The fog emptied onto Mission Street, moments before the sun settled down. A man who appeared hardly older than a boy stood on the corner, twisting his head around. At the end of the block, a pale, broken glow spun away from the streetlights. The young man – and anyone who knew such things could figure this out – was from a rural part of Mexico.

Only four months before, Alejandro had set out from his village, a whisper away from the Guatemalan border. Reluctantly, he’d left a wife about to have his baby behind, along with a little house and chickens that roamed wherever they liked. The slight, sweet-faced twenty-four year-old farmer walked nearly all the way to San Diego. Not long after, he caught a ride north to San Francisco, in the back of a faded red Chevrolet truck.

Day after day, he waited with other Mexicans, Salvadorans and a handful of Guatemalans on the corner of Mission Street and Twenty-Fourth, for someone needing yard work done to pick him up. No one had offered him work today. It was too late for that to happen now.

________


Alejandro scoured the sky. To get a better view, he brushed a thick strand of hair away from his eyes. Even then, he still couldn’t make out a single star. The sky had hidden itself behind a thick layer of gray-white fog.

Hunger gnawed at the lining of Alejandro’s stomach. A handful of lint brushed his fingers when he searched his pants pockets for change.

He headed down Twenty-Fourth Street. On both sides of the street, bright lights invited passersby into the restaurants and shops. Without money to spend, Alejandro turned off Twenty-Fourth onto Bryant, which was narrow and dark. A block down Bryant Street, a church suddenly emerged out of the fog. On the sidewalk out front, a wedge of warm light formed a yellow triangle.

The church door was open. Alejandro leaned over and shot a tentative look inside. The far end of the church shimmered as if on fire.

Step by step he was drawn inside. The warm soft light felt soothing. Rows of rich red velvet pews sat empty on the main floor.

A warm hand pressed his arm.

“Can I help you son?”

Alejandro lifted his head and gazed into eyes black as his own. In Spanish, the priest asked, “Are you hungry?”

Without opening his mouth, Alejandro assured the priest that he was.

Alejandro rolled the thick corn tortilla into a narrow cone. Across the table, the priest sat with his hands folded in front. Alejandro used the tortilla to scrape up smooth hot beans and guide them to his mouth.

“Where are you from?” the priest asked.

Alejandro finished chewing.

“Teptapa,” Alejandro answered

“Teptapa?”

Fearing he’d said something wrong, Alejandro whispered a bashful, “Si.” In his tiny village, the houses had neither running water nor lights.

The priest reached his hand across the table and patted Alejandro’s forearm.

“The world is small.”

He patted Alejandro’s arm a second time.

“Mi abuelo. The father of my father.”

The priest stopped speaking and smiled.

“My grandfather was born in Rio Blanco, just north of Teptapa. He liked to say there was no place on earth where the air was as clear, the water as sweet or the girls as beautiful.”

Alejandro smiled.

“So, Señor from Teptapa. What are you doing so far from home? And tell me please, what is your name? I am Father Manuel.”

The priest reached his hand across the table.

“I am Alejandro Murghia Lopez.”

Dark gray grit was caked underneath Alejandro’s fingernails. His knuckles were badly soiled. He snatched his hands off the table and slid them under his thighs.

“You have come all this way for work? You have no papers, I presume.”

Alejandro bowed his head.

The priest didn’t tell Alejandro what he had in mind. It was better to give the young man a chance to finish his dinner.

Alejandro opened his eyes. Dust particles drifted in a lazy stream of sunlight flooding through the curtainless window. He remembered the food he’d eaten the night before and how kindly the Catholic father had spoken to him.

He rolled onto his side. As he sat up, he heard a light tapping on the door.

“Si,” he said. He hopped across the floor, yanking on a pair of pale blue polyester pants that had grown thin at the knees.

He opened the door. A dark, frail woman was waiting in the hall. Her loose black dress had slipped off her bony right shoulder.

She held a metal tray in her narrow hands. She shoved the tray forward and in Spanish said, “Your breakfast, Señor.”

Alejandro remained frozen to the spot, his arms dangling at his sides.

“It will get cold, Señor.” The woman edged the tray forward, where it grazed Alejandro’s stomach.

“Gracias,” Alejandro sputtered. He grasped each side of the tray and took several small steps back.

“Muchisimas gracias,” he said, once he’d made it safely inside.

He turned and guided the steaming food to a small wooden table next to the window.

A bowl of oatmeal pumped steam into the air. A plate on the right held two sunny slices of toast and a soft-boiled egg. A cup of black coffee and a glass of orange juice sat next to that.

Barely chewing, Alejandro took three quick bites of toast. After wolfing down the first slice, he paused. He braided his fingers, which since the previous night had been washed, anchored his palms on the table and mumbled a short prayer of thanks to God, then scolded himself to slow down.

He let himself savor the next bite, enjoying the chewiness of the wheat and the warm, sweet melted butter. He took a sip of orange juice, smacked his lips and smiled. Sunlight played across the floor.

The moment he lifted the last bite of toast to his mouth, he heard another tapping on the door. He pushed the chair out, stood up and walked across the floor.

“Buenos dias,” the priest said, when he saw Alejandro.

“Buenos dias,” Alejandro responded.

“May I come in?”

“Of course.”

Alejandro stepped back and watched, as the priest strode into the room. Father Manuel, who was almost a foot taller than Alejandro and slender, with black hair cut short and clear skin the shade of walnut sauce, gestured to Alejandro with his chin. The young man scrambled into a seat across the table.

The priest assessed the tray. Not a single scrap of food or ounce of liquid remained.

“Did you enjoy your breakfast?”

The priest fixed his gaze on Alejandro, forcing the poor young farmer to look away.

“Yes. Thank you very much. I have never eaten such food.”

“Alejandro,” the priest said, and dropped his hand on the young man’s wrist. The young man dropped his eyes onto the priest’s fingers.

“This church has made a commitment. God has asked us to do something for him.”

He waited for Alejandro to take that in.

“What God has asked us to do is feed the hungry, clothe the naked and shelter the poor. We have said yes to God.”

The silence hovered thick and hard. Along with his stomach, Alejandro’s head felt full. The priest was speaking like Father Alonzo, times he came to Teptapa from the capital to perform mass. Priests said such things, but they got in their cars and drove back to the city, while poor men like Alejandro wondered how they and their families were going to last.

“We have said yes to God,” the priest went on. “But saying yes is not enough.”

A priest had never touched Alejandro’s arm. What could this priest want?

Father Manuel studied Alejandro’s face. The young man was handsome, with high cheekbones and dark, wide, innocent eyes. Everyone was sure to like him. The priest silently congratulated himself. He would not find anyone more perfect.

“Do you understand the word sanctuario, Alejandro?”

The word sounded like bells to Alejandro, or birds singing in the late afternoon before dusk.

“No, father,” he admitted, after a quiet pause.

“That’s fine,” Father Manuel said. He patted Alejandro’s wrist. “I only asked because I want to tell you something.”

The priest leaned his face close to the table. Alejandro did the same.

“We have made the commitment to make this church a sanctuario.”

The priest smiled. Alejandro nodded.

“In our sanctuary, we will feed the hungry, clothe the naked and house the homeless.”

Father Manuel leaned even closer to the table now.

“To do this, we will have to break the law.”

The priest whispered the last part, enunciating every word, filling each one with breath. He sat up and straightened his back. Alejandro nodded, silently agreeing with the priest, though refusing to commit himself to a single act.

“We are going to house the undocumented,” the priest said, relieving Alejandro of the need to speak. “What the government likes to call illegal aliens.”

The priest added one final word more.

“Openly.”

When Alejandro didn’t respond, the priest went on.

“That’s against the law.”

Alejandro understood what breaking the law meant. He knew if you stole your neighbor’s best rooster, you would have to return the bird or pay. If you fooled around with your neighbor’s wife, he might kill you, unless she had grown fat and let hair grow all over her face. A man who did not have enough for a bribe might spend time in jail, if he got caught stealing in the capital.

He’d heard that a man without proper papers needed to avoid La Migra. He’d been told that agents would put him on a bus and send him to Mexico, if he got caught. Still, no one could have convinced him that trying to earn enough to feed his wife and about-to-be born baby meant he was breaking the law.

The story hit the newspaper the following Sunday morning. Photographs of Alejandro appeared. None of the pictures showed his face. His profile was blurry and dark.

Reporters called from all over the country. A few even phoned from Mexican newspapers and TV.

The ground seemed to be shifting every couple of minutes underneath Alejandro’s feet. He felt as if someone had put him on a carnival ride, like the ones that came every summer to Rio Blanco.

He no longer went to stand on the corner each morning and wait for work. Instead, he lived in the little room and ate his meals with the priest or a member of the congregation. Except to sit in the church’s enclosed back garden, he was not allowed to go outside.

Here he was, accustomed to standing on his porch watching the sun come up, then walking to his fields, which he tended until sundown, when he took his time climbing the steep, rocky path up to his house, listening to the birds sigh. Until he left his village and headed north, Alejandro had never ventured far. But staying put hadn’t kept him from believing that the sky, fields and air around him were endless, and that, if he chose, one day he might fly up to the stars.

Trapped inside the church compound, Alejandro was nevertheless content at the start. He put on weight, for the first time in his life. After every meal, he thought there couldn’t possibly be another one. A few hours later, though, he would hear a familiar tapping at his door. The frail old woman, who he now knew was named Maria, would be waiting, holding another tray of food out.

The attention Alejandro was getting thrilled the young man. He had been asked again and again to tell about his life. He talked about his mother and father, how hard they’d worked and how much he missed them after they died. He described his little house and fields, and how sweet the dirt smelled in Teptapa when he held it up to his nose. He told them about Elena and the baby about to be born. He assured them all he wouldn’t have come, if he’d been able to make a decent living back home.

As the weeks wore on, he began to understand that he wasn’t going to save a single dollar. If he didn’t save, Alejandro feared he would never be able to show his face back home.

For his part, the priest scolded himself not to let this newfound fame go to his head. All the big shows – Dateline, 48 Hours and now even 60 Minutes – had done segments. Anchors, including that sweet Katie Couric, had stood in front of his church and announced to the world that Father Manuel and St. Peter’s Catholic Church were defying the U.S. government to obey a higher call. He’d read the articles, along with the letters, e-mails and cards flooding in. The expected death threats arrived, calling for Father Manuel to go back where he came from and take the Mexican scum along with him. But these were overshadowed by the reporters who referred to Father Manuel as a Modern Day Saint, and the descriptions of him as dark and handsome.

In addition to the unacceptable pride Father Manuel was fighting to contain each day, Mexicans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, a few Russians and even a couple from the Ukraine, were asking for sanctuary. Father Manuel agreed that the church needed to let them stay. By the second week, the number of people living at St. Peter’s swelled to forty-five. That’s when Father Manuel concluded that he had no choice but to close the doors.

The place now resembled the crowded boarding house room Alejandro shared with other men, when he spent his days waiting for work on the corner. Having come first to the church, Alejandro did get to sleep in the bed alone.

A little more than a month after he’d first stumbled in the church door, Alejandro slipped out. He tiptoed through the garden and unlocked the side gate.

The night was uncharacteristically warm. A nearly full moon, flattened slightly on the lower left side, lit the sidewalk in between the streetlights. It was the beginning of October, and San Francisco was uncharacteristically free of fog.

After the excitement of those first weeks, when reporters and camera crews gathered in front of the church, Alejandro felt a twinge of regret, as he stepped past a lone sheet of newsprint blowing across the porch.

He’d had no plan in mind, before slipping through the garden. Out on the street, he wasn’t any more sure of his goal.

For the moment, though, he just wanted to stand and breathe in the air, sweetened from flowered vines falling over the fence, and lean back and look at the stars. He wondered if those were the same stars that overlooked Teptapa, and whether Elena was standing outside. He could see her fingers spread out and resting on top of her belly, and the baby deciding to kick a couple of times. Elena, he decided, was ignoring the baby, while she looked up and imagined that Alejandro was standing some place in America staring at those same stars.

Without another thought, Alejandro started to walk. He wasn’t sure which direction was south but figured in a while he would figure that out. The ache in his belly was more painful than the hunger he’d come all this way north to avoid. It reached up, wringing his heart and lungs. The ache crept up more and seized him by the throat. He felt for a moment as if he were choking.

Gradually, the walking began to loosen the tight grip from around his throat. Days slipped by, as easily as stars over his fields in Teptapa collected in the sky. The air grew warmer, until becoming downright hot.

At one point, Alejandro passed the border. The wind began to smell of rotting mango and corn.

At that moment, he realized the ache in his belly was finally gone. When he looked up, he witnessed a quiet profusion of tiny white lights, winking at him from a clear, fog-free sky.