solemn hymns, like “The Lord is My Shepherd” and “Lamb of God,” which we would sing as if our throats were made of shame, with lively psalms of joy like “He is the One” and “We Are the Children.” Sometimes I had to restrain myself from clapping as I sang these new songs, and besides, he wore only his collar and would play murder ball with the boys at recess and hopscotch with the girls. He spent a lot of time outside, his skin tanned and taut, his legs flexible for the sports, with hair dark and even without a touch of grey. Before school, if he was around, he would turn the end of my skipping rope on the driveway so I could jump if none of my friends were outside. He had even learned some of our songs, “Steamboat Sally” and the “Big Bad Wolf,” and his strong voice slammed down with every slap of the rope on tar. He carried home lots of food, plastic bags hanging like extensions from his body. Loved to cook. If our kitchen window was open we could smell his peppers and tomatoes, chicken and beef, frying or steaming, turning colour. After Communion, which tasted exactly the same to me as biting the rim off a Styrofoam cup, was the only time the church was full of food. Mostly sweets, cakes and tarts and watery tea I would sip while waiting for my mother. The smell of the church basement snacking was sterile, nothing like the aroma from next door that stung the eyes and rose in the air, inviting.
Once confession lessons started, it was another story. I tried to think of what sins I could tell Father Marcus, and every time I saw him I was reminded of the secrets he would know about me. I played farther away from the house, thinking God was too close to my thoughts before I could work them out, figure out how to explain them properly. He could watch my whole family from his backyard while we swam or barbecued or he worked on his vegetable garden, his legs bending like grass, straight-edged and graceful, pulling up carrots and cucumbers in his gloved hands. He wore white shorts on truly hot days, and I was amazed by the thick dark hair that curled all over his legs, forming a kind of coat around him, making his almost black eyes seem even more piercing. I wondered if he was keeping tabs on sins I didn’t remember, some commandment I had violated like not honouring my father and mother, or lying. I wanted to ask him if some sins were more forgivable than others, or whether there were any sins that couldn’t be forgiven. On a tour of the confessionals, those boxes painted like small houses and without the stained-glass pictures as on the rest of the church, I noticed the screen was thin like the one on our gazebo. I could tell it was Father Marcus, so I’m sure he could tell it was me inside. I wanted to change what he knew about me, imagining what joy there could be in shocking him, repeating dirty words or telling him I sometimes wished my parents were dead. I felt tantalized at the whim of hearing him gasp, afraid for a moment of the girl next door who skipped in the mornings, that he could think I was dangerous.
At the same time, I had begun to find out about kissing. I knew about it already, seen my mom kiss my dad quickly on the lips, watched longer full-mouthed kisses on television, but had never felt what the fuss was about. You would need to confess kissing at my age, I knew. God did not approve of us kissing, but at recess we would sneak behind the monkey bars to the brick wall and play a game. You would ask for a kiss, and then everyone else would choose who was supposed to kiss you. You would close your eyes and wait until they had decided. Silently, someone would approach, the heat of their mouth close as the silence of expectation rose, and press down. The rule was you couldn’t open your eyes and couldn’t tell who had been delegated with the role of kisser, but we did, of course. And some kisses were better than others, I understood that, and sometimes they weren’t from the boy you liked.
The kissing game had been a source of prayer for me. I asked God to forgive my lips of their sins and to wash me clean before I went to bed at night. I would tell Him I promised to try my best not to do it again until I was older. I would shiver, imagining the dark booth of the confessional awaiting the secrets of all those backdoor kisses in the broad daylight, where anyone who went behind the wall could have witnessed the game. My mom had put me in the choir and I would sing “Ave Maria” and “Blessed Be the Lord” in the front row, my clean, pressed, white dress covering my body to my toes, and think of that brick wall that smelled of urine and bubble gum, wondering if the altar boys (some who I knew) would tell Father Marcus or Father Brown about the one time I let them look up my dress on a dare. I would blush all through Mass, trying not to look any of the parishioners in the face. I kept my eyes glued to the arched ceiling as the blinding light floated down upon our heads. My father said he thought I had a little crush on Father Marcus. I told him it was on God.
In school we listened to lectures on baptism and Christ’s death, tales of thorns and nails, hunger and rotten kisses. If He had already died for our sins, what was the point of confessing? I wanted to ask. But no one asked questions in class. We took notes and stared at the crucifix nailed to the border of the blackboard. A naked man we were supposed to love spread for all of us to see. It was after class that I could sometimes dig up the nerve to ask questions. Especially if I was sitting outside and Father Marcus happened to pass by and ask how I was, then I would have something ready for him to clarify, like why Peter falling asleep was such a bad thing, or how come Mary was God’s bride and not Jesus’s mother? He would sit down with me on the concrete steps, his dark eyebrows raised in earnest, and explain. I wondered about Christ up on that cross, and what people had wanted from him.
“Why did they have to kill him naked?” I asked, tentative about saying the word naked to a priest.
“They wanted to humiliate him,” Father Marcus replied.
“Oh.”
“You seem confused.”
“I thought maybe they were curious,” I whispered.
Father Marcus stroked his collar with his fingers. “Maybe they were. Israel is a very hot country.”
I made a habit of going next door without asking. Father Marcus was always willing to receive me, even if he was cooking. I would help him chop zucchini, or slice crumbly white cheese we didn’t have at home, and he would sing hymns or teach me recipes; how long to boil the water, how to know how much paprika to add. He could even make roses out of radishes, his fingers quick and selective, and I would write some of his lessons down on a pad of yellow paper he kept by the phone. He told me my mother would appreciate it. She and my father would eat the new dishes (if we were missing a mysteriously spelled spice, Father Marcus would provide it in a tiny plastic bag) and my father would read his newspaper at the table, mumbling between chewings how good my mom could cook. Later the hot spices would send him up to bed to toss and turn in his blankets or hold his cramping belly in the bathroom. Then he said they gave him bad dreams, never had the stomach for foreign cooking. The meals had strange names, Portuguese names I didn’t know how to pronounce, from Brazil, where Father Marcus came from. One day I found Brazil on the map pinned to our classroom bulletin board. Although it wasn’t as large as Canada, I was sure it contained many more spices. I would flail my hands around my mouth from the heat at first, but gradually, with practice, I could place the spices directly onto my tongue without flinching.
I had been practising the harmony section of “The Lord Is My Shepherd” when I noticed the forgotten casserole my mom had baked for Father Marcus. She had spent all day in the kitchen breaking eggs and soaking vegetables, pushing me gently into other rooms to practise without disturbing her. I clasped the heavy dish in my hands, raking in the smell of sweet tomatoes, zucchini, and beef, and strolled up his stairs. I noticed the door was slightly ajar and cupped my sole around it, kicking back a little. I wandered through his living room where black-and-white pictures of dark-haired people in light clothes hung alongside coloured paintings of the Virgin and Jesus. I had pointed to those pictures on one occasion and asked him who they were. He said he didn’t know, that they were just decoration, and he looked a little sad, his lips curling around the edges. I was on my way to the kitchen when I saw my mother collapsed in the arms of Father Marcus, giving him a TV kiss, a long one, part of her yellow silk blouse hanging off her shoulder, her light brown hair curled around her neck, her lips an offering. I nearly dropped the casserole, and then clung on to it like a stuffed animal, biting the Saran Wrap. Father Marcus opened his eyes and saw me there.
