The Saint

“What thing in El Salvador?”

“There was a war,” Claire began, her face wearing an inscrutable expression. “The Jesuits had a school there. They weren’t part of the war. But that didn’t stop the military from killing them.”

“Killing who?”

Claire looked Eleanor straight in the eyes.

“The Jesuit priests. Six of them.” Claire wiped a tear off her cheek. “Elle, they killed them all. The priests, the housekeeper, the housekeeper’s daughter … Mom bought the Newsweek that had a story on it. I still have the article—‘Bloodbath in El Salvador.’ November 16, 1989.”

Eleanor couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. All she could do was stare into the vision of Søren on his knees, a man standing behind him with a gun pointed at the back of his head.

“They call the Jesuits ‘God’s Army,’ ‘God’s Marines,’ ‘God’s Soldiers.’ And the Jesuits take that seriously. They go to work in the most dangerous parts of the world, and sometimes they die there. I begged Frater to quit. He said God wanted him to be a priest. That was the end of that.”

“He’s in Connecticut now. He should be safe there.”

“Yeah, if they let him stay there. They can send him anywhere anytime they want to, though. I can’t get him to quit. Maybe you can.”

Eleanor didn’t have the heart to tell Claire not only couldn’t she make Søren leave the priesthood, but she’d also promised God she’d never ask him to.

By eight o’clock that evening the guests had left and most of the other relations had gone to their bedrooms. Eleanor finally felt comfortable escaping the bedroom. Claire and Søren staked out the music room and Eleanor ate ice cream while Frater and Soror worked out a sonata on the grand piano.

“It’s in C,” Søren instructed Claire, and played a few notes for her.

“I don’t like C. Everything’s in C.”

“It doesn’t matter if you like C or not, the piece is in C.”

“Can we do it in A?”

“Is your first name Ludwig? Is your last name Beethoven?”

“My first name is Claire, and my last name is Awesome-at-piano.”

“Then it’s in C.”

Eleanor watched Søren and Claire on the piano bench playfully bickering. How normal it all seemed. How comfortable. She wished she had a brother, too, someone to joke around with, to hang out with, to annoy and tease. Her parents had divorced when she was a baby. No siblings for her. Mom got full custody and two jobs. It would have been nice to not be alone so much growing up. Good thing she had her books to keep her company. No wonder Claire said she was in love with Søren. It wasn’t anything weird or creepy, only hero worship and the joy of having a man in her life she could trust completely. Eleanor also trusted Søren completely. She owed him so much for everything he’d done for her. And yet he asked nothing of her. Nothing but eternal obedience. In light of all he’d done for her and how little he asked, paying him back in eternal obedience seemed like a steal.

They stayed up until about eleven when Søren ordered them both to bed again. Claire snuck off to call her boyfriend from the phone in the kitchen. Eleanor went to the bedroom and changed into her pajamas.

Claire came back, crawled into bed and fell asleep in the middle of telling Eleanor how much Ike missed her.

Eleanor curled up on her side, thinking of everything Claire had told her today. Søren’s father had been a child molester, had raped his own daughter. She knew Søren and Elizabeth were only a year apart. Had he known this was happening as a kid? Had he tried to protect Elizabeth like he protected Claire? Or had it been happening to him, too? God, just the idea of anyone hurting Søren as a child inspired thoughts of vengeance and wrath that scared even her. It was a good thing his father was dead. If he’d even looked at Søren the wrong way, Eleanor would have killed the man herself.

Unable to sleep, Eleanor slipped out of bed and snuck into the hallway. She didn’t know what to do or where to go. She only knew she wanted to talk to Søren a few minutes if only to make sure he was okay.

Behind a few doors she heard voices but none were Søren’s. She would know his voice in the dark with her eyes blindfolded and a thousand other voices around her calling her name. Everyone staying overnight at the house had crowded into the west wing, as Claire called it. Søren had told her once that he valued his privacy above anything, so perhaps he’d found a room in the east wing of the house. Following only her feet and her instincts, Eleanor passed into the older part of the house that lay behind a set of double doors on the second floor. As soon as she entered that hallway a draft tickled her bare legs. The air smelled of dust-covered memories. She peeked into a few rooms and found the furniture covered in white sheets tinged yellow with time.

At the end of the long hallway Eleanor found a room with the door ajar. She looked in and saw Søren sitting in armchair with his eyes closed. The chair sat a few feet from the window and moonlight surrounded him like a halo. For a long time she did nothing but look at him, at his hands that lay on the arms of the chair, at his face so peaceful in repose, at his eyelashes—unusually long and dark for someone so blond—resting on his cheeks. Looking at Søren it was easy now to believe man was created in God’s image. If God looked like Søren there would be no atheists.