One morning Emma was busy kneading when she heard a noise in the yard. Pirate came charging out from behind the rain barrel, crowing like the last defender of civilization. She slid the mortar and pestle for grinding the straw under a table. Then she gathered her skirts and hastened to the wide barn door.
Beside the opening in the barnyard wall stood a man dressed entirely in black. At Emma’s approach he turned his head only, glaring back before strolling away toward the eastern well.
She hesitated. If she did not follow, though, the rooster would awaken half the village. Pirate sought constantly to escape the barnyard confines; Emma thought he probably imagined whole harems of hens on the other side of the wall, each of them eager to be bred.
She had seen pictures of hedgerows elsewhere, the demure low walls of Ireland, the fence with a gate in England’s Lake District. But in the region of Vergers, hedgerows were something else: thick warrens of bracken and root that stood twice the height of a man, arched over the lanes like a chapel roof, dividing properties as impenetrably as any wall. Those bushes contained all manner of predators that would make short work of a three-pound bird.
Emma shooed him away, and he quieted once she had passed through the wooden door in the barnyard’s brick wall, pulling it closed behind her.
The man now stood on the far side of the well. He wore a dark beard, trimmed thin along his jaw, and heavy black glasses. “That infernal rooster should be served for supper,” he said.
“He makes an excellent watchdog,” Emma replied evenly, wiping her hands on her skirts. “You never know who might be sneaking up.”
“I was not sneaking,” the man said. “The scent of your baking is a torment.”
“You know I am following orders.”
“Emmanuelle.” He shook his head. “Emmanuelle.”
“That is my name.”
“Who would know better than the man who baptized you?”
Emma crossed her arms. “Why does the Monsignor visit me on this rainy morning? Surely my obedience to the Kommandant commits no sin.”
“I dare not speculate about you and sin,” the priest said. “That is for God alone to condemn. It is for me only to pity and lament. But I am here to make a request. Actually, two.”
“I have nothing to offer you.”
“Do I seem that much of a fool?” he said, wiggling his fingers at her. “I know all about your little network.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about, Monsignor.”
“Your neighbors tell a different story in the confessional booth. You have woven a web with deceptions. By preying on their desperation, you compel them to bear false witness as well.”
“If I am guilty of deceiving anyone, it is the occupying army. In my opinion, they deserve much worse.”
“You are guilty of many things, of course.” The Monsignor sidled out from behind the well. “The question is what I ought to do, if I am to obey my conscience.”
“Your conscience is not my business.”
“I suspect you are concerned enough with your own.”
“I sleep well,” Emma answered. “Aside from hunger, fear of the officer upstairs, and worry about Mémé’s mind going foggy.”
“Poor Mémé, at the moment when she is most vulnerable, to be attended by a sinner.”
“‘Judge not, lest ye be judged.’”
He rolled his eyes heavenward. “She quotes Scripture at me.” The priest sighed, circling the well, one hand trailing on the stones. “Tell me, Emmanuelle, when did you last attend Mass at St. Agnes by the Sea?”
She leaned against the brick wall. “Last October. When I realized that my prayers were all for an enemy’s death.”
“But you know, too, that prayer could remove that hatred. Why did you stop at that time in particular?”
“I knew that God had forgotten us.”
The priest stopped in his circling. “Blasphemy. God is always present.”
Emma pushed up her shirtsleeves. “If God exists, He is resting comfortably on the ocean’s far shore, reclining in plump chairs beside our so-called Allies, who have perfected the art of watching us suffer and doing nothing about it.”
The priest shook his head. “Proud as your rooster, and it is my fault. I should not have permitted you to apprentice with a Jew.”
“What? What did you say to me?” She advanced on him, hands balled into fists.
“You will show respect, Emmanuelle.” The priest raised one finger in rebuke. “At once. I have friends among the officers. Indeed they worship the same Christ as you, and come to Mass accordingly. I imagine they might frown on your secrets.”
Emma paused, calculating. Pirate stirred behind the brick wall, growling like an underfoot cur. She approached the priest, quieting her tone to match his. “If you have been hearing those villagers’ confessions, you know I am keeping half of them alive.”
“Perhaps,” he conceded. “But your ministry of the pragmatic is performed without faith.”
The priest peered into the well, addressing his words to the darkness. “I did not come here to preach, Emmanuelle. But I must say this, which I know with all my being: to live without faith is to make a hell on earth.”
Emma threw her hands up. “Why did you come here, then? What do you want?”
“Two things, as I said. The first—” He straightened, tucking his hands into the wide opposing sleeves of his tunic. “Bread.”
Emma’s eyes went wide. “You are so corrupt it is comical.”
“The broken rail lines mean I have not received Communion wafers. You have extra loaves, don’t deny it. Your pride is a sin before God, and your penance is to provide me with half a loaf each day, henceforth.”
She snorted. “For you to feed your face.”
“For the holy sacrifice of the Mass, Emmanuelle. For my flock, which in this dark hour hungers more than ever for the bread of life. And yes, young lady, though you scoff at me, my second request concerns the salvation of your immortal soul.” He lifted the crucifix that hung around his neck and kissed it. “Attend Mass this week, and be saved.”
Emma strode to the door in the barnyard wall, where she paused. “You know, Monsignor, I still remember the day I made my first Holy Communion. I thought you were a living prayer, a direct connection to God. But I am older now. And it turns out that you are merely selfish.”
“I say again: Life without faith is a hell on earth.”
“Please.” She passed through the opening. “Don’t come here again.”
“A hell on earth,” he yelled after her.
Out of the Monsignor’s sight Emma pressed a palm to the bricks to steady herself. Would he actually betray her to the occupying army? Should she return to the Church? Life was difficult enough without these questions.
“Bastard,” she whispered.
Chapter 4