The words were insulting, but the tone was polite, so Quart could not object. His Grace opened a drawer, took out a tin of English tobacco, and began filling his pipe, leaving it to Quart to keep up the conversation. Quart bowed his head slightly, and only from his eyes was it possible to sec that he was smiling. But the archbishop wasn't looking.
"Of course, Monsignor. The Institute for External Affairs will do everything possible to sort out this mess." He noted with satisfaction that His Grace tensed. "Maybe 'mess' is not the right word . . ."
Monsignor Corvo almost lost his composure, but he recovered himself admirably. He said nothing for several seconds while he filled his pipe. When at last he spoke, his tone was sharp: "You're too big for your boots, aren't you? You and your mafiosi in Rome. Playing God's police."
Quart held the archbishop's gaze calmly. "Your Grace's words are harsh."
"Don't give me that 'Your Grace' business. I know why you're here in Seville, and I know what your boss, Archbishop Spada, has to lose over this."
"We all have a lot to lose in this matter, Monsignor."
This was true, and the archbishop knew it. Cardinal Iwaszkiewicz was dangerous, but so were Paolo Spada and even Quart himself. As for Father Ferro, he was a walking time bomb that had to be deactivated. In the Church, harmony was often a question of keeping up appearances, but in the case of Our Lady of the Tears, appearances were being seriously threatened.
"Listen, Quart," said Corvo, trying to sound conciliatory. "I don't want to make my life complicated, and this business is getting out of hand. I admit that the thought of a scandal fills me with terror. I don't want to be seen by the public as a prelate blackmailing a poor parish priest to make a profit from selling the land. Do you understand?"
Quart nodded, accepting the olive branch.
"Anyway," the archbishop went on, "the whole thing might backfire on the Cartujano, because of the wife or ex-wife, I'm not sure which, of the man managing the operation, Pencho Gavira. He has a lot of influence and he's on the up. But he and Macarena have serious personal problems. And she's come out openly on Father Ferro's side."
"Is she devout?"
The archbishop laughed dryly. That wasn't exactly the word, he said. She'd recently been scandalising high society in Seville, which wasn't easy to shock. "Maybe it would be useful for you to talk to her," he said to Quart. "And to her mother, the old duchess. If they withdraw their support, we might be able to put Father Ferro in his place while we're waiting for his suspension and the demolition notice."
Quart had taken some cards from his pocket to make notes; he always used the back of visiting cards, either other people's or his own. The archbishop stared disapprovingly at Quart's Mont Blanc fountain pen. Maybe he felt it was unsuitable for a clergyman.
"How long has the process for issuing the demolition notice been stopped?" asked Quart.
Corvo now looked anxious. "Since the deaths," he said cautiously.
"In rather mysterious circumstances, from what I've heard."
About to light his pipe, the archbishop frowned. There was nothing mysterious about them, he told Quart. Just two cases of bad luck. The municipal architect, a certain Mr Penuelas, was commissioned by the city council to draw up the demolition notice. An unpleasant man, he had a couple of notable run-ins with Father Ferro, who wasn't exactly an example of pleasantness himself. During the course of Penuelas's inspection, a wooden handrail on the scaffolding gave way, and he fell from the roof, impaling himself on a metal pole protruding from some half-assembled structure below. "Was anybody with him?" asked Quart.
Corvo shook his head. He understood Quart's implication. "No, nothing suspicious in that sense. Another council employee was there at the time. Father Oscar, the assistant priest, was also present. It was he who pronounced the last rites."
"And Your Grace's secretary?"
The archbishop, eyes half-closed, blew out a puff of smoke. The aroma of the English tobacco reached Quart. "That was more painful. Father Urbizu had worked with me for years." He paused, as if he felt he ought to add something in memory of the deceased. "An excellent man."
Quart nodded sympathetically. "An excellent man," he repeated thoughtfully. "They say he was putting pressure on Father Ferro on Your Grace's behalf."
Monsignor Corvo didn't like that at all. He took the pipe out of his mouth and scowled at Quart. "That's a nasty way of putting it. And an exaggeration." Quart noticed that the archbishop was tapping impatiently on the table. "I can't go round churches arguing with the priests. So Urbizu had meetings in my name with Father Ferro. But Father Ferro refused to budge, and some of their discussions became rather heated. Father Oscar even threatened my secretary."
"Father Oscar again?"
"Yes. Oscar Lobato. He had an impressive CV, and I assigned him to Our Lady of the Tears so that he would eventually replace the old priest. As in that Bing Crosby film . . ."
"GoingMy Way" prompted Quart.
"Well, he certainly did that. Within a week, my Trojan horse had gone over to the enemy. I've taken steps, of course." The archbishop made a gesture as if to sweep Father Lobato out of the way. "My secretary continued to pay visits to the church and the two priests. I even decided to remove the image of Our Lady of the Tears. It's an ancient carving and very valuable. But on the very day poor Urbizu was going to tell them, a chunk of cornice fell from the ceiling and smashed his skull.'' "Was there an investigation?"
The archbishop blinked at Quart in silence, his pipe in his mouth, as if he hadn't heard the question. "Yes," he said at last. "Because this time there were no witnesses, and I took it. . . Well . . . personally." He laid his hand on his chest. Quart thought of Spada's words: He's sworn not to leave a single stone standing. "But the investigation concluded that there was no evidence of murder."
"Did the report rule out the possibility of foul play?"
"No, but technically that would have been almost impossible. The stone fell from the ceiling. "Nobody could have thrown it from there."
"Except Providence."
"Don't play the fool, Quart."
"That wasn't my intention, Monsignor. I'm only trying to test the truth of Vespers' claim that the church itself killed Father Urbizu. And the other man."
"That's outrageous and absurd. And exactly what I'm afraid of: that people will start muttering about the supernatural, with us involved, as if this were a Stephen King novel. We've already got a journalist hanging about. An unpleasant character who's been digging into the story. He works for a gossip magazine called Q&S. They've just published photos of Macarena Bruner in a compromising situation with a bullfighter. Be careful if you come across the journalist. His name is Honorato Bonafé."
Quart shrugged. "Vespers pointed a finger at the church. He said it kills to defend itself."
"Yes. Very dramatic. Now tell me, to defend itself from whom? From us? The bank? The Evil One? I have my own ideas about Vespers."
"Would you care to share them, Monsignor?"
When Aquilino Corvo lowered his guard, his dislike of Quart was clearly visible. It showed in his eyes for a few seconds and was then hidden behind the pipe smoke. "Do your own work," he said. "That's what you're here for."
Quart smiled, polite, disciplined. "Well, would Your Grace care to tell me about Father Ferro, then?"
For the next five minutes, puffing on his pipe and showing little sign of pastoral charity, Corvo told the parish priest's life story. From his twenties to the age of fifty-four, a rough village priest in a remote part of the Alto Aragon, a godforsaken place where all his parishioners gradually died, until he was left without a congregation. Followed by ten years at Our Lady of the Tears. Uncouth, fanatical, uneducated and stubborn as a mule. Without the slightest sense of what was possible, the sort who believed omnia sunt possibilia creienti, who couldn't distinguish between their own point of view and the reality surrounding them. Quart ought to go and hear one of his Sunday sermons, the prelate said. Quite a show. Father Ferro deal
t in the torments of hell with the ease of a Counter-Reformation preacher; he kept his parishioners on the edge of their seats with the old tale of eternal damnation that nobody dared use any more. A sigh of relief swept through the pews when he finished his sermon.
"And yet, in complete contradiction," said the archbishop, "in other respects his views are highly modern. Inappropriately so, I would say."
"Such as?"
"His stance on contraception, for one thing. He's unashamedly in favour. Or his views on homosexuality, divorce and adultery. A couple of weeks ago he baptised a child whose parents weren't married. A priest from another parish, who had refused to do the baptism, came to demand an explanation. Father Ferro told him that he baptised whomever he wished."
His Grace's pipe had gone out. He struck a match and glanced at Quart over the flame. "To sum up," he said, "Mass at Our Lady of the Tears is like travelling in a time machine that jumps backwards and forwards."
"I can imagine," Quart said, suppressing a smile.
"No. I assure you, you can't. You have to see him in action. He performs part of the Mass in Latin, because he says it inspires more respect." Corvo managed to relight his pipe and sat back in his chair, relaxed. "Father Ferro belongs to an almost extinct species: the old-style country priest without training or vocation, ordained simply to escape a life of poverty, who turned even wilder in a godforsaken rural parish. He also has tremendous pride, which makes him quite intractable ... In the past we would have excommunicated him immediately, or sent him to America, to see if God the Father could get him to return to the fold thanks to a fever in the Gulf of Darien, and then convert the natives by beating them on the back with a crucifix. But nowadays we have to be very careful. All the journalists and the political manoeuvring complicate things.''
"Why hasn't he been suspended ex informata conscientia? That would allow Your Grace to exclude him from the ministry for confidential reasons, without publicity.'
"He would have to have committed some civil or ecclesiastical offence, which isn't the case. Anyway, that might only strengthen his resolve. I would rather things followed the usual course in the case of ab officio"
"In other words, Monsignor, you would prefer it if Rome dealt with this."
"You've said it, not I." "What about Father Oscar?"
With the pipe still in his mouth the archbishop made a very sour face. I wouldn't like to be in that young priest's shoes, thought Quart.
"Oh, that one's different," said the archbishop. "Good education, seminary in Salamanca. He's thrown a promising future out of the window. Anyway, we have taken care of him. He has until the middle of next week to leave the parish. We're transferring him to a rural diocese in Almeria, a kind of desert near the Cabo de Gata, where he can devote himself to prayer and reflect on the dangers of letting oneself get carried away by youthful enthusiasm."
"Could he be Vespers?"
"Yes. He fits the profile, if that's what you mean. But rooting around in dustbins isn't an archbishop's job." Corvo paused deliberately. "I'll leave that to the IEA and to you."
"What are his duties?" asked Quart, ignoring the remark.
"The usual ones for an assistant priest: he assists during services, performs Mass, takes the afternoon rosary. . . . He also does some building work for Sister Marsala in his spare time."
Quart stiffened in his chair. "Forgive me, Your Grace, did you say Sister Marsala?"
"Yes. Gris Marsala. She's a nun. American, been in Seville for years. An expert - so they say - in restoring religious buildings. Haven't you met her yet?"
Quart, distracted by the sound of pieces of the puzzle clicking into place, paid little attention to the prelate's words. So that was it, he thought. The jarring note. "I met her yesterday. I didn't realise she was a nun."
"Well, she is." Corvo's tone was grim. "She, Father Oscar and Macarena Bruner are Father Ferro's allies. She's here in Seville in a private capacity. She has a dispensation from her order, so she's not under my jurisdiction. I don't have the authority to order her to leave Our Lady of the Tears. Anyway, I can't go persecuting priests and nuns."
He exhaled smoke like a squid hiding behind a cloud of ink. He looked again at Quart's Mont Blanc. "Let me summon the parish priest now," he said. "I called him here for a meeting this morning, but I wanted to talk to you privately first. I think it's time to see what's what, don't you? Let the opposing sides confront each other."
The archbishop glanced at the bell on his desk, next to a well-thumbed copy of The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis.
"One last point, Quart. I don't like you, but you're a career priest, and you know as well as I that even in this profession there are plenty of mediocrities. Father Ferro is one of them." He took his pipe out of his mouth and gestured at the bound volumes lining his study walls. "All the thinking of the Church - from Saint Augustine to Saint Thomas, and the encyclicals of all the pontiffs - is here within these four walls, and I'm its temporal administrator. I have to deal with stocks and shares while maintaining a vow of poverty, make pacts with enemies and sometimes condemn friends . . . Every morning I sit at this desk and, with God's help, I manage priests of all kinds: intelligent, stupid, fanatical, honest, wicked; political priests, priests opposed to celibacy, saints and sinners. Given time, we would have sorted out this problem with Father Ferro. But now you and Rome have stepped in, so it's up to you. Roma locuta, causa finita. From now on I'm just an observer. May the Almighty forgive me, but I'm washing my hands of the whole business and leaving the field for the executioners." He rang the bell and motioned towards the door. "Let's not keep Father Ferro waiting any longer."
Quart slowly screwed the cap back on his pen and put it in his pocket, together with the cards covered with his cramped, meticulous handwriting. He sat well forward in his chair, rigid, at attention.
"I have my orders, Monsignor," he said. "And I follow them to the letter."
His Grace grimaced. "I wouldn't want your job, Quart," he said at last. "I assure you, by my soul's salvation, I wouldn't want it one little bit."
IV
Seville Oranges and Blossom
"Now you've seen a hero,’ he said. ‘And that's worth something.' Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe
"I believe you've met," said His Grace.
He sat in his armchair like a boxing referee who keeps well back so as not to get his shoes spattered with blood. Quart and Father Ferro looked at each other in silence. The parish priest of Our Lady of the Tears refused to sit when Corvo offered him a chair. Small and obstinate, he stood in the middle of the study, with his face that looked as if it had been hewn with a chisel, and his untidy white hair. As usual, he wore an old, threadbare cassock and a huge pair of scuffed shoes.
"Father Quart would like to ask you some questions," added the archbishop.
The priest's face, covered with wrinkles and scars, remained impassive. He stared blankly out of the window, where the blurred ochre outline of La Giralda was visible through the net curtains.
"I have nothing to say to Father Quart."
Corvo nodded slowly, as if he'd expected such an answer. "Very well," he said. "But I am your bishop, Don Priamo. And you owe me a vow of obedience." He took his pipe from his mouth and gestured with it to the two priests, one after the other. "So, if you prefer, you may give me your answers to Father Quart's questions."
For a moment there was uncertainty in Father Ferro's dark, dull eyes. "That's ridiculous," he said abruptly, half-turning to Quart, whom he held responsible.
The archbishop smiled disagreeably.
"I know it is," he said. "But this Jesuitical device will keep us all happy. Father Quart can do his job, I'll be glad to witness your conversation, and you will ensure that your incredible pride isn't compromised." He blew out a puff of smoke menacingly and leaned to one side. His eyes shone in anticipated amusement. "You may now begin, Father Quart. He's all yours."
So Quart began. He was harsh, brutal at times, getting back at
Father Ferro for the cold reception he had been given at the church the previous day, and for Father Ferro's open animosity now towards Quart in His Grace's office. Quart no longer concealed the disdain he felt for Father Ferro the poor, stubborn country priest. The feeling was more complex, more profound than mere personal dislike, or than what was dictated by his mission here in Seville. To Corvo's surprise, and ultimately to Quart's own, Quart conducted himself like a public prosecutor entirely devoid of pity. Only he knew the source of the stinging cruelty with which he harried the old man. And when at last he stopped to catch his breath, aware of how unjust it all was, he was disturbed by the sudden thought that His Eminence the Inquisitor Jerzy Iwaszkiewicz would have given the entire performance his unqualified approval.
The two men stared at him; the archbishop frowning uneasily, his pipe in his mouth; Father Ferro motionless, his eyes, red and watery after an interrogation more appropriate to a criminal than to a sixty-four-year-old priest, fixed on Quart. Quart shifted in his chair and, to hide his embarrassment, made some notes. He'd been kicking the man when he was down.
"To sum up," he said, trying to sound slightly less harsh and looking down at his notes to avoid the priest's eyes, "you deny that you wrote the message that was sent to the Holy See. You also deny that you have any idea who sent it or any clues as to the author or his intentions."
"Yes," said Father Ferro.
"Before God?" asked Quart, feeling ashamed of himself - this was going too far.
The old priest turned to Corvo, in an appeal for help that the archbishop could not ignore. Corvo cleared his throat and raised his hand bearing the ring.
"Let's leave the Almighty out of this, shall we?" the prelate said through the smoke from his pipe. ‘I don't think we need put anyone on oath in this conversation."