15
SEBASTIANO SAT IN THE FRONT ROW and watched furious angels go to war. The Lucifer puppet spoke slowly and passionately, with a persuasive urgency. It had beautiful wings and a proud, dignified face. Lucifer spoke to two other angels, railing against God’s rule, jealous of mankind because he felt God had pushed the angels aside in favor of His new creation. Sebastiano was especially horrified because Lucifer was one of God’s most trusted angels, and he seemed to want to push God off of His throne. God had created the universe, but Lucifer wanted it for himself.
Or something like that. The story wasn’t really clear, except that Lucifer was mad at God and talked some other angels into rebelling, and then there was fighting. Sebastiano liked the fighting part, even though Father Gaetano could not control more than three puppets at a time, and when he did three, they couldn’t do much but dangle there because he couldn’t work the strings properly. Sebastiano would have liked to help him, but Father Gaetano had banned him from helping with the puppet shows for two weeks. It was his penance.
Still, the show entranced him. The angels had swords. Lucifer led his angels and they drew blood in Heaven for the first time. Of course, God was not about to let him get away with it, and all of the bad angels were thrown out of Heaven, and that was why Hell existed in the first place. Sebastiano had known about Hell, but not about how Lucifer became the Devil. He felt sort of sad for Lucifer, but also disapproved of how stupid the angel had been. God had created Heaven. The angels were in paradise, but that wasn’t good enough for Lucifer.
What made the show even better was that God never appeared from behind the curtains. Who could make a puppet big enough to be God? Instead, Father Gaetano had provided the Voice of God, a loving voice that was sometimes sad and sometimes stern, and it echoed off of the walls of the classroom. When God shouted at Lucifer, just before banishing him from Heaven, Father Gaetano tugged on the puppet’s bright white clothes and they came away in one piece, revealing a deep red color beneath. A red tail dangled from the puppet’s lower back. Then the priest yanked at the puppet’s head, and it seemed Lucifer’s face had been a mask, the face beneath cruel and yellow-eyed and somehow still sad.
Sebastiano flinched, and he heard one of the girls—probably Stefania—give a little cry of fear. Whether she had been frightened by the Devil, or by Father Gaetano’s shout, or by the expression on the priest’s face, Sebastiano wasn’t sure.
One thing he did know: He was happy when the show came to an end.
Without Sebastiano to help him, Father Gaetano did not bother to close the curtains. He set the Lucifer puppet on the theatre’s small stage between the open curtains and went about putting away the others and picking up the bits of Lucifer’s angel costume from the floor.
“Father?” Agata said, her voice tentative.
The priest glanced up from his task, looking somewhat surprised. Agata rarely spoke in class.
“Yes?”
“I don’t understand.”
Sebastiano knew Father Gaetano must have worked very hard on the puppets and on exactly what they would all say in the show. His catechism lessons were very important to him. With Agata’s words, the priest visibly deflated.
“What don’t you understand?” he asked tiredly.
All of the orphans were looking at Agata now, and she glanced around nervously, not liking the attention. But Father Gaetano had asked her a direct question and she would not be so rude as to ignore it.
“Lucifer wanted to be in control of his own life. He didn’t want to have to answer to anybody,” the older girl said. “Was that so bad that God had to throw him out of Heaven?”
Father Gaetano took off his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes and sighing. After a moment he smiled thinly and opened his eyes, leaning on top of the theatre, glasses still dangling from his hand. When he spoke, it was to all of them, not just Agata.
“God gave the angels paradise, and all the freedom they could have asked for. He made them caretakers of Heaven, which was a wonderful gift. Lucifer chose to reject that gift, to reject God and His expectations, to the extent that he turned on his brother angels and brought war to Heaven. I can’t imagine a greater sin. God gave us all free will, children, but we must use it with thought and care and kindness, because sin…”
He picked up the ugly, red, cruel-looking Lucifer puppet and held it for them to see, giving it a little shake.
“Sin has consequences.”
“So,” Concetta piped up, “we can choose to be good or bad, and if we’re good we’ll be rewarded, and if we’re bad we’ll be punished.”
Father Gaetano gave a soft chuckle. “In the simplest terms, yes.”
Matteo muttered something that Sebastiano couldn’t hear, and Father Gaetano gave him a scolding glance that silenced him.
“It’s about the promise,” Sebastiano piped up, before he even realized he intended to speak.
“What promise?” Alessandra asked.
Sebastiano fidgeted a bit in his seat before replying.
“Well, I guess it isn’t really a promise—not like the one He made to Noah after the flood—but it feels like one. Like with the angels, God gave them Heaven; He just wanted them to take care of it. Maybe we’ll have Heaven when we die, but right now, He gave us the world, and He wants us to take care of it. Isn’t that just another way of saying, ‘be good’?”
Father Gaetano smiled, clutched the Lucifer puppet between two hands clasped in prayer, and looked up at the ceiling, though Sebastiano knew he was really looking at Heaven.
“Nine years old,” the priest said softly, and he smiled.
Sebastiano exhaled a little when he saw that smile, and he was sure the other orphans did, too. Maybe Father Gaetano wasn’t mad anymore.
“He loves you,” the priest said. “All of you. And it’s because He loves you that He gave you free will. Some use that freedom to love and care for one another, and others use it to make war.”
Sebastiano dropped his gaze, thinking of his parents, no longer angry at God, but at the people who thought so little of His gifts that they would make war.
“He has given us everything we need to make our own Heaven here on Earth,” Father Gaetano said. “If only we will.”
The priest glanced around the room, seeming to look at each of the students in turn, and then he smiled one last time at Sebastiano.
“All right. That’s enough for today,” Father Gaetano said. “You may go. I will see you all at dinner.”
* * *
AS THE CHILDREN FILED OUT of the room, Father Gaetano tugged the curtains closed on the puppet show, the Lucifer puppet still clutched in his right hand. All of the frustration of the preceding days had left him, and he felt a lightness of spirit that had eluded him for some time. He had work to do, sermons to write, sick parishioners to visit, but for the moment he just wanted to relish this small victory.
He had reached them. Some of them, at least. Sebastiano, only nine years old, had found the heart of the lesson Father Gaetano had been trying to teach them since he had first come to the orphanage. If he could understand, then surely the older children would embrace this knowledge in time, and in so doing they would heal their relationships with God. It might lessen their grief, but he felt sure it would be easier for them to confront their sorrow if they were not also wrestling with anger at the Almighty.
Father Gaetano felt like celebrating, and promised himself a glass of good wine after dinner.
He turned and carried Lucifer toward the puppet box, but as he lowered it into the box with the rest—already reaching for the ornate cover—he paused, a shudder rippling through him. Ice shot through his veins as he turned the puppet over and opened his hand, staring at the painted-on face of the Devil.
Against the flesh of his palm, the puppet felt warm.
Father Gaetano cried out and let it fall into the box. Lucifer landed facedown amongst angels and animals. He stared at the crimson puppet and brought his hands together, running the cool fingers of his left over the palm of his right. The skin there was still warm.
In his mind’s eye he saw the fear on Marcello’s face, heard the boy’s wild claims about Luciano’s puppets echoing in his thoughts, along with Sebastiano’s description of Noah’s fretful moaning about building his ark.
Impossible.
“Is this your impression of The Thinker?”
Father Gaetano spun to see Sister Teresa standing in the doorway. He rose from his crouched position, still unsettled but happy to see her.
“I’m starting to think you’re checking up on me,” he said.
“Nonsense,” Sister Teresa said. “I just wondered how the puppet show went.”
Father Gaetano smiled, but couldn’t keep his brow from knitting at the same time. If she thought his expression awkward, she gave no sign of it. He turned and picked up the lid of the puppet box, then set it in place, pressing firmly on the edges, testing its weight, though he knew the urge to do so was ridiculous. It felt ridiculous.
Idly, he clasped his hands together and found both palms were cool enough that he could tell himself that the puppet’s strange warmth had been his imagination. He hadn’t slept well over the weekend—too many late-night walks to the shore, and too many cigarettes. Now his mind was playing tricks on him.
“The workers are nearly done repairing the damage at the convent. The workers are putting on the final coat of paint inside,” Sister Teresa said.
“That’s excellent news. I’d been meaning to ask.”
“Since your efforts are responsible, I wondered if you wanted to see the result.”
“Of course I would,” Father Gaetano replied. “Though I feel a bit of a chill this morning. Would you join me for a cup of coffee first?”
“I never say no to coffee, Father,” Sister Teresa replied.
Her smile was radiant.
As they left the classroom, Father Gaetano pulled the door closed behind him and checked to make sure it remained tightly shut.