Although Javier tried to hold back the tears that forced themselves upon him, he failed. Demanding release was a jumbled mixture of joy, pride, and other unlabeled emotions, plus the sheer relief that his years of study were finally over, and he could get on with the real work of his life. Young Javier de Córdova was a priest forever, just like Melchisedech, the priest of the Old Testament.
Or was he? The bitter odor of Roberto Yañez's blood lingered in Javier's nostrils and recalled him from his reverie. He put out the light and slipped inside the mosquito netting that tented his bed. He lowered his exhausted, perspiring body onto the sheets, grateful to be finished with this day.
An hour later, he lay wide awake, annoyed. Sleepless nights invariably called forth replays of the happiest and most miserable period of his life--a time when he had been less in touch with himself and his needs, and, as he admitted during these marathons of insomnia, just plain stupid. Worst of all, his spirit always transported him to a secret pond and a crystal waterfall in a place that had once been his favorite on the island, to a magical afternoon on which he had made his greatest, life-altering mistake. To punish himself, he never returned to that once-cherished place again.
3
If the early part of Independence Day belonged to God, midday belonged to the Santa Teresita's politicians and other civic dignitaries. Father Javier had heard the same speeches year after year, mostly by the same homegrown orators.
The festivities progressed throughout the day, as did the heat and humidity. The central plaza swarmed with ad hoc entrepreneurs, eager to make a few extra cruzeros by selling anything they could from the backs of their donkey carts and battered old pickups. It was as close to a Florida-style swap meet as Santa Teresita could manage. It reminded Javier of his bargain-hunting days as a young seminarian in and around St. Augustine on Florida's Atlantic Coast.
By nightfall, all but the food vendors had abandoned the plaza. Electric amplifiers blared a steady stream of salsa music whose Latin beat Javier found irresistible. Yet, he politely refused the few awkward young women who invited him to dance, undoubtedly on dares from giggling friends who peeked from behind posts across the festooned outdoor dance area.
With a final, "No, thank you," he moved away from the dancing and strolled through the plaza. He soon became aware that the day's prayerful beginning and thunder of drums and marching had given way to excessive alcohol consumption--always the prelude to trouble. Real or imagined infidelities or sexual encroachments led to inflamed jealousies, which led to angry words among some of the young, impulsive tough guys of the village, and a few not so young. In the end, there were the inevitable fist fights and the eruption of small arms gunfire.
Javier had ended more than one Independence Day at the hospital or the police station ministering to the victims and survivors of fights, stabbings, and shootings. He prayed it would be different this year.
At eleven o'clock, the hospital summoned him to give the sacrament of the sick--and, in this case, dying--to twenty-one-year-old Roberto Yañez who had the bad fortune to be an innocent bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time. A pistol shot intended for his pal, Miguel Arroyo, had lodged in Roberto's brain, guaranteeing he'd never attend another Independence Day celebration.
These senseless acts of violence sickened Javier. He had made nonviolence--physical, sexual, verbal, emotional-- a hallmark of his ministry. He had done everything within his moral power to pass on his deep convictions to these passionate, hot-blooded highlanders. His greatest joys came in those unexpected moments when disputes having the potential for bloodshed were settled peacefully. He suffered when alcohol-induced violence won out, as it had this night.
These thoughts pounded inside Javier's head, as he walked to the clinic exit with Dr. Miguel Alonzo, who had attended the Yañez boy. "How can we expect governments to shun violence, Miguel, when neighbors can't even spend a holiday together without killing each other?"
The doctor's response to the tragedy was less emotional than the priest's. "My mother taught me you can only save the world one person at a time."
Javier nodded a reluctant, mournful agreement. "It's so slow that way."
On the short walk home from the hospital, Javier wondered about the rumors creeping up the slopes of Chuchuán from the capital. Had there really been arrests at the university? Was it true that the authorities had tortured those being held? He had heard unvalidated rumors before. He doubted they were true this time.
Close to midnight, Javier reached his small room at the back of the parish house. He had grown so accustomed to these minimal quarters that he experienced a kind of social shock whenever he ventured into Santa Catalina, the capital, and stayed at Archbishop Palacios's residence or even in his own mother's home.
A rough wooden frame held his narrow bed together. The hard mattress had exceeded its life expectancy. Because the bed was too short for his taller-than-average height, he frequently awakened in the night with leg cramps. A few pieces of unvarnished, non-matching furniture and some personal items crowded the remaining space.
A small table served both as desk and typewriter table for his old workhorse Olympia portable, a gift from his parents when he graduated from high school. That green, solid-steel machine had faithfully seen him through the seminary and into the ministry. On it he had written hundreds of homilies and most of his personal correspondence. A wash basin that jutted out from the wall and a single bookcase rounded out the furnishings. There was hardly room for Javier to squeeze between the furniture, as he moved about.
He began keeping a spiritual journal-diary after his ordination. Gradually, the press of parish duties and a creeping depression that settled over him when he saw his inner self exposed on paper spaced the stream-of-consciousness entries further and further apart. Almost without his noticing it, they ceased altogether.
The final entry in Javier's journal read, Almost midnight, December 31, 1987. End of year . . . . Who am I? Is there a human being inside this cassock? Or is it a black shell, an empty garment from which all vitality has fled? . . . God, Javier! You're in a state. Stop feeling sorry for yourself! New Year's resolution: spend a half hour in meditation every day . . . pray for renewed energy and commitment. It had worked, at least for a while, but that had been the end of his journaling.
Only a few feet away from Javier's single screenless window stood a row of mud houses, from which the unfiltered sounds and smells of village life entered his room. On festive nights such as this one, the voices rose louder than usual.
"I saw how you looked at her. Don't think I didn't!"
Newlyweds María del Carmen and Ramón Martinez had worked themselves up to another good fight. How different they had been the day Javier joined them in "holy" matrimony.
"Come on, María, let go of it," Javier muttered. If this bout went according to pattern, she and Ramón would yell at each other for a few minutes, then quiet would descent on their bedroom. Following a prolonged silence, they'd treat their parish priest to the sounds of uninhibited lovemaking and triumphant orgasms.
This was the way it went with his neighbors. Day and night, he shared their marital spats and their moments of pleasure, both public and private. It was a one-way sharing. Rarely did any sound escape his room, no angry words, no audible cries of pain--or pleasure. How multiple generations could occupy such small dwellings and be contented was a mystery to him. Nor could he understand how his neighbors found a way to make love without the privacy he insisted on the one and only time he had ever made love to a woman. They must be just as puzzled how I can stand to live so quietly and with so much solitude.
Javier wondered, too, if the man who had fired the fatal bullet into young Yañez had heard his Independence Day homily. It seemed like such a long time ago that Javier had stood before his congregation. He hoped the killer hadn't been in church. It would only highlight the futility of his ministry among these people who dwelt on the volcano's outer skin, the inheritors of it
s raging spirit. They were rich in passion, if in nothing else. But, the same passion with which they loved God and made love to their spouses (and girlfriends and married lovers) was too often expended in killing and maiming each other.
What good have I done in the years I've served them? A rhetorical question. In a way, he envied Roberto Yañez. Not that he wanted to die, but the thought of spending another October Seventeenth in this mountain village depressed him no end. Without a specific plan, he vowed to be gone before then. Gone? Where do you think you're going?
Javier stripped to his cotton briefs and knelt on the uncarpeted plank floor, elbows resting on the lumpy mattress. "'Lord, save us while we are awake,'" he recited, "'protect us when asleep, and Christ with whom we keep watch, will guard our souls in peace.'" Maybe the time had come to wake up to a truth that had forced its way into his consciousness. "Not tonight," he groaned. Instead, his mind slipped away to happier days than the one just ending.
Javier had been born the first and only child of the rising young army officer Ernesto de Córdova and the former South Florida debutante Erica McFarland. They named their son Javier Estebán after his paternal grandfather, recently deceased. The date was August 15, 1946, feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The child possessed a subtle and quite harmonious blend of Hispanic and Scotch-Irish features.
Even as a young boy, Javier had been quite handsome. Partly because a winning upward turn at the corners of his mouth gave his face a welcoming quality, people found him easy to like, despite the mischief he initiated.
Moving into adolescence, he grew taller than most of his pure Hispanic and Hispanic-Indian classmates. His jaw squared like his father's, giving him a look of physical strength and determination. His surprisingly blue eyes provided an interesting contrast against his olive complexion and black hair.
Everyone expected young Javier to follow his father into military service, but the boy declined to declare himself when asked about his career plans. Finally, on the day of his graduation from high school, he announced his intention to study for the priesthood. His delighted mother confessed she had prayed since his birth that he would make some other choice than a career in the army. To have a priest in the family exceeded her dreams. It renewed her faith in a provident God who knew best what was good for his faithful followers.
Javier's choice disappointed Captain de Córdova, but he too had faith in God and refused to stand in the way of his son's vocation. Only the girls Javier had dated in high school--and those who still held out hope--had the nerve to say out loud what all the young women thought: "What a waste!"
In the fall of 1963, Javier entered the archdiocesan seminary located in a villa-like atmosphere on the outskirts of Santa Catalina. Unlike others who had joined one of the many religious orders, Javier chose to become a parish priest in the service of his local archbishop. This assured a life of service on his native island, where he had always be close to his beloved parents. Javier found his niche in the all-male clerical life and excelled in his philosophical studies. After four years, Archbishop Palacios sent the promising seminarian to study theology at the regional pontifical seminary in Florida.
On a cloudless May morning in 1971, Deacon Javier knelt before the archbishop, prepared to commit his whole life to the service of God and the Church. The elderly prelate imposed hands on the young ordinand's head, consecrated the new priest's palms with holy chrism and bound them with a spotless linen cloth.
Although Javier tried to hold back the tears that forced themselves upon him, he failed. Demanding release was a jumbled mixture of joy, pride, and other unlabeled emotions, plus the sheer relief that his years of study were finally over, and he could get on with the real work of his life. Young Javier de Córdova was a priest forever, just like Melchisedech, the priest of the Old Testament.
Or was he? The bitter odor of Roberto Yañez's blood lingered in Javier's nostrils and recalled him from his reverie. He put out the light and slipped inside the mosquito netting that tented his bed. He lowered his exhausted, perspiring body onto the sheets, grateful to be finished with this day.
An hour later, he lay wide awake, annoyed. Sleepless nights invariably called forth replays of the happiest and most miserable period of his life--a time when he had been less in touch with himself and his needs, and, as he admitted during these marathons of insomnia, just plain stupid. Worst of all, his spirit always transported him to a secret pond and a crystal waterfall in a place that had once been his favorite on the island, to a magical afternoon on which he had made his greatest, life-altering mistake. To punish himself, he never returned to that once-cherished place again.
4
In President Montenegro’s final meeting with the foreign bankers, it was Jason Kilpatrick, the fit and forty-something chairman of Bancorp USA who made the announcement.
"Mr. President," Kilpatrick began, his tone solemn. "My colleagues and I have discussed this matter at length since dinner last night. We are prepared to advise our directorates and investors to delay any action on our recommendations until January First. That will give you two-and-a-half months to outline a new financial course for your nation and demonstrate that human rights are alive and well in Santo Sangre."
"That isn't a great deal of time," Herr Wenger added, “but it is the best we can offer under the circumstances."
Although the bankers departed with the same frowns they had worn on their newly-tanned faces all during their visit, Montenegro had squeezed out this one small concession.
As if Juana's boss didn't have enough to deal with that week, his wife had fallen into a dawn-to-dark pout over the added work that had fallen to her and her domestic staff as a result of the bankers' overnight visit to their ranch. Juana had long since learned to let Anastasia Montenegro ventilate until she got over it.
To top the week off, Juana brought more bad news to her Friday morning conference with the president in his blue-appointed office, appropriately called the Sala Azul.
"Postmaster General Moreno was here bright and early." Juana tried not to make the official's request for an audience sound too urgent. "I convinced him you’d be happy to meet with him, but were totally booked up today." She swung her head to the right, tossing her hair away from in front of her eyes and over her shoulders.
The president looked up from his papers, annoyed that a minor official should intrude on his day. "What is it all about, Juana?"
"Moreno says thousands of letters arrive at the main post office every day lately--" She shifted into an imitation of Moreno's gravelly voice. "'From all over Europe and America.'"
Montenegro smiled at the accuracy of Juana's portrayal, "Yes, yes, go on."
"He says they're addressed personally to President Montenegro, and 'What would his Excellency like done with them?'" This time, there was no mimicry, only a pause to await instructions.
"Tell me. What have I done to displease the bleeding hearts at POCI this time?"
"Well, let's see." Juana unfolded and read from an air letter typical of those in the stack she had taken from the Postmaster. "'Your Excellency: I am writing to express my concern about Professor Arturo Valdez, the internationally known author who is a member of the faculty of the National University of Santa Catalina. Professor Valdez was arrested and taken from his home on the night of,' et cetera, et cetera. None mention POCI by name, but who do the hypocrites think they're fooling?"
"Why don't those lazy meddlers mind their own business?" Montenegro steamed. "Aren't there enough problems in their own countries to worry about? Filthy communists! They're no better than the bankers." The president replayed a favorite old theme. "If it was anyone but me, or anyone without a Spanish accent, they would fall over themselves to loan me what I need. You can be sure if those fat assholes had revealed their bottom-line--” The president chuckled at his poetic juxtaposition of rear-end terms. "Their bottom-line decision the day they arrived, I'd have run them off my island, instead of letting them f
ill their bellies with my food and liquor and tan their lily-white skin on my beaches."
Juana let the president rant uninterrupted. He wouldn't be receptive to her shrewd perceptions and solutions, until after he had drained the poison of his rage from his system. In the meantime, she played the lesser of her two roles, that of private secretary.
"It was only because of Valdez's stature that we waited as long as we did to shut him up," Montenegro continued. "We gave him fair warning he was risking trouble filling his students' minds with a lot of Communist-tainted ideas. I sent the Interior Minister himself to speak to him. Democracy is one thing. We are a democratic people at heart. Subversion is quite another thing altogether. I won't allow it to incubate right under my nose in the university!"
Valdez's hadn't been the first voice silenced in Santo Sangre. Juana had seen to that, alerting the president whenever she became aware of what she perceived to be a threat to his power or savior-of-the-country image. A firm presidential hand and a native lethargy among his tropical island people had reduced the need for forced silences, compared to some of the more oppressive regimes in the region. The trouble this time was Valdez's high profile in the international community.
"Do you want to hear more?" she asked.
"No. Tell Moreno to trash them."
"But, Raúl--" Juana didn't trust the postmaster and his poorly trained employees with that much responsibility.
"I said trash them, damn it!" An aimless back-handed swipe at the top of his desk caught the telephone and sent it sliding across the polished surface and crashing to the floor with a jangle of internal bells. Juana flushed, gathered up the letters, and marched toward the door, her head erect and defiant. "Juana, my sweet," Montenegro blurted after her, "I'm sorry." Juana had never heard him utter a word of apology to anyone else. In fact, no one believed such words existed in his lexicon. "I'm not angry with you. You're right. Maybe we shouldn't have the post office destroy those letters. Besides, I can't trust Moreno's idiots to distinguish between POCI’s hate mail and official state correspondence."