Leah was pleased and touched. She felt more for him than any man she had ever dated. In the end, she accepted the dinner and the roses, but asked for a rain check on matrimony. "I care for you a lot, Walt, a whole lot, but I'm just not ready to make such a heavy commitment."
"When will you be?"
"I don't know." The forlorn expression on his face grieved Leah, but she held firm. "There's too much to see and do to get serious. P/SHARE is my number one commitment right now." Walt listened, stone-faced, waiting for a word, any signal on which to hang his hope. "I'll have to see what comes next." Still silence across the table. "Maybe I'll never get married, to anyone." Then, she took his hand. "Maybe, after the last 'next thing,' I'll come back . . . to you."
Walt had grabbed hold of this fragile twig. His occasional letters revealed that he clung to it as his lifeline during the whole time Leah served in Santo Sangre.
"Who's Walter Barton?" Peter's voice pulled her back from Berkeley to the cantina and the noise. Both he and Ed arched mirrored eyebrows in surprise, as if they had rehearsed the response. Leah might have found it comical, if her mind hadn't gone into overdrive, constructing details of a present-tense relationship between herself and her former boyfriend.
"You've never mentioned a--" Ed paused before overemphasizing the pronunciation of her boyfriend's name. "Walter Barton."
"We went to Berkeley together. He majored in electronics. Very strong . . . quite handsome. Captain of the swim team. All-Coast Conference his last two years."
"How come you kept him . . . under wraps, so to speak?" Peter asked.
"I keep my personal life to myself," she defended, not very convincingly.
With that, Ed and Peter backed off.
Thank you, Walter! Leah sighed. I owe you one.
It was very late when the trio dragged themselves out of the cantina and home to bed. The interrogation taught Leah a lesson. Squelch your romantic fantasies about Father Javier de Córdova. The excitement of dancing before the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, teasing the fragrant surface of forbidden fruit, had gone far enough. She had to end it.
She went to sleep that night thinking of Walter Barton in tight-fitting blue and gold racing trunks, poised like a finely sculpted statue at the edge of Cal's Olympic-sized pool, ready to catapult forward at the sound of the starter's buzzer. Try as she might to kindle some sexual arousal at the recollection of his rippling muscles and barely concealed genitals, it was no use. No man stirred Leah like the curate of the village of Santa Teresita. Fortunately, her contract with P/SHARE called for an option to renew at the end of the first year. Instead, she'd ask Maggie for a change of assignment. The decision lifted a great burden from her. At the same time, a profound sadness settled behind her eyes and forced her to pretend that all was well.
12
The morning after the Walter Barton episode in the cantina, Leah woke to the melodious peal of church bells calling the faithful of Santa Teresita to Sunday Mass. At first, she thought the clanging came from inside her head, which throbbed with every hammer stroke against the thirty-six-inch bronze bell. Not being of the same faith as the people of Father Alejandro's parish, Leah attended services only on those major feast days that were also civic holidays. "So it isn't quite the same thing," she explained in a letter to her conservative Protestant parents.
This Sunday morning, she rose with the bells, instead of sleeping on until her swollen head had quieted down. Father Javier said the early Mass, which allowed the old pastor an opportunity to get a little more rest. Leah had to see this priest who had so captured her heart. Not talk to him--the last thing she wanted--just see him and prove to herself that her late-night, slightly tipsy resolution had once and for all put an end to her romantic feelings.
She slipped on a simple cotton dress and sandals, closed her door, and tiptoed down the staff residence hallway. Exiting by a side door that led to the cobbled courtyard, she passed the tiled fountain in the rose garden and went through the adobe-pillared gate and into the main plaza. From there, it was only a few short steps to the twin front doors of the parish church. She would sneak in and stand against the back wall. Well, not exactly sneak in. Too many villagers knew her to guarantee anonymity. At least, she'd be as unobtrusive as possible.
The service had already begun. Leah moved along the back wall to a corner where she planted herself, half-hidden by a life-sized wood carving of St. Teresa of Something-or-Other, the village patroness. She watched Father Javier conclude the preliminary prayers and take up the book containing the day's Scripture readings.
Leah rarely saw him in full ceremonial vestments. His usual daily attire was a plain black cassock or black slacks and a short sleeve shirt with a small square of plastic Roman collar showing at the throat. In really hot weather, white replaced black. This morning, he looked somehow majestic in the simple, stately regalia. Nothing moved in the pit of her stomach. No telltale butterflies, no weakness in her knees, which she often felt in his presence. The absence of physical reaction affirmed the strength of her resolve.
Father Javier approached the front pews and read from Matthew's gospel:
Jesus said to his disciples: You have heard the commandment, 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.' But what I say to you is: offer no resistance to injury. When a person strikes you on the right cheek, turn and offer him the other. You have heard the commandment, 'You shall love your countryman but hate your enemy.' My command to you is: love your enemies; pray for your persecutors. This will prove that you are children of your heavenly Father, for his sun rises on the bad and the good; he rains on the just and the unjust. If you love those who love you, what merit is there in that? If you greet your brothers only, what is so praiseworthy about that? In a word, you must be made perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
As Father Javier raised the book high over his head, his uplifted eyes pierced the church rafters and gazed into the heavens.
"This is the gospel of the Lord," he proclaimed. Father Javier lowered the book and closed its worn, simulated leather cover. Leah watched him collect his thoughts, as he studied the faces of his congregation--simple faces, but wise with a wisdom no school could teach. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, like a golfer who had just lined up his putt for a tie-breaker on the eighteenth hole. Finally, his thoughts became words.
"My friends in Christ, did it ever occur to you that the good God sometimes asks us to do crazy things? Just the opposite of what so-called 'normal' people would expect to do?"
Puzzlement hummed through the congregation, while the homilist let his thesis sink in. A smile broke across his face. "I see the question in your eyes. 'But, Father, when does the good God ask us to do crazy things?' "
Answering smiles affirmed that he had correctly read their thoughts.
"He tells us in today's gospel reading from Matthew to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, turn the other cheek when someone strikes us. Didn't the God of Israel, through his prophet Isaiah, urge his people to turn their swords into plowshares?"
"Sí, Padre," several responded.
The scene reminded Leah of black congregations in the States, who affirmed their preachers' messages with echoing Amens.
"You say, 'Yes,' but very few people listened back then, just like today. And why? They say, it isn't natural. If the Gospel isn't natural, then what is? Is it natural to demand satisfaction in kind for every injury--'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'? Or is it 'natural' to conclude that the Jesus who was a good man, but a hopeless idealist, out of touch with the rough-and-tumble world of imperfect human beings? Maybe 'natural' is believing that the only language violence understands is more violence, meted out with extra force for good measure."
Father Javier's message, the passion in his voice, and the obvious depth of his conviction, touched a harmonious place inside Leah's own belief system. She waited for his next word, spellbound as the simplest peasant woman rocking her sleeping child und
er warm, ample breasts.
"I say . . . we are the crazy ones, when we do violence to each other. Did Cain do the right thing when he killed his brother, Abel?"
"No, Padre," came the instant reply.
"Did the conniving Judas do the right and natural thing in making a few extra cruzeros for himself by betraying the Savior to those who crucified him?"
Again a firm negative.
"Now, a more difficult question. Is it right for Christians to take up arms in satisfaction for the crimes of their government?" Father Javier waited for a response.
Silence. Words yielded to the more subtle language of the body. Women studied their sandal straps. Men shifted their weight, as if the rough wooden pews had suddenly become even less comfortable. The absence of response alerted Leah that Father Javier had stepped into sensitive territory.
"Let me answer for you," Father Javier said without negative judgment. The gospel of Jesus is unchanged. The command to love our enemies stands today, as it has for two thousand years. I'm not saying oppression must go unchallenged. We are not condemned to a life of weakness and subservience. Not at all." The priest's eyes flared. His face glowed with conviction.
"I will tell you something I believe with all my heart." Father Javier's voice lowered. He made eye contact with many individuals, letting each one feel he was letting them in on a well-kept, personal secret of this most secret of men. Almost on cue, the congregation--Leah included--leaned forward, the better to hear what their priest had to share with them. "Collective moral persuasion . . ." The words hung in the dense air. ". . . is more powerful than the weapons of death and destruction."
He repeated the statement, then paused to let the words sink in. "Two years ago, some on our beloved island advocated violent revolution against our old government. My own father, God rest his soul, a career army man, insisted that the revolution that brought a change of governments occur without bloodshed. How unlike the situation with some of our Caribbean and Central American neighbors who have suffered much from bloody civil wars and revolutions.
"There are those who are dissatisfied with our new regime under His Excellency, President Montenegro. They are quick to advocate armed rebellion." Father Javier's voice became even stronger, as he approached the climax of his homily. "If there are injustices to address, let us meet them as Jesus himself would, with weapons that assure a just and lasting victory. I mean, the moral and political power of non-violence."
Father Javier concluded his homily with a moving plea for his parishioners to forgive their personal enemies as a condition to receiving God's full forgiveness.
The congregation had turned into statues under the spell of their priest's impassioned call. Leah felt their spirits stir, as the power of God's love chipped away at rock-hard feuds and jealous grudges.
Leah's soul responded in its own way. In the months of her contact with Father Javier de Córdova, her view of him had undergone an accelerated evolution. When she first arrived in Santa Teresita, he was someone to keep at arm's length. The stereotypes of her Protestant background, combined with Maggie's cautionary advice, had seen to that. Under the warming sun of her frequent contact with the priest, he had become first a human being, then an admired colleague. As their sharing grew more personal, she responded to this special man with an emotional and sensual desire she'd have considered perfectly normal in any other relationship.
As Father Javier returned to the altar to continue the liturgy, a sense of deliverance washed over Leah. It was like a miracle, except she didn't believe in miracles. Whatever had happened, a new phase of her self-to-Javier evolution had begun. Who he is and what he stands for, she told herself, are far more important in the cosmic plan than any romantic feelings and needs of my own.
Leah slipped out of the church before the end of Mass, with a new spirit of personal triumph in her heart. She uttered a prayer of gratitude to her God--the same God Father Javier and his parishioners worshipped--for delivering her from infatuation.
* * *
Shortly after ten that night, Leah was working the late shift in the clinic. Father Javier rapped on the office door and poked his head inside. She looked up from her work, amused and curious. He had the nervous grin of a schoolboy sent to the principal's office.
"Have a seat," she said. Her hard-won control held solid. "What's up?"
"Leah." He stopped, as if he had tried to start an engine that refused to turn over. "Leah."
"Is this the eloquent preacher I heard this morning?"
"You were at Mass?" He seemed surprised--and pleased.
Don't get excited, Leah thought. I'm not convert material. Father Javier's evident discomfort aroused a teasing devil in her, but she tethered the demon. "Part of it. I ducked out with the heathens. I did enjoy your sermon on non-violence. Basically, I agree with everything you said. I don't know if I could carry it out all the way, though. Hope I'm never pressed that far."
He seemed distracted, awkward. "We never know what we'll do until we're tested," he said, without any of the passion or drama of his homily. He shifted his weight in the chair. "Leah, this is the most difficult thing I've ever had to do."
She bottled up her first inclination to wise crack, when it occurred to her that he might be the bearer of unhappy news from her family. The last letter from her mother had said her dad might have to have gall bladder surgery. Why else would Father Javier delay? "Is it about me, Father?"
"Yes," he answered dryly, avoiding eye contact. "I mean, it concerns you."
"C'mon, I don't like playing twenty questions." Leah tried to be good-natured about the whole thing, but her anxieties multiplied like rabbits. All sorts of ugly possibilities crowded her imagination. "Is it about my family?"
He waved the question aside. "No, Leah! It has nothing to do with your family. I'm sorry if I alarmed you."
How stupid! Leah thought. He must be aware of my attraction to him. He's looking for a polite way to tell me why he can't reciprocate. She was about to assure him that it was all okay, that she had dealt with her runaway feelings and restored her perspective. He needn't worry. I'm not a "collar-happy" female.
Father Javier looked into her eyes, a breathtaking gaze that rattled her resolve. "It's about you . . . and me."
He nudged the door shut with his toe, securing their privacy. "I can't keep what I feel inside any longer." His voice lowered. He was obviously concerned about being overheard through the thin walls. "Since you've been here, my whole life has turned inside out. I think of you all the time--day and night. Especially nights."
"Father, don't say one more word. Please," she begged.
"Leah, listen to me! I love you. More than anything or anyone I've ever loved before."
"Father--"
"Call me by my real name. Please."
Leah was prepared to do anything to distract him from saying things he might regret in the bright Santa Teresita sunlight.
"Okay, Javier-- Look, I don't want to call you Javier. When I think about you-- I mean, when you come to mind, I call you . . . Jay. Would that be all right?"
"Jay?" His expression brightened as he reflected on his new nickname. "Yes, I like it. No one has ever called me that."
"God, I'm babbling like an idiot. Look, Fath-- Jay, I'm pretty confused right now." Actually, the feelings gripping Leah were cold fear and seething anger. He had opened a Pandora's box of troubles that threatened them individually and the work of all P/SHARE volunteers on the island. She searched her spirit for strength and wisdom. The solid wooden desk between them had become the Berlin wall. Her head told her it was a protective barrier, keeping her from making a fool of herself.
"I'm going to say something," Leah continued, "and I want you to listen carefully." When she waved off an attempted interruption, their fingertips met in the void between them. Clearly, Jay had no intention of breaking the contact. It was up to her. "I-- I love you too," she admitted, drawing back her hand in slow retreat to the safety of her
breast. "I've spent every day--and night--convincing myself I don't love you, that I can't. There's too much at stake. I'm not even sure I know how high the stakes are, yet I know there's too much at risk for us to let our hearts sail off into the Caribbean sunset and forget everything and everyone else. I want both of us to go to bed--" Jay's eyes widened as Leah caught her gaffe. "I mean, we should both go home and think about this till tomorrow. God, do I ever need time to think! And you, maybe what you need is a cold shower."
At another time, with another man she wanted to brush off, Leah would have thought her suggestion cute and clever. In the clinic office, face to face with the man whose love could make her whole or destroy her, or both, it didn't seem funny at all.
Jay didn't respond right away, seeming neither amused nor offended by her "cold shower" suggestion. "I admit there are problems." He spoke with more hope than conviction.
Leah clenched her fists and pivoted in her swivel chair, leaving Jay to read only the back of her vibrating shoulders. "Jay, my friend, these aren't just problems." She gave each word its defined space and emphasis. "This is the major league of problems!" When she swung around to face him again, she was less angry than bewildered. "Oh, who am I to be lecturing you? I'm not even a Catholic, and I know you can never marry me without giving up your work here--or anywhere in the Church. I won't let you do that. Not for me."
"But--"
"Just listen!" Leah would be forever grateful to Maggie for cluing her in to the realities of Roman Catholicism and the irrevocable priestly commitment. "They'll never let you marry me or anyone else. And I won't spend the rest of my life as your backstage groupie. As much as I love you, I love myself too much to get mired in a hopeless situation. Besides, I've already made a decision. What you've just told me hasn't changed my mind. In fact, you've only solidified it . . . . I'm going home at the end of my term here. As hard as it will be for me to live the rest of my life without you, it would be harder living it near you."
Leah acted much more stoically than she felt. She had no choice. In the supercharged atmosphere of the stifling office, her skin ached with pent-up sexual energy. She no longer trusted Jay's moral strength. Any crack in her own might send them over passion's brink.