‘You’re a good man, father,’ the mestizo cut quickly in, ‘but you think the worst of people. I just want your blessing, that’s all.’
‘What is the good? You can’t sell a blessing,’ the priest said.
‘It’s just because we won’t see each other again. And I didn’t want you to go off there thinking ill things . . .’
‘You are so superstitious,’ the priest said. ‘You think my blessing will be like a blinker over God’s eyes. I can’t stop him knowing all about it. Much better go home and pray. Then if he gives you grace to feel sorry, give away the money . . .’
‘What money, father?’ The half-caste shook his stirrup angrily. ‘What money? There you go again . . .’
The priest sighed. He felt empty with the ordeal. Fear can be more tiring than a long monotonous ride. He said, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ and beat his horse into position beside the lieutenant’s.
‘And I’ll pray for you, father,’ the half-caste announced complacently. Once the priest looked back as his horse poised for the steep descent between the rocks. The half-caste stood alone among the huts, his mouth a little open, showing the two long fangs. He might have been snapped in the act of shouting some complaint or some claim – that he was a good Catholic perhaps; one hand scratched under the arm-pit. The priest waved his hand; he bore no grudge because he expected nothing else of anything human and he had one cause at least for satisfaction – that yellow and unreliable face would be absent ‘at the death’.
‘You’re a man of education,’ the lieutenant said. He lay across the entrance of the hut with his head on his rolled cape and his revolver by his side. It was night, but neither man could sleep. The priest, when he shifted, groaned a little with stiffness and cramp. The lieutenant was in a hurry to get home, and they had ridden till midnight. They were down off the hills and in the marshy plain. Soon the whole State would be subdivided by swamp. The rains had really begun.
‘I’m not that. My father was a storekeeper.’
‘I mean, you’ve been abroad. You can talk like a Yankee. You’ve had schooling.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve had to think things out for myself. But there are some things which you don’t have to learn in a school. That there are rich and poor.’ He said in a low voice, ‘I’ve shot three hostages because of you. Poor men. It made me hate you.’
‘Yes,’ the priest admitted, and tried to stand to ease the cramp in his right thigh. The lieutenant sat up quickly, gun in hand: ‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing. Just cramp. That’s all.’ He lay down again with a groan.
The lieutenant said, ‘Those men I shot. They were my own people. I wanted to give them the whole world.’
‘Well, who knows? Perhaps that’s what you did.’
The lieutenant spat suddenly, viciously, as if something unclean had got upon his tongue. He said, ‘You always have answers which mean nothing.’
‘I was never any good at books,’ the priest said. ‘I haven’t any memory. But there was one thing always puzzled me about men like yourself. You hate the rich and love the poor. Isn’t that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, if I hated you, I wouldn’t want to bring up my child to be like you. It’s not sense.’
‘That’s just twisting . . .’
‘Perhaps it is. I’ve never got your ideas straight. We’ve always said the poor are blessed and the rich are going to find it hard to get into heaven. Why should we make it hard for the poor man too? Oh, I know we are told to give to the poor, to see they are not hungry – hunger can make a man do evil just as much as money can. But why should we give the poor power? It’s better to let him die in dirt and wake in heaven – so long as we don’t push his face in the dirt.’
‘I hate your reasons,’ the lieutenant said. ‘I don’t want reasons. If you see somebody in pain, people like you reason and reason. You say – pain’s a good thing, perhaps he’ll be better for it one day. I want to let my heart speak.’
‘At the end of a gun.’
‘Yes. At the end of a gun.’
‘Oh well, perhaps when you’re my age you’ll know the heart’s an untrustworthy beast. The mind is too, but it doesn’t talk about love. Love. And a girl puts her head under water or a child’s strangled, and the heart all the time says love, love.’
They lay quiet for a while in the hut. The priest thought the lieutenant was asleep until he spoke again. ‘You never talk straight. You say one thing to me – but to another man, or a woman, you say, “God is love.” But you think that stuff won’t go down with me, so you say different things. Things you think I’ll agree with.’
‘Oh,’ the priest said, ‘that’s another thing altogether – God is love. I don’t say the heart doesn’t feel a taste of it, but what a taste. The smallest glass of love mixed with a pint pot of ditch-water. We wouldn’t recognize that love. It might even look like hate. It would be enough to scare us – God’s love. It set fire to a bush in the desert, didn’t it, and smashed open graves and set the dead walking in the dark. Oh, a man like me would run a mile to get away if he felt that love around.’
‘You don’t trust him much, do you? He doesn’t seem a grateful kind of God. If a man served me as well as you’ve served him, well, I’d recommend him for promotion, see he got a good pension . . . if he was in pain, with cancer, I’d put a bullet through his head.’
‘Listen,’ the priest said earnestly, leaning forward in the dark, pressing on a cramped foot, ‘I’m not as dishonest as you think I am. Why do you think I tell people out of the pulpit that they’re in danger of damnation if death catches them unawares? I’m not telling them fairy stories I don’t believe myself. I don’t know a thing about the mercy of God: I don’t know how awful the human heart looks to Him. But I do know this – that if there’s ever been a single man in this state damned, then I’ll be damned too.’ He said slowly, ‘I wouldn’t want it to be any different. I just want justice, that’s all.’
‘We’ll be in before dark,’ the lieutenant said. Six men rode in front and six behind; sometimes, in the belts of forest between the arms of the river, they had to ride in single file. The lieutenant didn’t speak much, and once, when two of his men struck up a song about a fat shopkeeper and his woman, he told them savagely to be silent. It wasn’t a very triumphal procession. The priest rode with a weak grin fixed on his face; it was like a mask he had stuck on, so that he could think quietly without anyone noticing. What he thought about mostly was pain.
‘I suppose,’ the lieutenant said, scowling ahead, ‘you’re hoping for a miracle.’
‘Excuse me. What did you say?’
‘I said I suppose you’re hoping for a miracle.’
‘No.’
‘You believe in them, don’t you?’
‘Yes. But not for me. I’m no more good to anyone, so why should God keep me alive?’
‘I can’t think how a man like you can believe in those things. The Indians, yes. Why, the first time they see an electric light they think it’s a miracle.’
‘And I dare say the first time you saw a man raised from the dead you might think so too.’ He giggled unconvincingly behind the smiling mask. ‘Oh, it’s funny, isn’t it? It isn’t a case of miracles not happening – it’s just a case of people calling them something else. Can’t you see the doctors round the dead man? He isn’t breathing any more, his pulse has stopped, his heart’s not beating: he’s dead. Then somebody gives him back his life, and they all – what’s the expression? – reserve their opinion. They won’t say it’s a miracle, because that’s a word they don’t like. Then it happens again and again perhaps – because God’s about on earth – and they say: these aren’t miracles, it is simply that we have enlarged our conception of what life is. Now we know you can be alive without pulse, breath, heart-beats. And they invent a new word to describe that state of life, and they say science has disproved a miracle.’ He giggled again. ‘You can’t get round them.’
They were out of the forest track on to a hard-beaten road, and the lieutenant dug in his spur and the whole cavalcade broke into a canter. They were nearly home now. The lieutenant said grudgingly, ‘You aren’t a bad fellow. If there’s anything I can do for you . . .’
‘If you would give permission for me to confess . . .’
The first houses came into sight, little hard-baked houses of earth falling into ruin, a few classical pillars just plaster over mud, and a dirty child playing in the rubble.
The lieutenant said, ‘But there’s no priest.’
‘Padre José.’
‘Oh, Padre José,’ the lieutenant said with contempt, ‘he’s no good for you.’
‘He’s good enough for me. It’s not likely I’d find a saint here, is it?’
The lieutenant rode on for a little while in silence; they came to the cemetery, full of chipped angels, and passed the great portico with its black letters, ‘Silencio’. He said, ‘All right. You can have him.’ He wouldn’t look at the cemetery as they went by – there was the wall where prisoners were shot. The road went steeply downhill towards the river; on the right, where the cathedral had been, the iron swings stood empty in the hot afternoon. There was a sense of desolation everywhere, more of it than in the mountains because a lot of life had once existed here. The lieutenant thought: No pulse, no breath, no heart-beat, but it’s still life – we’ve only got to find a name for it. A small boy watched them pass; he called out to the lieutenant, ‘Lieutenant, have you got him?’ and the lieutenant dimly remembered the face – one day in the plaza – a broken bottle, and he tried to smile back, an odd sour grimace, without triumph or hope. One had to begin again with that.
CHAPTER 4
The lieutenant waited till after dark and then he went himself. It would be dangerous to send another man because the news would be around the city in no time that Padre José had been permitted to carry out a religious duty in the prison. It was wiser not to let even the jefe know. One didn’t trust one’s superiors when one was more successful than they were. He knew the jefe wasn’t pleased that he had brought the priest in – an escape would have been better from his point of view.
In the patio he could feel himself watched by a dozen eyes. The children clustered there ready to shout at Padre José if he appeared. He wished he had promised the priest nothing, but he was going to keep his word – because it would be a triumph for that old corrupt God-ridden world if it could show itself superior on any point – whether of courage, truthfulness, justice . . .
Nobody answered his knock; he stood darkly in the patio like a petitioner. Then he knocked again, and a voice called, ‘A moment. A moment.’
Padre José put his face against the bars of his window and asked, ‘Who’s there?’ He seemed to be fumbling at something near the ground.
‘Lieutenant of police.’
‘Oh,’ Padre José squeaked. ‘Excuse me. It is my trousers. In the dark.’ He seemed to heave at something and there was a sharp crack, as if his belt or braces had given way. Across the patio the children began to squeak, ‘Padre José. Padre José.’ When he came to the door he wouldn’t look at them, muttering tenderly, ‘The little devils.’
The lieutenant said, ‘I want you to come to the police station.’
‘But I’ve done nothing. Nothing. I’ve been so careful.’
‘Padre José,’ the children squeaked.
He said imploringly, ‘If it’s anything about a burial, you’ve been misinformed. I wouldn’t even say a prayer.’
‘Padre José. Padre José.’
The lieutenant turned and strode across the patio. He said furiously to the faces at the grid, ‘Be quiet. Go to bed. At once. Do you hear me?’ They dropped out of sight one by one, but immediately the lieutenant’s back was turned, they were there again watching.
Padre José said, ‘Nobody can do anything with those children.’
A woman’s voice said, ‘Where are you, José?’
‘Here, my dear. It is the police.’
A huge woman in a white nightdress came billowing out at them. It wasn’t much after seven; perhaps she lived, the lieutenant thought, in that dress – perhaps she lived in bed. He said, ‘Your husband,’ dwelling on the term with satisfaction, ‘your husband is wanted at the station.’
‘Who says so?’
‘I do.’
‘He’s done nothing.’
‘I was just saying, my dear . . .’
‘Be quiet. Leave the talking to me.’
‘You can both stop jabbering,’ the lieutenant said. ‘You’re wanted at the station to see a man – a priest. He wants to confess.’
‘To me?’
‘Yes. There’s no one else.’
‘Poor man,’ Padre José said. His little pink eyes swept the patio. ‘Poor man.’ He shifted uneasily, and took a quick furtive look at the sky where the constellations wheeled.
‘You won’t go,’ the woman said.
‘It’s against the law, isn’t it?’ Padre José asked.
‘You needn’t trouble about that.’
‘Oh, we needn’t, eh?’ the woman said. ‘I can see through you. You don’t want my husband to be let alone. You want to trick him. I know your work. You get people to ask him to say prayers – he’s a kind man. But I’d have you remember this – he’s a pensioner of the government.’
The lieutenant said slowly, ‘This priest – he has been working for years secretly – for your Church. We’ve caught him and, of course, he’ll be shot tomorrow. He’s not a bad man, and I told him he could see you. He seems to think it will do him good.’
‘I know him,’ the woman interrupted, ‘he’s a drunkard. That’s all he is.’
‘Poor man,’ Padre José said. ‘He tried to hide here once.’
‘I promise you,’ the lieutenant said, ‘nobody shall know.’
‘Nobody know?’ the woman cackled. ‘Why, it will be all over town. Look at those children there. They never leave José alone.’ She went on, ‘There’ll be no end of it – everybody will be wanting to confess, and the Governor will hear of it, and the pension will be stopped.’
‘Perhaps, my dear,’ José said, ‘it’s my duty . . .’
‘You aren’t a priest any more,’ the woman said, ‘you’re my husband.’ She used a coarse word. ‘That’s your duty now.’
The lieutenant listened to them with acid satisfaction. It was like rediscovering an old belief. He said, ‘I can’t wait here while you argue. Are you going to come with me?’
‘He can’t make you,’ the woman said.
‘My dear, it’s only that . . . well . . . I am a priest.’
‘A priest,’ the woman cackled, ‘you a priest.’ She went off into a peal of laughter, which was taken up tentatively by the children at the window. Padre José put his fingers up to his pink eyes as if they hurt. He said, ‘My dear . . .’ and the laughter went on.
‘Are you coming?’
Padre José made a despairing gesture – as much as to say, what does one more failure matter in a life like this? He said, ‘I don’t think it’s – possible.’
‘Very well,’ the lieutenant said. He turned abruptly – he hadn’t any more time to waste on mercy, and heard Padre José’s voice speak imploringly, ‘Tell him I shall pray.’ The children had gained confidence; one of them called out sharply, ‘Come to bed, José,’ and the lieutenant laughed once – a poor unconvincing addition to the general laughter which now surrounded Padre José, chiming up all round towards the disciplined constellations he had once known by name.
The lieutenant opened the cell door. It was very dark inside. He shut the door carefully behind him and locked it, keeping his hand on his gun. He said, ‘He won’t come.’
A little bunched figure in the darkness was the priest. He crouched on the floor like a child playing. He said, ‘You mean – not tonight?’
‘I mean he won’t come at all.’
There was silence for some while, if you could talk
of silence where there was always the drill-drill of mosquitoes and the little crackling explosions of beetles against the wall. At last the priest said, ‘He was afraid, I suppose . . .’
‘His wife wouldn’t let him come.’
‘Poor man.’ He tried to giggle, but no sound could have been more miserable than the half-hearted attempt. His head drooped between his knees; he looked as if he had abandoned everything and been abandoned.
The lieutenant said, ‘You had better know everything. You’ve been tried and found guilty.’
‘Couldn’t I have been present at my own trial?’
‘It wouldn’t have made any difference.’
‘No.’ He was silent, preparing an attitude. Then he asked with a kind of false jauntiness, ‘And when, if I may ask . . . ?’
‘Tomorrow.’ The promptness and brevity of the reply called his bluff. His head went down again and he seemed, as far as it was possible to see in the dark, to be biting his nails.
The lieutenant said, ‘It’s bad being alone on a night like this. If you would like to be transferred to the common cell . . .’
‘No, no. I’d rather be alone. I’ve got plenty to do.’ His voice failed, as though he had a heavy cold. He wheezed, ‘So much to think about.’
‘I should like to do something for you,’ the lieutenant said. ‘I’ve brought you some brandy.’
‘Against the law?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s very good of you.’ He took the small flask. ‘You wouldn’t need this, I dare say. But I’ve always been afraid of pain.’
‘We have to die some time,’ the lieutenant said. ‘It doesn’t seem to matter so much when.’
‘You’re a good man. You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.’
‘You have such odd ideas,’ the lieutenant complained. He said, ‘Sometimes I feel you’re just trying to talk me round.’
‘Round to what?’
‘Oh, to letting you escape perhaps – or to believing in the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints . . . how does that stuff go?’
‘The forgiveness of sins.’
‘You don’t believe much in that, do you?’