The Barrier Topples

(A Short Story)

        Fred paced listlessly back and forth now and then glancing at his wrist watch.  The short cigarette between his fingers was the second in five, six, seven minutes of waiting.  "I can't understand what Linda goes in there for", he grumbled inwardly.  He thought of the number of times she had slipped into the church every time he walked her home after school.  Also of those Wednesday afternoons when he had to wait for nearly an hour at the corner drugstore while Linda went in for the Perpetual Help Novena.  "Superstition", he thought vehemently as he threw the stub with an angry gesture.

        Fred was a good-looking college student, responsible and a little above average in school.  He believed in God and in prayer too.  But being a Protestant, he could not see why a sound Catholic girl like Linda should be fetish and all that.  It doesn't matter he once argued with his friends.  "I love her and I honestly think she loves me as well.  What has Christ or Luther to do with us?"

        Two girls laughing at some little joke cut short his musings.  One was in a decollete figure-hugging dress, the other in a starched bouffant skirt.  The former sashayed in her outfit while the latter exaggeratedly swayed her skirt from side to side.  Fred felt a little angry with the girls. He was a modern, he liked to think, but he did not approve of girls who went beneath good taste and modesty.  Unlike Linda... he thought...only she was such a darned Catholic.  He faced the church door squarely as though to confront it with his might.  The church door represented the great  barrier between him and Linda.  That door made him feel that Linda was unattainable, sort of on the other-side thing.  Occasionally, Linda would invite him in.  "You may sit here while you wait," she would say in her artless way.  It was one of her many charms.  She would be able to say something directly in a way that one would not feel as though she meant something else.

        He glanced at his watch.  Ten minutes had gone.  What was keeping Linda?, he thought furiously. "I'll go in and tell her I'll never see her again!  And she can be an old maid in that old church for all I care!"  He stepped into the church but the angry strides came to a slow measured gait as though warned by an unseen power.  He had never been in a Catholic church before.  He was born a Protestant and even if he was not strictly brought up as one, he recoiled from anything that had to do with that massive church.  It stood up to him as an eloquent symbol of the Spanish oppression in the country - of the narrow-mindedness of Catholics.  But the angry thought came to an abrupt end and he hesitated beside a pew.  It was quiet and peaceful and the darkening shadows added to the palpable thing that arrested him.  He felt that he had to kneel.  And he did so.  Then his eyes wandered to the altar.  There was a lamp and there was a curtained box at the center.  And in the main niche there stood a white robed, blue-mantled image. His gaze lingered there.  He had watched the film "Bernadette".  So this was the Virgin!  And his old prejudice returned.  These Catholics are idolaters!  And feeling angry with himself for that momentary vacillation, he stood up.  Where was Linda?  He had to say goodbye, if possible, brusquely.

        Linda, he finally saw, was kneeling on a bench, half-hidden by a pillar.  She looked so small yet so strong.  She was alone but she looked so radiant that she was far from lonely.  Her head was bent, hands clasped, unaware of his scrutiny.  Then Linda looked up and his eyes followed her gaze.  This time, he permitted his curious eyes to feast on the beauty that was the Virgin's face.  At first, it was nothing.  But later on, he felt a sense of completeness, as though he were a baby nestled in his mother's clasp, as though he finally found something to live for - this he had never known before.The peace in the Sanctuary was so inviting...anyone could have loved to linger there; even Fred wanted  to...now.  So this is what Linda must be coming in here for.  She must be feeling this way whenever she does.

       His eyes returned to her.  Now, more than ever, he saw beauty in her simplicity and humility, in her own little  ways...things for which he had learned to love her.  Dear God, he was muttering to himself.  He realized the great mistake he had nearly done.  He realized that after all, without Linda, he never would have found this unexplainable happiness. And under his breath, he was whispering a prayer of gratitude.

        Linda stood, genuflected, and was ready to go when the unexpected sight of Fred kneeling in prayer...in church... caught her attention.  She couldn't suppress the triumphant smile that beamed on her lips as she slowly found her way toward the door.  Fred came after her.  From the church door,  he walked her  home hand in hand, each with thoughts that made them speechless.