could steady himself such that he might raise the cross high enough to slide the bronze tenon into the pedestal's mortise. The parishioners stood below, calling up to him with encouragement and advice. Overhead, the sun flickered between passing clouds. When the young man raised the cross, one of its arms snagged on his shirt collar and, just as he worked it free, a gust of wind sent the leaves skittering across the rooftop from the nearby trees.
More than one hundred feet above the ground, the man braced himself against the wind, leaning into the steeple the way a child will lean into his mother for the shelter of her body, but there was nothing of help to be had. With one hand on the cross, the other trying to take hold of the steeple, he pressed himself against the structure, swaying there until he looked down and his boots slipped from the sill.
He fell to the rooftop, sliding on his belly down the steep pitch with the cross gripped in one hand while the fingernails of his other raked over the cedar shingles as he slid. He flailed and kicked, his boots scraping, in search of purchase, as he descended toward the eaves.
This, the onlookers would say, was a malediction, evidence more than ample of evil's due influence in a world of fallen men, and when the young man flipped himself onto his back, planting his heels and stopping himselfjust short of falling, and lay there pumping hot breath from his lungs before crawling slowly back toward the steeple to complete the job, the cross leaning against his shoulder, the parishioners cheered before they fell silent in solemn recognition of the Lord's intervention. They whispered, as they still did, of this act of grace, of the vision that had brought before their eyes and renewed in their hearts the savior's struggle beneath the weight of his own glorious burden. An Easter miracle, a new testament of their faith, and all for a few gallons of beer.
Now, as Karel ground the wet tip of his cigarette into the earth with the toe of his boot and walked back to his truck, the cross stood glistening against the darkening sky, and dulled only slightly by weather and time. Beneath it, inside the church, Karel's wife was forcing smiles at the other wives from her pew while the painted eye gazed down on her, bearing muted, candle-lit witness to her own struggle against the onset of a hot and cramping wave of contractions. On Sophie's shoulder, little Evie still slept, a thin ribbon of saliva strung from the corner of her mouth to her mother's shawl. Beside her, Diane sat gazing up at the ceiling and the stained-glass windows, listening to the whispered prayers and conversations of the growing congregation. The youngest child, suspended head down in the red liquid glow of its mother's womb, tucked its knees up against its chest and rolled the back of its head against the hard rope of its mother's spine.
The altar boys appeared quietly from the nave, genuflected and lit the altar candles while, in the sacristy, Father Petardus slipped into his fine white vestment. Outside, Karel rolled three kegs of beer from his truck into the hall and stood laughing with the men of the Jolly Club, taking Novotny's flask of corn whiskey when it was offered, folding bills into his pocket. Novotny's daughter, Elizka, wearing her Sunday dress and white stockings, managed a discreet fingertip wave from behind the bar where she was readying the glassware. Karel gave her a nod, his insides alive with a potent mash of whiskey and desire. He took another pull off the flask, swallowing with a grimace, while in the pews Sophie breathed hard through clenched teeth and thought, with a kind of willed determination that never fully blotted out the fear, of what lay in wait for her. She'd had hard labors with the first two, but this would be another thing entirely. The child would come from her, and she would survive it, but it would be hours yet, and the back of its skull would grind against her spine as it came.
It had
More than one hundred feet above the ground, the man braced himself against the wind, leaning into the steeple the way a child will lean into his mother for the shelter of her body, but there was nothing of help to be had. With one hand on the cross, the other trying to take hold of the steeple, he pressed himself against the structure, swaying there until he looked down and his boots slipped from the sill.
He fell to the rooftop, sliding on his belly down the steep pitch with the cross gripped in one hand while the fingernails of his other raked over the cedar shingles as he slid. He flailed and kicked, his boots scraping, in search of purchase, as he descended toward the eaves.
This, the onlookers would say, was a malediction, evidence more than ample of evil's due influence in a world of fallen men, and when the young man flipped himself onto his back, planting his heels and stopping himselfjust short of falling, and lay there pumping hot breath from his lungs before crawling slowly back toward the steeple to complete the job, the cross leaning against his shoulder, the parishioners cheered before they fell silent in solemn recognition of the Lord's intervention. They whispered, as they still did, of this act of grace, of the vision that had brought before their eyes and renewed in their hearts the savior's struggle beneath the weight of his own glorious burden. An Easter miracle, a new testament of their faith, and all for a few gallons of beer.
Now, as Karel ground the wet tip of his cigarette into the earth with the toe of his boot and walked back to his truck, the cross stood glistening against the darkening sky, and dulled only slightly by weather and time. Beneath it, inside the church, Karel's wife was forcing smiles at the other wives from her pew while the painted eye gazed down on her, bearing muted, candle-lit witness to her own struggle against the onset of a hot and cramping wave of contractions. On Sophie's shoulder, little Evie still slept, a thin ribbon of saliva strung from the corner of her mouth to her mother's shawl. Beside her, Diane sat gazing up at the ceiling and the stained-glass windows, listening to the whispered prayers and conversations of the growing congregation. The youngest child, suspended head down in the red liquid glow of its mother's womb, tucked its knees up against its chest and rolled the back of its head against the hard rope of its mother's spine.
The altar boys appeared quietly from the nave, genuflected and lit the altar candles while, in the sacristy, Father Petardus slipped into his fine white vestment. Outside, Karel rolled three kegs of beer from his truck into the hall and stood laughing with the men of the Jolly Club, taking Novotny's flask of corn whiskey when it was offered, folding bills into his pocket. Novotny's daughter, Elizka, wearing her Sunday dress and white stockings, managed a discreet fingertip wave from behind the bar where she was readying the glassware. Karel gave her a nod, his insides alive with a potent mash of whiskey and desire. He took another pull off the flask, swallowing with a grimace, while in the pews Sophie breathed hard through clenched teeth and thought, with a kind of willed determination that never fully blotted out the fear, of what lay in wait for her. She'd had hard labors with the first two, but this would be another thing entirely. The child would come from her, and she would survive it, but it would be hours yet, and the back of its skull would grind against her spine as it came.
It had
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