Why does this exist, between their two bodies?
Religion—Christianity, Catholicism in particular—is fixated on the body. She’s studied how that fixation finds its way into secular discourse, how moral cultures become social norms. Disciplining the body, denying it; the relief of communion, allowed after confession—but also, too, a literal means of partaking in the body as absolution. Blood, flesh; savior, sacrament.
The idea of the body as a cleansing thing.
What is anyone ever looking for, in the bodies of others?
Space, silence; warmth, presence. Punishment, refuge. To be grounded down in what we have done, the violence of our own choices, she thinks,our own failings; then to be offered more, beyond that. The chance for pleasure and release. And this distinction, too—between carving out space for yourself in another person, a momentary place to breathe, a respite from the world; and instead, caring enough to carve out space in another’s bodyforthem.
That’s how he did it, she thinks.
That’s how he held her.
Lili hears footsteps on flagstone, and the shake of an umbrella, outside voices hushing as they enter the church. She glances over her shoulder; a handful more people arriving before Mass begins. It won’t be busy: August, torrential rain, and the first service of the morning. The newcomers find seats, slip into confessional.
Very different takes on forgiveness, between the Protestants and Catholics. She knows the former intimately—months of thesis writing, her graduate degree—and knows the latter mainly in contrast.
Where Protestants reject the sacrament, these so-called arrogant attempts to fetter God’s unlimited sovereignty, Catholics have the core ritual of confession, its release; the ability to absolve oneself through the priest who listens. This concept is central to Catholic faith: the idea of a journey through suffering, this agency—and responsibility—in where we go, what decisions we make, and the outcomes they precipitate, that we live with. Not predestined but chosen.
In agency, there is chance for both sin, and forgiveness.
Lili watches as churchgoers slip into the confessional, emerge again.
Coins flipped: forgiveness, absolution. Agency; responsibility. Deserving; wanting. Faith; trust.
Is there an amount we need to suffer to make forgiveness tenable?
Because would she forgive him? If he had done this to her?
Would she take him back?
The thought of him, again, with other women: hair blond and red and brown, hair spread over his pillows, and never black. Bodies in his sheets, and it hurts like digging into a wound in her stomach, reminiscent of the same pain she was seeking out last night.
She wishes she had the choice.
And it’s selfish, and it feels dirty, and it feels small—like shame, flushed and heated: but she wants him to forgive her.
A whisper, thread of a thought.
But she does;she does.She wants it, so badly. The possibility of his forgiveness, the acceptance of her apology.
Lili breathes, as the church around her settles, Mass about to start; breathes with the weight of responsibility, hands holding what she has done; breathes through the faintest hope of him.
I want your forgiveness, she thinks, as she stands, making to leave.
I am willing to ask for it.
She has an idea. She buys a bottle of wine, some fruit and vegetables, on her way back to the apartment. Standing in the street, she slides open her phone, tapping a search query into its navigation app. She reroutes, taking a detour.
The shop is out of the way, in the shadow of Montmartre. Its bright orange-and-blue painted exterior contrasts with the gray weather. Lili ducks inside the little grocery, a bell above the door ringing. The rain continues in fits and starts, but the clouds do look like they might clear later.
Inside, the shop smells like honeyed baklava, thick olive oil, incense, and dry goods. Behind the counter, the shopkeeper—an elderly man; white hair, thick black eyebrows, knit gray sweater—glances up at the sound of her entrance, greets her. Lili summons a smile, nods. He offers her help if she needs it—or she guesses he does, her French is shabby—and goes back to doing his crossword. A low hum of music plays, a radio beside a tiny wooden khachkar. A cat dozes, lazy legs drooping off the shelf.
She grabs a basket, starts exploring the store. Bulk tubs and rolled-down canvas bags showcase a meticulous, glowing assortment of wares: huge dates, slivered almonds, dusty red lentils, glossy olives. The sturdy shelves carry bottles of olive oil, preserved lemons, tinned grape leaves. Lili starts adding things into her basket, a recipe in her head.
The place reminds her of Samiramis Imports, long ago weekends going shopping with her parents at the Middle Eastern grocery store in the Mission: tubs of tahini, olive oil soap, bricks of hookah tobacco she had snatched and run around the store with, making the shop owner laugh. She recalls the bob of her mother’s beautiful long dark hair, tied up into a messy bun, striding authoritatively down the aisles, grocery list in hand,trying to find the right tahini, and how Lili’s father had looked after her, a look almost like wistfulness that Lili couldn’t understand.
As her mother ran off, a flurry of activity, he’d pick Lili up into his arms, so she could see the goods on the top shelves better, groaning as she tried to tug down big sacks of rice, giggling. He’d help her sound out the English and Arabic words on cartons and cans. Inevitably, they’d run into her mother talking to some stranger—bright voice, rapid pace, fast Arabic, Armenian, or French;your mother knows enough languages to never stop talking,her father had once joked—overhearing her from several aisles away. Usually her brows were creased, this dissonance of home and worry, while they spoke animatedly; it was post-9/11, the years of Syrian withdrawal, Hariri’s assassination, mass protests. But that specific look—combination of homesickness and anxiety—would lift from her face when she saw them.
