Walk in Hell

shut up. It also made Cincinnatus wonder if he was on the right side-any of the right sides-after all, which surely was not what the white man had had in mind.

Lucien Galtier led his family into the biggest church in Riviere-du-Loup for Sunday morning mass. More often than not, he and they worshiped in St.-Modeste or St.-Antonin, both of which were closer to his farm and both of which had priests less inclined to fawn on the American occupiers than was Father Pascal.

“Every so often, it is interesting to hear what the good father has to say,” he remarked to his wife as they and their children filed into a pew and took their seats. “He speaks very well, it is not to be doubted.”

“You have reason,” Marie agreed in fulsome tones. No informer could have taken their words in any way amiss. That was fortunate, since they were surely under suspicion for having failed to collaborate with Father Pascal and the Americans as fully as they might have done.

Even in the midst of war, peace filled the church-or did its best to do so. The buzzing roar of aeroplane motors pierced the roof. The aeroplanes were flying north, across the St. Lawrence, to drop bombs or shoot at the soldiers defending unconquered Quebec from the invaders. Lucien had neither seen nor heard aeroplanes flying south since the ones that had shot up the American troop train. More from that than from the improbabilities the newspapers published these days, he concluded that the defenders of the province were having a hard time.

You could not tell as much from Father Pascal’s demeanor. Here he came up the aisle toward the altar, flanked by altar boys in robes of gleaming white. The procession was not so perfectly formal as it might have been, for the priest stopped every few rows to greet someone with a smile or a handshake. He beamed at Lucien and his family. “Good to see you here today, my friends,” he said before passing on.

Lucien nodded back, not so coldly as he would have liked. Part of that was simple caution, part his reaction, however involuntary, to Father Pascal’s genuine charm. He scowled down at his hands once the priest’s back was to him. He would have respected Father Pascal as a foe more easily had the man not pretended an amity that had to be false.

The mass, however, was the mass, no matter who celebrated it. The sonorous Latin that Lucien understood only in small snatches bound him, understood or not, with worshipers all over the world and extending back in time to the days of Christ Himself. Even in Father Pascal’s mouth, it made the farmer feel a part of something larger and older and grander than himself.

Once the prayers were over, Father Pascal returned to French to address the congregation. “My children,” he said, adding with a roguish smile, “for you are the only children I shall ever have: my children, I know that many among you are upset and disturbed in your hearts at the travail France is suffering in this great war that covers the whole of the earth. I do not blame you for this feeling. On the contrary-I share it with you.”

He set both plump, pink, well-manicured hands over his heart for a moment. The woman in the pew in front of Lucien sighed at the gesture. Galtier suppressed the urge to clout her in the head. It wouldn’t knock sense into her, and would get him talked about.

Father Pascal went on, “But although France is the mother from which we have all sprung, I must remind you, painful duty though it is, that the France of today, the France of the Third Republic, has cut herself off from the ways and traditions we proudly maintain. You must understand, then, that her punishment is surely the will of God.”

“He’s right,” that woman whispered loudly to her husband. “Every word he says is true, and you cannot deny a one of them.” Her husband’s head went up and down in an emphatic nod. Now Lucien wanted to clout both of them. He needed a distinct effort of will to hold still and listen as the priest kept spinning his seductive web.

“The France we know today is not the France that sent our ancestors forth to this new world.” Father Pascal’s voice dripped regret. “This is the France that murdered its king, that disestablished our true and holy Catholic Church, that made the blessed pope a spectator as Bonaparte set the crown on his own head, that has lost her moral compass. Such a country, I believe, needs to be reminded of where her true duties and obligations lie. Once she has been purged in the fire of repentance, then, perhaps-I pray it shall be so-she will deserve our respect once more.”

A couple of women, including the one in front of Lucien, broke into sobs at the iniquities of modern France. He was more inclined to dwell on the iniquities of Father Pascal, and to wonder how much the American Major Quigley had bribed him, and in what coin.

“I also note for your edification, my children, that in the United States all religions truly are treated as being equal,” Father Pascal said. “You have surely seen for yourselves that the occupying authorities have in no way interfered with our worship here in Riviere-du-Loup or in the other regions of la belle province that they have liberated from the English.”

At that, Galtier sat up very straight. He made a point of glancing over to his two sons to make sure they did nothing foolish. Georges laughed silently, but not with the good-natured laughter that was his hallmark. Charles was tight-lipped with anger. Neither one, fortunately, seemed ready to raise an outburst. Nor did his wife or Nicole. His three younger daughters, though-He caught their eyes, one by one. His warning might have been silent, but it got through.

Father Pascal continued, “The Protestants, the Presbyterians”-he loaded the names with scorn-“in Ottawa and all through Ontario are surely just as glad to have you, to have us, gone from their midst, gone from their Protestant dominion. Well, God will have an answer for them, too, if not in this world then in the world to come.”

Now Lucien was the one who had to struggle to keep silent. It’s not like that! was the shout he wanted to raise. Looking around the church, he saw several men of roughly his own age also seeming discontented. They were the ones who had been conscripted into the Canadian Army, served their terms, and who had done so enough years before that they were not recalled to the colors when the war began, not until the Americans had overrun this part of Quebec.

No one who had served in it could doubt the Army ran more nearly according to the wishes of the English than those of the French. That was hard to resent, with more Canadians being of English blood than French. But any man of either stock who buckled down and obeyed his superiors would get on well, and veterans knew that, too, whether Father Pascal did or not.

The priest said, “We have survived more than a century and a half of rule by Protestants who despise and fear us. France has suffered for more than a hundred years under one godless regime after another. Accommodating ourselves to the freedom we shall have in the United States, and to the chastisement of the erring mother country, should not be difficult or unpleasant for us, my children. We shall do well, and France, if God is kind, will return to the ways of truth abandoned so long ago.”

“He is a beautiful man,” the woman in front of Lucien said to her husband, who nodded again. “He sees the truth and he sets it forth, as if he were writing a book for us to read.”

And then, to Galtier’s alarm, Marie said, “He is a very persuasive man, is he not?” Lucien had to study her face carefully before noticing one eyebrow a hair’s breadth higher than the other. He sighed in relief. For a moment, he’d feared Father Pascal had seduced his wife-no other word seemed to fit.

“Very persuasive, yes,” Lucien said. He did his best to sound fulsome, in case that idiot woman or anyone else within earshot proved a spy.

People filed up to receive communion from Father Pascal. As he bent to let the priest place the wafer in his mouth, Lucien had to remind himself that a cleric was not required to be in a state of grace for the sacrament he administered to be efficacious; to believe otherwise was to fall into the Donatist heresy. Galtier could not recall-if he had ever known-who the Donatists were, or where they had lived. Staring at sleek, prosperous Father Pascal, though, he wondered if they hadn’t been better theologians than the Church proclaimed them. On his tongue, the Body of Christ tasted like ashes.

When the last communicant had taken part in the miracle, Father Pascal said, “The mass is over. Go in peace.” He again abandoned the ritual Latin for French to add, “And pray there may be peace here in our province and all over the world.”

As Galtier and his family were leaving, they passed Major Quigley, who stood waiting outside the church. Nodding to Lucien as if to a friend, he walked over to the rectory next door, no doubt to speak with the priest who was doing so much for his cause.

“Some of the Americans,” Nicole said hesitantly as the wagon made its slow way back to the farm, “some of the Americans are very nice people.”

“This is what you get for working in the hospital,” Charles snapped at his sister.