Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [220]
“God doesn’t leave people,” she said aloud. “We leave Him.” Her voice was shaking.
His eyes focused on her. “I served the Church all my life …” he protested.
“I know,” she agreed. “But that’s not the same thing. You created a God in your own image, one of laws and rituals, of office and observances, because that requires only outward acts. It’s simple to understand. You don’t have to feel, or give of your heart. You missed the grace and the passion, the courage beyond anything we can imagine, the hope even in absolute darkness, the gentleness, the laughter, and the love that has no shadow. The journey is longer and steeper than any of us can understand. But then heaven is higher, so it has to be steep, and far.”
He said nothing, his eyes bottomless, like pits dug out of his soul.
She reached for the towel, wrung out the water, and washed his face. She hated him, yet at this moment she would have taken his pain if she could.
“A Church can help,” she went on, in order to fill the silence, so he knew she was still there. “People can always help. We need people. There’s nothing if we don’t care. But the real climb is made not because this person or that person told you what to do, or lifted you on the way, it is made because you hunger for it so much, no one can stop you. You have to want it so that you will pay what it costs.”
“Didn’t I save souls?” he pleaded.
How could she refuse him? Love forgave. In all her anger and pain, she must remember she walked beside, not above. She too needed grace. If it was for a different sin, it was no less necessary.
“You have helped, but Christ redeemed them, and they saved themselves by being the best they could, and trusting in God to mend what was left.”
“Theodosia?” he asked. “I gave her absolution. She needed it. Wasn’t I right?”
“No,” she said softly. “You forgave her without demanding penance because you wanted to please her. You lied to her, and it destroyed her faith. Perhaps it was fragile anyway, but she couldn’t trust a God who would permit what she did to Joanna. You would have known that, if you’d thought about it honestly.”
“No, that’s not true.” But there was no conviction in his voice.
“Yes, it is. You defaced your own truth.”
He stared at her, and very slowly something of what she had said became real to him, and the abyss widened.
She saw it and was seized with pity, and then remorse. But it was too late to take it back. “She walked there willingly.” She touched the cloth to his face again, very gently. “We all do.” She met his eyes. Whatever she would see there, she had no right to look away now.
She took his hand in hers. “We all make mistakes. You are right, I have made some for which I have not yet repented, and I need to. But we are here to help, not to judge. Only God can teach you how to do that, not even the best of men, not when the pain is beyond bearing. Be gentle. Reach out. What gain is in it for you doesn’t matter.”
His face was ashen, his lips dry, as if he were already dead. He said the words so softly she had to strain to hear: “I am become Judas …”
She bathed his face and hands, his neck. She wet his lips and touched his skin with the perfumed unguent. It may have eased the pain for a while. Certainly he seemed calmer for it.
After a few moments longer, she stood up and went out of the room to ask for water to wash some of the dust and blood off herself. Every part of her body hurt. She had not realized it until now, but her left arm was soaked with her own blood, and her ribs were so badly bruised that it hurt to move. One side of her face was painful and swelling up so that her eye was half-closed, and now that she moved, she limped badly.
It was half an hour later when Anna returned to the upper bedroom to sit with Constantine again, in case there was something she could do for him. Perhaps as much as anything, it was so as not to leave him alone.
She stopped abruptly just beyond