Monsignor Quixote (20 page)

‘Give who another minute?'

‘Father Herrera's gone off to confession, but he never stays long in the box if there's no one waiting, so I've told the young fellow at the garage he had to go quickly up to the church before Father Herrera leaves and keep him busy with a long confession.'

Father Quixote felt completely at sea. This was not the life he had known for so many decades in El Toboso. What had brought about the change?

‘Can you unlock the door, Teresa? Rocinante has returned.'

‘Yes. I know. I would never have recognized her, poor dear, with all that bright blue paint she had on and a new number even.'

‘Please, Teresa, unlock the door. I must see what has happened to Rocinante.'

‘I can't, father, for I haven't the key, but don't worry, he'll manage all right if you give him another minute.'

‘Who?'

‘The Mayor, of course.'

‘The Mayor? Where is he?'

‘He's in your study, where else would he be? Breaking open your cupboard which Father Herrera locked – with one of my hairpins and a bottle of olive oil.'

‘Why olive oil?'

‘I wouldn't know, father, but I trust him.'

‘What's in the cupboard?'

‘Your trousers, father, and all your upper clothes.'

‘If he can open the cupboard can't he open this door?'

‘It's what I said to him, but he spoke of what he calls priorities.'

Father Quixote tried to wait with a patience hardly encouraged by a running commentary from Teresa. ‘Oh, I thought he got it open, but it's still stuck fast and now he's got one of Father Herrera's razor blades. There'll be hell to pay because Father Herrera keeps a regular count of them . . . Now he's broken the blade and God's sakes he's at work with Father Herrera's nail scissors . . . Wait a bit – be patient – God be thanked, it's coming open. Only I hope he does your door quicker or we'll be having Father Herrera back – the young boy at the garage hasn't all that imagination.'

‘Are you all right, father?' came the Mayor's voice from the other side of the door.

‘I'm all right, but what have you been doing to Rocinante?'

‘I stopped off with my friend at Valladolid and fixed her so that the Guardia won't recognize her – not at first sight, anyway. Now I'm going to work on your door.'

‘You don't have to. I can get through the window.'

It was lucky, he thought, that there was no one there to see the parish priest climbing through the window in pyjamas and knocking on his own front door. Teresa retired discreetly to the kitchen and Father Quixote dressed hurriedly in his study. ‘You've certainly made a mess of that cupboard door,' he said.

‘It was more difficult to open than I thought. What are you looking for?'

‘My collar.'

‘Here's one. And I've got your bib in the car.'

‘It has caused me a lot of trouble already. I'm not going to wear it, Sancho.'

‘But we'll take it with us. It may prove useful. One never knows.'

‘I can't find any socks.'

‘I have your purple socks. And your new shoes too.'

‘It was the old ones I was looking for. I'm sorry. Of course they've gone for ever.'

‘They are in the hands of the Guardia.'

‘Yes. I forgot. The bishop told me. I suppose we must go. I hope the poor bishop won't have a stroke.'

A letter caught his eye. It should have caught his eye before because it was propped up against one of his old seminary volumes and enthroned on two others. The writer had obviously intended it to be conspicuous. He looked at the envelope and put it into his pocket.

‘What's that?' the Mayor asked.

‘A letter from the bishop, I think. I know his writing too well.'

‘Aren't you going to read it?'

‘Bad trouble can wait until we've had a bottle of manchegan.'

He went into the kitchen to say goodbye to Teresa. ‘I really don't know how you are going to explain matters to Father Herrera.'

‘It's he who will have to do all the explaining. What reason had he got to lock you up in your very own room in your own house and take your own clothes?'

He kissed Teresa on her forehead, something which he had never ventured to do before in all the years they had been together. ‘God bless you, Teresa,' he said. ‘You have been very good to me. And patient. For a very long time.'

‘Tell me where you are going, father?'

‘It's better you shouldn't know because they'll all be asking you that. But I can tell you I'm going, God willing, to take a long rest in a quiet place.'

‘With that Communist?'

‘Don't talk like the bishop, Teresa. The Mayor has been a good friend to me.'

‘I don't see the likes of him taking a long rest in a quiet place.'

‘You never know, Teresa. Stranger things have happened on the road already.'

He turned, but her voice called him back. ‘Father, I feel as though we are saying goodbye for ever.'

‘No, no, Teresa, for a Christian there's no such thing as goodbye for ever.'

He raised his hand from habit to make the sign of the cross in blessing, but he didn't complete it.

I believe what I told her, he told himself as he went to find the Mayor, I believe it of course, but how is it that when I speak of belief, I become aware always of a shadow, the shadow of disbelief haunting my belief?

2

‘Where do we go from here?' the Mayor asked.

‘Do we have to make plans, Sancho? Last time we went a bit here and a bit there, at random. You won't agree, of course, but in a way we left ourselves in the hands of God.'

‘Then he wasn't a very reliable guide. You were brought back here, a prisoner, to El Toboso.'

‘Yes. Who knows? – God moves very mysteriously – perhaps He wanted me to meet the bishop.'

‘For the bishop's sake – or yours?'

‘How can I tell? At least I learnt something from the bishop, though I doubt if he learnt anything from me. But who can be sure?'

‘So where does your God propose we go now?'

‘Why don't we just follow our old route?'

‘The Guardia might have the same idea. When the bishop warns them that we are loose again.'

‘Not exactly the same route. I don't want to go back to Madrid – nor Valladolid. They haven't left very happy memories – except the house of the historian.'

‘Historian?'

‘The great Cervantes.'

‘We have to decide quickly, father. South is too hot. So do we go north towards the Basques or to the Galicians?'

‘I agree.'

‘Agree to what? You didn't answer my question.'

‘Let's leave the details to God.'

‘And who drives? Are you sure that God has passed his driving test?'

‘Of course I must drive. Rocinante would never understand if I sat in the car as a passenger.'

‘At least let us go at a reasonable speed. My friend at Valladolid said she was quite capable of eighty kilometres or even a hundred.'

‘He can't judge Rocinante from a brief inspection.'

‘I won't argue now. It's time to be off.'

But they were not able to leave El Toboso so easily. Father Quixote had only just ground his way into low gear when a voice called, ‘Father, father.' A boy was running up the road behind them.

‘Don't pay any attention,' the Mayor said. ‘We've got to get out of here.'

‘I must stop. It's the boy who works the pumps at the garage.'

He was quite out of breath when he reached them.

‘Well, what is it?' Father Quixote asked.

‘Father,' he said between pants, ‘father.'

‘I said, what is it?'

‘I've been refused absolution, father. Shall I go to Hell?'

‘I very much doubt it. What have you done? Have you murdered Father Herrera? I don't mean that would necessarily entail going to Hell. If you had a good enough reason.'

‘How could I have murdered him when it's him that's refused me?'

‘Logically put. Why did he refuse you?'

‘He said I was making a mock of the confessional.'

‘Oh dear, I was forgetting. It was you that Teresa sent . . . It was very wrong of her. All the same she meant it in a good cause and I'm sure you'll both be forgiven. But she did tell me that you had no imagination. Why did Father Herrera refuse you absolution? What on earth did you go and invent?'

‘I only told him I'd slept with a lot of girls.'

‘There aren't all that many in El Toboso except for the nuns. You didn't tell him you slept with a nun, did you?'

‘I would never say such a thing, father. I'm secretary of the Children of Mary.'

‘And Father Herrera will surely end up in Opus Dei,' the Mayor said. ‘For God's sake, let's be gone.'

‘What exactly did you say and he say?'

‘I said, “Bless me, father. I have sinned . . .”'

‘No, no, leave out all those preliminaries.'

‘Well, I told him I'd been late at Mass and he asked me how many times and I said twenty and then I told him I'd lied a bit and he asked how many times and I said forty-five.'

‘You did go in for rather big figures, didn't you? And then?'

‘Well, I couldn't think of anything more to say and I was afraid Teresa would be angry if I couldn't keep him any longer.'

‘You tell her from me when you see her that she'd better be on her knees tomorrow at confession.'

‘And then he asked me if I had sinned against purity and that gave me an idea, so I said, well, I had slept with some girls, and he asked me how many girls and I said, “Around sixty-five,” and it was then he got angry and he turned me out of the box.'

‘I don't wonder.'

‘Is it Hell I'll be going to?'

‘If anyone is going to Hell it will be Teresa and you can tell her I said so.'

‘It's an awful lot of lies I told in the confessional. I was only late for Mass the once and I had good reason – there were so many tourists at the pumps.'

‘And the lies?'

‘Two or three at most.'

‘And the girls?'

‘You won't find one of them who'll do anything serious in El Toboso for fear of the nuns.'

The Mayor said, ‘I can see Father Herrera coming down the street from the church.'

‘Listen to me,' Father Quixote said, ‘make an Act of Contrition and promise me you won't lie any more in the confessional, not even if Teresa asks you to.'

He was silent while the boy mumbled something. ‘And your promise?'

‘Oh, I promise, father. Why shouldn't I? I don't go to confession anyway more than once a year.'

‘Say “I promise before you, father, to God.”'

The boy repeated the words and Father Quixote gave him absolution, speaking rapidly.

The Mayor said, ‘That damned priest is only about a hundred paces away, father, and he's putting on speed.'

Father Quixote started the engine and Rocinante responded with the jump of an antelope.

‘Only just in time,' the Mayor said. ‘But he's running nearly as fast as Rocinante. Oh, thank God, that boy's a treasure. He's put out his foot and tripped him up.'

‘If there was anything wrong about that confession, the fault was mine,' Father Quixote said. Whether he was addressing himself, God or the Mayor will always remain uncertain.

‘At least push Rocinante up to fifty. The old girl's not even trying. That priest will be on to the Guardia in no time.'

‘There's not so much hurry as you think,' Father Quixote said. ‘He'll have an awful lot to say to that boy and after that he'll want to speak to the bishop and the bishop won't be home for quite a while.'

‘He might speak to the Guardia first.'

‘Not on your life. He has the prudent soul of a secretary.'

They reached the high road to Alicante and the Mayor broke silence. ‘Left,' he said sharply.

‘Not to Madrid, surely? Anywhere but to Madrid.'

‘No cities,' the Mayor said. ‘Wherever there's a country road we'll take it. I'll feel safer when we reach the mountains. I suppose you haven't a passport?'

‘No.'

‘Then Portugal is no refuge.'

‘Refuge from what? From the bishop?'

‘You don't seem to realize, father, what a grave crime you have committed. You've freed a galley slave.'

‘Poor fellow. All he got was my shoes and they were not much better than his own. He was doomed to failure. I always feel that those who always fail – he even ran out of petrol – are nearer to God than we are. Of course I shall pray to my ancestor for him. How often the Don knew failure. Even with the windmills.'

‘Then you'd better pray hard to him for both of us.'

‘Oh, I do. I do. We haven't failed enough yet, Sancho. Here we are again, you and I and Rocinante on the road, and at liberty.'

It took them more than two hours to reach a small town called Mora travelling by a roundabout route. There they found themselves on the main road to Toledo, but only for a matter of minutes. ‘We have to get into the mountains of Toledo,' the Mayor said. ‘This road is not for us.' They turned and twisted and for a while, on a very rough track, they seemed, judging from the sun, to be making a half circle.