Papal decree

42

The cold penetrated his bones mercilessly, making his joints ache. He zipped up his jacket, raised his collar to protect his neck, and kept walking. The pain in his arm when the temperature dropped reminded him of an old fight with someone he’d forgotten, but his arm still remembered. There’d been so many fights that he’d lost count.

He turned the corner onto Mount Street and proceeded toward his destination. There were a lot of people out at that hour, eleven in the morning, and a lot of traffic, too. The glamour that Mayfair displayed at all hours didn’t impress him at all. He didn’t look in any store windows. Nothing distracted him. He was a man with a purpose, and that purpose was right in front of him, the Church of the Immaculate Conception.

After Father Donald’s small church below the viaduct, this church was much larger, more monumental. He looked at the Gothic facade but didn’t stop long.

He went inside the holy temple. Jesuit churches were normally dark, but not this one. A simple nave, supported by stone columns and a clerestory with sixteen windows. Rich side chapels on the left and right, carved and decorated, the relics of numerous saints, full of mystery. Rafael was uninterested in the sacred objects and architecture. He analyzed the exits, checked who was present, a woman kneeling in the front, a man with a Bible pressed to his heart, a line of people in back, and a Japanese couple taking photos of the brass altar created by Pugin. Rafael walked to the center of the nave, cautiously, alert to every movement and noise. A falcon hunting prey, silent, lethal.

He noticed the confessionals at the back, one on each side. The one on the left was empty. An orange light indicated confession time on the right. It was a wooden structure, totally closed, protecting the vicar and the sinner from the temptation of the world. He approached the confessional. Someone was there asking for mercy for his sins, whispering his weaknesses while the priest listened. Rafael overheard therefore and because, enough for him to know that the man was speaking English. His own sins were enough for him. He didn’t need to hear those of others. Since no one was waiting, Rafael would be next. He looked around the immense space again. The same penitents agonizing in prayers for wisdom, grace, pardon. The Japanese had moved on.

The sinner must have received purgation and left the place of penitence, free, light, clean, and immaculate to confront reality anew and commit the same sins and other, new ones.

Rafael let the man leave and went in. He kneeled on the prie-dieu next to the wooden screen that hid the confessor from the sinner.

‘Good morning, Father,’ he greeted him.

‘Good morning, my son. What brings you here?’ the priest asked in a melodious, complacent voice.

‘Forgive me, for I have sinned,’ Rafael said disquietedly.

‘Tell me the nature of your sin, my son. What is troubling you?’ the curate said in a bored way. He was more than accustomed to people’s pain. A word from him would quiet all. That was the power of confession.

‘I have a gun pointed at a priest’s head,’ the sinner said coolly.

‘What did you say?’ He couldn’t have heard what he thought.

‘I have a gun pointed at a priest’s head,’ Rafael repeated. ‘If he doesn’t answer my questions, I’ll have to kill him.’