Gentle Murderer Read Online Free PDF

for them now. She lifted her head and walked down the street beside him in proud self-consciousness. Throughout the service she was aware only of being beside him. She could hear his breathing and smell his shaving soap. Her head bowed, her lips forming prayers without thought, she contemplated his hands folded before him, clean, gentle hands that she had never touched except when he had brushed her cheek the night before. She listened to his voice only in response to the prayers at the end, and for an instant, concentrated on her own prayer, offering it for some vague communion between them. Preceding him out of the church, she sensed an electric pleasure when touching fingers with him at the holy water font.
    He removed his coat when they were on the street and folded it over his arm. He looked at her, seeming to see her for the first time that day. He did not look her up and down. It was just that he was aware of her although his eyes were not on hers. And she was not embarrassed.
    “Do you have to go right home, Katie?”
    “I don’t think so.” She was grateful then that they had not met her mother. No matter where she went she always got the warning from her mother to come right home. It was no more than habit with her mother, the warning. As often, she would chide her for staying around the house too much.
    “Then what do you say to a bus ride?” Tim asked.
    “I’d like that, thank you.”
    They walked to Fourteenth Street, where without seeming to deliberate their course, he selected a crosstown bus. Riding it to the end of the line, they got out and walked along the East River. From there they could see the United Nations building, a glistening shield in the sun.
    “The parliament of the world,” Tim said, pointing to it. “The last great hope of man … if that were only so.”
    “If what were so, Tim?”
    “If they really hoped in it.”
    “I think they do.”
    “What makes you think so?” His tolerance was in his voice.
    She thought a moment. “If they didn’t believe it, they wouldn’t be there at all.”
    “You’re very wise, Katie. But then when I was seventeen, I was that wise, too.”
    “You make yourself sound as old as Santa Claus. How old are you, Tim?”
    “As old as Santa Claus.”
    “Really how old are you?”
    “Thirty-four, I think. Now, doesn’t that sound very old to you?”
    “No,” she lied. She didn’t care how old he was. Lots of women married men twice their age. Then she thought of how old he was when she was born. Seventeen. That was different, somehow. “What were you like when you were seventeen, Tim?”
    “When I was seventeen,” he repeated thoughtfully as though that were an answer in itself.
    “Did you still want to be a priest?”
    He stopped walking and looked at her. “How did you know I wanted to be a priest?”
    “Mother told me. You must have told her once.”
    “Maybe I did.””
    “Did you still want to?”
    “Why do you harp on that, Katie?”
    She sensed his sudden irritation. “I don’t know. I suppose because I wanted to be a nun once. I was fifteen then.”
    “What made you change your mind?”
    “I don’t know. Growing up, I guess.” But the color in her face betrayed her. “You could still be a priest, you know,” she added to cover her embarrassment.
    “Couldn’t you be a nun? Is there any reason why you couldn’t be a nun?”
    “I guess I could if I still wanted to.” She was further confused at the sound of accusation in his voice. “It’s just, that now I feel different about it. I’d like to get married … some time.”
    “Let’s talk about something else,” he said.
    “Is there something wrong with me wanting to get married?” she persisted.
    “Will you stop it, Katie, or else go home? How do I know what’s wrong with it?”
    “I’ll go home if you want me to.”
    He touched her arm, leading her forward. “No, of course not. I don’t want you to go home. I’m sorry I said that, Katie. I wouldn’t