The Priest's Madonna by Amy Hassinger Page A

throughout the Galil, even as far as Kafr Nahum. Visitors to her village might hear her whispering and kneel before her, asking for a blessing, but the village mothers pulled their children close when she passed. Some threw stones.
    Yeshua, though, was not afraid. “What a gift Abba has given you, Miryam!” he said. “To have his word always on your tongue! What a blessing!”
    But Miryam felt cursed. The pronunciation of sounds did not equal knowledge. She wanted release from her incessant whispering; she wanted peace, she wanted discernment, she wanted understanding. Yeshua, she hoped, could teach her these.
    He walked among them and spoke with them, but seemed simultaneously to be walking in seclusion. He appeared to be listening, enraptured—it was as if God himself was speaking in his ear. This, after some time, was what Miryam grew to believe: that Yeshua’s Abba spoke to him as her own father spoke to her.

Chapter Four
    B ÉRENGER’S INSISTENCE ON defending the Church rather than soothing my heartache wounded me. I punished him with silence for a time, and he avoided me, sensing my anger. Still, I longed to be near him.
    Thankfully, our battle of wills did not last long. One afternoon, he plunked himself in the chair beside mine as I sat shelling peas for winter storage. When I didn’t look up, he began whistling the tune to “Marinette, Marinette, la Petite Coquette.”
    “Please stop whistling that song,” I said, in as dignified a voice as I could muster.
    “Ah, she speaks. I had begun to wonder whether you’d lost your voice.”
    I kept my eyes trained on the pods between my fingers. “Why should I speak when I have nothing to say?”
    “Oh, but that’s not true, Marie. You do have something to say. You’re angry with me.”
    I raised my eyebrows.
    “I don’t blame you,” he said earnestly. “I did not give you a very good answer to your question.”
    I graced him with a look. “No, you didn’t.”
    “I responded reflexively,” he said. “I didn’t think.”
    “Do you really feel that way? That the Church was in the right? To murder all those people?”
    Bérenger sighed heavily. “What I think, what anyone thinks, doesn’t change what happened. Yes, undoubtedly, the Church has made mistakes. But that does not change the fact of its singularity, that, through the grace of God and his son Jesus Christ, the Church grants us salvation.”
    “I suppose so,” I said cautiously.
    “You are right to wonder about these things, Marie. You are right to think about justice. Christ was a lamb for justice, for peace. But I don’t want to see your questions undermine your faith. That’s why I spoke roughly to you.”
    “I understand,” I said, my eyes still on the peas.
    He leaned toward me, positioning his face in my line of vision so I could not help but look at him. In a whisper, he said, “But I should not have spoken so roughly. Marie, please. The last thing I want is for you to be angry with me.”
    “All right,” I said, raising my head and finally meeting his eyes. “I forgive you.”
    He leaned back in his chair, his face momentarily stricken with relief, as if he’d just barely evaded some great calamity. Then, abruptly, he stood and, smiling his mischievous smile, gave a charming little mock-bow.
    I was glad to be free to enjoy his company once again, and for that reason did not press the point. But the question remained: Did he truly believe that the Church had been justified in its massacre of all those thousands? In the absence of any definitive answer from him, I made up my own. I assumed he’d been carried away by his desire to defend the Church, and so had spoken insincerely. In this way, I was able to resume my former fantasies, in which we were free to love one another, though they were complicated by this new insight, this small window into his bewildering intransigence.
    T HEN CAME THE election. In the weeks leading up to elec tion day, my father spent his nights in