Evelio Rosero - Good Offices

Then one of them — the small one again — offered him a cup of coffee. The others were helping Matamoros dress, making him splendid in immaculate white and blue. With coffee still on his lips, Tancredo followed behind the priest, passed into the church and was pained by the sight of the altar, with a feeling of regret close to tears. But soon the priest’s voice helped him forget, just as the Lilias and all the grandmothers of the Neighborhood Civic Association forgot themselves when they heard the sung Our Father, the Blessing, motionless, their hearts as one, their eyes fixed on the little Father, who again retired as if he had just fought the battle of his life. Completely drained, bent double, Matamoros — as he had done the day before — sat down in the sacristy’s only chair, next to the telephone. “One of these days my heart is going to break,” he said, and asked Tancredo for a whisky, a whisky, just like that, in the middle of the sacristy, like being in the bar of one of the brothels Tancredo used to visit in search of diners. Well then: a whisky was conjured up for him, in a tall glass, clinking with ice cubes, immediately, by the three Lilias.

“You are blessed, Father,” they said.

In the garden, seated at the edge of the fountain, freckled by the shade of the willow trees, under a cloudless sky and resting on a Friday, that Friday, the first Friday of their lives without cooking, sunk in the tranquil reverie of 11:00 in the morning, the Lilias heard Matamoros singing a bolero, sitting just as they were, beside them, at peace. Nearby, unnoticed by anyone, lurking in corners, leaning against the willows, floating, the seven or nine old ladies of the Neighborhood Civic Association were listening to the sung parable. Tancredo wondered, suddenly discovering that throng of spellbound statues scattered beatifically all around, when exactly the good ladies had entered the presbytery, and had they come through the church? The sacristy? Without asking permission, as if in their own homes? Almost midday, the sun was warming the walls, the time of the Family Meal was approaching, and the Lilias did not go near the kitchen. The adoring old women watched Matamoros drink, heard Matamoros sing, forgetting, or seeming to forget, that Juan Pablo Almida, their parish priest, their benefactor, was asleep and had to be woken up. “I must wake the Father,” Tancredo said to himself in one corner of the garden, but remained still, fixated by the song, just as hypnotized as the adoring women, or more so.

“We should wake Father Almida,” Sabina said suddenly, beside him, dressed in gray with a gray headscarf, her cold hand lightly touching him. “We have to warn him it’s almost midday,” she insisted, genuinely startled. “Time for the Family Meal, and Almida and my godfather are still sleeping.”

Tancredo did not reply. Sabina’s presence froze him, her hand in his.

“But nobody here seems to remember them,” Sabina went on. Her marvelling gaze roamed over the women’s entranced faces, as if she did not recognize them. “It’s unbelievable,” she said. “All this for the voice of a drunk.” She blushed. “And to think he almost got his talons into me last night.” She smiled, transfixed. “It’s a miracle in reverse.” She was observing Matamoros with the utmost curiosity; did she revere him too? “That Father is on the point of collapse.” She was amazed by him. “He’s like a party at dawn.” And, suddenly anxious: “Nobody seems to realize.”

Sabina could stand it no longer. She took a step forward, bit her lip.

“Father Almida won’t be long,” she yelled at the Lilias, still clutching Tancredo’s hand. “Doesn’t anybody care?” The song was silenced. Matamoros wiped the sweat from his forehead, rubbed his eyes; was he going to fall asleep? He seemed to sleep whenever it suited him, or had he really sung too much? Whatever the case, the drunken Lilias and the rest of the adoring women froze; time seemed to stand still.

“Father Almida will soon wake up,” a Lilia replied evenly. “Friday’s his favorite day; he’s not going to miss it.” Stooping, seated on the edge of the fountain, smiling, almost a girl leaning over the water, she was lit by the rays of the sun. Sabina loathed her.

Then, over and above everything else, came Matamoros’s labored voice.

“We can sing the Te Deum ,” he said, his tone sorrowful but self-righteous. “We can repeat Francis Xavier’s Act of Contrition, chant a Trisagion to the Holy Trinity, offer up devotions to the Sacred Heart, make the Stations of the Cross together: we’ll go to the third Station, when Jesus stumbles for the first time, and maybe we’ll sing better, or fall asleep; we’ll go to the sixth Station, when Veronica wipes His face, and maybe we’ll be happy, or unhappy, and unhappier still at the seventh, when Jesus falls for the second time, and at the twelfth we’ll die with Jesus dying on the cross, and then, to give thanks for all His suffering, we’ll venerate the five Wounds of Christ, we’ll sing to the Wound on the left foot, the Wound on the right foot, the Wound on the left hand, the Wound on the right hand, the Wound in His side, and we’ll follow on with a prayer to Jesus scourged at the column, Jesus crowned with thorns, and utter the cries of the blessed souls in Purgatory, and then a response, and we will weep for misery.”

There was an emphatic silence from the sky.

“Do we want to weep?” the Father asked, getting to his feet. And answered himself immediately: “Never. No more suffering, ever. We don’t want to suffer any more.”

Just as immediately, he sat down or rather slumped to the ground. He seemed to expire from the effort.

“Rest, Father,” the Lilias said, surrounding him.

Only one of the women appeared to take fright at San José’s words. Not only did her expression show alarm, her white, wrinkled hand at her brow, but she fainted. There was a commotion of skirts around her. Finally they saw her come to, recover, eyelids fluttering.

“My God,” she said, “but I’m fine. The one who needs help is Father San José, bless him.”

Faced with this fainting fit and its denouement, Tancredo raised his eyes in resignation. He saw the church’s golden dome, ever far off, ever near. And, without intending to, he glanced up at the door of Father Almida’s room, on the first floor, which gave onto the garden. The door was open. He could see it was open, from the garden. He immediately headed for the steps, Sabina behind him. They ran up together. It was true: the door was ajar.

They approached on tiptoe. “Father Almida?” The lowered blind created a sort of night, a painful gloom. They leaned over his face. His mouth was set, rigid, twisted, desperate, converted into a silent scream. A slick of green vomit stained the feather pillow.

Sabina ran next door to Machado’s room. A few seconds later her scream was heard, short, stifled.

They met in the passage.

It was as if Sabina were levitating, unrecognizable, eyes bright, because, still in the prism of disbelief, she was smiling. Smiling and clasping her hands together. Now she fixed her hope-filled eyes on the sky.

At that point, the Lilias arrived inconveniently. It was as though they were confronting them on the first floor of the presbytery, in the passage green with creepers, in the presence of the other women waiting in the garden. Mute and flushed, the Lilias peered in through the wide-open doors. Then one of their voices could be heard.

“If they don’t wake up,” she said, as if issuing an order, “we’ll have to cry bitterly and pray for the rest of our lives. This is how they arrived from Don Justiniano’s house. This is how God brought them back. We didn’t even notice, God forgive us. We’ll have to cry and pray the rest of our lives.”