Page 26 of Daughter of Genoa
‘Yes, please.’
A tin of cigarettes and a lighter appear next to the teacup. He waits until Silvia’s footsteps have retreated and he hears the creak of her chair before he picks up a cigarette. His hands are shaking so badly that he has to make several tries at lighting it. But he manages in the end, and he takes a long drag, as deep as he dares, until his chest constricts and his diaphragm twitches and he has to slowly, slowly breathe out again.
It’s happened to him before, this sort of thing. The first incident was in London, with a pretty young woman who used to accompany her grandmother to Mass at Farm Street. Of course, they didn’t actually speak to one another. But he would see her shepherding the crotchety old lady around, being soft and kind and attentive in a way that made her seem even more like an angel, and after a while he started wanting to catch a glimpse of her. The day he found himself lingering before the statue of St. Thomas More, waiting for the two of them to emerge from the Calvary Chapel, he finally got an attack of conscience and took the matter to his spiritual director, Father Dominic. Father Dominic was an impressive man, about as old then as Vittorio is now. He took a strong line.
‘The Adversary,’ he proclaimed, leaning forward and looking Vittorio straight in the eye. ‘You watch for him. A righteous man is a great prize for the Evil One. He seeks to attack us at our weakest point, and yours, it seems, is your chastity. You must fight him with everything you have. Confession, communion, fasting and mortification – and prayer, ceaseless and sincere prayer. That’s the only way you’ll rid yourself of this disordered lust.’
And Vittorio had been ashamed. He’d thrown himself into a regime of prayer and discipline that would have made a saint flinch. If he’d had the pastoral experience he has now, he would probably have recognised that this was itself disordered, that his soul was in greater danger from the sin of scrupulosity than the temptations of the flesh. But he was young and frightened, and whenever he wanted to break his fast or get up from his prayers, he’d hear Father Dominic’s voice in his mind:He seeks to attack us at our weakest point, and yours, it seems, is your chastity.
This had lasted until one of the oldest members of the community – a tiny, wrinkled raisin of a man called Father Hugh – had found him sobbing before the tabernacle in the house chapel. Father Hugh, God rest his soul, had done the pastoral thing. He’d sat down next to Vittorio, waited patiently until his tears had died down, and he’d asked what was wrong.
‘Well, that doesn’t sound so bad,’ he said, when Vittorio had told him – as he’d thought – all the dreadful facts of the case. ‘You aren’tstepping outwith this girl, are you? So far as I understand, you haven’t even talked to her. Unless there’s something you aren’t telling me.’
Vittorio shook his head. ‘Of course there isn’t. I’ve told you everything, Father, I promise.’
‘I know, dear boy, I know. Well, then I don’t see any reason to get in a flap about it. You’re hardly an unrepentant sinner – you’re all too repentant, as I see it. No, you’re just a young man who noticed some attractive creature. And that does happen, I’m afraid. It may even keep on happening until you’re too old to bother any more.’
‘Then what do Idoabout it?’ Vittorio asked, agonised.
‘Accept that it’s happened. That’s the first thing you can do. And then don’t act on it. Don’t try to see her and, if you do cross paths, don’t pay her any special attention. Stick with that for long enough and you’ll forget all about it, I promise. And go a little easier on yourself, above all. Confide in God – confide in me if you like, but kindly drop all this self-flagellation business. It isn’t doing you any good.’
‘But Father Dominic said—’
‘Father Dominic,’ Father Hugh said severely, ‘has many qualities, but he is rather a moral simplist. Look, far be it from me to undermine the authority of your spiritual director. But why don’t you give my method a go, and then if it really doesn’t work, you can go back to his?’
Vittorio had said that he would. And Father Hugh had been right, in the end. It hadn’t been easy to train himself out of the habit of looking for the girl, and it was even harder to force himself to pay no heed when he did see her. But it got easier, and after a surprisingly short while, he discovered that his infatuation had faded. He was at peace again.
Father Hugh’s method has carried him safely through twenty years and perhaps half a dozen pretty faces. As he stands at the window, listening to Marta’s breathing and the steady scratch of her pen, he has the sinking feeling that it won’t be enough this time around. Because it’s happened to him before, yes, but he didn’t know those women like he knows Marta. They certainly didn’t know him like she does.
The scratching stops; Marta breathes out. ‘Change,’ she says.
Vittorio stubs out his cigarette in the saucer and lifts the cup of lukewarm tea to drain it. There’s a gritty drift of leaves at the bottom and it makes him wince. ‘Ready.’
*
In spite of it all, he manages. He and Marta work in silence, bar the odd polite word. He doesn’t look at her, but spends his breaks at the window, smoking or else reading in his breviary. By the time they’ve worked through all the cards, he’s starting to think that he might be able to apply the usual method after all. If he can only stay detached like this for a while longer, then perhaps he’ll grow used to it.
He’s packing up his bag when Marta speaks. ‘Father Vittorio,’ she begins, and he knows what she’s going to ask because she always asks it, won’t be deterred from asking it. ‘Father Vittorio, how are you feeling? You’re very quiet today. Are you all right?’
Vittorio looks down at the stole in his hand, and he mentally apologises to Father Hugh: for lapsing in his discipline, and for borrowing his words to do it. ‘Of course I’m all right,’ he says. ‘I’m positively top-hole.’
16
Anna
‘We have to do something,’ I said to Silvia one afternoon in the kitchen. I had been trying and failing to concentrate on my administrative work for at least an hour. Even Tiberio had given up trying to engage me and had slunk away to lie upside down in front of the stove.
She put her knitting down in her lap. ‘What about?’
‘About Father Vittorio. He isn’t well at all,’ I said. ‘I mean to say, he’s getting worse. It seems like he’s worse every day and I don’t know what to do about it.’
I knew even as I said it that I was being foolish. But my heart still sank a little when Silvia shook her head and said: ‘I know, dear. And it’s very painful to see, but there simply isn’t anything wecando about it. Believe me, I’ve thought about it plenty. But he’s a grown man and besides, he wouldn’t listen to us. I don’t think he’d even listen to Mr X.’
‘No, he won’t,’ I said, unthinking, because I’d had this same conversation with Teglio a couple of evenings before. Silvia raised an eyebrow but kept her counsel. ‘But maybe,’ I went on, ‘if we could find a way to talk to him, the right way—’
‘Marta, thereisno right way.’ Silvia sounded almost angry. ‘Do you think for a moment that he’d take orders from you or me? It’s a miracle that he lets me put honey in his tea. No, all this is between him and his superior, or whatever they call the Jesuit-in-charge. So long as he’s able to stand, I dare say he’ll be made to keep standing. He knows he’s sick and they know it, too – you can be quite sure of that, and you can be sure that he won’t stop and rest until they say he can. No doubt he’s been told tooffer it up for the Lord,’ she added, with a roll of the eyes.
‘I don’t understand why anyone would choose to live like that,’ I said. ‘It isn’t human.’
