Altarboy novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Photographs

Halina Pelc did it in the parish hall, after the Sunday nine o'clock, over the coffee urn.

She had a tablet in one hand and a form in the other.

Forty parishioners stood around in their coats with paper cups.

Kaz was stacking chairs by the wall, and Fintan was beside him pretending to fix a table leg.

"I'd like to share something sad," Halina said, in a voice that carried. "Last night, Father Banaszak was found wandering in the cemetery in the snow."

A murmur went round the room.

She held up the tablet.

The picture on it was grainy, shot through a windshield, and unmistakable.

A tiny old man in a cassock and no hat, supported between two figures.

"I am not here to blame anyone," Halina said. "I'm here because this is a dignity question. Father needs rest, supervision and a safe place. If enough of you sign this letter, the bishop will move him to one by Christmas."

She held out the form.

Nobody took it.

The six widows stood in a row by the urn, in their good wool coats, with their purses over their arms.

The oldest of them, a bent woman with a cloud of white hair, stepped forward.

She looked at the form.

She looked at Halina.

"Dear," she said. "We know."

Halina's smile held.

"I'm sorry?"

"We have known for a year," the old woman said. "We pretended not to notice, and the mother of the baby he baptized under the wrong name sent a thank-you card."

"Then you understand why..."

"We understand that he is the best priest we ever had."

"He forgot his own homily last Lent," said the next widow, "and the whole parish told him it was the shortest and most moving one he'd ever given."

"He forgets," said a third. "We remember for him. That is what a parish is."

The oldest widow took Halina's form between two fingers.

She tore it in half.

Then she tore it in half again, and handed the pieces to the nearest altar boy in the room, who was Kaz.

"For the bin, dear," she said.

Kaz took the paper.

He could not look at Fintan.

If he looked, he'd laugh, and if he laughed, he'd cry.

"I see," Halina said at last, in her flat gray voice.

"The roof is a different matter," the widow went on pleasantly. "We have a bake sale."

Halina put the tablet in her bag.

She walked out of the parish hall with the straightest spine Kaz had ever seen.

The whole room, without a word, parted to let her through.

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