The Priest (21 page)

“Yes, but…” Lucas was pouting now.

“Don’t you want for me the same that your
mom and dad have?” Mauricio asked softly.

“Of course I want that!” Lucas seemed
surprised by the Priest’s question.

“Then I can’t simply share my life with
someone I know isn’t my true love.” Mauricio was glad to see the
entry to the Caves looming ahead of them. Lucas was in the mood to
keep going for hours, and he simply wasn’t. “You’ll see. One day it
will make absolute sense.” Mauricio rested his arm on the kid’s
shoulder.

“I hope you’re right.” Lucas wasn’t
convinced.

“I see your mom.” Mauricio waved his hand in
the direction of a young woman waiting for them just inside the
entry of the Caves' system.

“Thanks!” She waved back.

“See you tomorrow.” Lucas hugged the Priest
before running toward his mom’s outstretched hands.

Mauricio stayed there a few seconds more,
looking at the maternal scene. His eyes filled with tears, but he
didn’t avert them from the loving embrace of mother and son. It was
beautiful, and he couldn’t have enough of it, even if he was
supposed to hurry back. When, with a last salute, Lucas disappeared
inside the entry, Mauricio finally turned around and started
walking briskly toward the fields. Leander and the well crew were
waiting for him to pump the first bucket of water. Later, the
entire community was going to celebrate in the central area that
constituted the heart of the City of Men. He was proud of the work
his men and women had done to transform an arid patch of desert
into something worth fighting for. They reclaimed life where none
was to be had. They shaped the rocks and the sand into something
that they could call their own.

The City of Men was being built, one rock at
a time, upon a design Mauricio had sketched in the sand one morning
after a long, sleepless night. He had imagined a rocky tower,
impossible to distinguish from the rest of the desert, with a
hollow inside, full of colors. Mauricio wanted to give its citizens
the freedom to express their personalities. He wanted to see colors
and flowers and plants and anything else pleasing to the eyes. He
wanted a place where everybody could be happy. Men and women would
eventually live under the same roof in peace and harmony.
Unfortunately, ten years weren’t enough to forget about slavery,
torture, and humiliation. But under the Priest’s legislation, every
act of violence against any other human being was treated as the
most heinous crime and was dealt with accordingly. It had pained
him greatly when he had to condemn to death by exile the two men
who had killed Ariane’s mother. And he hadn’t rejoiced when the
men’s bones had been found one month later, but it had been the
right message to send.

Nowadays, the other problem the City of Men
was facing was the high infant and maternal mortality rate.
Mauricio had asked for medical texts, and they came, along with a
few highly needed supplies, from the same facility that had
generously lent
the geology texts. He had spent more
sleepless nights studying female physiology, and he had been able
to save a few lives, but babies were still dying. It pained him to
think about it.
At least clean water is no longer a problem
,
Mauricio reminded himself. It felt good to know that every action
counted for something; he wasn’t propagating a race of slaves for
the sake of pure breeds anymore. He walked toward the fields,
thinking of all the improvements he had helped create, and he felt
at peace with the universe. He was doing the best with what life
had given him.

Even though he would have gone back to his
cell to remain with Rosie that night, ten years ago, he knew now
that it would have been selfish. His community had been looking to
him for guidance so long; he didn’t know any other life. Sometimes,
when he was tired and lonelier than usual, he entertained the idea
that someone else could have stepped up to lead. Someone had to
sacrifice his or her life and take the first step. So, who better
than him? He’d never had a chance to live a normal life with Rosie,
while everybody else could still have a shot at happiness. He had
fallen in love with the President’s daughter. He, Mauricio, the
ex-slave, the former semental, now the Priest, leader of a
community that was everything the Ginecean government was against,
would have never had a future with Rosie under any
circumstance.

The fields stretched ahead of him, not the
magnificent sight of the Tarin’s orchards, but something wondrous,
nevertheless. There was no river winding around at the edge of the
horizon, no kaleidoscope of colors arranged by shades. The City of
Men’s fields were small and scattered to better use the rocky soil,
and at the moment, they were colorless. Still, for all their
ugliness and lack of visible appeal, those meager fields were his
dream come true. Mauricio felt proud of everything his life had
turned out to be and even prouder of the people he’d had the good
fortune to share his journey with. One of them was waving at him
impatiently from the far side of the fields.

“Coming,” Mauricio muttered under his breath
and hurried toward Leander and the rest of the crew. They looked
exhausted. They were covered in red dirt from head to worn-out
boots, but they were laughing and playing around with something
that looked like a crude attempt at a soccer ball. They were mostly
men, young in age and drunk with the idea of freedom. Some of them
had just been rescued and they were dizzy with happiness. The
others, veterans of the City of Men, were reminded by the new
arrivals of the fact that life for a man in Ginecea could be very
different. The women were still rare, and the few of them here were
all fathered. No pure breed, with the exception of Guen, could have
accepted the libertarian philosophy that was at the center of the
City of Men’s community. Or the fact that owning slaves was illegal
in Mauricio’s world.

“Finally!” Leander ran toward Mauricio,
tired of waiting for him.

“The boys want to start celebrating, and so
do I.” Julius came running after his husband.

“So, what are you waiting for?” Mauricio
asked with a grin.

The men gathered around the Priest and
started chanting his name, and one of the younger boys gave him a
tin bucket.

“This is the beginning of something good for
us, and all of you are responsible for making it a reality. Look at
those fields and imagine what we will harvest next spring. Our kids
will have nutritious food on their plates. Our life is going to
change, and we have you to thank.” The Priest spoke and everybody
listened. Mauricio was still surprised that, when he talked, people
stopped to commit to memory everything he said. He didn’t like it
in the beginning. He was still too much of a slave mentally to
think of himself as worthy. Then he had relaxed and accepted that
he had something other people didn’t have: a drive that even his
closest friends admired in him. Mauricio never stopped before an
obstacle. He thought about it and kept thinking about it until the
solution was clear in his mind. And then he acted upon it and
worked on it until the problem was solved. At that point, he would
normally move to another task and start the process again. But,
like he had just said, he now had people helping him create what
was inside his brain. It hadn’t been always like that. When Guen,
Arias, Leander, and Mauricio had first settled inside the rocky
formation nestled between canyons, they’d had to fight every
possible adversity by themselves. When they had started building
the foundation of the city, they had been utterly alone, and more
than once, despair had settled in their midst like an unwanted
guest. But Mauricio had never complained in front of the others. He
had shouldered the others’ pain, given back solace and never asked
for anything in return.

“Take the first drink of water.” Leander was
holding the tin bucket to Mauricio’s mouth, full to the rim and
sweating with cold dew.

“To everybody!” Mauricio raised the bucket,
the men cheered loudly, and then he sipped the liquid carefully as
if it was a precious wine. He closed his eyes and turned his face
toward the darkening sky and thanked the Heavens.

“Let the celebration begin! Free day
tomorrow for everybody!” the Priest decreed and the men went wild
with happiness. Someone already had a guitar ready and spontaneous
singing took place in a matter of minutes.

Later that night, Mauricio retreated into a
corner away from the central plaza, happy to look at what they had
accomplished as a community. The men were all there dancing and
singing. The women were all staying in the same spot, still wary of
being in the same place with so many ex-slaves, but nobody was
bothering them. After a few hours, the bravest of them had decided
to attempt some dancing in the central square where all the action
was. Mauricio was even happier to see that a few of the families
from the Caves had decided to join the festivities. He saw Lucas
twirling around, giddy with the music and the colors.

“You wish she were here.” Guen had
approached silently, but Mauricio saw her coming and wasn’t
surprised by her presence.

“Always. There isn’t a single moment I don’t
wish she were here,” he answered, taking the hand she had gently
put on his shoulder and kissing it affectionately.

“Have you received any new news about your
daughter?” Guen asked, as she always did when they were alone.

Lately, the Priest always had an entourage
of loyal men escorting him everywhere, hoping to learn from him
everything he knew. Mauricio had been forced to reclaim some free
time during his busy days to be able to relax. He loved his
desert-sculpting time, because he decided who was allowed to follow
him outside the city. Normally, he asked Lucas to accompany him to
the desert, since the boy’s home was on the way.

“I haven’t. Only the same old things, and
I’m not even sure that everything they write is true. It could be
propaganda, but I like to read about her anyway. I wish I could see
a picture of Maurice, but I understand that Rosie is protecting her
as best as she can.” Mauricio had his eyes on the central square,
where a boy was flirting with a girl. Mauricio smiled and wondered
how old the boy could be.

“I’ve always meant to ask you something…”
Guen started, her eyes on the dancing couple as well.

“Shoot.” Mauricio didn’t know what she
wanted to ask, but he knew it had everything to do with Rosie.

“Why have you never tried to contact her? Or
at least let her know you’re still alive?” Guen turned to look
directly at him.

“I thought about it in the beginning. Then,
when I was going to send her a message, the news of her marriage
arrived and by the time I read it, she had already been married
more than five months and the baby was due soon. I thought that she
deserved a chance to be happy. The last time I saw her, she was
upset because she already knew that we weren’t going to see each
other anymore. But she lied to me to make me feel better. Writing
to her when she had already started a new life with her wife seemed
a cruel thing to do.” Mauricio smiled when the boy stole a small
kiss from the girl.

“Do you regret your decision?” Guen hadn’t
turned around and her eyes were focused on him.

“No, I still love her. I hope that she found
happiness with the girl she was forced to marry. Rosie told me that
she knew who they had in mind, and that she was a good person.”
Mauricio was still following the boy’s clumsy attempts at
courting.

“But, aren’t you jealous? I couldn’t bear
the idea of Arias married to someone else.” Guen was trying to
shake Mauricio from the torpor that seemed to have become his
second skin lately. He had barely noticed before, but now he could
see a pattern in his closest friends’ behavior toward him. Lucas
had been pestering him for weeks; Leander had been dancing a waltz
around him as well; and now here was Guen and her inquisition. As
he thought about it, even Arias had been strangely chatty, when he
normally was rather taciturn.

“I try not to think about it, obviously. If
I do, I feel the need to haul rocks and run from one end of the
desert to the other. I am human, and I suffer at the thought like
anybody else. But I had to give her at least a chance to be free of
me. And maybe she managed to build a life with that girl, and they
are happy together. Maurice doesn’t know that she has a father; she
is ten now and she has a normal life. She’s a pure breed. Do you
think I could live with myself if I destroyed her happiness with a
truth that is almost impossible to prove? It would be my word
against the mighty Priestess’. And as much as I’d like to free all
the men in Ginecea, we’re not organized enough to launch a
full-scale war against the pure breeds. And in the end, I would be
my daughter’s worst enemy. I would be the one she would hate the
most.” Mauricio noticed how the girl was holding hands with the
boy.

“But, you know the day will come when you
have to decide,” Guen said softly.

“And when we are strong enough to declare
war on Ginecea, I’ll decide without a second of hesitation. The
City of Men is counting on me to do the right thing, and I won’t
disappoint those men and women. Not for my gain, not for my
weakness. It will kill me, but I won’t think twice about giving the
orders.” Mauricio’s heart rejoiced at the sight of the young couple
sitting on a bench talking to each other, oblivious that there was
a world outside where they couldn’t even exchange looks without
being exiled from society.

“Look at them—” Mauricio pointed out the
lovely scene unfolding before their eyes. “—they’re not the only
ones who’ll grow old together like you and Arias. Lucas’ family is
not the only one living peacefully inside the Caves. Leander and
Julius are an example for many who will adopt boys and girls
without making any distinction between genders. This is what I
want. One day, there will be another Mauricio and another Rosie,
and they will be happy together. They will love and have quarrels.
They’ll have kids and maybe even grow apart by choice. But it will
be their decision.” Mauricio looked at Guen and saw that she had
tears in her eyes.