Good Offices

IV

“Señorita, cover your nakedness. Look, it’s already morning and you’ve woken up where you shouldn’t have done. Aren’t you cold? Of course not, you’re a little bonfire unto yourself, but what a fire, a wild dog is wet behind the ears compared to you, look at yourself in the mirror: flesh and flesh and flesh.”

Sabina came to with a sob and wrapped herself in the blanket. Tancredo barely stirred. The Lilias leaned over them.

“And you, young Tancredo, all the goods out on display? Aren’t you embarrassed? We’re warning you that in less than twenty minutes Father San José will be celebrating early Friday Mass. Listen, listen, don’t you hear footsteps and voices? It’s the church waiting to hear the Reverend; the packed church wants to hear him sing, and how’s the priest going to sing if he has to come through this sacristy and there are two sinners stretched out beneath the angels? Adam and Eve in the flesh. Ah, God was right to curse them and cast them out of Paradise, because you’re just like them, without a single fig leaf, but what are you afraid of? Why the blanket, Sabinita? After all, we know you as God sent you into the world, we used to dress you when you were little, remember? Are you still angry? What were you accusing us of yesterday? Disrespect toward Almida and his church? Ah, God bless them. You’d best go to your rooms and let us tidy up your mess.”

“And Almida?” Tancredo managed to ask, still half asleep, rapidly remembering where on earth he was. Slowly, Sabina started to make her escape, wrapped in the blanket, still hating the mocking Lilias, who crossed themselves while watching her, as if they didn’t want to forget her.

“Thank the Lord you’re not still beneath the altar,” they said, crossing themselves, proving that they had spied on the couple the night before. “We’ve already cleaned and scrubbed,” they added, caustically, “and burned all the womanly sweat, all the dirty women’s clothing we found beneath the altar, the holy, holy altar.”

Stricken, Sabina gave another wail and fled the sacristy.

“What about Machado and Father Almida?” Tancredo insisted. “Aren’t they celebrating Mass?”

“They got back in the early hours, remember, and now they’re asleep. This morning’s Mass will have to be conducted by San José, we think. They looked done in. Oh, Almida and Machado will soon wake up. But by God, it hasn’t escaped our notice: this is the very first time they haven’t celebrated early Mass. Something good might have happened to them, because we don’t want to think it could be something bad. They’re asleep. They looked so worn out they couldn’t even manage to walk straight. But they got here in the end. Father Almida wasn’t about to miss the Family Meal, was he? His favorite day, all those lovely working women who eat like lorry drivers, along with their daughters and granddaughters, all of them flattering Father Almida. What shall we do? Wait. Thank God we have the priest-cantor with us, bless him, whom God helps sing like a bird when it comes to the Mass. We’ve already served him a good meaty broth, which he diluted with a bottle of wine, more like wine broth, a reviving miracle, because he’s like a bee buzzing around a garden now. Come along, Tancredito, and have breakfast, because by the look of you, you didn’t sleep well either, you’ve got circles under your eyes like wells. Are there really no other women in the world for you? More beautiful, purer?”

They’re still drunk, Tancredo thought. And, looking at them, he remembered the cats. He found the absence of miaowing strange, had a premonition of the cats’ phosphorescent eyes wandering like lost souls all over the presbytery. It seemed like a bad dream that the Lilias had executed them in the laundry sink, encouraged and shielded by the other women, the unfading grandmothers of the Neighborhood Civic Association. They really were that tired of the cats, he thought, unable to suppress a nagging fear of the Lilias’ deferential faces. They carried on looking at him attentively. Naked, he still lay on the mattress, one hand raised as though he were physically protecting himself from their words. One of them had seized his clothes and held them under her arm, as if thinking of never returning them. Tancredo reached up, demanding them, and they all burst out laughing.

“Now he wants to get dressed,” they said. “About time too.”

In the end, the Lilia gave him back his clothes, and he had no option but to get dressed in front of them.

“If we overlook the hump,” they said, “your parents were inspired, Tancredito; you look to be well formed, you should thank God.”

And they cackled like lunatics while continuing to put the place in order. Only the ringing of the telephone brought them to a standstill.

“Who can that be?” they asked as one, and stared at the telephone, open-mouthed, hands outstretched. It was as if the instrument had Reverend Almida’s voice, turning up suddenly in the morning, greeting them all, asking what was going on, questioning them closely about their duties.

Tancredo answered, and, once again, as the night before, there was a continuous buzzing sound which tailed off and died. He hung up, and he and the Lilias stared at the instrument.

“Nobody,” he said.

“Nobody is the cat that died last night,” the smallest Lilia replied, a hint of menace in her voice. The others took advantage of the moment to finish hiding away the mattress, blanket, and pillow. Then they fled, literally, from the sacristy.

“I do hope San José manages to sing,” the youngest, the last to leave, was saying when the telephone rang again. Tancredo let it ring twice before answering it. No buzzing, no voice. He hung up. It rang. Tancredo was asking who it was, whom they needed, when at last he heard a voice that sounded like it was being strangled by the cold. A voice asking for Reverend Juan Pablo Almida.

“He cannot come to the phone,” Tancredo replied. “Who’s calling?” It was the first-ever telephone call to the church asking for Almida at that time of day, and just when Almida was sleeping.

The voice did not identify itself, only asked again for Almida. “He’s asleep. Father Almida is sleeping,” Tancredo said.

The voice hung up.

“And still asleep,” the smallest Lilia added, poking her gray head around the door for an instant, just her head, craning her wrinkled neck, her voice confiding. “Like the sacristan. Will they wake up one day? Who knows? Who can tell? We already gave them their mint tea. They deserved it.”

The Lilia’s head spoke calmly, in a way that was beyond serene — bored — and every word was perfectly audible; Tancredo even thought he saw her smiling when she asked herself if Almida and Machado would wake up.

The head disappeared abruptly, leaving Tancredo on his own.

Still alone in the sacristy, he observed the arrival of Reverend San José Matamoros with fascination. Wine bottle in hand, the priest’s eyes shone as though he were crying.

“I want to sing,” he said.

Inebriated, but as if he were being buoyed up by a host of wings, ebullient, recently showered and shaved, his drunkenness was betrayed only by his crooked glasses and utterly blank, vacant eyes. He took the cruet from his pocket and showed it to Tancredo triumphantly. “Vodka,” he said, and winked. “Father Almida lives like a cardinal.” And he belched. Belched, when twenty yards away, at his back, the whole parish was waiting. It was an uncommonly large congregation, judging by the sounds of footsteps, breathing, throat-clearing, coughing. The news of the priest-cantor had spread through the neighborhood like wildfire in the night. The Lilias, Tancredo thought. The Lilias have summoned the whole world.

Then one of them — the small one again — offered him a cup of coffee. The others were helping Matamoros dress, making him splendid in immaculate white and blue. With coffee still on his lips, Tancredo followed behind the priest, passed into the church and was pained by the sight of the altar, with a feeling of regret close to tears. But soon the priest’s voice helped him forget, just as the Lilias and all the grandmothers of the Neighborhood Civic Association forgot themselves when they heard the sung Our Father, the Blessing, motionless, their hearts as one, their eyes fixed on the little Father, who again retired as if he had just fought the battle of his life. Completely drained, bent double, Matamoros — as he had done the day before — sat down in the sacristy’s only chair, next to the telephone. “One of these days my heart is going to break,” he said, and asked Tancredo for a whisky, a whisky, just like that, in the middle of the sacristy, like being in the bar of one of the brothels Tancredo used to visit in search of diners. Well then: a whisky was conjured up for him, in a tall glass, clinking with ice cubes, immediately, by the three Lilias.

“You are blessed, Father,” they said.

In the garden, seated at the edge of the fountain, freckled by the shade of the willow trees, under a cloudless sky and resting on a Friday, that Friday, the first Friday of their lives without cooking, sunk in the tranquil reverie of 11:00 in the morning, the Lilias heard Matamoros singing a bolero, sitting just as they were, beside them, at peace. Nearby, unnoticed by anyone, lurking in corners, leaning against the willows, floating, the seven or nine old ladies of the Neighborhood Civic Association were listening to the sung parable. Tancredo wondered, suddenly discovering that throng of spellbound statues scattered beatifically all around, when exactly the good ladies had entered the presbytery, and had they come through the church? The sacristy? Without asking permission, as if in their own homes? Almost midday, the sun was warming the walls, the time of the Family Meal was approaching, and the Lilias did not go near the kitchen. The adoring old women watched Matamoros drink, heard Matamoros sing, forgetting, or seeming to forget, that Juan Pablo Almida, their parish priest, their benefactor, was asleep and had to be woken up. “I must wake the Father,” Tancredo said to himself in one corner of the garden, but remained still, fixated by the song, just as hypnotized as the adoring women, or more so.

“We should wake Father Almida,” Sabina said suddenly, beside him, dressed in gray with a gray headscarf, her cold hand lightly touching him. “We have to warn him it’s almost midday,” she insisted, genuinely startled. “Time for the Family Meal, and Almida and my godfather are still sleeping.”

Tancredo did not reply. Sabina’s presence froze him, her hand in his.

“But nobody here seems to remember them,” Sabina went on. Her marvelling gaze roamed over the women’s entranced faces, as if she did not recognize them. “It’s unbelievable,” she said. “All this for the voice of a drunk.” She blushed. “And to think he almost got his talons into me last night.” She smiled, transfixed. “It’s a miracle in reverse.” She was observing Matamoros with the utmost curiosity; did she revere him too? “That Father is on the point of collapse.” She was amazed by him. “He’s like a party at dawn.” And, suddenly anxious: “Nobody seems to realize.”

Sabina could stand it no longer. She took a step forward, bit her lip.

“Father Almida won’t be long,” she yelled at the Lilias, still clutching Tancredo’s hand. “Doesn’t anybody care?” The song was silenced. Matamoros wiped the sweat from his forehead, rubbed his eyes; was he going to fall asleep? He seemed to sleep whenever it suited him, or had he really sung too much? Whatever the case, the drunken Lilias and the rest of the adoring women froze; time seemed to stand still.

“Father Almida will soon wake up,” a Lilia replied evenly. “Friday’s his favorite day; he’s not going to miss it.” Stooping, seated on the edge of the fountain, smiling, almost a girl leaning over the water, she was lit by the rays of the sun. Sabina loathed her.

Then, over and above everything else, came Matamoros’s labored voice.

“We can sing the Te Deum,” he said, his tone sorrowful but self-righteous. “We can repeat Francis Xavier’s Act of Contrition, chant a Trisagion to the Holy Trinity, offer up devotions to the Sacred Heart, make the Stations of the Cross together: we’ll go to the third Station, when Jesus stumbles for the first time, and maybe we’ll sing better, or fall asleep; we’ll go to the sixth Station, when Veronica wipes His face, and maybe we’ll be happy, or unhappy, and unhappier still at the seventh, when Jesus falls for the second time, and at the twelfth we’ll die with Jesus dying on the cross, and then, to give thanks for all His suffering, we’ll venerate the five Wounds of Christ, we’ll sing to the Wound on the left foot, the Wound on the right foot, the Wound on the left hand, the Wound on the right hand, the Wound in His side, and we’ll follow on with a prayer to Jesus scourged at the column, Jesus crowned with thorns, and utter the cries of the blessed souls in Purgatory, and then a response, and we will weep for misery.”

There was an emphatic silence from the sky.

“Do we want to weep?” the Father asked, getting to his feet. And answered himself immediately: “Never. No more suffering, ever. We don’t want to suffer any more.”

Just as immediately, he sat down or rather slumped to the ground. He seemed to expire from the effort.

“Rest, Father,” the Lilias said, surrounding him.

Only one of the women appeared to take fright at San José’s words. Not only did her expression show alarm, her white, wrinkled hand at her brow, but she fainted. There was a commotion of skirts around her. Finally they saw her come to, recover, eyelids fluttering.

“My God,” she said, “but I’m fine. The one who needs help is Father San José, bless him.”

Faced with this fainting fit and its denouement, Tancredo raised his eyes in resignation. He saw the church’s golden dome, ever far off, ever near. And, without intending to, he glanced up at the door of Father Almida’s room, on the first floor, which gave onto the garden. The door was open. He could see it was open, from the garden. He immediately headed for the steps, Sabina behind him. They ran up together. It was true: the door was ajar.

They approached on tiptoe. “Father Almida?” The lowered blind created a sort of night, a painful gloom. They leaned over his face. His mouth was set, rigid, twisted, desperate, converted into a silent scream. A slick of green vomit stained the feather pillow.

Sabina ran next door to Machado’s room. A few seconds later her scream was heard, short, stifled.

They met in the passage.

It was as if Sabina were levitating, unrecognizable, eyes bright, because, still in the prism of disbelief, she was smiling. Smiling and clasping her hands together. Now she fixed her hope-filled eyes on the sky.

At that point, the Lilias arrived inconveniently. It was as though they were confronting them on the first floor of the presbytery, in the passage green with creepers, in the presence of the other women waiting in the garden. Mute and flushed, the Lilias peered in through the wide-open doors. Then one of their voices could be heard.

“If they don’t wake up,” she said, as if issuing an order, “we’ll have to cry bitterly and pray for the rest of our lives. This is how they arrived from Don Justiniano’s house. This is how God brought them back. We didn’t even notice, God forgive us. We’ll have to cry and pray the rest of our lives.”

And they melted away again, down the deep steps.

They reappeared in the garden, arms akimbo, before the group of grandmothers surrounding Reverend San José: he was sleeping like a log. The seven or nine ladies let the Lilias through with a respect bordering on worship. The sun shone, the sky shimmered, but the dark figures crowded around the fountain radiated cold, a portent of rain, a bluish atmosphere, an intimate cloud of ice that obscured the willow trees.

“Take charge,” the Lilias told them, “we’ll come to you soon, but only when Father Matamoros has rested. Can’t you see? He sang too much today.”

From the first floor, Tancredo and Sabina were listening. They saw the Lilias take Matamoros away. Were they carrying him again? They could not make him out, hidden amid the old women, their arms open, their black shawls like wings.