The Altar Boy! 

 Ben Antao

 
[ At this time of the year during the Labor Day weekend, the memory of Mark Fonseca, the Canadian-born Goan altar boy, comes to mind as children gear up for the opening of another school year in Toronto. Mark is the son of Joe Fonseca and Gertrude, his Canadian wife of German stock. Joe came to Canada in the early seventies from East Africa and got married in Toronto a couple of years later. This is a fictionalized story of their precocious and extraordinary son, Mark. Hope you enjoy it.]

Mark, nine years old, was late when he made his debut as altar boy in Toronto. Father Tom Bishop, the parish priest, was waiting for him in the vestibule.

"Sorry, Father," said the boy dashing in, breathlessly. He walked straight into the sacristy to don his altar boy's garment.

Father Bishop, vested in a green brocaded chasuble, ambled after him and said, "You're late, Mark."

The boy's eyes sparkled with intelligence and his voice resonated with conviction as he explained why he was tardy. Mark looked up, a mop of his thick black hair bristling as he flipped back the cowl. "I was at the bus stop when I realized I'd forgotten to pick up the Sunday envelope."

"So?"

"So I had to dash home. I had a feeling you wouldn't like it if I didn't bring it."

The priest's Adam's apple dropped a notch as he tried to swallow, involuntarily, a rising guffaw. Stunned by the boy's reasoning, he said, "Oh, Mark!" Ever since that day Mark had made a lasting impression on
the priest.

Now Mark had displayed extraordinary gifts of insight ever since he could read in kindergarten. His mother, over-anxious and ever willing to give her son the best early childhood education she could muster, was big on
reading and speaking. She encouraged him to read and she urged him to talk--two activities, she believed, that would help her son develop his thinking and verbal skills. Imagine then her pride and ecstasy upon discovering that mark could read in senior kindergarten, whereas the other children could not! 

The teacher admired Mark for his reading, but not for his talking. The teacher, Sister Mary, a young nun belonging to the Ursuline community, had her hands full, compelling him to do his work quietly, but the voluble child couldn't keep his mouth shut for more than a minute. When she urged him, yet again, to be quiet, she would tell her, "My mother says 'talk, talk, talk'. It's good for me."

Sister Mary found Mark to be quite a challenge. When she wrote his name on the little blackboard for being disobedient, the boy got up from his seat and erased his name from it. Again she wrote his name down. He promptly rose and wiped it off again. And so it went on, week after week, like a test of wills. 

Finally, she figured it was time to discuss the matter with his mother. One day she kept him in the classroom after school, a sign that Mark read as a detention.Resenting the punishment, he sulked in the corner of
the room. Trying to cheer him up, the teacher said, "What beautiful brown eyes you have, Mark!" 

"Not when I am angry," he replied.

"I'll talk to him," promised Mark's mother when she came to fetch him.

The following year, Mark was cast in the role of the innkeeper in a one-act play, which the Grade One class were preparing for Christmas. He had to say just one line, namely, "There's no room in the inn." Sister
Mary diligently trained the group of players: Mary and Joseph, innkeeper, angel, and shepherds. But on the day of the rehearsal, Mark balked when his turn came to utter the famous line. "I can't say that to Jesus," he kept repeating. 

Flustered and bewildered, Sister Mary counseled Mark that he was not offending Jesus, that he was only `acting' in a drama about the birth of Christ; she explained to him that in the play he was only pretending, as if he were in a make-believe world. She understood how he felt, and he should not worry. But Mark's glum oval countenance would not yield to her frantic persuasion. At last she phoned his mother, who thought the situation was both funny and interesting.

"I'll talk to him," she promised, in the selfsame tone of voice she had used the previous year, a voice that gave some comfort to the teacher.

On the evening of the concert, a week before Christmas, Mark appeared to be willing to go through with his part. The gym was packed with parents and pupils, and the sets on the stage, fronting the gym,
captured a Yuletide allure redolent of the season. The performance began, and midway through, the moment came for Mark to say his line. As if tickled by comic relief, the audience erupted into laughter, almost
simultaneously, when it heard the innkeeper pronounce, "There's no room in the inn, but come in anyway."

As surely as the first time he had heard it, that line caused Father Tom to chuckle. Today, though, he had a problem: how to tell Mark, his altar boy, that he would be away in the mission country for a few weeks
during the summer. But Mark was late again. An adult member of the congregation served at the altar.

After the Mass, the priest wended his way out from the centre aisle. His chubby face glistened with beads of perspiration. He couldn't wait to discard the chasuble that weighed heavily on his sagging spirits. As he
entered the sacristy, though, he stopped in mid-stride, reeled backwards momentarily, as if touched by an apparition. And in that instant his
whole being was transfigured by the alchemy of amazing grace. For a long second, he couldn't keep his eyes off Mark sitting demurely on a chair. Indeed, he wanted to rush towards him and touch him to be sure it
was really Mark, just as that apostle whose name he bore once did.

"I am sorry, Father, I couldn't get here on time. The allergy," Mark said, erupting into a loud sneeze.

"I'm glad you came anyway. I've something to tell you. Starting next Sunday, I'll be away from the parish for six weeks. Another priest will come to celebrate the mass. You look after him."

Mark raised his innocent eyes and said in a manly voice, "But, Father, who will wash away your iniquities?"

Father Tom shook his head, wittingly, absorbing the import of the boy's remark. The gap in Mark's toothy smile was a revelation of another sort. 

"Who will, indeed?" murmured the priest, putting away the thurible. "You know, I didn't use the incense today. I know it bothers you." 

"Really?"

"Really."
 

Ben Antao
Sep 04 1999
©1999 Ben Antao