The Mountain: A novel by Raymond J. Steiner

21 After its finishing touches were completed in 1910, St. Barbara’s, an impressive example of Italian/Spanish Renaissance architecture, was the tallest structure in all of Brooklyn. In the warm, golden light of that Saturday morning, the church, with its dome and spires soaring up into space, looked particularly beautiful to Jake.

On impulse, he climbed the wide flight of stone steps that led up to the massive front doors remembering, as he slowly made his way up, how many times he had reluctantly gone to church in the past. As pupils of a parochial school, he and Freddie had to go regularly to Mass not only on Sundays, but were also required to attend services on every feast and holy day of the church calendar.

Grouped into their separate classes, they would be marched from the school in single file, each class assigned to specific pews inside the church.

Jake pushed open the door, instinctively expecting at any moment to hear the chhkk-ing sound of the beetle-shaped, metal clickers the nuns held in their hands to alert their students when to stop, continue, turn, sit, stand, or be seated. As he strode through the outer entry, he noted the familiar tables set out with pamphlets and notices, and ignoring the holy water font, stepped through the central doors into the nave. He was relieved to find no one inside.

Deceptively compact from the outside, the empty church seemed huge, its interior gloomily cavernous since the only light that entered came filtered through stained windows set high above eye level. Like the inside of most large, stone buildings, it was cool, somewhat dampish, a bit off-putting.

Jake’s steps resounded from the high walls as he walked down 148