Evelio Rosero - Good Offices

In any case, Reverend San José redeemed himself. It was unfair to regard him as a simple little priest. There was his sermon, for example. While Tancredo read the Gospel, San José sat and listened from the marble throne with its elaborate gold armrests, to one side of the altar, lolling against the broad, cushioned back, supporting his head with one hand, eyes closed, exactly as if he were asleep. Indeed, after Tancredo finished his reading, three or four endless minutes passed before Matamoros came back to life and approached the pulpit to begin the sermon. A sermon which had little or nothing to do with the Gospel — which Gospel? Matthew, Luke, Mark, John? His reading rent the heavens, but how could it not, Tancredo said to himself, as it was a sung sermon, a Mass risen out of those who had died. An unusual sermon, besides, in its brevity, full of grace, that struck Tancredo more as a sung poem than as a proper sermon, but a prayer after all, he thought, a prayer to brotherly love that pays no heed to race or creed, the only way — still scorned — of entering heaven, proposed by Christ to humankind as if reaching out a helping hand. It was a Mass of Transparency. When they finished saying the Lord’s Prayer, the congregation waited expectantly for Matamoros to repeat it, sung, as he had the Gloria and the Credo , and so it was, for the grace of all: exquisitely sung in Latin, the Our Father, qui es in caelis: sanctifecétur nomen tuum; advéniat regnum tuum; fiat volúntas tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra . . raised them up to heaven. They came down to earth with a bump during Communion, however. Father San José approached the line of the waiting faithful and, with the gesture of a worried, flesh-and-blood man, called for the acolyte’s help in supporting the golden ciborium containing the radiant Body of Christ. The communicants were alarmed by his trembling hands; more than once, they feared the hosts would slip from his fingers. They chose to attribute the trembling to the same emotion overpowering them: the plenitude of the singing that had made the Mass an apotheosis of peace. They were on the edge of their seats as they waited for him to finish singing the Prayer after Communion, and when the time finally came to respond and take their leave, all sang Amen as one. Their hearts were audible.

Exhausted — to an extent Tancredo had never witnessed in a celebrant finishing Mass — Reverend San José Matamoros bestowed his shaky blessing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and repaired to the sacristy, almost dragging himself along, he seemed so worn out. In despair, Tancredo followed him. Now Mass really had finished: now the angels round the vaulted ceiling were merely painted, and their eyes were Sabina’s eyes, summoning him: an angel with Sabina’s eyes regarded him from every cloud. It was the earthly caress of the flesh that awaited him — hot, moist. From now on the night belonged to Sabina, he thought, but also to him, with his fears, the desolation of the Meals, the identical days he could already see in front of him.

Mass had finished, but the old ladies of the Neighborhood Civic Association remained rigid in their seats, pillars of the Church, absorbed in mute song, the silence of centuries.

It was as if no one wanted to leave.

The three Lilias were the first to react by running after Matamoros, whom they found already divested of the sacred garments, breathing heavily, seated in the sacristy’s only chair next to the telephone, surrounded by angels and saints, mopping his forehead with a towel. They approached him as if they feared he might not be real, as if they did not believe he existed, and gathered around him, cautiously, as they might around an apparition.

In the silence only the rain could be heard, constant, like an affliction, and the hunchback’s toings and froings, as he carefully folded the priestly vestments and arranged them one on top of another inside a great wooden chest. The light from a single bulb was insufficient, and night swallowed up the corners of the room; the three Lilias’ bodies could not be discerned: vague shapes, they disappeared into the blackness; only their faces hovered, yellow, wrinkled and whiskery, shining as if witnessing wonders.

“God bless you, Father,” one of them said finally. “We had not sung in ages.”

The words melted into the silence; the rain fell harder.

“One must sing,” the Father said. “One must sing.”

With difficulty he turned to look at them. Though he was hoarse, he smiled and said, “Well. Singing is tiring. Sometimes singing is tiring.”

“It must be, Father, because it shows. Your face shows it, your voice suffered.”

It was not clear which of the Lilias had spoken.

“We would like to offer you some refreshment, Father.”

And another, correcting her: “Not us, Father. The parish, the joyful hearts who listened to your Mass.”

San José Matamoros snorted and shook his head. No one knew what he meant by this. Did the flattery displease him perhaps? He went very still, surrounded by plaster angels: one angel more.

One of the Lilias insisted: “Father, the word of God sings out. But we haven’t heard it sung the way you sing it since we were girls.”

And another: “Stay with us. Rest. Of course, if you want to sing some more, we’ll go on praying. .”

And the third: “Until God calls us to Him.”

The Father seemed finally to have understood who they were and smiled broadly.

“Please,” he said, “what I need now is a glass of wine, just a glass of wine, please.”

And, sincerely: “It’s freezing.”

One of the Lilias dared to make a suggestion: “Wouldn’t a little glass of brandy be better?”

And another: “Brandy warms you up more, Father. And helps more with the singing.”

San José’s face lit up.

The three Lilias seemed about to go and get a glass of brandy, all at the same time. Hesitating, they looked at one another. “Who’s going?” one of them asked. In the end they all went, assiduously, as one.

“We don’t want to keep you too long, Father. You need to rest.” Neither Tancredo nor the priest knew where Sabina had appeared from. Maybe she had sprung, gloomy and sharp like her voice, from among the statues of angels and saints that inhabited that corner of the sacristy. She had taken off the blue headscarf; her disordered ash-blonde hair hid her face. They went on listening to her, not daring to interrupt. “If you want to, you can go. We’ll call you a taxi, you won’t get wet. We’re not going to delay you; nobody wants to put you out.”

Sabina’s mouth clapped shut. She appeared to regret her words. Outside, in the world, the rain was easing off.

Tancredo finished putting the vestments away. He wanted to be gone from there, but did not know how to take his leave, escape to his room and stretch out on his bed as if he had just died. On the one hand, he knew Matamoros was drunk, or more than drunk: stunned. He might fall over unconscious at any moment, and Tancredo would have to take charge. On the other hand, the proximity of Sabina was causing him to suffer his terrible fears of being an animal, but a free animal, revelling in the flesh. That fear, the most dreadful of his fears, was now far more dreadful than it was during the Meals, when he did battle with the old people pretending to be dead or, worse still, with the ones who actually were.

“In the kitchen,” Tancredo said, coming to a decision. “We’ll have something to eat in the kitchen, Father. It’s warm in there. It won’t take long.”

“Whatever you wish,” Matamoros replied, his manner conciliatory. He was about to say something decisive, but regarded each of them in turn, his hawklike eyes investigating them, disinterring one by one the days of their lives, their memories, exposing them. Sabina could not withstand that stare; she averted her eyes. Now she looked like a little girl who’d been caught out, blushing. To Tancredo she seemed naked, blushing as though they had surprised her naked, just as he had surprised her once, years before, in the shower, stepping in behind her while Reverend Juan Pablo Almida celebrated Mass with Celeste Machado.