a widow and a priest

A Widow and a Priest It was six in the morning I was on the roof terrace smoking an illicit cigarette when the ambulance came gliding into the hamlet, stopped outside Antonio’s house and carried him out on a stretcher, his wife came along too; Antonio saw me and feebly waved. In the forenoon his wife was a widow and she cried. The house was suddenly full of relatives, most of them women. Funeral at five that day, the widow had been astute enough to have everything arranged beforehand, his body was now in the church…waiting At the graveside the priest said the usual thing, shook hands with the widow and walked home alone, feeling friendless, he didn’t think of the funereal, had seen so many dead faces ravaged by age or sickness, immune he had become, not so when young laying awake at night thinking about it horror struck; he had served here for years now waiting for a new call or an advance within the hierarchy, feeling forsaken by the Vatican, hadn’t he written learned articles about the philosophy faiths and received a thank you note from the cardinal? Nothing more he could do, couldn’t very well ask god. At home his housekeeper served him a roast chicken and cellar cold red-wine; he sighed, tucked in, death always made him hungry. Female relatives stayed with the bereaved for a week, men are curiously absent on these occasions, then they went back to their own worries, the widow began her new life by going to the hairdresser