The problem was insoluble.
And it was the source of an anguish he had never felt before. In the past he had talked with other priests who had been told about crimes in the confessional. Now he understood their turmoil, their sense, as human beings, that they were in conflict with their roles as ministers of the church they had chosen to serve.
The seal of the confessional was inviolable. That was why it was forbidden to betray anyone who unburdened himself there.
Such a violation was not permitted even where the confessor’s life or other people’s lives had been threatened. The priest who violated the secrecy of the confessional would be automatically subject to the excommunication known as
If the sin confessed was a criminal act, the confessor could suggest or demand of the penitent, as an indispensable condition for absolution, that he hand himself in to the authorities. That was all he could do, though: he certainly couldn’t inform the police himself, not even indirectly.
There were cases where part of the confession could be revealed to others, but always with the permission of the person involved and always without revealing his identity. This was valid for some sins that could not be forgiven without the authorization of the Bishop or the Pope. All this, however, supposed one crucial thing. The request for absolution was dependent on repentance, or the desire to free the soul from an unbearable weight. In this particular case, Father McKean was dealing with neither.
A man had declared war on society.
Destroying buildings, claiming victims, sowing grief and despair. With all the determination of the God who, in his madness, he claimed to be, the God who had destroyed cities and wiped out armies in the days when the law was still based on an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
After that tentative conversation in the forecourt with John, he headed for the kitchen to avoid having to explain himself further. As far as he could, he put on his best mask and went in the house to have lunch with the kids, who were pleased to have him with them for their little Sunday feast.
Not everyone was fooled. Mrs Carraro for one. And in the hubbub of laughter and comments and jokes around the table, a couple of the kids realized something was up. Katy Grande, a seventeen- year-old girl with a funny freckled nose, and Hugo Sael, a boy who was particularly sensitive to the world around him, looked at him every now and again with a questioning air, as if wondering where the Father McKean they knew was hiding.
In the afternoon, while most of them were in the garden enjoying the sunshine, Vivien and Sundance joined them. If Sundance was unhappy at the turn of events that had forced the authorities to postpone the concert, she didn’t show it. She was quite calm, and seemed happy to be back at Joy.
She and her young aunt appeared much more united than the day before when Vivien had come to fetch her. All the embarrassment there had been between them seemed to have vanished. It looked as if their uneasy relationship had taken a completely new direction.
This impression was confirmed when Vivien, in words that were close to euphoric, told Father McKean what had happened with her niece, and about their new-found, hard-won intimacy and togetherness.
Now, in the light of a new day, he realized how unresponsive he had been to that enthusiasm. He hadn’t been able to stop himself asking the detective about the tragedy on 10th Street and its consequences and implications, trying almost obsessively to find out if the police had a lead, an angle, any idea about who might have committed that atrocity. He had barely been able to suppress the temptation to take her aside and tell her what had happened, what he knew.
Now he realized that he’d had all the answers he was going to get, given that this was still an ongoing situation and that whatever information Vivien might have, as a police officer, was strictly confidential.
They both had their secrets. And both were duty bound to keep them. They had both taken vows to that effect, one secular, the other religious.
Father McKean looked out the window at that green and blue spring landscape that usually filled him with a sense of peace. Now he found it almost hostile, as if winter had returned, not because of anything external, but because of the eyes with which he was now looking at it. After he had got up from his bed like a sleepwalker, he had taken a shower, dressed and said his prayers with a new fervour. Then he had walked up and down the room, barely able to recognize the objects around him. Poor, familiar things, everyday objects that, even though they represented the everyday difficulties of his life, seemed all at once to belong to a happy time that was now lost for ever.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Yes?’
‘Michael, it’s John.’
‘Come in.’
Father McKean had been expecting him. They usually met on Monday mornings to discuss the week’s activities and objectives. Whatever the difficulties, it was a gratifying time, which confirmed them in their commitment to achieve the aims the small community of Joy had set itself. But today John entered with the air of someone who would have liked to be in another place and time.
‘Sorry to bother you, but there’s something I absolutely have to discuss with you.’
‘No bother. What’s going on?’
Given their familiarity and mutual respect, John decided to start with a little preamble. ‘Mike,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what’s happened to you, but I’m sure you’ll tell me in due course. And I’m sorry to be troubling you now.’
Yet again, Father McKean was made aware of John Kortighan’s great tact and how lucky he was to have a man of his calibre on the staff.
‘It’s nothing, John. Nothing important. It’ll pass, trust me. But tell me what’s on your mind.’
‘We have a problem.’
At Joy there were always problems. With the kids, with the money, with members of staff, with the temptations of the outside world. But judging by John’s face, this was a particularly tricky one.
‘I had a word with Rosaria this morning.’
Rosaria Carnevale was a parishioner at Saint Benedict, of Italian extraction, who lived in Country Club but ran a branch of the M &T; Bank in Manhattan, which handled the community’s financial interests and administered Barry Lovito’s estate.
‘What does she say?’
What John said next was something he had hoped never to have to say. ‘She says that while this case has been going on, she’s bent over backwards to keep sending us the monthly allowance, as laid down in our charter. But now, after a petition by Mr Lovito’s presumptive heirs, she’s received another court order. All payments are suspended until the dispute has been resolved.’
This meant that until the judge had pronounced, apart from the contribution by the state of New York, the community would lose its main source of income. From now on, Joy would have to rely for its general needs on its own resources and on spontaneous offers from people of goodwill.
Father McKean again looked out the window, silent and pensive. When he spoke, John Kortighan heard the unease in his voice.
‘How much do we have in reserve?’
‘Little or nothing. If we were a company, we’d be bankrupt.’
The priest turned with a small, colourless smile on his lips. ‘Don’t worry, John. We’ll manage. As we always have done. We’ll manage this time, too.’
But although his words might be full of confidence, there was little trace of it in his tone of voice. It was as if he had said these words more to delude himself than to convince the person he was talking to.
