For the rest of his life, this most intimate skin would be safely veiled behind not only drawers and trousers but also soutane, surplice, alb, dalmatic, and chasuble, layer after layer of linen, broadcloth, and silk always protecting his secrets.
“Thank you, Mr. Lazare. That is sufficient.”
Before the last word had left Dr. Moretti’s mouth, Joseph wheeled back to the chair in relief. He snatched up his shirt and yanked it over his head. It fell to his knees and allowed him to breathe again. He heard the doctor’s pen scratching against a page. “Did—Did I…”
“I see no impediment to your becoming a Priest.”
Joseph didn’t even care that his shirt was inside-out.
PART III
THE MAN THAT WAS A THING
1825-1835
Rome,
Paris,
and Charleston
So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!
— Robert Browning,
“Andrea del Sarto” (1855)
CHAPTER 15
However pure and sparkling the rills at which others may drink, he puts his lips to the very rock, which a divine wand has struck, and he sucks in its waters as they gush forth living.
— Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman, on being a seminarian in Rome,Recollections of the Last Four Popes and of Rome in their Times(1858)
In Rome, Joseph lived in a palace—the seventeenth-century Palazzo di Propaganda Fide. His own chamber resembled a monk’s cell, though it was for sleeping only, locked during the day. His desk was in a study room monitored by a proctor, who would pace the rows murmuring over his breviary until he noticed something amiss. Joseph had brought a few favorite books with him. Two were confiscated. He should have known better than to bring Donne.
The Palazzo housed a hundred seminarians who spoke twenty-five languages. After Ordination, they would return to their own dioceses and celebrate Mass in one tongue all across the Earth—truly “one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.” There was even an African student, a boy of fourteen with skin as dark as jet. He camefrom the colony of Saint-Louis in Senegal, so he knew French. His Latin was minimal—his Italian, nonexistent. The African sought out Joseph their very first week, since the prefect told him Joseph spoke French.
Joseph tried to be civil. But he saw how the other seminarians stared at the black boy, how they stared athimwhen they were together. Joseph had been stared at all his life because of his mother. This was supposed to be a fresh start for him, an opportunity to become someone new, to escape his African blood and “vanish into Christ.” If the other students realized that Joseph shared more with the black boy than language…
Their lives were ruled by the bells, and there were few times during the day when the students were permitted to speak, so Joseph could prepare. When the African approached him between classes, Joseph would have an excuse ready, or he would simply pretend he hadn’t heard.
He was keeping his distance for the African’s sake as well as his own, Joseph told himself. Hadn’t their professors warned them that they must not form friendships? They must surrender their love for their families and never again become attached to another human being. They must remain aloof from this imperfect world. All their attention must be focused on God.
Joseph first noticed the African’s absence in their music class. The boy’s voice had already deepened to a rich bass, and their polyphony was markedly poorer for its loss. Their choir-master told them the African had returned to Senegal and said no more about it.
Sacred music was Joseph’s favorite subject, but he could no longer concentrate. When they filed into the chapel, he stared at the painting behind the altar with new eyes. King Balthazar’s white turban and black skin stood out distinctly against the blue sky—he was the only one of the Magi not yet kneeling before Virgin and Child.
Had he done this, Joseph wondered? Had the African left because ofhim? What would happen to all the souls in Senegal that the boy would have saved? Hadn’t Joseph doubted his own decisionto come here? Those first terrible nights, hadn’t he lain awake in the cold dark, fighting back tears and feeling as though the loneliness would drown him?
He might have been kind to another lonely soul. Instead, he’d been selfish.
Joseph had known seminarians lived liked monks, but he hadn’t understood what that meant. At the College of the Propaganda, they ate in silence while the older seminarians practiced homilies. Some were interesting. Others seemed interminable. During the silences, the Priests and students communicated through simple hand signs. Joseph longed to teach his classmates how to truly talk with their hands. Then he reminded himself that such desires—to circumvent the rules, to form a bond with the other boys—only showed his weakness.
With his teachers and classmates, Joseph explored every permitted corner of St. Peter’s and the Vatican Palaces, and he admired a thousand other marvels of stone, paint, and mosaic. But his favorite place in Rome was a small convent church not far from the seminary, unassuming outside but so ornate within: Santa Maria della Vittoria, consecrated to Our Lady of Victory.
In the vault over the nave, the Queen of Heaven vanquished Heresy.Holy Mary, give me victory over doubt,Joseph begged her on his knees.Blessed Virgin, give me victory over temptation.Somehow she made him feel closer to his own mother, who remained in his prayers every day. No matter how hard Joseph tried, he could not conquer his affection for his mother.
In addition to the high altar, Santa Maria della Vittoria possessed eight side-chapels. For the altar-piece of the Cornaro Chapel, Bernini had depicted the Transverberation of Saint Teresa of Ávila. Large as life, at once fluid and frozen, this magnificent sculpture was the reason Joseph returned to Santa Maria della Vittoria. Only Bernini could make marble shudder and float.
