The Priest's Madonna
Read The Priest's Madonna Online
Authors: Amy Hassinger
GLOSSARY: HEBREW/GREEK/ARAMAIC
“Delicious! An absorbing journey of romance and redemption. If you liked
The Da Vinci Code,
you’ll love
The Priest’s Madonna
. It will challenge your beliefs and deepen your spirituality.”
—Lisa Earle McLeod, syndicated columnist,
commentator for Lifetime Entertainment,
and author of
Forget Perfect
“Marvelously written and researched … weaves together a story of France at the turn of the twentieth century … to create a rich fabric of love, mystery, anguish, and faith.”—
Library Journal
(starred review)
“An ambitious, absorbing novel, both impressively researched and deftly written. In Marie, Amy Hassinger has created an endearingly contradictory protagonist—naïve and intelligent, submissive and rebellious—who tells a suspenseful story of love and religion.”
—Curtis Sittenfeld,
bestselling author of
Prep
“What I love about Amy Hassinger’s gorgeous and graceful novel
The Priest’s Madonna
is how she so convincingly resurrects the past, how she so deeply imagines her character’s longing. Rendered with uncommon insight and compassion … timeless … I envy those readers hearing Marie’s divine voice for the first time, those blessed souls receiving her captivating story like a prayer.”—Bret Anthony Johnston,
author of
Corpus Christi: Stories
“Adroit … a very sympathetic and engaging presentation of holy historical biographies.”
—Phyllis Tickle, author of
Prayer Is a Place
and the Stories from the Farm in Lucy trilogy
“A historical romance that mixes literary heft and pop-fiction … ambitious.”—
Publishers Weekly
Nina: Adolescence
“Hassinger’s lovely first novel is elegant, sad, often funny, often unsettling. She writes with such precision and understanding, with mercy but unsparingly about adolescence, its wonders, horrors, passions—sexuality, family ties, and friendship—that, like all excellent portraits, it is not only about the subject of the portraits themselves, but also about the viewers.”—Elizabeth McCracken
“Hassinger makes Nina’s loss of innocence and plunge into self-destruction chillingly believable. Her graceful, observant prose beautifully captures Nina’s inner world—her guilt, yearning, anger, desire, and joy—while ruthlessly skewering the narcissism of ambitious adults.”
—
Booklist
“Very few writers are able to give the period of adolescence the wider resonance of serious adult literature. In
Nina: Adolesence
, Amy Hassinger does so brilliantly. This is an exciting debut by a splendid young writer.”
—Robert Olen Butler
“[One of] the best books of summer … In terms of summoning reader sympathy, few could outdo the young protagonist of Amy Hassinger’s first novel … who finds coming of age even more complicated when a showing of nude portraits of herself, painted by her artist mother, garners all the wrong kinds of attention.”—
Vogue
“In clear and lucid prose, Hassinger reveals the complex emotions that surround the border of childhood. Tender and brutal … and very honest.”—Chris Offutt
“Surges forward like a quiet thriller … there’s a sly sensuality to Hassinger’s prose. A truly penetrating book.”
—Salon
“Achingly straightforward … Hassinger builds her touching drama with a refreshingly undramatic simplicity.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Complex and beautiful.”—Lisa Carey
“Disturbing … eerily seductive … expressive.”
—Publishers Weekly
But Christ loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on the mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him, “Why do you love her more than all of us?” The Savior answered and said to them, “Why do I not love you like [I love her]?”
—“THE GOSPEL OF PHILIP,” IN THE NAG HAMMADI LIBRARY
The body is the garden of the spirit.
—TONY KUSHNER
B
ÉRENGER AND I first met at Sainte Baume on the eve of Sainte Marie Madeleine’s feast day, July 21, 1877. He was twenty-five, I was nine. We were only two of the many pilgrims who had come from all corners of the country: Bourgogne, Limousin, Bretagne, even some from Paris. My mother was pregnant with poor Christophe, though it was early enough that I did not yet know.
We rode by train to the coast, where we caught a ferry to Marseilles. The boat was full—it was difficult to find seats, as we arrived late—and I saw faces of all sorts: the ruddy, wind-scoured cheeks of old farmers; gentlemen of my father’s age, sharply dressed in vests and bow ties; young children, brows smudged with dirt; older girls in fresh pinafores, hair prettily braided; and some young men who gathered in groups to play cards and smoke. But mainly I saw women of my mother’s age, and though they all wore their differences plainly on their faces and in their clothing—some wore fancy hats, shawls, and lace-up boots, others wore
sabots
and covered their hair with plain silk scarves—they bore themselves with a similar anticipatory air.
Though the train ride was thrilling, it had been unbearably hot. We had been sitting across from an unpleasant woman and her two equally unpleasant sons who entertained themselves by insulting my five-year-old brother Claude, and so I was glad to finally board the ferry and feel the wind off the Mediterranean. My mother allowed us to roam the decks. We explored all three levels, then stationed ourselves on the top deck to watch the sea boil in our wake. Gulls flew overhead, crying in their mournful way, and we fed them a crust of bread.
It was then that I noticed Bérenger. Young and dapper in a trim black suit and collar, with striking dark brows, he stood chatting with my mother, who had joined us on the top deck. I assumed he was a stranger passing the time.
We arrived at Marseilles as evening was coming on. Mother took us to a café for a bit of bread and cheese before our hike up the mountain. We sat and chatted with a young family while we ate. By the time we set out, the day had cooled, which we were thankful for, because it was a steep climb and we were tired.
The small cave was already full when we arrived. We found a place toward the back. It was damp and cool, despite the press of bodies. I sat on a stone and Claude rested his head in my lap. Stroking his hair, I watched the sky darken and the stars appear as we waited for the Mass to begin.
“What do you see,
maman
?” I asked my mother, who stood beside me.
“Nothing yet. It’s dark.”
I must have dozed. The next thing I remember is my mother rousing me excitedly. I opened my eyes to see candlelight trembling against the walls of the cave. Claude was now sleeping at Mother’s feet, his head resting on her coat, which she had bundled into a pillow. I stood, straining to see over the heads of the crowd. In a whisper, I asked my mother what was happening, but she shushed me.
Then the young man in front of me turned around and I saw that it was the same man who had been speaking with my mother on the ferry. “Do you want to see?” he asked.
I nodded, embarrassed.
To my amazement, he squatted in the dirt in front of me and bowed his head. “Climb on my back,” he said.
I looked to my mother for approval, but she was immersed in the service. The young man was smiling broadly at me, amused by my shock at being invited to clamber onto the back of a strange man. “You’ve come all this way,” he said. “You shouldn’t miss it.”