The Devil and Miss Prym (On the Seventh Day 3)

"I am resisting," he replied. "But it's an uphill struggle."

"Your problem hasn't to do with God's justice exac

tly," the man said. "It's more the fact that you always chose to be a victim of circumstance. I know a lot of people in your situation."

"Like you, for example."

"No. I rebelled against something that happened to me and I don't care whether others like my attitude or not. You, on the other hand, believed in your role as helpless orphan, someone who wants to be accepted at all costs. Since that doesn't always happen, your need to be loved was transformed into a stubborn desire for revenge. At heart, you wish you were like the rest of Viscos' inhabitants--in other words, deep down, we'd all like to be the same as everyone else. But destiny accorded you a different fate."

Chantal shook her head.

"Do something," said Chantal's devil to his colleague. "Even though she's saying no, her soul understands and is saying yes."

The stranger's devil was feeling humiliated because the new arrival had noticed that he wasn't strong enough to get the man to shut up.

"Words don't matter in the end," the devil said. "Let them talk, and life will see to it that they act differently."

"I didn't mean to interrupt you," the stranger said. "Please, go on with what you were saying about God's justice."

Chantal was pleased not to have to listen anymore to things she didn't want to hear.

"I don't know if it makes sense. But you must have noticed that Viscos isn't a particularly religious place, even though it has a church, like all the villages in this region. That's because Ahab, even though he was converted to Christianity by St. Savin, had serious reservations about the influence of priests. Since the majority of the early inhabitants were bandits, he thought that all the priests would do, with their threats of eternal damnation, would be to send them back to their criminal ways. Men who have nothing to lose never give a thought for eternal life.

"Naturally, the first priest duly appeared, and Ahab understood what the real threat was. To compensate for it, he instituted something he had learned from the Jews--a Day of Atonement--except that he determined to establish a ritual of his own making.

"Once a year, the inhabitants shut themselves up in their houses, made two lists, turned to face the highest mountain and then raised their first list to the heavens.

"'Here, Lord, are all the sins I have committed against you,' they said, reading the account of all the sins they had committed. Business swindles, adulteries, injustices, things of that sort. 'I have sinned and beg forgiveness for having offended You so greatly.'

"Then--and here lay Ahab's originality--the residents immediately pulled the second list out of their pocket, and still facing the same mountain, they held that one up to the skies too. And they said something like: 'And here, Lord, is a list of all Your sins against me: You made me work harder than necessary, my daughter fell ill despite all my prayers, I was robbed when I was trying to be honest, I suffered more than was fair.'

"After reading out the second list, they ended the ritual with: 'I have been unjust towards You and You have been unjust towards me. However, since today is the Day of Atonement, You will forget my faults and I will forget Yours, and we can carry on together for another year.'"

"Forgive God!" said the stranger. "Forgive an implacable God who is constantly creating and destroying!"

"This conversation is getting too personal for my taste," said Chantal, looking away. "I haven't learned enough from life to be able to teach you anything."

The stranger said nothing.

"I don't like this at all," thought the stranger's devil, beginning to see a bright light shining beside him, a presence he was certainly not going to allow. He had banished that light two years ago, on one of the world's many beaches.

Given the large number of legends, of Celtic and Protestant influences, of certain unfortunate examples set by the Arab who had eventually brought peace to the village, and given the constant presence of saints and bandits in the surrounding area, the priest knew that Viscos was not exactly a religious place, even though its residents still attended baptisms and weddings (although nowadays these were merely a distant memory), funerals (which, on the contrary, occurred with ever increasing frequency), and Christmas Mass. For the most part, few troubled to make the effort to attend the two weekly Masses--one on Saturday and one on Sunday, both at eleven o'clock in the morning; even so, he made sure to celebrate them, if only to justify his presence there. He wished to give the impression of being a busy, saintly man.

To his surprise, that day the church was so crowded that he had to allow some of the congregation up onto the altar steps, otherwise they could not have fitted everyone in. Instead of turning on the electric heaters suspended from the ceiling, he had to ask members of the congregation to open the two small side windows, as everyone was sweating; the priest wondered to himself whether the sweat was due to the heat or to the general tension.

The entire village was there, apart from Miss Prym--possibly ashamed of what she had said the previous day--and old Berta, whom everyone suspected of being a witch and therefore allergic to religion.

"In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

A loud "Amen" rang out. The priest began the liturgy, said the introit, had the usual faithful church member read the lesson, solemnly intoned the responsory, and recited the Gospel in slow, grave tones. After which, he asked all those in the pews to be seated, whilst the rest remained standing.

It was time for the sermon.

"In the Gospel according to Luke, there is a moment when an important man approaches Jesus and asks: 'Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' And, to our surprise, Jesus responds: 'Why callest thou me good? None is good, save one, that is, God.'

"For many years, I pondered over this little fragment of text, trying to understand what Our Lord was saying: That He was not good? That the whole of Christianity, with its concept of charity, is based on the teachings of someone who considered Himself to be bad? Finally, I saw what he meant: Christ, at that moment, is referring to His human nature. As man, He is bad, as God, He is good."

The priest paused, hoping that the congregation understood his message. He was lying to himself: he still couldn't grasp what Christ was saying, since if his human nature was bad, then his words and actions would also be bad. But this was a theological discussion of no relevance just then; what mattered was that his explanation should be convincing.