The next was a young woman, presumably the one he had seen lighting the candle to the Virgin. She started hesitantly. Trivial matters on the whole. Anger, impure thoughts, lies. And she hadn’t been to Mass for three months.
“Is that all?” he prompted her in the silence.
It wasn’t, of course, and out it came. An affair with her employer, a married man.
“How long has this been going on?” da Costa asked her.
“For three months, Father.”
The exact period since she had last been to Mass.
“This man has made love to you?”
“Yes, Father.”
“How often?”
“Two or three times a week. At the office. When everyone else has gone home.”
There was a confidence in her voice now, a calmness. Of course bringing things out into the open often made people feel like that, but this was different.
“He has children?”
“Three, Father.” There was a pause. “What can I do?”
“The answer is so obvious. Must be. Leave this place – find another job. Put him out of your mind.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why?” he said, and added with calculated brutality, “Because you enjoy it?”
“Yes, Father,” she said simply.
“And you’re not prepared to stop?”
“I can’t!” For the first time she cracked, just a little, but there was panic there now.
“Then why have you come here?”
“I haven’t been to Mass in three months, Father.”
He saw it all then and it was really so beautifully simple, so pitifully human.
“I see,” he said. “You can’t do without God either.”
She started to cry quietly. “This is a waste of time, Father, because I can’t say I won’t go with him again when I know damn well my body will betray me every time I see him. God knows that. If I said any different I’d be lying to him as well as you and I couldn’t do that.”
How many people were that close to God? Father da Costa was filled with a sense of incredible wonder. He took a deep breath to hold back the lump that rose in his throat and threatened to choke him.
He said in a firm, clear voice, “May Our Lord Jesus Christ absolve you, and I, by his authority, absolve you from every bond of excommunication and interdict, so far as I can, and you have need. Therefore, I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”
There was silence for a moment and then she said, “But I can’t promise I won’t see him again.”
“I’m not asking you to,” da Costa said. If you feel you owe me anything, find another job, that’s all I ask. We’ll leave the rest up to God.”
There was the longest pause of all now and he waited, desperately anxious for the right answer, aware of an unutter-able sense of relief when it came. “Very well, Father, I promise.”
“Good. Evening Mass is at six o’clock. I never get more than fifteen or twenty people. You’ll be very welcome.”
The door clicked shut as she went and he sat there feeling suddenly drained. With any luck, he’d said the right thing, handled it the right way. Only time would tell.
It was a change to feel useful again. The door clicked, there was the scrape of the chair being moved on the other side of the grille.
“Please bless me, Father.”
It was an unfamiliar voice. Soft. Irish – an educated man without a doubt.
Father da Costa said, “May our Lord Jesus bless you and help you to tell your sins.”
There was a pause before the man said, “Father, are there any circumstances under which what I say to you now could be passed on to anyone else?”
Da Costa straightened in his cloak. “None whatsoever. The secrets of the confessional are inviolate.”
“Good,” the man said. “Then I’d better get it over with. I killed a man this morning.”
Father da Costa was stunned. “Killed a man?” he whispered. “Murdered, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
With a sudden, terrible premonition, da Costa reached forward, trying to peer through the grille. On the other side, a match flared in the darkness and for the second time that day, he looked into the face of Martin Fallon.