The windows of the cathedral admit little light on this blustery morning, and the sconces on each massive pillar give up their weak yellow glow into the looming gray overhead. The odor of tallow smoke, wet wool, and incense wafts through the nave as I stand with my family in the long line of people awaiting communion on Tosantos, All Saints Day.
Father hangs back to let us go first. Susana picks Luisa up so the priest can lay a wafer on her tongue, and then puts her down to receive the host herself. They make the sign of the cross and Luisa looks up at Susana for approval.
I stick out my tongue for the priest, but before the wafer can dissolve, I transfer it to the inside of my upper teeth, as my mother has taught me. When we return to where Susana and Luisa are standing in the nave, I see my mother run the knuckle of her thumb over her lips and in a few seconds she has managed to bury the unswallowed host in the folds of her underskirt.
I wiggle the host free from my own teeth and move it to the tip of my tongue. Feigning a cough, I deposit it between my curled fingers. Clasping the other hand over my fist in a gesture of prayer, I wait for the chance to paste the sticky blob inside the hem of my sleeve.
My mother has her own way of going to mass. She says out loud only the things she believes and mumbles her way through the rest. I do the same. The Lord’s Prayer is one of the things we both say with fervor. “It’s a Jewish prayer,” my mother tells me, “taught by a Jew to Jews.”
She finds it amusing that Christians hang on everything an ancient rabbi said. “I understand Jesus perfectly,” Mama tells me. “I just don’t understand Christians, and I don’t think he would either.” Indeed, my mother seems on quite friendly terms with the Hanged One, as if they are both shaking their heads in bewilderment at what is done and said in his name.