Monsignor Quixote (21 page)

‘Do you know where we are?' Father Quixote asked.

‘More or less,' the Mayor replied unconvincingly.

‘I can't help feeling a little hungry, Sancho.'

‘Your Teresa has given us enough sausage and cheese for a week.'

‘A week?'

‘No hotels for us. No main roads.'

They found a spot high in the mountains of Toledo, a comfortable place for eating, where they could drive off the road and conceal themselves and Rocinante. There was a stream too to chill their bottles as it trickled down to a lake below them which with difficulty the Mayor identified on the map as the Torre de Abraham – ‘Though why they named it after that old scoundrel I wouldn't know.'

‘Why do you call him a scoundrel?'

‘Wasn't he prepared to kill his son? Oh, of course, there was a much worse scoundrel – the one you call God – He actually performed the ugly deed. What an example
He
set, and Stalin killed his spiritual sons in imitation. He very nearly killed Communism along with them just as the Curia has killed the Catholic Church.'

‘Not entirely, Sancho. Here beside you is at least one Catholic in spite of the Curia.'

‘Yes, and here is one Communist who is still alive in spite of the Politburo. We are survivors, you and I, father. Let us drink to that,' and he fetched a bottle from the stream.

‘To two survivors,' Father Quixote said and raised his glass. He had a very healthy thirst, and it always surprised him to think how seldom his ancestor's biographer had spoken of wine. One could hardly count the adventure of the wine skins which the Don had broached in mistake for his enemies. He refilled his glass. ‘It seems to me,' he told the Mayor, ‘that you have more belief in Communism than in the Party.'

‘And I was just going to say almost the same, father, that you seem to have more belief in Catholicism than in Rome.'

‘Belief? Oh, belief. Perhaps you are right, Sancho. But perhaps it's not belief that really matters.'

‘What do you mean, father? I thought . . .'

‘Did the Don really believe in Amadis of Gaul, Roland and all his heroes – or was it only that he believed in the virtues they stood for?'

‘We are getting into dangerous waters, father.'

‘I know, I know. In your company, Sancho, I think more freely than when I am alone. When I am alone I read – I hide myself in my books. In them I can find the faith of better men than myself, and when I find that my belief is growing weak with age like my body, then I tell myself that I must be wrong. My faith tells me I must be wrong – or is it only the faith of those better men? Is it my own faith that speaks to me or the faith of St Francis de Sales? And does it so much matter anyway? Give me some cheese. How wine makes me talk.'

‘Do you know what drew me to you in El Toboso, father? It wasn't that you were the only educated man in the place. I'm not so fond of the educated as all that. Don't talk to me of the intelligentsia or culture. You drew me to you because I thought you were the opposite of myself. A man gets tired of himself, of that face he sees every day when he shaves, and all my friends were in just the same mould as myself. I would go to Party meetings in Ciudad Real when it became safe after Franco was gone, and we called ourselves “comrade” and we were a little afraid of each other because we knew each other as well as each one knew himself. We quoted Marx and Lenin to one another like passwords to prove we could be trusted, and we never spoke of the doubts which came to us on sleepless nights. I was drawn to you because I thought you were a man without doubts. I was drawn to you, I suppose, in a way by envy.'

‘How wrong you were, Sancho. I am riddled by doubts. I am sure of nothing, not even of the existence of God, but doubt is not treachery as you Communists seem to think. Doubt is human. Oh, I want to believe that it is all true – and that want is the only certain thing I feel. I want others to believe too – perhaps some of their belief might rub off on me. I think the baker believes.'

‘That was the belief I thought you had.'

‘Oh no, Sancho, then perhaps I could have burnt my books and lived really alone, knowing that all was true. “Knowing”? How terrible that might have been. Oh well, was it your ancestor or mine who used to say “Patience and shuffle the cards”?'

‘Some sausage, father?'

‘I think today I'll stick to cheese. Sausage is for stronger men.'

‘Perhaps today I'll stick to cheese too.'

‘Shall we open another bottle?'

‘Why not?'

It was over the second bottle as the afternoon advanced that Sancho said, ‘I have something to confess to you, father. Oh, not in the confessional. I'm not asking any forgiveness from that myth of yours or mine up there, only from you.' He brooded over his glass. ‘If I hadn't come to fetch you, what would have happened?'

‘I don't know. I think the bishop believes I am mad. Perhaps they would have tried to put me in an asylum, though I don't think Dr Galván would have agreed to help them. What is the legal position for a man with no relations? Can he be put away against his will? Perhaps the bishop with Father Herrera to help him . . . And then in the background, of course, there is always the archbishop . . . They will never forget that time when I gave a little money to In Vinculis.'

‘My friendship for you began then, though we'd hardly spoken.'

‘It's like learning to say the Mass. In the seminary one learns never to forget. Oh, my goodness, I had quite forgotten . . .'

‘What?'

‘The bishop left a letter for me.' Father Quixote drew it from his pocket and turned it over and over.

‘Go on, man. Open it. It's not a death warrant.'

‘How do you know?'

‘The days of Torquemada are over.'

‘As long as there is a Church there will always be little Torquemadas. Give me another glass of wine.' He drank it slowly to delay the moment of truth.

Sancho took the letter from him and opened it. He said, ‘It's short enough anyway. What does
Suspensión a Divinis
mean?'

‘As I thought, it's the sentence of death,' Father Quixote said. ‘Give me the letter.' He put his glass down unfinished. ‘I'm not afraid any longer. After death there's nothing more they can do. There remains only the mercy of God.' He read the letter aloud.

‘“My dear Monsignor, it was a great grief to me to hear you confirm the truth of the accusations which I had felt almost sure must have been due to misunderstanding, exaggeration or malice.” What a hypocrite! Oh well, I suppose hypocrisy in a bishop is almost necessary and would be considered by Father Heribert Jone a very venial sin. “All the same, under the circumstances I am ready to think that your exchange of clothes with your Communist companion was not a symbolic act of defiance towards the Holy Father but was due to some severe mental disturbance, which also induced you to help a felon to escape and to visit without shame in your purple
pechera
as a monsignor a disgusting and pornographic film clearly denoted with an ‘S' to mark its true character. I have discussed your case with Dr Galván who agrees with me that a long rest is indicated and I shall be writing to the Archbishop. In the meanwhile I find it my duty to announce to you a
Suspensión a Divinis
.”'

‘What does that sentence of death mean exactly?'

‘It means I mustn't say the Mass – not in public, not even in private. But in the privacy of my room I shall say it, for I am innocent. I must hear no confessions either – except in an extreme emergency. I remain a priest, but a priest only to myself. A useless priest forbidden to serve others. I'm glad you came to fetch me. How could I have borne that sort of life in El Toboso?'

‘You could appeal to Rome. You are a monsignor.'

‘Even a monsignor can be lost in those dusty Curia files.'

‘I told you I had something to confess, father. I nearly didn't come.' It was the Mayor now who drank to give himself the courage to speak. ‘When I found you gone – there were two Americans nearby who saw what happened, they thought you were dead but I knew better – I thought, “I'll borrow Rocinante to make for Portugal.” I have good friends in the Party there and I thought I would stay a while until all the fuss was over.'

‘But you didn't go.'

‘I drove to Ponferrada and there I took the main road to Orense. On my map there was a side road which I meant to take, for it was less than sixty kilometres from there to the frontier.' He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Oh well, I got to the side road and I turned and I drove back to Valladolid and I asked my comrade in the garage to paint the car and change the number again.'

‘But why didn't you go on?'

‘I looked at your damn purple socks and your bib and your new shoes which we had bought in León, and I remembered suddenly the way you had blown up that balloon.'

‘They seem insufficient reasons.'

‘They were sufficient for me.'

‘I'm glad you came, Sancho. I feel safe here with you and with Rocinante, safer than back there with Father Herrera. El Toboso is no longer home to me and I have no other, except here on this spot of ground with you.'

‘We've got to find you another home, father, but where?'

‘Somewhere quiet where Rocinante and I can rest for a while.'

‘And where the Guardia and the bishop won't find you.'

‘There was that Trappist monastery you spoke of in Galicia . . . But
you
wouldn't feel at home there, Sancho.'

‘I could leave you with them and hire a car in Orense to take me across the border.'

‘I don't want our travels to end. Not before death, Sancho. My ancestor died in his bed. Perhaps he would have lived longer if he had stayed on the road. I'm not ready for death yet, Sancho.'

‘I'm worrying about the Guardia's computers. Rocinante is pretty well disguised, but at the frontier they may be looking out for the two of us.'

‘Like it or not, Sancho, I think you will have to stay for a week or two with the Trappists.'

‘The food will be bad.'

‘And the wine too perhaps.'

‘We had better stock up with some Galician wine on the road. The manchegan is nearly finished.'

III

HOW MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE

HAD HIS LAST ADVENTURE

AMONG THE MEXICANS

1

They slept out for three nights, making their way with caution by little-frequented roads, from the mountains of Toledo, over the Sierra of Guadalupe, where Rocinante found it a strain when she climbed to over eight hundred metres only to find a yet greater strain when they reached the Sierra de Gredos, where the road wound up to over fifteen hundred metres, for they avoided Salamanca and headed for the Duero river which separated them from the safety of Portugal. It was a very slow progress which they made through the mountains, but the Mayor preferred the mountains to the plains of Castile because of the long perspectives where an official jeep could be seen from far away and the villages were too small to contain a Guardia post. A sinuous progress it was on third-class roads, for they avoided even the dangerous second-class yellow ones on the map. As for the great red roads, these they banned completely.

It was always cold when the dark fell and they were glad to substitute whisky for wine to drink with the cheese and sausage. They slept afterwards with difficulty curled up in the car. When at last they were forced to come down into the plain the Mayor looked with longing at a signpost which pointed to Portugal. ‘If you only had a passport,' he said, ‘we would make for Bragança. I prefer my comrades there to the Spanish ones. Cunhal is a better man than Carrillo.'

‘I thought Carrillo was a good man as Communists go.'

‘You can't trust a Euro-Communist.'

‘Surely you are not a Stalinist, Sancho?'

‘I'm not a Stalinist, but at least you know where you are with them. They are not Jesuits. They don't turn with the wind. If they are cruel, they are cruel also to themselves. When you come to the end of the longest road of all you have to lie down and take a rest – a rest from arguments and theories and fashions. You can say, “I don't believe but I accept,” and you fall into silence like the Trappists do. The Trappists are the Stalinists of the Church.'

‘Then you would have made a good Trappist, Sancho.'

‘Perhaps, though I don't like getting up early in the morning.'

After they had crossed into Galicia they halted at a village so that the Mayor could inquire where there was a vineyard at which they could buy good wine, for they were down to the last bottles of manchegan, and the Mayor distrusted all wine with labels. He was away for a full ten minutes and he had a sombre air when he returned, so that Father Quixote asked with anxiety, ‘Bad news?'

‘Oh, I have an address,' he said and he described the route they must follow, and for the next half an hour he said nothing, indicating the turnings to take with his hand, but his silence was so heavily loaded that Father Quixote insisted on piercing through it. ‘You are worried,' he said. ‘Is it about the Guardia?'

‘Oh, the Guardia,' the Mayor exclaimed. ‘We can deal with the Guardia. Haven't we dealt with them well enough near Avila and on the road to León? I spit on the Guardia.'

‘Then what's upsetting you?'

‘I don't like anything that I cannot understand.'

‘And what's that?'

‘These ignorant villagers and their atrocious accents.'

‘They are Galicians, Sancho.'