The Confession

"Remember, when they chanted your name and your business in the streets?

'Masseratelle has a secret!' they sang, they cajoled.

'Masseratelle has a secret!'

It is the New Year, today, Masseratelle. Yet it was in the old year that you kept your secret. Your secret and mine. The secret we all kept, until we couldn't any longer.

The Bishops and the Cardinals, Masseratelle! You spoke for them. You were their public voice, delivering the words of the Papacy and the councils. And when they heard your voice tremble, in November, all the streets and throngs of Rome thrashed you left and right with decisions already made for you. They desired your secret, the cause of your being so troubled and downcast in public.

You desired a way to dissuade them.

You asked me for advice. More, you accepted my help!

The Armistice Day was chosen, and you announced that you would go to the cathedral of Santa Valenza di Roma. You would enter alone, and there you would sit at the grated curtain and make confession. Only the priest and God would know. And you would take Mass, as well, and offer a prayer on your own behalf. You would pray that the crowds and mobs would be satisfied with this chosen outlet of disposing your secret which kept you so troubled. This would be your Penance. You assured the members of the diocese that your normal good spirit would return to you once you had confessed, and making a spectacle of the matter would keep the masses under a sunlit patch of loyal sky.

Everyone, and I do mean everyone, watched you with excited fervor as you entered the cathedral. The crowds talked and waited and gossiped and wondered. Oh, what could Masseratelle's secret be!

But Masseratelle-

What happened next?

No living man knows, save for you and the priest.

Would you tell me, now?

It seems to trouble you so, on il Capodanno, this New Year's Day!

The first day of January, this continuation of December's final eve, this should be a joyous time! A time for love, for memory, for friends, for family! And Sydney is not our beloved home of Sardinia's coast, I admit. But it is still wonderful. The thousands of fireworks will be sent up over the harbor soon, and the rousing music is already beginning to blare, and the tables are set and layered with a sweeping adornment of bounty, in honor of the future, as well as for La Festa di San Silvestro. The old things, you recall, are meant to be devoted to the past- thrown out the windows! Look, at this, our balcony table for two. Look, down at the floor below us, where our friends dine mirthfully, in a warm rapture. Pork represents richness of life, and lentils symbolize wealth. Smell the seasoned scent of the cotechino con lenticchie! Taste your caviar, highlighted on the silver dish there. Feel the tingle of the sparkling wines, even while you refuse to drink them. The candles are burning, waxing their aromas through the hall. Garlands are hung. At the New Year's ringing, people will hug, and shake hands, and make vows, and kiss! We will raise and toast the glasses! For our new Australian home's sake, we feast today on their meringue dish, their pavlova, with its fruity cream. On their barbecue, their steak and their prawn. On their, their- oh, what can they call it? Help me. La torta al cioccolato e cocco che sa di pasta frolla?"

"Lamingtons?"

"Si, si! On their lamb, on their stone fruit and mango!"

I sighed with a burden for the great glamor of it all. Of this festive night and day.

"And yet, Masseratelle, your good spirit is gone away again. I feel it. I sense your discomfort, your worry. I know that it must be because of what happened in the cathedral where you made your secret confessions. You fear not only for yourself, but for us, and for our secret. Why is this? Please, oh please tell it to me in full, at last! Tell me. Will you?"

"I will. I will tell you now, Marta."

"Good! Good. Oh, Masseratelle! I will share your grief for this, this one hour. Then later you must accept my invitation, and share in my happiness. Will you, Il mio più caro?"

He smiled benevolently. Laughed, even. "I will," he said to me.

I laid back in my chair and folded my sleeves and my dress hem. My mask lay on my lap, face up. "Then tell on," I prompted Masseratelle. Softly, he told me.

"When I entered the cathedral, I closed the doors behind me, and took a long moment to gloss over the fine architecture of the building. It is a sight I will not dare to begin describing. It is sacred and beautiful, as much as I hate its master. Eventually I passed through the empty cloisters, entered a side chamber I'd been given directions to earlier, and stalked methodically into the folds of my place of confession.

I approached the confessional screen, and took to the seat offered me, a velveted stool in the shadows past streaming window light which was cast and strewn about through the frames of stained glass enchanting the cathedral's rooms without fail. Against the thatched bronze veil, I set my left hand. With my right hand, I made the sign of the cross. I whispered, you know, the words:

'Nel nome del Padre, del Figlio e dello Spirito Santo. Amen.'

I let my words die in a flutter of heartbeat and hovering breath, then, until I could hear nothing in the chamber but my own thoughts and the breathing of the priest. I calmed, matching my pace of breath with his own. My left hand, on which I wore my gifted Ethereal university ring, I tripped gratingly over the surface of the partition between us two men. From top to bottom.

Clang, clunk, clang, clang, cling, clang, clunk, clang, cling, clang, clunk, clonggggg-

And then, only then, did I begin fiercely. Henceforth in my Italian tongue.

'Benedicimi, Padre, perché ho peccato.'

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

And the voice replied, in fine timing and smooth gravel.

'How long has it been, Masseratelle, since your last Confession?'

Something about the voice disturbed me. Following a sturdy pause, with which I hoped to redemonstrate my overlording of the exchange as the Confessor, I answered the voice's query with a tempered hesitance. After all, had I not prepared this answer quite well beforehand? I spoke with a drip in my words. It sounded, I hope, almost haughty.

'I have never confessed, Father.'

'Never?'

'Not in the way over which you feather yourself to preside, Father.'

The priest, to my great surprise, chuckled. And then he leaned forward out of the imperceptible shadows of his dark hearing room and touched the metal partition with his hand, his pale skin visible in patches in the sunlight.

'Should be calling me Mother, instead, my friend. Your talk of feathering tells me you came here expecting to find one of my wizened egg-chicks, but not so. I wouldn't leave you to any old Father, begging for your sins like alms. I am the hatcher, who stands over the nest. I am here to discuss your merits, not your sins. We've never quite met before, Masseratelle, but don't you know me?'

I gasped. My mouth dried. My boldness and faith faltered.

He was no mere priest, my priest.

It was the Pope. Il Papa.

I sat in confession before Enzio II, the bestower of nothing.

Enzio, you know, is a younger pope. The promiser of everything. Crafty and smart and of a very different generation than those before him.

What intrigue he intended by sitting under my confession? I could not guess as immediately as I wished to. In fact, for a good many moments, I could not guess at all. Yet I suspected it must be some great purpose, as little as I cared for the man or his station.

'Why me, you wonder?'

'Yes. Why?'

'I wanted to see you, Masseratelle. I wanted to be the one and only person who heard your confession, your great disturbance, the secret thief of your joy and your passion that I used to see and feel so often -no, always!- in your speeches.'

He cleared his throat. I settled in to listen, through the veil.

'I determined that your name would be significant in modern society, Masseratelle. Me. Your name is a household staple. An intoxication. A uniquity. I have never had your deserving thankfulness for my part in that rise you achieved by your talents, my friend.' He leaned forward, pressing his long, rippled face close to the curtain, so that I saw his cold bright eyes. 'But then, I have never demanded gratitude from you. And I never will.'

I relented to my inner urge of courtesy, bowing my head in true respect for this. We both saw, now, that I would never have offered him praise anyway.

'You are marvelous among men, my friend! I want to keep you to myself, in my own service. You are, I perceive, like a Prince of Rome to the people. Yes, we know the Cardinals and the Bishops and even some in my city think of you still as the poor Sardinian student, failing his Rhetoric classes on pitiful technicalities. But I think of you as more, much more. Is that worth anything to you? Ah, no, do not answer that. What I want from you now, Masseratelle, is this: Stay here with us. Come back from your touring, for good. It is your mission of Sardinian business which disquiets and unsettles you, is it not? That is the secret not-sin you keep? Quit whatever mission you are on and be restored to your great orations! I offer you a deal, here. Do your patriotic work on behalf of Sardinia, by all means, but do it from Italy. What about that offer could you refuse, my friend?'

I carefully paused. Then I leaned forward, like a pitcher of water poured. I inflected my voice.

'Will you permit me time to consider?'

Enzio hummed. 'I would be willing to allow that.'

'Time I might spend continuing my mission?'

I held my breath here. He conceded easily to this, though.

'How long will you permit me?'

'I will give you until the New Year, my friend.'

'The New Year?!' I slammed my fist against the brass lattice. 'That is, what, seven weeks?! Only seven weeks! Misericordia sia mia . . .' Exasperated, I folded my hands together and pressed them to my lips. 'Give me through the Winter, at least. Please.'

Vague side-to-side movement of his head behind the peepholes told me I was denied my plea.

'I cannot spare you for that long. No, not through the Winter. Perhaps, if you returned at the New Year and spoke for us for a few weeks, we might then discuss some form of extension?'

I laughed cruelly at this.

'Please. Cut the hair of the goddess even shorter, won't you?' I quoted. 'I have a whole world to tell, Enzio! Still a minimum of thirty nations to deliver speeches to. And I must be fleet of foot. I must be, I must be. I must be sure we are ahead of those who might spread the news with less noble intentions. They need me, my fellow Sardinians. I just- I cannot divide myself adequately between the two purposes I am asked to serve.'

He crackled, almost unkindly.

'My friend, let them complete the task without you!'

I grimaced, hiding the expression with my hand.

'If only I could.'

'You think you are indispensable?'

'I do.'

'Why, my friend? You are the best, of course. But couldn't they get by with your other orators? Without you?'

'Couldn't you?' I sniffed.

This last remark was to be my colpo d'addio, my parting shot. Understanding we were at an impasse, the pope silently considered our deal to be made. All pleasantry slipped away, oozed away from his voice and tone.

'You have your penance, Masseratelle. You have your contrition to perform. You have a time set for your next confession. And you have countless sheep waiting for the voice of the shepherd- waiting just outside the walls of this fantastic cathedral.'

I closed my eyes. I took a full minute, just to compose myself. For the sake of the waiting world. Eventually, I managed to breathe without emotion my final required words of the confession process.

'My absolution, Father.'

Pope Enzio II motioned from behind the confession wall, raising his hand and reciting the final benediction on my wearied spirit even as he privately cursed the day he knew he would lose my vaunted speeches and my loyalties. That same day on which I would lose all the world's favor and approval that my talent with oration had gained me.

'Dio, Padre delle misericordie,

attraverso la morte e la risurrezione del Figlio suo

ha riconciliato il mondo a sé

e ha effuso lo Spirito Santo per il perdono dei peccati;

attraverso il ministero della Chiesa

Dio vi conceda il perdono e la pace,

e ti assolvo dai tuoi peccati

nel nome del Padre e del Figlio,

e dello Spirito Santo.'

And oh, Marta! I left before he had finished speaking. I was as frustrated as the Sun would be if the Moon had circumvented ahead of its time of nightfall and crowded the noonday sky with one orb of dull silver and the other of fainted gold. You tell me- did my blood have cause to burn?

I fled from the chamber in a consternated, yet mastered step. I thrust open the door and passed through the sanctuary without half a thought, as the sounds of singing rushed at my ears, just previously so savaged without knowing by the dim quiet volume and atmosphere of the confession.

At the massive doors, I halted my march.

Regiments of soldiers were what I wanted at my back in that moment. Not the shell of a man who was looked to for authority and power divine. I wished to roam the great, wide, shining city. I prayed for an escort, a guard, a company I would never have, with which to take my private tour. I wished I could pretend that none of my problems existed. I did not want to face the crowd outside, showing them my false face.

I did not lust for the stupid expression of mobs; the precocious look usually reserved for children daydreaming as they admire the swirling colors and the mascot decorating a breakfast cereal box.

As I stood there, simmering, I recited aloud again, mantra-like, the bloodied and soiled absolution prayer, in all its Tridentine revelry.

'God, the Father of mercies,

Through the death and resurrection of his Son

Has reconciled the world to himself

And poured out the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins;

Through the ministry of the Church

May God grant you pardon and peace,

And I absolve you from your sins

In the name of the Father, and of the Son,

And of the Holy Spirit.'

Then through the entryway I passed. Into the daylight once more.

I was a Prince of Rome. A Voice of the Vatican.

Wasn't I?

I traipsed gaily down the center aisle of the street laid out before me, stretching into the peopled horizon, mazed with ornate buildings of late days and ancient. My name was chanted, but now liberated from the weight of being known in association with secret-bearing. The loving fools. They acted as if God himself had stooped down during my confession and confided that I was the hero of every prophecy and myth ever given to man and invented by him in his most desperate hours. Flowers were thrown at my feet; streamers and wreathes were laced about the women and the children. Faces beamed like carnations. Half-familiar Requiems were being sung in all fervency by choirs amassed in angelic ranks. Men streamed to the churches for Mass. Prayers were lifted high wherever I turned my eyes. I waved to those that waved at me. I smiled. I held my head aloft and my shoulders broad. I imagined I looked handsome and fine as any Caesar. The Requiems and canticles swelled immaculately with each step I majestied over the length of that old street. Only a snowfall and trumpet fanfares could have added any further grandeur.

Did I bask in the moment? Yes. Even Enzio had remarked upon my visible sadness, yet anyone who was there in the procession and the parading and the grandstanding would tell you, utterly convinced, that I basked in that moment.

Yet all I wanted was to walk myself to the train station. All I wanted, Marta, was to return to you. To all of you. And that secret? Only you and I will ever-"

Suddenly, stunningly, the chime of the great belltower began in earnest. The babeling Sydney Tower, ringing the first, and the second toll of the New Year's opening moments. Night was turning to morning. There were raucous cheers on the floor below.

After a quick glance at his watch amidst the third through fifth BONG, Masseratelle met my eyes, his own looking like fiery sapphires. I had glistening tears for him.

"The hour, mio caro."

BONG.

"Mine is up. Yours is here."

My face strained as I slowly grasped his meaning. I would see no more of his sadness. He had chosen Me.

BONG.

Masseratelle shoved back his chair and stood. He raised his glass and tapped it until he had the banquet hall's total, jubilant attention. Thrice more and twice again struck the bell. At the finale, he called aloud from his deepest soul-

"Buon Capodanno!"