'Father, really, you must watch or people will talk,' Cardinal Schonbrun said as he stood.
Father Meyer shook himself. The sun was high in the sky. The stage was empty, the curtains closed. It was the lunch interval. Four hours had passed.
It was time. He called upon the Virgin for courage.
'People already talk, Eminence,' he said. 'The talk hasn't stopped since I stepped down from the Council.'
'Which is why we're here,' the cardinal cut in, gesturing to the bishop and the many priests assembled around them. 'To prove that the Church approves of these proceedings, even if you do not.'
Bishop Ahrenkiel put his arm around Father Meyer. 'Come. Let's go have some sausage and a beer. The cardinal would surely not object?'
Father Meyer's heart jumped in his chest. Now was the moment. Goodbye, his soul whispered to Holy Mother Church. Forgive me
'I'm—I'm not hungry,' he stammered, his fear showing. 'If I may be excused to go to my house for the interval?'
The cardinal regarded him. 'I think not. I think you should eat with us, Father.'
He forced himself not to panic. 'But I'm not feeling—'
'Nein
Father Meyer sagged. The cardinal must have guessed his plan to slip backstage and free the ten Leichname the village had purchased. Why had he dreamed it would be possible? He was a fool. A cursed old fool.
'Father Meyer?' Cardinal Schonbrun pressed, gesturing for him to walk beside him.
Father Meyer forced back tears. Perhaps he could find another way. He could not believe that in four hours they would actually crucify the pitiful thing.
'It's done in movies and things all the time,' Bishop Ahrenkiel murmured as Father Meyer plodded slightly behind the cardinal. 'It has been approved by the various humane organizations, the unions, the—'
'Don't speak to me.' Father Meyer turned his head away from his old friend.
'But, Johannes—'
'Don't.'
They sat in the crowded rooms of the Mueller Hotel, among the tourists, who were titillated by the presence of live zombies in their midst. Though long ago the contagion had been stopped, still people held the old fears.
Maria Mueller, Kaspar's daughter, brought the priests large mugs of beer and plates of pork ribs and sauerkraut. Though in her forties, she curtsied daintily to the bishop and the cardinal, but pointedly turned her back on Father Meyer. No one in the village had spoken to him since he'd resigned from the Council.
'It goes well, does it not?' Bishop Ahrenkiel asked her. 'Everyone must be so proud.'
She frowned. 'This is our holy obligation, Your Eminence. We don't do it out of pride.'
Father Meyer pursed his lips. One of the Lord's own creatures would be made to suffer horribly this afternoon, for another's sin of pride.
They had told him the zombies had no nerve endings.
Father Meyer sat hunched in his seat with tears running down his cheeks. He clutched his rosary while he watched the creature writhe in agony as they stretched open its palm and slammed the nail through.
'The movements are being directed with a remote control device, Johannes,' the bishop reminded him, with a hint of pride in his voice. 'It really doesn't feel anything. It's only made to look that way.'
The other palm. The sound of the hammer on the nail echoed against the baffles on the walls. Blood spurted in the air and streamed over the end of the cross and onto the stage.
The creature struggled. Its mouth opened, closed, opened.
The hausfrau behind them moaned.
'Do you see?' Cardinal Schonbrun said to Father Meyer. 'This reminds everyone of the suffering of Our Lord. It brings them nearer to God. I've never felt such emotion during a Passion Play. The scourging . . . that was excellent, Bishop Ahrenkiel, was it not?'
The bishop grunted, neither assent nor dissent.
Father Meyer brought his rosary to his heart as they hoisted the cross upward. The zombie swayed, then fell forward, pinioned in place by the spikes in its hands and feet. Blood flowed in rivulets from the crown of thorns, some into its mouth. The blue contact lenses gleamed as its—his—eyes gazed toward heaven. Such monumental pain. Father Meyer doubled his fists, feeling upon his own flesh the whip marks, the holes in his hands, the thorns digging into his scalp.
Unable to suppress a sob, he remembered what he had done that morning:
Dawn had been hours away. In the high Alps, in his beloved, unheated church, it was freezing.
He looked at the unmoving figure in the darkened confessional, closed the curtain, and rested his hand against the side of the booth. The swell of an ancient chant, Rorate caeli, masked the thundering of his heart. He inhaled the bittersweet odor of incense and gazed at the crucifix above the altar, at the gentle face carved five, six hundred years before by one of the Oberammergau faithful. The wounds, as fresh and red as at Calvary; the agony, the love.
'Most wondrous Savior,' Father Meyer whispered, 'if I'm doing wrong, forgive me. Please understand, oh Lord, that I believe this to be a child of Thine, and if it—if he—is not, and I do pollute Thy body, as the Church charges . . . if I offend Thee, I am heartily sorry.'
He stepped into his side of the confessional and drew the curtain. He sat, took a deep breath, and, crossing himself, began.
'Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been . . .' He hesitated. Who could say, how long it had been, for the one who sat in silence on the other side of the screen?'
' . . .it has been some time since my last confession. These are my sins.' He swallowed hard and thought for a moment. How to proceed? It had been so clear last night, when he'd resolved to do this. So obviously a divine inspiration. But now, now when he was doing it, really risking it, he felt alone, untried.
But thus had our Savior felt, he thought, and was comforted in his fear.
'I have had . . . thoughts, Father. I have had thoughts that were other than those Our Lord would have us think. I have wished for things . . .'
He leaned his damp forehead against the screen. Such monumental pride, to speak for another! To dare to dream what was in another's heart. A heart that didn't even beat, not really. A mind that didn't think.
Nein, he didn't believe that.
'Listen,' he whispered to the silhouette he could see through the screen. 'I absolve you and forgive you of any sinful thought or deed, in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, amen.' He squinted through the crosshatches. 'Do you understand? Go in peace. God has forgiven—'
'Father,' came a voice, and Father Meyer started violently. It had spoken! Praise be to God! He knew, he had always believed, he had prayed—
'It's Anton,' the voice went on, and he realized it was the Veck boy, standing just outside the curtain. 'The cardinal and the bishop are at my cousin's hotel. They're asking for you.'
Father Meyer looked now at the figure on the cross. The figure he had dared to forgive. The stage was set for the climax of the Play, the Passion and the suffering of the Lord. The three crosses had been raised—on the other two, the actors playing the Thieves hung supported by belts beneath their loincloths, as Kaspar Mueller would have been. The Holy Women in their veils and robes clasped their hands and wept. The Roman Centurion stood to one side, pondering. The players gazed up at the wandelnder Leichnam, nailed to Kaspar Mueller's cross while the old man hid behind a pile of rocks, which would be used later in the Resurrection scene. They spoke to the zombie, and it was Kaspar who answered, in his quavering, old man's voice.
Behind the cross, Kaspar cried out, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!' and the Pharisees reviled him for calling out to the prophet Elias.
And the figure on the cross, pale and slight, panted and looked up, then down. Reanimated corpse, Father Meyer's head insisted.
His heart replied, An innocent man, doomed to suffer like this ten times. For each zombie was to be used for ten performances: they had devised ways to fill the holes in its—his—hands with wax, to stitch up and conceal the wound in his side. Ten times they would do this to it. For the glory of God.
