The power and the glory (20 page)

The priest sighed. He felt empty with the ordeal. Fear can be more tiring than a long monotonous ride. He said: "I'll pray for you," and beat his horse into position beside the lieutenant's.
"And I'll pray for you, father," the half-caste announced complacently. Once the priest looked back as his horse poised for the steep descent between the rocks. The half-caste stood alone among the huts, his mouth a little open, showing the two long fangs. He might have been snapped in the act of shouting some complaint or some claim-that he was a good Catholic perhaps: one hand scratched under the armpit. The priest waved his hand: he bore no grudge because he expected nothing else of anything human and he had one cause at least of satisfaction-that yellow and unreliable face would be absent "at the death."
"You're a man of education," the lieutenant said. He lay across the entrance of the hut with his head on his rolled cape and his revolver by his side. It was night, but neither man could sleep. The priest, when he shifted, groaned a little with stiffness and cramp: the lieutenant was in a hurry to get home, and they had ridden till midnight. They were down off the hills and in the marshy plain. Soon the whole state would be subdivided by swamp. The rains had really begun.
"I'm not that. My father was a storekeeper."
"I mean, you've been abroad. You can talk like a Yankee. You've had schooling."
"Yes.'
"I've had to think things out for myself. But there are some things which you don't have to learn in a school. That there are rich and poor." He said in a low voice: "I've shot three hostages because of you. Poor men. It made me hate your guts."
"Yes," the priest admitted, and tried to stand to ease the cramp in his right thigh. The lieutenant sat quickly up, gun in band. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing. Just cramp. That's all." He lay down again with a groan.
The lieutenant said: "Those men I shot. They were my own people. I wanted to give them the whole world."
"Well, who knows? Perhaps that's what you did."
The lieutenant spat suddenly, viciously, as if something unclean had got upon his tongue. He said: "You always have answers, which mean nothing."
"I was never any good at books," the priest said. "I haven't any memory. But there was one thing always puzzled me about men like yourself. You hate the rich and love the poor. Isn't that right?"
"Yes."
"Well, if I hated you, I wouldn't want to bring up my child to be like you. It's not sense."
"That's just twisting..."
"Perhaps it is. I've never got your ideas straight. We've always said the poor are blessed and the rich are going to find it hard to get into heaven. Why should we make it hard for the poor man too? Oh, I know we are told to give to the poor, to see they are not hungry-hunger can make a man do evil just as much as money can. But why should we give the poor power? It's better to let him die in dirt and wake in heaven-so long as we don't push his face in the dirt."
"I hate your reasons," the lieutenant said. "I don't want reasons. If you see somebody in pain, people like you reason and reason. You say-perhaps pain's a good thing, perhaps he'll be better for it one day. I want to let my heart speak."
"At the end of a gun."
"Yes. At the end of a gun."
"Oh, well, perhaps when you're my age you'll know the heart's an untrustworthy beast. The mind is too, but it doesn't talk about love. Love. And a girl puts her head under water or a child's strangled, and the heart all the time says love, love."
They lay quiet for a while in the hut. The priest thought the lieutenant was asleep until he spoke again. "You never talk straight. You say one thing to me-but to another man, or a woman, you say: 'God is love.' But you think that stuff won't go down with me, so you say different things. Things you think I'll agree with."
"Oh," the priest said, "that's another thing altogether-God is love. I don't say the heart doesn't feel a taste of it, but what a taste. The smallest glass of love mixed with a pint pot of ditch-water. We wouldn't recognize that love. It might even look like hate. It would be enough to scare us-God's love. It set fire to a bush in the desert, didn't it, and smashed open graves and set the dead walking in the dark? Oh, a man like me would run a mile to get away if he felt that love around."
"You don't trust Him much, do you? He doesn't seem a grateful kind of God. If a man served me as well as you've served Him, well, I'd recommend him for promotion, see he got a good pension... if he was in pain, with cancer, I'd put a bullet through his head."
"Listen," the priest said earnestly, leaning forward in the dark, pressing on a cramped foot, "I'm not as dishonest as you think I am. Why do you think I tell people out of the pulpit that they're in danger of damnation if death catches them unawares? I'm not telling them fairy-stories I don't believe myself. I don't know a thing about the mercy of God: I don't know how awful the human heart looks to Him. But I do know this-that if there's ever been a single man in this state damned, then I'll be damned too." He said slowly: "I wouldn't want it to be any different. I just want justice, that's all."
"We'll be in before dark," the lieutenant said. Six men rode in front and six behind: sometimes, in the belts of forest between the arms of the river, they had to ride in single file. The lieutenant didn't speak much, and once when two of his men struck up a song about a fat shopkeeper and his woman, he told them savagely to be silent. It wasn't a very triumphal procession: the priest rode with a weak grin fixed on his face. It was like a mask he had stuck on, so that he could think quickly without anyone's noticing. What he thought about mostly was pain.
"I suppose," the lieutenant said, scowling ahead, "you're hoping for a miracle."
"Excuse me. What did you say?"
"I said I suppose you're hoping for a miracle."
"No."
"You believe in them, don't you?"
"Yes. But not for me. I'm no more good to anyone, so why should God keep me alive?"
"I cant think how a man like you can believe in those things. The Indians, yes. Why, the first time they see an electric light they think it's a miracle."
"And I dare say the first time you saw a man raised from the dead you might think so too." He giggled unconvincingly behind the smiling mask. "Oh, it's funny, isn't it? It isn't a case of miracles not happening-it's just a case of people calling them something else. Can't you see the doctors round the dead man? He isn't breathing any more, his pulse has stopped, his heart's not beating: he's dead. Then somebody gives him back his life, and they all-what's the expression?-reserve their opinion. They won't say it's a miracle, because that's a word they don't like. Then it happens again and again perhaps-because God's about on earth-and they say: there aren't miracles, it is simply that we have enlarged our conception of what life is. Now we know you can be alive without pulse, breath, heart-beats. And they invent a new word to describe that state of life, and they say science has again disproved a miracle." He giggled again. "You cant get round them."
They were out of the forest track onto a hard beaten road, and the lieutenant dug in his spur and the whole cavalcade broke into a canter. They were nearly home now. The lieutenant said grudgingly: "You aren't a bad fellow. If there's anything I can do for you..."
"If you would give permission for me to confess..."
The first houses came into sight: little hard-baked houses of earth falling into ruin, a few classical pillars-just plaster over mud, and a dirty child playing in the rubble.
The lieutenant said: "But there's no priest."
"Padre José."
"Oh, Padre José," the lieutenant said, with contempt, "he's no good for you."
"He's good enough for me. It's not likely I'd find a saint here, is it?"
The lieutenant rode for a little while in silence: they came to the cemetery, full of chipped angels, and passed the great portico with its black letters: Silencio. He said: "All right. You can have him." He wouldn't look at the cemetery as they went by-there was the wall where the prisoners were shot. The road went steeply down-hill towards the river: on the right, where the cathedral had been, the iron swings stood empty in the hot afternoon. There was a sense of desolation everywhere, more of it than in the mountains because a lot of life had once existed here. The lieutenant thought: No pulse, no breath, no heart-beat, but it's still life-we've only got to find a name for it. A small boy watched them pass: he called out to the lieutenant: "Lieutenant, have you got him?" and the lieutenant dimly remembered the face-one day in the plaza-a broken bottle, and he tried to smile back, an odd sour grimace, without triumph or hope. One had to begin again with that.

Chapter Four

THE lieutenant waited till after dark and then he went himself. It would be dangerous to send another man because the news would be around the city in no time that Padre José had been permitted to carry out a religious duty in the prison. It was wiser not to let even the jefe know: one didn't trust one's superiors when one was more successful than they were. He knew the jefe wasn't pleased that he had brought the priest in-an escape would have been better from his point of view.
In the patio he could feel himself watched by a dozen eyes: the children clustered there ready to shout at Padre José if he appeared. He wished he had promised the priest nothing, but he was going to keep his word-because it would be a triumph for that old corrupt God-ridden world if it could show itself superior on any point-whether of courage, truthfulness, justice...
Nobody answered his knock: he stood darkly in the patio like a petitioner. Then he knocked again, and a voice called: "A moment. A moment."
Padre José put his face against the bars of his window and said: "Who's there?" He seemed to be fumbling at something near the ground.
"Lieutenant of police."
"Oh," Padre José squeaked. "Excuse me. It is my trousers. In the dark." He seemed to heave at something and there was a sharp crack, as if his belt or braces had given way. Across the patio the children began to squeak: "Padre José. Padre José." When he came to the door he wouldn't look at them, muttering tenderly: "The little devils."
The lieutenant said: "I want you to come up to the police station."
"But I've done nothing. Nothing. I've been so careful."
"Padre José," the children squeaked.
He said imploringly: "If it's anything about a burial, you've been misinformed. I wouldn't even say a prayer."
"Padre José. Padre José."
The lieutenant turned and strode across the patio. He said furiously to the faces at the grille: "Be quiet. Go to bed. At once. Do you hear me?" They dropped out of sight one by one, but immediately the lieutenant's back was turned, they were there again watching.
Padre José said: "Nobody can do anything with those children."
A woman's voice said: "Where are you, José?"
"Here, my dear. It is the police."
A huge woman in a white night-dress came billowing out at them: it wasn't much after seven: perhaps she lived, the lieutenant thought, in that dress-perhaps she lived in bed. He said: "Your husband," dwelling on the term with satisfaction, "your husband is wanted at the station."
"Who says so?"
"I do."
"He's done nothing."
"I was just saying, my dear..."
"Be quiet. Leave the talking to me."
"You can both stop jabbering," the lieutenant said. "You're wanted at the station to see a man-a priest. He wants to confess."
"To me?"
"Yes. There's no one else."
"Poor man," Padre José said. His little pink eyes swept the patio. "Poor man." He shifted uneasily, and took a furtive look at the sky where the constellations wheeled.
"You won't go," the woman said.
"It's against the law, isn't it?" Padre José asked.
"You needn't trouble about that."
"Oh, we needn't, eh?" the woman said. "I can see through you. You don't want my husband to be let alone. You want to trick him. I know your work. You get people to ask him to say prayers-he's a kind man. But I'd have you remember this-he's a pensioner of the government."
The lieutenant said slowly: "This priest-he has been working for years secretly-for your Church. We've caught him and, of course, he'll be shot tomorrow. He's not a bad man" and I told him he could see you. He seems to think it will do him good."
"I know him," the woman interrupted, "he's a drunkard. That's all he is."
"Poor man," Padre José said. "He tried to hide here once."
"I promise you," the lieutenant said, "nobody shall know."
"Nobody know?" the woman cackled. "Why, it will be all over town. Look at those children there. They never leave José alone." She went on: "There'll be no end to it-everybody will be wanting to confess, and the Governor will hear of it, and the pension will be stopped."
"Perhaps, my dear," José said, "it's my duty..."
"You aren't a priest any more," the woman said, "you're my husband." She used a coarse word. "That's your duty now." The lieutenant listened to them with acid satisfaction. It was like rediscovering an old belief. He said: "I can't wait here while you argue. Are you going to come with me?"
"He can't make you"" the woman said.
"My dear, it's only that... well... I am a priest."
"A priest," the woman cackled" "you a priest!" She went off into a peal of laughter, which was taken tentatively up by the children at the window. Padre José put his fingers up to his pink eyes as if they hurt. He said: "My dear..." and the laughter went on.
"Are you coming?" ,
Padre José made a despairing gesture-as much as to say, what does one more failure matter in a life like this? He said: "I don't think it's-possible."
"Very well," the lieutenant said. He turned abruptly-he hadn't any more time to waste on mercy, and heard Padre José's voice speak imploringly: "Tell him I shall pray." The children had gained confidence: one of them called sharply out: "Come to bed, José," and the lieutenant laughed once-a poor unconvincing addition to the general laughter which now surrounded Padre José, ringing up all round to the disciplined constellations he had once known by name.
The lieutenant opened the cell door: it was very dark inside: he shut the door carefully behind him and locked it, keeping his hand on his gun. He said: "He won't come."
A little bunched figure in the darkness was the priest. He crouched on the floor like a child playing. He said: "You mean-not tonight?"
"I mean he won't come at all."
There was silence for some while, if you could talk of silence where there was always the drill-drill of mosquitoes and the little crackling explosion of beetles against the wall. At last the priest said: "He was afraid, I suppose..."
"His wife wouldn't let him come."
"Poor man." He tried to giggle, but no sound could have been more miserable than the half-hearted attempt. His head drooped between his knees: he looked as if he had abandoned everything, and been abandoned.
The lieutenant said: "You had better know everything. You've been tried and found guilty."
"Couldn't I have been present at my own trial?"
"It wouldn't have made any difference."
"No." He was silent" preparing an attitude. Then he asked with a kind of false jauntiness: "And when, if I may ask...?"
"Tomorrow." The promptness and brevity of the reply called his bluff. His head went down again and he seemed, as far as it was possible to see in the dark, to be biting his nails.
The lieutenant said: "It's bad being alone on a night like this. If you would like to be transferred to the common cell..."
"No, no. I'd rather be alone. I've got plenty to do." His voice failed, as though he had a heavy cold. He wheezed: "So much to think about."
"I should like to do something for you," the lieutenant said: "I've brought you some brandy."
"Against the law?"
"Yes."
"It's very good of you." He took the small flask. "You wouldn't need this, I dare say. But I've always been afraid of pain."
"We have to die some time," the lieutenant said. "It doesn't seem to matter so much when."
"You're a good man. You've got nothing to be afraid of."
"You have such odd ideas," the lieutenant complained. He said: "Sometimes I feel you're just trying to talk me round."
"Round to what?"
"Oh, to letting you escape perhaps-or to believing in the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints... how does that stuff go?"
"The forgiveness of sins."
"You don't believe much in that, do you?"
"Oh, yes, I believe," the little man said obstinately.
"Then what are you worried about?"
"I'm not ignorant, you see. I've always known what I've been doing. And I can't absolve myself."
"Would Padre José coming here have made all that difference?"
He had to wait a long while for his answer, and then he didn't understand it when it came: "Another man... it makes it easier..."
"Is there nothing more I can do for you?"
"No. Nothing."
The lieutenant reopened the door, mechanically putting his hand again upon his revolver: he felt moody, as though now that the last priest was under lock and key there was nothing left to think about. The spring of action seemed to be broken. He looked back on the weeks of hunting as a happy time which was over now for ever. He felt without a purpose, as if life had drained out of the world. He said with bitter kindness (he couldn't summon up any hate of the small hollow man): "Try to sleep."
He was closing the door when a scared voice spoke. "Lieutenant."
"Yes."
"You've seen people shot. People like me."
"Yes."
"Does the pain go on-a long time?"
"No, no. A second," he said roughly, and closed the door, and picked his way back across the whitewashed yard. He went into the office: the pictures of the priest and the gunman were still pinned up on the wall: he tore them down-they would never be wanted again. Then he sat at the desk and put his head upon his hands and fell asleep with utter weariness. He couldn't remember afterwards anything of his dreams except laughter, laughter all the time, and a long passage in which he could find no door.
The priest sat on the floor, holding the brandy flask. Presently he unscrewed the cap and put his mouth to it. The spirit didn't do a thing to him: it might have been water. He put it down again and began some kind of general confession, speaking in a whisper. He said: "I have committed fornication." The formal phrase meant nothing at all: it was like a sentence in a newspaper: you couldn't feel repentance over a thing like that. He started again: "I have lain with a woman," and tried to imagine the other priests asking him: "How many times? Was she married?" "No." Without thinking what he was doing, he took another drink of brandy.
As the liquid touched his tongue he remembered his child, coming in out of the glare: the sullen unhappy knowledgeable face. He said: "O God, help her. Damn me, I deserve it, but let her live for ever." This was the love he should have felt for every soul in the world: all the fear and the wish to save concentrated unjustly on the one child. He began to weep: it was as if he had to watch her drown slowly from the shore because he had forgotten how to swim. He thought: This is what I should feel all the time for everyone, and he tried to turn his brain away towards the half-caste, the lieutenant, even a dentist he had once sat with for a few minutes, the child at the banana station, calling up a long succession of faces, pushing at his attention as if it were a heavy door which wouldn't budge. For those were all in danger too. He prayed: "God help them," but in the moment of prayer he switched back to his child beside the rubbish-dump, and he knew it was only for her that he prayed. Another failure.
After a while he began again: "I have been drunk-I don't know how many times; there isn't a duty I haven't neglected; I have been guilty of pride, lack of charity..." The words were becoming formal again, meaning nothing. He had no confessor to turn his mind away from the formula to the fact.
He took another drink of brandy, and getting up with pain because of his cramp, he moved to the door and looked through the bars at the hot moony square. He could see the police asleep in their hammocks, and one man who couldn't sleep lazily rocking up and down, up and down. There was an odd silence everywhere, even in the other cells: it was as if the whole world had tactfully turned its back to avoid seeing him die. He felt his way back along the wall to the farthest corner and sat down with the flask between his knees. He thought: If I hadn't been so useless, useless. … The eight hard hopeless years seemed to him to be only a caricature of service: a few communions, a few confessions, and an endless bad example. He thought: If I had only one soul to offer, so that I could say: Look what I've done. … People had died for him: they had deserved a saint, and a tinge of bitterness spread across his mind for their sake that God hadn't thought fit to send them one. Padre José and me, he thought, Padre José and me, and he took a drink again from the brandy flask. He thought of the cold faces of the saints rejecting him.
This night was slower than the last he spent in prison because he was alone. Only the brandy, which he finished about two in the morning, gave him any sleep at all. He felt sick with fear, his stomach ached, and his mouth was dry with the drink. He began to talk aloud to himself because he couldn't stand the silence any more. He complained miserably: "It's all very well... for saints," and later: "How does he know it only lasts a second? How long's a second?": then he began to cry, beating his head gently against the wall. They had given a chance to Padre José, but they had never given him a chance at all. Perhaps they had got it all wrong-just because he had escaped them for such a time. Perhaps they really thought he would refuse the conditions Padre José had accepted, that he would refuse to marry, that he was proud. Perhaps if he suggested it himself, he would escape yet. The hope calmed him for a while, and he fell asleep with his head against the wall.
He had a curious dream. He dreamed he was sitting at a café table in front of the high altar of the cathedral. About six dishes were spread before him, and he was eating hungrily. There was a smell of incense and an odd sense of elation. The dishes-like all food in dreams-did not taste of much, but he had a sense that when he had finished them, he would have the best dish of all. A priest passed to and fro before the altar saying Mass, but he took no notice: the service no longer seemed to concern him. At last the six plates were empty; someone out of sight rang the sanctus bell, and the serving priest knelt before he raised the Host. But he sat on, just waiting, paying no attention to the God over the altar, as if that was a God for other people and not for him. Then the glass by his plate began to fill with wine, and looking up he saw that the child from the banana station was serving him. She said: "I got it from my father's room."
"You didn't steal it?"
"Not exactly," she said in her careful and precise voice. He said: "It is very good of you. I had forgotten the code-what did you call it?"
"Morse."
"That was it. Morse. Three long taps and one short one," and immediately the taps began: the priest by the altar tapped, a whole invisible congregation tapped along the aisles-three long and one short. He said: "What is it?"
"News," the child said, watching him with a stern, responsible, and interested gaze.