The old padre wore a long black cassock whose frayed hemlines swept the dust in swiveled spirals made pink in the evening dusk. He dutifully marched up the hill toward the sound of ringing bells sourced from a white-walled church. It was the hour of confession. The church had an official designation but was known to the locals as Iglesia de la Sangre Nueva, on account of how many young parishioners had been slaughtered at the border four blocks north. December was cruel to the townsfolk of Juarez. A mean wind cut through the warmest coats and the unlucky citizens, falling on the bad side of the border coin toss, could not afford modern HVAC heating. The church was built sometime in the eighteenth century so its walls were poorly insulated. Church staff warmed it with a faulty steam trap that broke down frequently. The padre crested the hill, feeling sharp stabs at every step between kneecap and shin. At the summit, he opened the heavy door and entered the chilly church. The air was frosty and the space was dimly lit by votive candles and a few stray lanterns.
He hobbled up to the bright orange confessional, entered on the right, and took a seat atop the firm wooden bench. He folded his hands atop his lap and twirled his thumbs in the manner of a small motor. He grimaced and moved his tongue about his teeth, as though harassed by an itch.
The padre was a runner in his youth so he viewed each year of life as a relay race between mind, body, and spirit. “All must work in unison to complete the race,” he’d professed to any available ear. The padre had run many laps (some heroic, some gauche) but now his body lagged behind. Every decade he exchanged a vice for more life, shedding his pleasures like snakeskin. In his forties, he shed chewing tobacco. In his fifties, he shed alcohol. In his sixties, he shed red meat. Now, crossing over into his arid seventies, he was forced to surrender his most senior vice. The padre was at risk for diabetes forcing him to shed the gift of sugar.
Oh, how he craved his naughty fruits! His pelonazo push-pops, his sweet breads, his assorted chili treats, his paletas de limón. Any bocado dulce would curl his toes, but like most addicts, he had a favorite flavor of high. His perfect fix was a Mazapán de la Rosa. What a magnificent curio this peanut crumble soft candy was! Each bite coated the tongue in chalk, confused the taste buds, and left them open to a retarded wallop of peanut-flavored concentrate. Each afternoon he rewarded himself with one for a successful morning service, and to encourage himself for the mass later that evening. For the padre, his sweet tooth was more than an indulgent. It was a coping mechanism. As a boy he’d used candy to deal with an abusive father. As the leader of the church, he’d used it to console himself after burying so many unripe parishioners, slaughtered in gang warfare, ambient and otherwise. Their faces of the victims’ mothers were purple as roasted beets and their horrible cries were often directed straight for him. After failing to comfort them, only candy saved him from drowning. But now his treats were gone and his afternoons felt barren. He gave his remaining stash to local children and privately lamented that there are no good vices for old men. All his pleasantries stripped away he felt bare and infantile. He was returning to the abyss as naked as he arrived.
The church doors opened abruptly and with it came fast footsteps over the terracotta floor. He often played a game to see if he could deduce the parishioner via their steps but in this moment, his mind trailed onto how euphonically correct the Spanish were to name shoes after the sound of footsteps. Zapatos, zapatos, zapatos. The parishioner hastened shut the left confessional door but sat with a light touch. This signaled to him that the hidden figure was a woman. Out of breath from the hill, she quietly panted like a dog forced to hunt clever rabbits, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
“How long has it been since your last confession?”
“I’ve lost my sense of time. It could be two months, it could be ten years. I really couldn’t tell you.”
“And how have you transgressed?”
The woman ran her fingers through her hair. He could sense her struggling to collect her thoughts. Finally, with disbelief and woe, she said, “I bought a cart of cherry tomatoes.”
An involuntary laugh slipped from the corner of his mouth and loudly clapped throughout the church. “I’m sorry, my dear, I do not mean to be rude. I’ve had women confess to abandoning their infants and men speak of grisly deeds in the dark. How have cherry tomatoes offended our Lord?”
“Oh, Father. Surely you are not so naïve.”
The old padre frowned. “What do you mean?”
A long, suspenseful minute went by during which the padre fidgeted with heady excitement. “You don’t know me but perhaps you have seen me. I am the woman who comes only periodically and only ever alone. I sit in the back and leave before communion. I do not sing songs of praise and glory. I only exchange peace when a neighbor is too close to avoid.” His mind searched but he could not seem to place her. “I am a lapsed Catholic. I am without faith so I come to service as a ghost. However. I am in need and I have nowhere else to go.”
The padre had not had a confession this curious in years.
“All in need are always welcome in the house of Christ, dear child. Do not be afraid. He is with you even when you are not with Him.”
She sighed. “I work for Doctors Without Borders. I live in Dallas. My mother lives here, so I make time to serve Juarez when I have a say in the matter. Because I speak Spanish, they deploy me all over the country. Jalisco, Zacatecas, Colima, you name it. I’ve just returned from a tour in Michoacán.” The padre heard tapping of nails on a phone screen, “I was having a hard time collecting my thoughts so I wrote them down. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all, my dear. Whatever helps you unburden your soul.”
“Thanks,” she cleared her throat and began, “In Michocán, I saw orange dahlias bloom in a young, ripe valley. I saw laborers pull agave piñas down desert paths aboard donkeys. I saw day break through the arches of el Lago de Zirahuén. I can place myself within each frame of these memories. In that gorgeous country, I felt free and in communion with a tangible grace that knows no religious bounds. And yet I know from experience that the prettiest places have the saddest stories.”
The padre heard a strange repetitious noise and determined it was the doctor’s leg shaking. Suddenly, his eyes flashed and he remembered her. She was the mysterious woman who would sometimes sit in the last pew. He remembered how her leg would anxiously titter while he walked through the church raising the monstrance on high. He saw her clearly: Her cocao skin, her dark brown hair sprouting early grays, her unhappy mouth. He always tried to make eye contact but her hazel eyes always refused to meet his.
“A week into my residency I was assigned to a family of subsistence farmers living in the pueblo Francisco Serrato. They were a common campesino family, which means they were incredibly unlucky. The father, Mauricio, inherited his father’s farm in 2012. It was in disrepair, but within a few months, Mauricio was able to turn it around. Soon, his hard labor bore tremendous fruits. He harvested cucumbers, squash, navalina oranges, and key limes. As a pet project, his wife, Yazmina, kept a little private garden where she grew cherry tomatoes for themselves. A few frugal years passed. But once NAFTA was enacted, their margins were squeezed to the point of suffocation. The couple had no choice but to cross the border and join Mauricio’s brother in Yuma County. They found happiness in Arizona. Yazmina gave birth to a girl named Juana, and then a boy named Juan Carlos. Their fortunes were looking up until Mauricio took a short-term contract job doing custodial work at a hospital during the pandemic. At some point, he filled out either the right paperwork at the wrong time or the wrong paperwork at the right time. Regardless, ICE captured him. He was deported without mercy. Yazmina hid with the children until her finances gave out and she was forced to return to the Michoacán farm which had now fallen beneath the long shadow of a local cartel. I was assigned to them around this point because Yazmina was with child.”
The doctor unscrewed a bottle cap and took a drink of water. The padre, though interested found himself distracted by an absent jolt that only sugar from Mazapán could fix. He stifled a yawn and leaned closer to the partition.
“Yazmina was a good mother, and under normal circumstances, she gladly would’ve taken a third cub into her home. In fact, she had planned to. But once the cow went lame, the loss of income from its milk meant they couldn’t bear the short-term costs of infancy even weighed against the long-term advantages of a future farm hand. As such, she was in her second trimester, so I knew the procedure would be a bit more complicated. Furthermore, the cartel was in a dispute with the local hospital, demanding a cut of the hospital’s income. The hospital explained that it operated at a loss, only breaking even through government aid. The cartel didn’t care. A pox of sicarios surrounded the facility leaving nobody able to go in or out. I told her that I would not be able to operate in her home due to potential infection and that we would have to travel to another city. Yazmina protested that she couldn’t be away that long and ensured the place would be clean. I tried to reason with her but she threatened to use a coat hanger if I didn’t. Eventually, her peasant stubbornness wore me down. I asked my superiors what to do and they told me to proceed with extra caution and vigilance. I scheduled the operation for Sunday so Mauricio could take Juana and Juan Carlos camping, vacating the farmhouse to us.”
The doctor took another sip of water. The padre stirred softly.
“On Sunday morning, I passed through a flimsy barbed wire fence; Yazmina received me by the clotheslines. She folded laundry into a small straw basket while the cicadas shrilled harshly from the fields around us. Inside, their squat farmhouse, I saw a tapestry of centuries. The home sported the old Mayan style, not much more than a shanty. Half the floor was covered in Spanish tile, half was bare ground. Electric company meters had been built into the house and Christmas lights dangled overhead. Power strips were taped up beside the adobe hearth which held a lukewarm fire. It was near the end of the rainy season so a tarp was placed over the metal slat roof. By a small bunkbed, Juana stuck teen mag cutups on her wall while Juan Carlos hung posters of Mo and Messi on his. Despite its impoverished charms, I saw risks of infection everywhere. I tried to hide my astonishment but this was no easy task, and I’m sure I did a lousy job. When Yazmina was ready, I assembled a gurney and wheeled it near the hearth to keep her warm. Yazmina lay down and I administrated anesthesia. Her eyelids shut softly and for the first time, I saw her face relax. I began the D&E procedure, which started well enough, but the fetus was larger than expected and we hit a snag on exit. Around this time the wind and the rain picked up and the ensuing downpour extinguished the fire in the hearth. I put a blanket over Yazmina’s cold body and finished the surgery in total darkness. I continued collecting the fetus with my ovum but each pull made it deteriorate more. My fingers were my eyes but everything felt like wet leaves in my hands. At times I came across familiar things like the fetus’ digits, the recognition of which illuminated the space like a black sun. I felt them brush against my own fingers like brittle teeth from a plastic comb. In these moments, you are placed so near and far from life that you find yourself fixed in the gulf between them with few tools to proceed.”
The padre murmured an unintelligible response but the doctor was too energized to interrogate it.
“Eventually the operation was finished. I cleared out the hearth and built another fire. Once my surroundings were illuminated, I cleaned up the house and put Yazmina to rest, monitoring her throughout the night. The next morning, I discovered that she was infected as I’d feared. When her family returned, I told them she’d be out of commission for at least a week. Mauricio looked gravely at this news but could do nothing but accept it. A week went by. One night, Mauricio, Juana, and Juan Carlos returned home from the fields, exhausted and starving. Each was rationed five cherry tomatoes from Yazmina’s garden with the rest placed in bags for pickup by the cartels. They ate slowly, savoring the flavor as long as possible. By mousy nibbles, they managed to make the small rosy spheres last. Still famished, Juan Carlos cried out for more, lunging onto the bags. Yazmina lurched out of her sickbed, pried his jaws open, and drew a cherry tomato from his mouth. He dove onto his bed and wept hungry tears. I saw Yazmina put the cherry tomato back in the bag. She returned to her sickbed, lay down, and listened to her son weep. She shut her eyes. I saw her heart breaking in her chest.”
The phone dropped from the doctor’s hands causing the padre to jolt.
“Sorry, Father.”
“No problem, dear,” he sleepily groaned. “Please continue.”
She picked the phone up, scrolled back to her place, and resumed, “The next morning, I was set to be picked up but when I woke Yazmina was gone from her sickbed. I went to the front yard to wait for my convoy when I saw a truck pull up to the front gate. A country sicario hopped out to collect Yazmina’s bags of produce. He had a round head with no chin. His face was unshaven and his white t-shirt and blue jeans were stained. Even his boots were scuffed. I couldn’t find his eyes behind his wraparound sunglasses. He grinned at me and his teeth were blanched white. He tossed the bags in the truck bed and drove off. I ran into the fields. When I found Juana, she said Yazmina had been in bed when they left. We searched through the pasture for half an hour. Eventually, I found her. She lay face down in the squash fields, an overturned basket collapsed at her side. Fearing the consequences of falling behind, she took to the fields while still infected. Now she was dead of sepsis. I heard a van honk from the farmhouse. My convoy was waiting to pick me up.”
The doctor sighed.
“Since coming home, I’ve been avoiding cherry tomatoes to the best of my ability. But they’re everywhere and on everything, and they show up when you least expect them. Trips to the supermarket have become exercises in emotional fascism. Behind every piece of produce, I see the grief-stricken faces of peasant families near and far. I feel their anguish as they’re forced feet-first into a grinder, just so that we have the option to eat seasonal produce year-round. When I see the unsold supply thrown out I can barely breathe! And then I feel self-conscious for feeling this way because I’m powerless to stop it. Sure, I could stop buying them, but one person cannot remove them from the stores. It was my son’s Christmas party last week, and the school asked me to make my signature avocado tomato salad. After mounting pressure, I relented. It was the party’s great favorite. Against my better judgment, I took a bite, taking the full weight of my sin into my mouth. And Father... it was wonderful. The avocado was rich and creamy but the tomatoes were unlike anything else. They snapped under my teeth; their flavor galloping across my tongue. As I chewed the fruits of Yazmina, I crushed her too. And now I don’t know what to do with myself. So, I’m here with you, Father, begging you for any guidance whatsoever. Please tell me what to do.”
She clicked off her phone and placed it back in her purse.
To her surprise, the padre did not make a sound. His side of the partition was silent and still.
“Father?”
She placed her ear against the partition.
On the other side, she heard the pleasant sound of the padre softly snoozing.
Despite the doctor’s urgency, the padre’s lack of sugar had caused him to sway, flirting with slumber. He lost the fight and had fallen fast asleep near the middle of her tale. The doctor’s face puckered, contorting into violent forms. She let out a lacerating shriek which echoed through the church and tore through the town below the hill. The padre woke disoriented and cried out, “Three Hail Marys!” but she was gone.
He opened the confession door and saw an astonished deacon boy. “Where’d she go?” The deacon pointed to the front doors.
The padre hobbled over and then looked down the steep incline. All that was left of the doctor were dusty spirals made blue by the moon. He saw parishioners driving into the parking lot for evening mass. He sighed, closed the door, and joined the deacon to prepare.
As he draped the eggshell white amice around his shoulders and fixed it to his neck, he privately admonished himself for losing the doctor who came to his congregation as a ghost and had vanished much the same. He tied the amice strings around his waist and in doing so, he felt newly clothed, even armored. Fragments of the doctor’s confession had reached him in his dreams, and he thought he understood the gist of her plight. As is so often the case, the student may instruct the teacher. If he had stayed awake, he would’ve told the doctor that perhaps someday she would get used to her anguish, and then her anguish would become familiar, and in its familiarity, she would be comforted. As he adorned himself in the ornamental Alb, his advice was reflected back to him, and he realized that the misery of his sugarless plight would not last forever. He remembered that the phantom pleasures of his paletas, of his mango con tajin, and his Marzapán would one day comfort him in their absence. The congregation seated themselves amongst the pews. With renewed grace in his heart and joy on his tongue, he raised his hands to say,
“May the peace of the Lord be with you all.”
Abe El-Raheb
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