‘Thank you,’ said a whisper, at last.
‘Beg pardon…?’
‘A long time ago,’ said the whisper. ‘You helped. Been long away. In town only for today. Saw the church. Thanks. That’s all. Your gift is in the poor box. Thanks.’
Feet ran swiftly.
The priest, for the first time in his life, leaped from the confessional.
‘Wait!’
But the man, unseen, was gone. Short or tall, fat or thin, there was no telling. The church was empty.
At the poor-box, in the dusk, he hesitated, then reached in. There he found a large eighty-nine-cent economy-size bar of chocolate.
Someday, Father, he heard a long-gone voice whisper, I’ll bring you a gift blessed by the Pope.
This? This? The old priest turned the bar in his trembling hands. But why not? What could be more perfect?
He saw it all. At Castel Gandolfo on a summer noon with five thousand tourists jammed in a sweating pack below in the dust and the Pope high up on his balcony there waving out the rare blessings, suddenly among all the tumult, in all the sea of arms and hands, one lone brave hand held high…
And in that hand a silver-wrapped and glorious candy bar.
The old priest nodded, not surprised.
He locked the chocolate bar in a special drawer in his study and sometimes, behind the altar, years later, when the weather smothered the windows and despair leaked in the door hinges, he would, fetch the chocolate out and take the smallest nibble.
It was not the Host, no, it was not the flesh of Christ. But it was a life. And the life was his.
And on those occasions, not often but often enough, when he took a bite, it tasted (O thank you, God), it tasted incredibly sweet.
The end
