Cat's eye полностью

I consider Jesus, who is supposed to love me. But he isn’t showing any sign of it, and I don’t think he can be of much help. Against Mrs. Smeath and God he can do nothing, because God is bigger. God is not Our Father at all. My image of him now is of something huge, hard, inexorable, faceless and moving forward as if on tracks. God is a sort of engine.

I decide not to pray to God any more. When it’s time for the Lord’s Prayer I stand in silence, moving my lips only.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. I refuse to say this. If it means I will have to forgive Mrs. Smeath or else go to Hell when I die, I’m ready to go. Jesus must have known how hard it is to forgive, that was why he put this in. He was always putting in things that were impossible to do really, such as giving away all your money.

“You weren’t praying,” Grace says to me in a whisper.

My stomach goes cold. Which is worse, to contradict her or to admit? Either way there will be penalties.

“Yes I was,” I say.

“You weren’t. I heard you.”

I say nothing.

“You lied,” says Grace, pleased, forgetting to whisper.

I still say nothing.

“You should ask God to forgive you,” Grace says. “That’s what I do, every night.”

I sit in the dark, attacking my fingers. I think about Grace asking God to forgive her. But for what? God only forgives you if you’re sorry, and she never gives a sign of being sorry. She never thinks she’s done anything wrong.

Grace and Cordelia and Carol are up ahead, I am a block behind. They aren’t letting me walk with them today because I have been insolent, but they don’t want me too far behind either. I am walking along, in time to the music, Keep happy with the Happy Gang, my head empty except for these words. I walk head down, scanning the sidewalk, the gutters, for silver cigarette papers, although I no longer collect them as I did long ago. I know that nothing I could make with them would be worthwhile. I see a piece of paper with a colored picture on it. I pick it up. I know what the picture is: it’s the Virgin Mary. The paper is from Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Our Lady of Perpetual Hell. The Virgin Mary is wearing a long blue robe, no feet at all visible below the hem, a white cloth over her head and a crown on top of that, and a yellow halo with light rays coming out of it like nails. She’s smiling sadly in a disappointed way; her hands are outstretched as if in welcome, and her heart is on the outside of her chest, with seven swords stuck into it. Or they look like swords. The heart is large, red and tidy, like a satin heart pincushion, or a valentine. Under the picture is printed: The Seven Sorrows. The Virgin Mary is in some of our Sunday school papers, but never with a crown, never with a pincushion heart, never all by herself. She is always more or less in the background. Not much fuss is made over her except at Christ mas, and even then Baby Jesus is a lot more important. When Mrs. Smeath and Aunt Mildred speak of Catholics, as they have been known to do at the Sunday dinner table, it’s always with contempt. Catholics pray to statues and drink real wine at Communion, instead of grape juice. “They worship the Pope,” is what the Smeaths say; or else, “They worship the Virgin Mary,”

as if this is a scandalous thing to do.

I look at the picture up close. But I know it would be dangerous to keep it, so I throw it away. This is the right impulse, because now the three of them have stopped, they’re waiting for me to catch up to them. Anything I do, other than standing, other than walking, attracts their attention.

“What was that thing we saw you pick up?” says Cordelia.

“A paper.”

“What sort of a paper?”

“Just a paper. A Sunday school paper.”

“Why did you pick it up?”

Once I would have thought about this question, tried to answer it truthfully. Now I say, “I don’t know.”

This is the only answer I can give, to anything, that will not be ridiculed or questioned.

“What did you do with it?”

“I threw it away.”

“Don’t pick things up off the street,” says Cordelia. “They have germs.” She lets it go at that. I decide to do something dangerous, rebellious, perhaps even blasphemous. I can no longer pray to God so I will pray to the Virgin Mary instead. This decision makes me nervous, as if I’m about to steal. My heart beats harder, my hands feel cold. I feel I’m about to get caught. Kneeling seems called for. In the onion church we don’t kneel, but the Catholics are known for it. I kneel down beside my bed and put my hands together, like the children in Christmas cards, except that I’m wearing blue-striped flannelette pajamas and they always have white nightgowns on. I close my eyes and try to think about the Virgin Mary. I want her to help me or at least show me that she can hear me, but I don’t know what to say. I haven’t learned the words for her.