Quart raised a hand: "There's a moral objection to all this, Father. What you describe is alienation. Your church, presented like that, is the seventeenth-century equivalent of television."
"So what?" said Father Ferro with a shrug. "What was religious baroque art but an attempt to win the audience away from Luther and Calvin? Anyway, where would the modern papacy be without television? Naked faith can't be sustained. People need symbols to wrap around themselves, because it's cold outside. We're responsible for our last innocent faithful, those who followed us believing that we'd lead them to the sea, lead them home, as in the Anabasis. At least my old stones, my altarpiece, and my Latin arc more dignified than all that amplified singing and the huge screens that have turned services into a spectacle for the masses, dazzling them with electronic gimmicks. The Church leaders think that's the way to keep their customers. But they're wrong, they only degrade us. The battle's been lost, and now the time has come for false prophets."
He shut his mouth and bowed his head, morose. The conversation was over. He leaned on the window ledge and looked out over the river. Quart didn't know what to do or say. After a moment he went and leaned on the ledge beside Father Ferro. He had never been so near the priest. Father Ferro's head came up to his shoulder. They stood like that, without speaking, until long after the clocks on the towers of Seville struck six. The solitary cloud had dissolved and the sun was sinking. To the west, the sky was slowly turning gold. Don Priamo Ferro spoke again.
"I know only one thing: when the seduction is over we'll be finished too. Logic and reason will mean the end. But as long as some poor woman needs to kneel in my small church in search of comfort, the church must remain standing." He took his dirty handkerchief from his pocket and noisily blew his nose. The light from the setting sun lit the white stubble on his chin. "Burdened as we are by our miserable condition, priests like me are still needed . . . We're the old, patched drum skin on which the glory of God still thunders. And only a madman would envy our secret. We know," said the old priest darkly, "the angel who holds the key to the abyss."
IX
It's a Small World
Worthy of being dark and Sevillian. Campoamor, The Express Train
The floodlights illuminating the cathedral created an area of unreal brightness in the night. Confused by the light, pigeons flew in all directions, suddenly appearing and then disappearing into the darkness among the huge mountain of cupolas, pinnacles and flying buttresses, on top of which perched the tower of La Giralda. It was almost fantastical, thought. Quart, a backdrop as extraordinary as old Hollywood movie sets made of canvas and papier-mache. The difference was that the Plaza Virgen de los Reyes was real, built of bricks over the centuries - the oldest part dated from the twelfth century -and no film studio could have reproduced such an incredible place, however much money and talent they threw at the project. It was unique, a perfect stage. Particularly when Macarena Bruner walked across it and stopped beneath the huge lamppost in the centre of the square. She stood against the golden glow of the floodlit stone facades, tall and slender, her dark eyes calmly fixed on Quart.
"There are very few sights like this," she said.
It was true, but the man from Rome was also aware of how much the woman's presence added to the fascination of the place. The daughter of the duchess of El Nuevo Extremo was dressed as she had been that afternoon in the courtyard of the Casa del Postigo, but she now had a light jacket around her shoulders and carried a small leather rucksack. They had hardly spoken as they walked here. Quart had left Father Ferro in his observatory and taken leave of the duchess. Come back to see us, the elderly lady said pleasantly, and as a souvenir she gave him a small mudejar tile of a bird. It once decorated the courtyard but it fell from the wall in the bombardments of 1843 and spent a century and a half amongst several dozen broken and damaged tiles in a cellar near the old stables. As Quart was leaving the house with the tile in his pocket, Macarena stopped him at the gate. She suggested they take a walk and then eat tapas in a bar in Santa Cruz. Unless you have another appointment, she added, giving him a look. With an archbishop or something. Quart laughed, buttoning his jacket. And now here they were, the two of them, in the plaza with the illuminated cathedral. Looking at each other. And none of this, Quart thought with clarity, was doing much for the spiritual tranquillity that the ordinances of the Church recommended for the eternal salvation of a priest's soul.
"I'd like to thank you," she said.
"What for?"
"For Don Priamo."
More pigeons flew into the darkness. Quart and Macarena walked towards the Reales Alcazares and the arch in the wall, she turning to him occasionally, a faint smile on her lips. "You got close to him," she said. "Maybe now you understand."
Quart said he could understand certain things. Father Ferro's attitude, his stubbornness about the church, his resistance to Quart's mission there. But was that only part of the problem. Quart's task in Seville was to make a general report on the situation, including, if possible, the identity of Vespers. But he still had no information on the hacker. Father Oscar was about to leave, and Quart hadn't been able to determine whether he had anything to do with the matter or not. And Quart had yet to go through the police reports and review the investigation of the archbishop's palace into the deaths of the two men at the church. In addition - he indicated the jacket pocket where he'd put Carlota Bruner's postcard - he had yet to solve the mystery of the card and the page marked in the New Testament.
"Whom do you suspect?" Macarena asked.
They now stood in the archway by the small baroque altar to the Virgin, which was enclosed in glass, and Quart's laughter echoed dry and humourless in the vault. "Everybody," he said. "Don Priamo Ferro, Father Oscar, your friend Gris Marsala . . . Even you. Everyone here is a suspect, whether suspected of the deed or of keeping silent."
He glanced to the left and right as they entered the courtyard of the Alcazares, as if he expected to find culprits there, lying in wait. "I'm sure you're all covering up for one another. It would take only one of you to talk openly for thirty seconds, and my investigation would be closed."
Macarena stood beside him, looking at him intently, holding her rucksack to her chest. "Is that what you think?" she asked.
Quart inhaled the fragrance of the orange trees in the courtyard. "I'm certain of it," he said. "Vespers is one of you, and he sent the message to attract Rome's attention and help Father Ferro save his church . . . He believes, in his simplicity, that appealing to the Pope will mean the truth will out. That the truth cannot harm a just cause. Then I come to Seville, ready to uncover the truth that Rome wants, which possibly is not the truth as you all see it. Maybe that's why nobody's helping me, why instead I am presented with mystery after mystery, including the riddle of the postcard."
They walked on, crossing the square. Sometimes their steps brought them closer to each other, and Quart was aware of her perfume, like jasmine, with hints of orange blossom. Her smell was the smell of the city.
"Maybe the point is not to help you," she said, "but to help others. Perhaps it's all about making you see what's happening."
"I understand Father Ferro's attitude. But my understanding is of no use. You sent your message, hoping for a good cleric full of sympathy, and what they sent is a soldier wielding Joshua's sword." He shook his head. "Because that's what I am, a soldier, like that Sir Marhalt you were so keen on as a young girl. My job is to report the facts and find those responsible. It's up to others to show understanding and find solutions, if there are any." He paused and then smiled slighdy. "It's no use seducing the messenger."
They came to the curving passageway that led into Santa Cruz. As they walked, their shadows joined along the whitewashed walls. It was strangely intimate, and Quart felt relieved when they emerged at the other end, into the night.
"Is that what you think?" she asked. "That I'm trying to seduce you?"
Quart didn't answer. They went on in silence by the wall,
then turned down a narrow street that took them into the old Jewish quarter.
"Sir Marhalt also championed just causes," she said.
"Those were different times. Anyway, your Sir Marhalt was only a creation of John Steinbeck's. There are no just causes left. Even mine isn't one." He paused, as if reflecting on the truth of his words. "But it's my cause."
"You forget Father Ferro."
"His isn't a just cause. It's a personal choice. Everyone gets by as they can."
"Oh, please. I've seen Casablanca about twenty times. That's all I need, a priest playing the disillusioned hero. A priest who thinks he's Humphrey Bogart."
"I don't. I'm taller. Anyway, you're wrong. You know nothing about me." She walked on ahead, staring straight in front of her, as if she didn't want to hear. He wanted to take her by the arm and hold her back, but he stopped himself. "You don't know why I'm a priest, or why I'm here, or what I've done to be here," he said. "You don't know how many Priamo Ferros I've known in my life, nor how I dealt with them when I received orders." He spoke bitterly, knowing his words were useless. How could she understand?
She turned to face him and said, "It sounds as if you're sorry you don't have a head to send back to Rome in the next post." She moved towards him. "You thought it would be easy, didn't you? But I knew that things would be different once you got to know the victim."
"You're wrong," said Quart, holding her gaze. "My getting to know Father Ferro makes no difference, at least not on an official level."
"And what about unofficially?" She tapped her forehead. "You must have your own thoughts."
"That's my business. Anyway, I've known lots of my Victims', as you put it. And it made no difference."
Her sigh was contemptuous. "I suppose not. I suppose that's why you get to buy custom-made suits from smart tailors, wear expensive shoes and carry credit cards and a fantastic watch." She looked him up and down, provoking, hostile. "They must be your thirty pieces of silver."
She was angry, and Quart began to wonder how far she intended to go. They stood facing each other in a narrow street. Overhead, loaded with flowerpots, the balconies on either side almost touched.
"These clothes," Quart said, holding his lapel between two fingers, showing it to her, "and these shoes, and these credit cards, and this watch are very useful when you're trying to impress a Serbian general or an American diplomat. There are worker priests, married priests, priests who say Mass every morning, and priests like me. And I couldn't tell you who makes it possible for whom to exist." He smiled ironically, but his attention was elsewhere - Macarena was too near him, the street too narrow. "Although your Father Ferro and I agree on one thing; neither of us has any illusions about his job."
He stopped, suddenly afraid of his need to justify himself to her. They were alone in the street, lit by a distant streetlight. She looked lovely, her parted lips showing her white teeth. She breathed slowly, with the serenity of a woman who is beautiful and knows it. Her expression was no longer contemptuous. Quart felt a very real, physical, male fear, similar to vertigo. He had to make an effort not to step backward and rest against the wall. "Why won't you tell me what you know?" he asked.
She looked at him as if she'd expected something else. Her eyes moved to his dog collar. "You may not believe this, but I know very little," she answered finally. "I can guess at certain things. But I won't be the one to speak. You do your job, while others do theirs."
Quart set off up the narrow street. She followed in silence, clasping her leather rucksack to her chest.
Inside Las Teresas, hams hung among bottles of La Guita, old posters for Holy Week and the April feria, and faded photographs of slender, serious, long-dead bullfighters. At the bar, waiters wrote down customers' orders while Pepe, the manager, cut thin slices of Jabugo ham with a long razor-sharp knife, singing softly:
How pleased I am, dear cousin, how pleased I am to eat Serrano ham.
He addressed Quart's companion as Dona Macarena and, without either of them ordering anything, brought them tapas of pork in tomato sauce, pork sausage, grilled mushrooms, and two tall-stemmed glasses of fragrant, golden Manzanilla. By the door, leaning on the bar beside Quart, a regular with a red face was conscientiously downing one glass of wine after another. Pepe stopped singing occasionally and, still slicing ham, exchanged a few words with him about a football match soon to be played between Sevilla and Betis.
"Fantastic," the red-faced man said with drunken regularity. Pepe nodded and started singing again, and the man went back to his wine. A grey mouse poked its head from his jacket pocket. From time to time the man gave it little pieces of cheese from the plate beside him on the bar. The rodent diligently nibbled the cheese and nobody seemed in the least surprised.
Macarena sipped her Manzanilla. She rested an elbow on the bar confidently, as if she were at home. In fact, she moved through all of Santa Cruz as if it were part of her home; and in a way it was, or had been for centuries - every corner recorded in her genetic memory, known to her territorial instinct. Quart realised, and the realisation did nothing to calm the IEA agent, that he couldn't conceive of the district or the city without her presence, her black hair, her white teeth, her dark eyes. Once again he thought of the paintings of Romero de Torres, and the old tobacco factory that now housed the university. Carmen the cigarette girl, the damp tobacco leaves rolled against a tanned thigh. He looked up, and his eyes met hers, intent upon him.
"Do you like Seville?" Macarena asked.
"Very much," he said, wondering if she could guess his thoughts.
"It's a special place." She picked at their tapas. "The past and the present live here quite happily side by side. Gris says that we Sevillians are old and wise. We accept anything, and anything's possible." She glanced briefly at their neighbour with the red face and smiled. "Even sharing one's cheese in a bar with a mouse."
"Is your friend any good with computers?"
The look she gave him was almost admiring. "You never give up, do you?" she said, spearing a mushroom with a cocktail stick and eating it. "You have a one-track mind. Why don't you ask her?"
"I did. She was evasive, as you all are."
A man came in. He was fat, about fifty, and dressed in white. For a moment Quart thought he'd seen him somewhere before. The fat man raised his hat as he passed, looked around as if searching for someone, peered at his watch, then left by the other door, swinging a silver-handled walking stick. Quart noticed that the man's left cheek was red and covered with ointment, and that his moustache looked peculiar, as if it had been singed.
"What about the postcard?" Quart asked Macarena. "Does Gris Marsala have access to your great-aunt Carlota's trunk?"
She smiled, amused at his persistence. "She knows where it is, if that's what you mean. But it could just as easily have been Don Priamo. Or Father Oscar, or even me. Or my mother . . . Can you picture the duchess with her Coca-Cola, wearing a baseball cap back-to-front, hacking into the Vatican computer system in the wee hours?" She speared a piece of meat in tomato sauce and offered it to Quart. "I'm afraid your investigation may become absurd."
As Quart took the cocktail stick from Macarena, his fingers brushed hers. "I'd like to have a look at that trunk," he said.
She watched him as he ate the tapa. "Now? You and I, alone?" She smiled. "That's rather risky, isn't it? Although I suspect your real purpose is to see what kind of computer I have." Pepe put a plate of ham in front of them and she looked absent-mindedly at the red slices streaked with fragrant fat. "Well, why not? It'll give me something to tell my friends. And I'd love to see the archbishop's face when he finds out." She tilted her head to one side thoughtfully. "Or my husband's."
Quart looked at the silver hoops in her ears. "I don't want to cause you any trouble," he said.
She laughed. "Trouble? I hope it makes Pencho green with envy and seethe with rage. If he hears that not only is his deal for the church falling through, but there's also a rather interesting priest hanging ar
ound me, he'll go insane." She looked intently at Quart. "And become dangerous."
"Sounds worrying." Quart finished his glass of Manzanilla, not looking in the least bit worried.
"Anyway," said Macarena after a moment's thought, "it would be good for you to sec Carlota's trunk. You'd gain a better idea of what Our Lady of the Tears means."
"Your friend Gris," said Quart, taking a slice of ham, "complains that the money for the restoration work has run out..."
"It's true. The duchess and I have only just enough to live on, and the parish has no money. Don Priamo has a small salary, and the Sunday collection isn't enough even to pay for candles. Sometimes we feel like explorers in the movies, with the vultures circling. On Thursdays, in particular, a strange scene takes place."
With a couple of Manzanillas in front of them, she told Quart how Our Lady of the Tears couldn't be touched as long as Mass was held there for the soul of her ancestor Gaspar Bruner de Lebrija, at eight in the morning every Thursday. He died on a Thursday in 1709. So an envoy from the archbishop and a notary hired by Pencho Gavira were present in church every Thursday, in a pew at the back, waiting for the slightest error or irregularity.
Quart said he couldn't believe it, and they both laughed. But Macarena was soon serious again. "It sounds childish, doesn't it? Everything depending on such a little thing." She raised her glass to her lips but stopped and put it down. "All it would take to condemn the church is for the priest not to celebrate the Thursday Mass or to deviate from the set formula. The archbishop of Seville and the Cartujano Bank would then win . . . That's why I'm worried that once Father Oscar is out of the way, they'll try something against Don Priamo."