Boys in the Valley(11)

Andrew wants to turn away, to stand up and leave. To walk out of the dining hall and back to his room, where he can get on his knees and pray and forget the boys and the other priests and all of the pain he’s witnessed over the years.

He notices, for the first time, that Peter is sitting at the table next to the one where Bartholomew stands, and fights not to meet his eye. He doesn’t want the boy to see his shame.

“Now!” Poole roars in a sudden, vehement burst. He slams his palm onto the table with such force the plates jump and rattle. Andrew jumps as well, nerves burning, as if he’s the boy under Poole’s glare.

Bartholomew stands still for a moment . . . and then does something horrible.

He smiles.

No, son, Andrew thinks in a panic. Please don’t.

Poole must see that smile as well. Andrew knows it’s fueling the fire, stirring the man’s prideful conviction of authority. “This is your last warning, Bartholomew.”

Still smiling, Bartholomew lifts the hard bread, still topped by a tiny chunk of cold meat, to his mouth. Then he stuffs it in, chewing greedily.

The hall buzzes as boys begin to whisper. Andrew can’t help notice a thin line of browned drool leak from the corner of Bartholomew’s mouth.

Poole stands.

“This is your last warning! Give Simon your plate and all . . .”

Bartholomew reaches for the table. He grabs his plate, lifts it to his face and begins grabbing food in his fingers. He pushes potatoes and meat and bread into his mouth with abandon, hardly chewing. His cheeks bulge. Bits of meat and crumbs spill down his chin onto his shirt, the floor.

Through it all, he grins.

Poole looks down at the table, as if pained. Andrew wants to reach out, put a hand on the older man’s sleeve, beg forgiveness for the boy. He stays still.

Poole lifts his face to the ceiling, his hands lift from his sides, as if giving a benediction.

“Arise, O LORD.” Poole’s heightened voice fills the room.

From the corner of his eye, Andrew sees that Johnson is already moving.

“Save me, Oh my God! For thou has smitten all mine enemies upon the cheekbone, thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.”

As Poole bellows his prayer, Johnson knocks the plate from Bartholomew’s hands. Bartholomew yelps and cowers as Johnson roughly grips his arms, twists them around the boy’s back, and thrusts him forward, face contorted with fresh pain, toward Poole.

As if the child is a shield. Or a sacrifice.

Andrew forces himself to study Bartholomew’s features, to feel the pain and emotion there as his own. The child’s eyes are wide, black, terrified. His mussed inky hair, too long, clings to his sweat-moistened face. The smear of food across his lips—crumbs of the wasted remnants he couldn’t physically swallow—cling to his clothes, shoes. The mess on the floor.

Somehow, through the mess, through the pain and the fear, he still grins.

Poole rests his fingertips on the table and lets out a long sigh. His words are spoken softly, but carry well.

“Put him in the hole.”

In a heartbeat, Bartholomew’s defiance vanishes. His wide, hard eyes melt in fear. “What?”

It is Johnson who wears the grin now. He begins to drag the child out of the hall.

The panic on Bartholomew’s face twists it into something inhuman, turning a child’s innocent visage into a mask of animal terror, a cognizant beast being readied for slaughter.

“Father!” he screams, and Andrew winces at the sound of broken youth. In that moment, he craves the defiant boy once more, hopes for the look of rebellion. Anything but this raw fear. It pains him to see it stripped away in the blink of an eye, as if the child’s very soul has been snatched by the devil and consumed. “Father, no! I’m sorry!”

But Poole’s eyes are closed, just as, Andrew knows, his mind is closed to the consequences and ugliness of his discipline. “Rules will be followed . . .” he says, sitting down, hands knitted together beneath his chin. His voice is lower now, a soliloquy for himself alone. “We survive because of rules. Without them, we are no more than lost sheep.”

“FATHER!” The boy kicks and twists. Andrew is surprised to see Brother Johnson, big as an ox, struggling to keep the thin child from tearing free.

Fear gives strength, he thinks. My lesson for this day.

Having had enough, Johnson lifts the boy off the floor and carries him, as he might carry a giant fish plucked from ocean waters—wiggling, fighting, desperate to breathe.

“Please don’t do this!” Bartholomew shrieks, tears wetting his face, his fear palpable.

Andrew hears his own name like an electric shock.

“Father Francis, please!”

For a moment, he debates. He begins to stand. Perhaps this is too far. Perhaps now is the time to . . .

A hand falls on his shoulder, and Poole leans close, his mouth an inch from Andrew’s ear. “Don’t ever question me in front of the boys again. Do you understand?”

Andrew, all thoughts of rebellion quelled, simply nods. His weight drops into the chair, his eyes lower to the table. “Yes, Father.”

The entire room waits in silence as Bartholomew’s heaving cries for help, for mercy, finally leave the hall. The screams continue, for a few more moments, to echo from the foyer, before they finally disappear into the afternoon light, his voice cut off sharply by the closing of the orphanage doors, as if sliced with a knife.