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to God. There’s something of him in your features, in your
eyes. Of course, I mean when you were younger, as I
imagine you. He was still young then too. A lot older than
me, but I was no more than a kid back then. It was only my
second building site, and I worked on the first one less than
a year. When you lift your head a bit that way it’s like I was
looking at him. Stop shelling a moment. When your hands
stop moving your face is clearer. Now I’m not so sure.
Maybe a little.
Why Priest? He’d trained to be a priest, spent three years in
seminary, but he gave it up. That he never told me. But he
kept his surplice and stole, and his Bible, he had them in a
separate little suitcase that he kept locked. Though on a
building site like that, who wouldn’t open another person’s
suitcase and take a look inside? Especially one that was
locked. Before he went to sleep he’d always kneel by his bed
and pray for a long time. He never missed Sunday Mass. So
it was all the more of a temptation to open the suitcase.
Work on the building site often continued on a Sunday,
especially if it was running behind, but he always had to go
to Mass.
Of course he got into trouble, he was written up, they
docked his bonuses. At the worksite meetings they claimed
it was because of people like him that the building was
behind schedule. That there were too many believers on the
site, and he was an example to them. Though he was no
exception. All kinds of people worked on building sites in