‘Right,’ the lieutenant said, ‘then I shall choose my man. You’ve brought it on yourselves.’
He sat on his horse watching them – one of the policemen had leant his gun against the bandstand and was doing up a puttee. The villagers still stared at the ground; everyone was afraid to catch his eye. He broke out suddenly, ‘Why won’t you trust me? I don’t want any of you to die. In my eyes – can’t you understand – you are worth far more than he is. I want to give you’ – he made a gesture with his hands which was valueless, because no one saw him – ‘everything.’ He said in a dull voice, ‘You. You there. I’ll take you.’
A woman screamed. ‘That’s my boy. That’s Miguel. You can’t take my boy.’
He said dully, ‘Every man here is somebody’s husband or somebody’s son. I know that.’
The priest stood silently with his hands clasped; his knuckles whitened as he gripped . . . He could feel all round him the beginning of hate. Because he was no one’s husband or son. He said, ‘Lieutenant . . .’
‘What do you want?’
‘I’m getting too old to be much good in the fields. Take me.’
A rout of pigs came rushing round the corner of a hut, taking no notice of anybody. The soldier finished his puttee and stood up. The sunlight coming up above the forest winked on the bottles of the gaseosa stall.
The lieutenant said, ‘I’m choosing a hostage, not offering free board and lodging to the lazy. If you are no good in the fields, you are no good as a hostage.’ He gave an order. ‘Tie the man’s hands and bring him along.’
It took no time at all for the police to be gone – they took with them two or three chickens, a turkey and the man called Miguel. The priest said aloud, ‘I did my best.’ He went on, ‘It’s your job – to give me up. What do you expect me to do? It’s my job not to be caught.’
One of the men said, ‘That’s all right, father. Only will you be careful . . . to see that you don’t leave any wine behind . . . like you did at Concepción?’
Another said, ‘It’s no good staying, father. They’ll get you in the end. They won’t forget your face again. Better go north, to the mountains. Over the border.’
‘It’s a fine state over the border,’ a woman said. ‘They’ve still got churches there. Nobody can go in them, of course – but they are there. Why, I’ve heard that there are priests too in the towns. A cousin of mine went over the mountains to Las Casas once and heard Mass – in a house, with a proper altar, and the priest all dressed up like in the old days. You’d be happy there, father.’
The priest followed Maria to the hut. The bottle of brandy lay on the table; he touched it with his fingers – there wasn’t much left. He said, ‘My case, Maria? Where’s my case?’
‘It’s too dangerous to carry that around any more,’ Maria said.
‘How else can I take the wine?’
‘There isn’t any wine.’
‘What do you mean?’
She said, ‘I’m not going to bring trouble on you and everyone else. I’ve broken the bottle. Even if it brings a curse . . .’
He said gently and sadly, ‘You mustn’t be superstitious. That was simply – wine. There’s nothing sacred in wine. Only it’s hard to get hold of here. That’s why I kept a store of it in Concepción. But they’ve found that.’
‘Now perhaps you’ll go – go away altogether. You’re no good any more to anyone,’ she said fiercely. ‘Don’t you understand, father? We don’t want you any more.’
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I understand. But it’s not what you want – or I want . . .’
She said savagely, ‘I know about things. I went to school. I’m not like these others – ignorant. I know you’re a bad priest. That time we were together – that wasn’t all you’ve done. I’ve heard things, I can tell you. Do you think God wants you to stay and die – a whisky priest like you?’ He stood patiently in front of her, as he had stood in front of the lieutenant, listening. He hadn’t known she was capable of all this thought. She said, ‘Suppose you die. You’ll be a martyr, won’t you? What kind of a martyr do you think you’ll be? It’s enough to make people mock.’
That had never occurred to him – that anybody would consider him a martyr. He said, ‘It’s difficult. Very difficult. I’ll think about it. I wouldn’t want the Church to be mocked . . .’
‘Think about it over the border then . . .’
‘Well . . .’
She said, ‘When you-know-what happened, I was proud. I thought the good days would come back. It’s not everyone who’s a priest’s woman. And the child . . . I thought you could do a lot for her. But you might as well be a thief for all the good . . .’
He said vaguely, ‘There’ve been a lot of good thieves.’
‘For God’s sake take this brandy and go.’
‘There was one thing,’ he said. ‘In my case . . . there was something . . .’
‘Go and find it yourself on the rubbish-tip then. I won’t touch it again.’
‘And the child,’ he said, ‘you’re a good woman, Maria. I mean – you’ll try and bring her up well . . . as a Christian.’
‘She’ll never be good for anything, you can see that.’
‘She can’t be very bad – at her age,’ he implored her.
‘She’ll go on the way she’s begun.’
He said, ‘The next Mass I say will be for her.’
She wasn’t even listening. She said, ‘She’s bad through and through.’ He was aware of faith dying out between the bed and the door – the Mass would soon mean no more to anyone than a black cat crossing the path. He was risking all their lives for the sake of spilt salt or a crossed finger. He began, ‘My mule . . .’
‘They are giving it maize now.’
She added, ‘You’d better go north. There’s no chance to the south any more.’
‘I thought perhaps Carmen . . .’
‘They’ll be watching there.’
‘Oh, well . . .’ He said sadly, ‘Perhaps one day . . . when things are better . . .’ He sketched a cross and blessed her, but she stood impatiently before him, willing him to be gone for ever.
‘Well, good-bye, Maria.’
‘Good-bye.’
He walked across the plaza with his shoulders hunched; he felt that there wasn’t a soul in the place who wasn’t watching him with satisfaction – the trouble-maker who for obscure and superstitious reasons they preferred not to betray to the police. He felt envious of the unknown gringo whom they wouldn’t hesitate to trap – he at any rate had no burden of gratitude to carry round with him.
Down a slope churned up with the hoofs of mules and ragged with tree-roots there was the river – not more than two feet deep, littered with empty cans and broken bottles. A notice, which hung on a tree, read, ‘It is forbidden to deposit rubbish . . .’ Underneath all the refuse of the village was collected and slid gradually down into the river. When the rains came it would be washed away. He put his foot among the old tins and the rotting vegetables and reached for his case. He sighed: it had been quite a good case: one more relic of the quiet past . . . Soon it would be difficult to remember that life had ever been any different. The lock had been torn off: he felt inside the silk lining . . .
The papers were there; reluctantly he let the case fall – a whole important and respected youth dropped among the cans – he had been given it by his parishioners in Concepción on the fifth anniversary of his ordination . . . Somebody moved behind a tree. He lifted his feet out of the rubbish – flies burred round his ankles. With the papers hidden in his fist he came round the trunk to see who was spying. . . . The child sat on a root, kicking her heels against the bark. Her eyes were shut tight fast. He said, ‘My dear, what is the matter with you . . . ?’ They came open quickly then – red-rimmed and angry, with an expression of absurd pride.
She said, ‘You . . . you . . .’
‘Me?’
‘You are the matter.’
He moved towards her with infini
te caution, as if she were an animal who distrusted him. He felt weak with longing. He said, ‘My dear, why me . . . ?’
She said furiously, ‘They laugh at me.’
‘Because of me?’
She said, ‘Everyone else has a father . . . who works.’
‘I work too.’
‘You’re a priest, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Pedro says you aren’t a man. You aren’t any good for women.’ She said, ‘I don’t know what he means.’
‘I don’t suppose he knows himself.’
‘Oh, yes he does,’ she said. ‘He’s ten. And I want to know. You’re going away, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
He was appalled again by her maturity, as she whipped up a smile from a large and varied stock. She said, ‘Tell me –’ enticingly. She sat there on the trunk of the tree by the rubbish-tip with an effect of abandonment. The world was in her heart already, like the small spot of decay in a fruit. She was without protection – she had no grace, no charm to plead for her; his heart was shaken by the conviction of loss. He said, ‘My dear, be careful . . .’
‘What of? Why are you going away?’
He came a little nearer; he thought – a man may kiss his own daughter, but she started away from him. ‘Don’t you touch me,’ she screeched at him in her ancient voice and giggled. Every child was born with some kind of knowledge of love, he thought; they took it with the milk at the breast: but on parents and friends depended the kind of love they knew – the saving or the damning kind. Lust too was a kind of love. He saw her fixed in her life like a fly in amber – Maria’s hand raised to strike: Pedro talking prematurely in the dusk: and the police beating the forest – violence everywhere. He prayed silently, ‘O God, give me any kind of death – without contrition, in a state of sin – only save this child.’
He was a man who was supposed to save souls. It had seemed quite simple once, preaching at Benediction, organizing the guilds, having coffee with elderly ladies behind barred windows, blessing new houses with a little incense, wearing black gloves . . . It was as easy as saving money: now it was a mystery. He was aware of his own desperate inadequacy.
He went down on his knees and pulled her to him, while she giggled and struggled to be free: ‘I love you. I am your father and I love you. Try to understand that.’ He held her tightly by the wrist and suddenly she stayed still, looking up at him. He said, ‘I would give my life, that’s nothing, my soul . . . my dear, my dear, try to understand that you are – so important.’ That was the difference, he had always known, between his faith and theirs, the political leaders of the people who cared only for things like the state, the republic: this child was more important than a whole continent. He said, ‘You must take care of yourself because you are so – necessary. The president up in the capital goes guarded by men with guns – but my child, you have all the angels of heaven –’ She stared back at him out of dark and unconscious eyes; he had a sense that he had come too late. He said, ‘Good-bye, my dear,’ and clumsily kissed her – a silly infatuated ageing man, who as soon as he released her and started padding back to the plaza could feel behind his hunched shoulders the whole vile world coming round the child to ruin her. His mule was there, saddled, by the gaseosa stall. A man said, ‘Better go north, father,’ and stood waving his hand. One mustn’t have human affections – or rather one must love every soul as if it were one’s own child. The passion to protect must extend itself over a world – but he felt it tethered and aching like a hobbled animal to the tree trunk. He turned his mule south.
He was travelling in the actual track of the police. So long as he went slowly and didn’t overtake any stragglers it seemed a fairly safe route. What he wanted now was wine. Without it he was useless; he might as well escape north into the mountains and the safe state beyond, where the worst that could happen to him was a fine and a few days in prison because he couldn’t pay. But he wasn’t ready yet for the final surrender – every small surrender had to be paid for in a further endurance, and now he felt the need of somehow ransoming his child. He would stay another month, another year . . . Jogging up and down on the mule he tried to bribe God with promises of firmness. . . . The mule suddenly dug in its hoofs and stopped dead: a tiny green snake raised itself on the path and then hissed away into the grass like a match-flame. The mule went on.
When he came near a village he would stop the mule and advance as close as he could on foot – the police might have stopped there. Then he would ride quickly through, speaking to nobody beyond a ‘Buenos días’, and again on the forest path he would pick up the track of the lieutenant’s horse. He had no clear idea now about anything; he only wanted to put as great a distance as possible between him and the village where he had spent the night. In one hand he still carried the crumpled ball of paper. Somebody had tied a bunch of about fifty bananas to his saddle, beside the machete and the small bag which contained his store of candles, and every now and then he ate one – ripe, brown, and sodden, tasting of soap. It left a smear like a moustache over his mouth.
After six hours’ travelling he came to La Candelaria, which lay, a long mean tin-roofed village, beside one of the tributaries of the Grijalva River. He came cautiously out into the dusty street – it was early afternoon. The vultures sat on the roofs with their small heads hidden from the sun, and a few men lay in hammocks in the narrow shade the houses cast. The mule plodded forward very slowly through the heavy day. The priest leant forward on his pommel.
The mule came to a stop of its own accord beside a hammock. A man lay in it, bunched diagonally, with one leg trailing to keep the hammock moving, up and down, up and down, making a tiny current of air. The priest said, ‘Buenas tardes.’ The man opened his eyes and watched him.
‘How far is it to Carmen?’
‘Three leagues.’
‘Can I get a canoe across the river?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
The man waved a languid hand – as much as to say anywhere but here. He had only two teeth left, canines which stuck yellowly out at either end of his mouth like the teeth you find enclosed in clay which have belonged to long-extinct animals.
‘What were the police doing here?’ the priest asked, and a cloud of flies came down, settling on the mule’s neck; he poked at them with a stick and they rose heavily, leaving a small trickle of blood, and dropped again on the tough grey skin. The mule seemed to feel nothing, standing in the sun with his head drooping.
‘Looking for someone,’ the man said.
‘I’ve heard,’ the priest said, ‘that there’s a reward out – for a gringo.’
The man swung his hammock back and forth. He said, ‘It’s better to be alive and poor than rich and dead.’
‘Can I overtake them if I go towards Carmen?’
‘They aren’t going to Carmen.’
‘No?’
‘They are making for the city.’
The priest rode on. Twenty yards farther he stopped again beside a gaseosa stall and asked the boy in charge, ‘Can I get a boat across the river?’
‘There isn’t a boat.’
‘No boat?’
‘Somebody stole it.’
‘Give me a sidral.’ He drank down the yellow bubbly chemical liquid: it left him thirstier than before. He said, ‘How do I get across?’
‘Why do you want to get across?’
‘I’m making for Carmen. How did the police get over?’
‘They swam.’
‘Mula, Mula,’ the priest said, urging the mule on, past the inevitable bandstand and a statue in florid taste of a woman in a toga waving a wreath. Part of the pedestal had been broken off and lay in the middle of the road – the mule went round it. The priest looked back; far down the street the mestizo was sitting upright in the hammock watching him. The mule turned off down a steep path to the river, and again the priest looked back – the half-caste was still in the hammock, but he had both feet upon the grou
nd. An habitual uneasiness made the priest beat at the mule – ‘Mula, Mula,’ but the mule took its time, sliding down the bank towards the river.
By the riverside it refused to enter the water. The priest split the end of his stick with his teeth and jabbed a sharp point into the mule’s flank. It waded reluctantly in, and the water rose to the stirrups and then to the knees; the mule began to swim, splayed out flat with only the eyes and nostrils visible, like an alligator. Somebody shouted from the bank.
The priest looked round. At the river’s edge the mestizo stood and called, not very loudly: his voice didn’t carry. It was as if he had a secret purpose which nobody but the priest must hear. He waved his arm, summoning the priest back, but the mule lurched out of the water and up the bank beyond and the priest paid no attention – uneasiness was lodged in his brain. He urged the mule forward through the green half-light of a banana grove, not looking behind. All these years there had been two places to which he could always return and rest safely in hiding – one had been Concepción, his old parish, and that was closed to him now: the other was Carmen, where he had been born and where his parents were buried. He had imagined there might be a third, but he would never go back now. . . . He turned the mule’s head towards Carmen, and the forest took them again. At this rate they would arrive in the dark, which was what he wanted. The mule unbeaten went with extreme langour, head drooping, smelling a little of blood. The priest, leaning forward on the high pommel, fell asleep. He dreamed that a small girl in stiff white muslin was reciting her Catechism – somewhere in the background, there was a bishop and a group of Children of Mary, elderly women with grey hard pious faces wearing pale blue ribbons. The bishop said, ‘Excellent . . . Excellent,’ and clapped his hands, plop, plop. A man in a morning coat said, ‘There’s a deficit of five hundred pesos on the new organ. We propose to hold a special musical performance, when it is hoped . . .’ He remembered with appalling suddenness that he oughtn’t to be there at all . . . he was in the wrong parish . . . he should be holding a retreat at Concepción. The man Montez appeared behind the child in white muslin, gesticulating, reminding him . . . Something had happened to Montez, he had a dry wound on his forehead. He felt with dreadful certainty a threat to the child. He said, ‘My dear, my dear,’ and woke to the slow rolling stride of the mule and the sound of footsteps.