A young man wandered in today. I'd never seen him before, he's not part of the Congregation. He sat in confession and told me he had sex with a missionary.'

'A missionary? Vipin, you have vows, the confidentiality of the confessor must be prote--!'

'He isn't a Catholic! I have no obligation to keep the filthy secrets of heathen street-dogs, or your missionaries!' Vipin spat.

Father Romero paused. 'My missionary?'

'Your missionaries! You sent three women here, it's almost certain she was yours!'

There was a silence pregnant with venom. It seemed Eve had taken the fruit. Father Romero's mouth twitched. 'Thank you for your call, Vipin. Goodnight. God bless.'

He hung the telephone from its cradle, breathed the spiteful remnants of the conversation and climbed back into bed. Before too long, Romero's dreams, still sliced by the disturbance, rearranged themselves under his eyelids and led the old priest back into Milano's summer air.