Sacral

I Confess, Alfred Hitchcock, © 1953

He seemed to be the only penitent in the church. The airy hush was a sound larger than the place itself.

The priest waited in the confessional until a shuffling noise told him the man had at last joined him on the other side of the grid. The voice in the near pitch-dark was shaky.

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned…" So quavery it sounded more like a question, as if its owner couldn't settle on a tone. The man's breathing was shallow, rapid—the sound of near-panic. 

"Relax, we're all sinners here. How long since you last confessed, son?" the young priest soothed, suddenly aware of the awkwardness of such an endearment directed at someone probably no younger than he. Yet such was the nature of these things; how mysterious and nuanced the intricate bonds between shepherd and flock. 

"Not long. A while."

The priest chose to ignore the contradiction, sensing a reluctance that seemed to press on the confessional like an old mattress abandoned in a rainstorm.

"Take it slowly. They're not exactly lining up out there." He smiled grimly at this. He'd meant to put the man at ease but there was an edge to his tone even he could hear. Slim pickings among the faithful these days.

A conversation he'd had earlier with Sister Camilla arose unbidden. She'd looked at him askance and raised one full eyebrow.

"Your father was a tyrant, no?"

"Now why would you ask that, Sister?"

"Because, Father, you are so completely terrified of eternal damnation you spend much of your time atoning for sins you've yet to commit."

He hadn't argued. Couldn't have, really.

Though too cloaked in darkness to make out, he knew the thick rosary he clutched to his chest would give him sufficient strength to bear the torment of a fellow sinner, if only for a few scant moments. Those plump beads the ripest of grapes on his arid vine of faith.

"Father…" A sour scent like spoiled meat marinated in vinegar wafted through the grill.

"Yes?"

"You can't tell no one else? This is between you and me, right?"

"And the Almighty, yes."

"Good. Father. I didn't mean to do it." That small voice. Almost the voice of a child caught stealing apples from an orchard.

The young priest inhaled deeply, ignoring the abattoir fetor, calling on the Holy Spirit to fill him with patience and love.

"Take your time, my son." 

Through the grid he could barely even discern a silhouette, let alone any distinguishing features of the distressed man. Strange. Normally his eyes would have adjusted by now.

"I thought she was willing, Father. Otherwise I'd never have gone that far. When she fought back, I just…"

Quiet sobbing filled the confessional. The priest closed his eyes, felt a pain so deep it surely had to be in his soul. The agony of compassion. No doubt a mere thousandth of what Jesus Himself had felt for His own lost sheep.

"Something in me snapped, Father. I don't want to carry this with me…"

"Son, are you confessing a mortal sin to me right now?"

"If rape, dismemberment, and murder are mortal sins, Father, yes, I'm confessing all three."

"My God…" The priest squinted at the lattice in an attempt to resolve a hint of an outline or the particulars of a face. "You must tell someone else, you can't—"

"No! No! I will lose everything. This is all I know, Father, I…"

Without thought or warning, the priest was on his feet. He exited his side of the confessional, stepping over something that nearly blocked the narrow aisle between the recessed confessional and the rows of pews. He tore open the door to the other compartment, preparing to confront the man, urge him to tell the authorities. 

The booth was empty. It smelled only faintly of old incense and even older dust.

His skin prickled and his mouth went dry. In the restless glimmer cast by the nearby rack of votive candles, he could now see his own hands, the rosary swinging from them. The shiny black beads dripping something red the viscosity of syrup. He looked again at the object on the cold grey marble floor, at what he'd first thought was a discarded pile of clothing. Black, white, red. Like something from a childhood joke. Sister Camilla. Or what was left of her.

His high, liquid scream, rising like a startled dove toward the remote dusty beams above the nave, signalled the end of that day's sacrament of penance. Even though there was no one there to take its measure, to corroborate or to hear it.