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“I’m sorry.”
Oczy is lying on top of him, his fists in his shirt and his face buried in his shoulder. He must be drowning, Badeni’s sleep-addled brain concludes. Why else would he cling to him like this?
“I’m sorry,” Oczy says again. “I know I shouldn’t have woken you.”
It must be important, then.
He reaches for their bedside lamp, but Oczy catches his wrist. His grip is urgent.
“Don’t. Please.”
“I can’t see anything.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But I don’t…I don’t want you to…”
It has been a long, long time since Oczy has been so thoroughly ensnared by shame. Well, Badeni thinks as he wraps his arms around him, if he wants to veil his face in darkness, that’s fine. Anonymity aids confession.
But God, he really isn’t cut out for this. Offering comfort and council was always Grabowski’s job—their parishioners had known better than to depend on Badeni for anything, spiritual or otherwise. Knowing that, knowing him, Oczy has come to him anyway. So, Badeni has no choice but to do what he can.
“Do I still smell like blood?” Oczy asks.
“Of course not.”
He smells like soap and stale sweat and something peppery that Badeni has never been able to place. Whatever it is, it's well familiar to him now. His scent has gotten into his sheets, his clothes, even himself.
"I can still smell it sometimes," Oczy says. "The blood."
"You smell fine."
“I’ve killed so many people."
“Not in this life, you haven't.”
“I don’t think that matters. I did it just the same.”
“You regret it?”
“I do.” Oczy shudders, and Badeni feels it in his bones. “I didn’t like doing it, but I was good at it. And if people were going to duel anyway, if someone was going to kill anyway, then why shouldn’t I be the one to do it? At least I got paid. But that’s just an excuse, isn’t it? The truth is that I did awful things to people. Shouldn’t…shouldn’t I be punished for that?”
“What, is that all you woke me up for?” Badeni sighs. “You were tortured and then killed, and you still want to be punished? Anything more would be self-indulgent.”
“I didn’t mean it quite like that,” Oczy says. “I guess what I meant was, I did all those bad things, but I didn’t go to Hell?”
“Is that a question? Are you asking me?”
“Well…”
It strikes Badeni that Oczy is the only person in the world who thinks of him as a credible religious authority. Old habits must die hard. While Badeni has mostly kept his faith, he hasn't kept up with theology in this life. He hasn’t even gotten around to reading the Nostra aetate yet, and he’s certainly not equipped to answer big doctrinal questions, such as why they're living on Earth again instead of burning in Hell.
“I did pray for your sins to be forgiven,” Badeni says, although he also prayed for Oczy to be welcomed into Heaven. Evidently, he didn’t make it there, either.
“It doesn’t really feel like God has forgiven me, though. And so I started to wonder, what if…”
Oczy's arms tighten around him, and Badeni feels a hot huff of breath against his shoulder.
“What if there is no God to forgive or condemn me? What then?”
What indeed?
“Then you’d be free. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t know freedom would come with this anxiety.”
"You were pretty anxious when we met, too."
"Ha. I was, wasn't I?"
Anxious, and not free. Heliocentrism had, for a time, liberated Oczy from his despair, but the universe is even stranger than they'd realized. Faith isn't easy. As it turns out, neither is its opposite.
“Do you still want to be forgiven?” Badeni asks.
“I do. I think I do, although it won't change what I did. But who could forgive me now, if not God? Everyone I hurt has been dead for centuries. I don’t even remember their names.”
“You could forgive yourself."
“If I could do that, I wouldn’t have all this guilt.”
Oczy's back is so warm beneath his palms. He'd take the guilt from him, Badeni thinks. He'd do it in a heartbeat.
"If no one else will forgive you, then I will. For everything. Even for waking me."
The room is silent. Then, the gentle rumble of Oczy's voice.
"That's very kind of you."
"Yeah, I'm a real saint." He pats his back roughly. "Now, get off of me. You're heavy."
"Sorry!"
"You don't have to apologize."
Oczy returns to his half of the bed and pulls Badeni to his side, apparently intent to crush him one way or another. Well, it's not so bad. The warmth is nice, and it's less suffocating than having him on top of his ribs. He inhales deeply.
"Badeni?"
"What?" he asks, his voice muffled by Oczy's sweater.
"Thank you."
"You don't have to thank me, either. My forgiveness isn't worth that much."
He has, after all, smelled like blood himself. A murderer forgiving a murderer—it's laughable.
Oczy doesn't laugh.
"But it is worth something," he says. "To me, anyhow."
Oczy's lips brush against his forehead, and his body fill with light. For an instant, Badeni feels cleaner than he has been, than he ever will be again.
"It's late," he murmurs, pressing his face into Oczy's chest. "Just go to sleep."