Chapter 14 #2
Joseph swallowed hard. Dr. Moretti hadn’t asked if they were married when he was conceived, so Joseph could answer: “Yes, sir.”
“I understand your mother is deaf?”
“Y-Yes.”
“Was she born deaf?”
“She could hear until she was four years old. It was scarlet fever.”
“Have you noticed any problems with your own hearing?”
“No, sir.”
“Good.” Dr. Moretti asked many other questions about the illnesses Joseph had had. Finally he said: “Now, I’ll need you to undress.”
“Yes, sir.” Joseph tried not to sound reluctant. This sudden flutter in his stomach was ridiculous. He was perfectly healthy, and surely the doctor did not need to examine anything below his waist.
Joseph shrugged off his coat and draped it over the nearby chair.
He unbuttoned his waistcoat and laid it on top.
He pulled his braces from his shoulders, gripped his shirt just above his trousers, and stopped.
His nipples were brown too. Would Dr. Moretti be able to tell from those that Joseph was not pure-blooded?
Maybe he didn’t need to take off his shirt at all. He looked up.
The doctor stood waiting with his stethoscope. “Your shirt too,” he confirmed.
Slowly Joseph freed the bottom of the shirt from his trousers. He worked the fabric up his back and turned it inside-outwards over his head, so that he could clutch it against his chest like a shield.
“Is there something wrong with your spine, Mr. Lazare?” Dr. Moretti asked as he approached.
“No, sir.”
“Then stand up straight.”
Joseph obeyed. The doctor made him set down his shirt.
He pressed the end of his stethoscope against Joseph’s back and asked him to breathe in and out.
He listened to Joseph’s heartbeat, studied his pulse, and poked his armpits.
He peered at Joseph’s teeth and throat with an amplified candle.
Dr. Moretti tested Joseph’s eyes and then his ears.
The doctor concentrated on Joseph’s hands, asking Joseph to spread his fingers and then make fists. Joseph remembered what his cousin had said at the slave pen. A Priest’s hands must be even more important than a slave’s; they would perform Sacraments.
Dr. Moretti made Joseph touch his toes, but he did not ask him to run up any stairs. He returned to the other side of his desk and dipped his pen in the inkwell again.
With relief, Joseph reached for his shirt.
“Now the rest,” said the doctor.
Joseph froze. “Pardon?”
“I need to see all of you, Mr. Lazare.”
Surely he didn’t mean… Joseph’s eyes slid in horror to the front of his trousers.
At the edge of his vision, Dr. Moretti motioned to the windows. “No one can see through the blinds. I need to confirm that you’re whole.”
“W-Whole?”
Dr. Moretti frowned the way Joseph’s father did when something interested him and looked up from his papers. “Are you a Jew?”
“No…” Being a Jew was better than being colored, but not by much.
The doctor returned to his notes. “Your hair; it made me wonder.”
He was starting to suspect! “My grandmother was Spanish,” Joseph blurted, then closed his eyes for a moment in repentance. He’d promised to tell the truth.
“You might still have Jewish blood. I am a descendant of converts myself. In any case, by ‘whole,’ I didn’t mean ‘uncircumcised.’ That doesn’t matter.”
“I’m not—”
“Whatever you look like, whatever you’re worried about, Mr. Lazare, I do not care—unless you are a castrate.”
“What?” Just because his voice hadn’t changed much yet, that didn’t mean—
“If you are a castrate, that is an impediment.”
Joseph didn’t know why the suggestion felt like an insult, when those parts would be utterly useless to him. “N-Nothing is missing!”
“Unfortunately, I cannot take your word for that, Mr. Lazare. I must see for myself.” Dr. Moretti set down his pen.
Joseph didn’t move. He couldn’t. He was becoming a Priest so that he could be free of this body! Even now, it had found a way to betray him.
If the doctor had asked to cut open his chest instead, Joseph would have agreed instantly. That would have felt like less of a violation, less of a risk.
Dr. Moretti would see the dark skin of Joseph’s genitals.
He would see the black wool sprouting there.
He would also see the pale splotch on Joseph’s left thigh.
Until this summer, Joseph had found the birthmark interesting, like a permanent, vertical puddle of milk.
Now, he knew it drew unmistakable attention to the fact that the rest of his skin was not so white. And was a birthmark an impediment?
Dr. Moretti was still waiting. “You begin a new life today, Mr. Lazare—provided, of course, that you pass these tests. I think it is only fitting that you begin your new life as you did your old one. ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart…’”
“The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away,” Joseph continued in his head, “blessed be the name of the Lord.” The words were from Job, but they recalled that prayer of Saint Ignatius: “Take, Lord, all my liberty…”
If Joseph revealed himself to this man, the liberty of his entire family might be taken away.
Surely his father could not be re-enslaved now, but they could very well lose their freedom to live as whites.
Joseph’s father would lose most of his paying patients; his sisters would have to marry colored men; Mama and Grandmama…
How would they survive the shame? If Dr. Moretti learned the truth, he might tell anyone.
He might mention it casually to some colleague, not even meaning any harm…
On the other side of the desk, the doctor sighed. “Do you or do you not want to be a Priest, Mr. Lazare?”
Joseph nodded haltingly. “I do.” But it was selfish and impossible, this dream of his; he must surrender it, for his sisters’ sakes, for Mama’s.
No, he argued with himself, it was selfless: he was doing this to save souls. How many thousands of people would spend eternity in Hell if he didn’t rescue them? His family’s souls weren’t in danger, only their lives.
Perhaps his lie about being part Spanish would explain his coloring. Joseph had never seen a real Spaniard, let alone seen one naked. Perhaps Dr. Moretti hadn’t either. If God wanted Joseph to be His Priest, He would save him. God would blind the doctor to this one truth.
If God didn’t want Joseph to be His Priest…
His breaths were coming faster and faster, yet none of the oxygen was reaching his brain.
Joseph feared he might faint. Then Dr. Moretti would never declare him fit.
Joseph stumbled over to the edge of the chair and sat heavily, tugging off his shoes and getting his head more on a level with his heart.
Somehow he stood again and his fumbling fingers unbuttoned his trousers. Drawers next—all that shielded him from disaster. He wouldn’t look; if he didn’t look, he could imagine he was normal and that Dr. Moretti would see only a normal, colorless boy.
At last Joseph let his drawers and his trousers drop down his legs together. Eyes determinedly closed, he stepped out of them into nothingness. It was June; how could he be so cold?
This is the first and last time anyone will ever see me naked, he chanted in his head like a prayer. This is the first and last time anyone will ever see me…
For the rest of his life, this most intimate skin would be safely veiled behind not only drawers and trousers but also soutane, surplice, alb, dalmatic, and chasuble, layer after layer of linen, broadcloth, and silk always protecting his secrets.
“Thank you, Mr. Lazare. That is sufficient.”
Before the last word had left Dr. Moretti’s mouth, Joseph wheeled back to the chair in relief. He snatched up his shirt and yanked it over his head. It fell to his knees and allowed him to breathe again. He heard the doctor’s pen scratching against a page. “Did—Did I…”
“I see no impediment to your becoming a Priest.”
Joseph didn’t even care that his shirt was inside-out.