Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers Read Free Book Online Page A

floor. It seemed to meet from both sides in the apse and in the nave, high up among the vaults and the old, carved capitals. The children’s feet kicked dust into the air with little shuffles, and the dust hung in the light the special way it sometimes does.
    In the far end of the church, behind the altar, a priest prepared for some ceremony. I watched him as he gathered candles and incense and arranged the items neatly on a small table behind him.
    The tour guide stopped her group of children. She gestured to her mouth, then to her ears, then to her eyes. It was as if she had kissed her voice, her hearing and then her sight. We were all very still, the tour guide, the children and me, and the priest seemed to notice us because of the stillness. The children began moving along the walls, most giggling and playing grab-ass while others oohed and aahed at the portraits of the saints. I read the names of the saints from the pamphlet as the children walked, and I tried to imagine myself as a small child being introduced to them.
    There was beautiful Sebastian, the arrows dangling from his chest. The blood from his injuries appeared like spattered candle-wax, hardened and congealed in a way that might allow a man to hang from a church wall unchanged and perpetually dying for a thousand years. There was Theresa, moaning like a woman brought to climax by the fire of her wounds. And there was Saint John Vianney, the incorruptible, the soldier who ran from Napoleon’s army and heard confessions for twenty hours a day, whose heart rests separately in Rome, unadorned in a small glass case, undecayed and whole but for its absent beat.
    In the cold interior of the cathedral the children oohed again. Their breath rose in one opaque breath, as it had risen in one small voice that hung above our heads briefly, obscuring the altar and the faint rose light that fell through the stained glass, and disappeared. I listened to the clicking of their small heels against the stone. I looked up toward the vaults, at the saint’s picture frames, at the fine filigree that seemed to run like untended ivy through the place and read, “All that you see that is gold is truly gold.” I said it to myself. I said it aloud. I looked down to read more, but there was nothing else. The pamphlet closed with those words.
    As I read, the priest moved from his place behind the altar. I was surprised to see him standing over me when I folded the pamphlet down. He was small and wore wire-frame glasses and he looked at me and smiled with his mouth closed, the kind of smile that can be either empathetic or patronizing, depending on the person doing it. “You can’t smoke in here,” he said.
    “What? Oh. Shit. Sorry.” I hadn’t even realized I’d lit up. The tip glowed red in the dim light until I snubbed it out on my boot and put it in my pocket.
    “Can I help you with something?”
    He must have thought my presence was an oddity. “No. I was just looking around. I’m on a pass,” I lied.
    He pointed to the pamphlet. “An interesting history, no?”
    “Yeah. Yes,” I stuttered, “it sure is.”
    He put his hand out. “I’m Father Bernard.”
    “Bartle. Private Bartle.”
    He sat down at the end of the pew, chuckled a bit and smoothed out the front of his pants. “I’m sort of a private, too, in a way.”
    I paused. “Oh, right,” I said.
    “Can I be honest with you?”
    “Of course.”
    “You look troubled.”
    “Troubled?”
    “Yes. Burdened.”
    “I don’t know. I think I’m all right, I guess.”
    “I have some experience, you know. We could talk if you want.”
    “About what?” I asked.
    “I thought you could decide that. I could listen.”
    I noticed I’d been cracking the knuckles on my left hand over and over again. “I don’t know, Father. I don’t really know how that stuff works. I’m not Catholic or anything.”
    He laughed. “You don’t have to be Catholic. I made a promise that people could tell me things they