Never an Empire (8 page)

These thoughts had run through his head during the morning Mass as he mumbled the Latin and mechanically went through the necessary liturgical gestures and motions. They had continued to run through his head at breakfast. They persisted as he had listened, unhearing, to the Confessions of his parishioners and continued as he made his visits. Through the morning he became increasingly annoyed and impatient and wanted to get back to the house and announce that the young woman could stay until she found somewhere suitable to move to. That she was welcome under his roof for as long as necessary. He was sure that that was his decision, but not at all sure that it was the right one. If only he could find some way, some theological avenue of escape, some formula that turned the sin from mortal to venial, but a morning's effort had produced nothing and he could hardly resort to prayer for assistance. Then a thought struck him, an interesting one he wished to pursue. This morning the young woman had not come to Confession. Did that mean that she considered their love-making no longer a sin and, if so, what was her reason?

Back in his house with his lunch on the table before him and Maria standing over him he announced his decision.

‘I have made up my mind about the young woman.'

‘Carmen.'

‘What?'

‘She has a name: Carmen Jacinta.'

‘Oh, I see. Well, all the same, I have decided.'

‘There is no need. She has gone.'

Father Enrique dropped the knife he was holding. It bounced off the table and fell to the floor.

‘What?'

Maria bent down and picked up the knife.

‘I will get you a clean one.'

‘Wait, forget the knife.'

‘But it has been on the floor.'

‘Damn the floor and damn the knife, what do you mean she has gone?'

If this sudden outburst of bad language shocked or surprised Maria she showed no sign of it.

‘What I said. She ate some breakfast and left.'

‘You sent her away? You sent her away before I had made any decision.'

‘No.'

‘Then why did she go?'

‘Because she wanted to go back to her village so she needed to start early. It isn't safe for a woman travelling alone at the best of times but if she left it too late she would have to be on the road as the evening came on and that would be much worse. In the morning the road will have travellers: she can join someone and not have to walk all the way alone.'

The news sank in.

‘I see.'

‘She has family there. She has no one here and what work could she do? She has no skills and she didn't look too strong to me.' She paused for a moment absently wiping the blade of the knife with her apron. ‘Who would want such a woman?'

The question and the manner of asking it caused Father Enrique, whose head had bowed as her listened to Maria's awful news, to look up at her. At once he could see that she knew.

‘I would.'

She stood for a moment. Then looked at the knife.

‘I will get you a clean one before your food gets too cold.'

Father Enrique watched her back as she left him. He felt devastated. The young woman was gone just as he had learned her name: Carmen. Would he ever see her again? He felt hot tears forming in his eyes and he wiped them away with the back of the hand which still held his fork.

Maria returned, placed a clean knife beside his plate and stood as he slowly picked up the knife and tried to begin eating. But his appetite was gone. He put the knife and fork on his plate, pushed it away and turned to Maria. There were tears on his cheeks.

Maria looked down at him.

‘You think you love her?'

‘I do love her.'

‘Why? Because you got inside her? Because you lay on top of her and pumped her? Because you enjoyed having her?'

He looked down at the plate, humiliated by the coarseness of the questions and the tone. Confronted by Maria's brutal but nonetheless accurate description of how he felt any thought of seminary excuses fell away from him.

‘It was a sin, but I couldn't help myself.'

Maria reached down and picked up the plate.

‘And it's a sin to waste good food with so many hungry mouths about, but you don't seem too worried about that.'

He tried to pull himself together. She was only the housekeeper. Whatever had happened he was still the priest.

‘And she is married so for her it is even a worse sin.'

‘How do you know she's married?'

‘Because she …' but he managed just in time to remember that the seal of the Confessional could not be broken. What was said in Confession was between the sinner, the priest, and God. ‘I know, that is enough.'

‘Well, so what? She came to you. You didn't force her. If it doesn't bother her it shouldn't bother you. Being married is her affair.'

‘But it's still a sin, a terrible sin, for me and her.'

‘So forget her and let the sin take care of itself.'

He looked up at her with an almost childish appeal in his eyes.

‘I can't, and I don't want to, even though it's wrong, even though it's a mortal sin I …'

Maria put the plate down with a clatter spilling the knife and fork onto the table.

‘Enough of that; that's priest's talk. Start thinking and talking like a man. You want her, very well, she's already shown she's willing, go after her and bring her back.'

The idea, when said out loud like that, seemed almost possible.

‘But what would people say if I brought a woman into my house?'

She gave a short, sharp laugh.

‘They all know there is a woman in your house.'

‘They know about her, about us? Already?

‘I am in your house and even if you haven't noticed it I'm a woman.'

‘But you don't count. You are my housekeeper.'

Maria laughed.

‘And priests don't ever share a bed with their housekeeper?'

He was as shocked as he was surprised.

‘Is that what people think? But they can't: you're old enough to be my mother.'

Maria laughed again, but this time it was the laughter of derision.

‘Yes, old enough, but that would make no difference if you needed a woman. When Carmen came to your bed you discovered a man's cock can get bigger than his brain. That was something new and you liked it, but now you'll also find it isn't so easy for a man to do without it. It's your choice: sex with me and no tongues will wag or bring her back, have sex with her, and let them say what they will.'

Father Enrique was appalled. Take Maria into his bed and do with her what he had done with Carmen. It didn't bear thinking about, not even for a second.

‘That is a dreadful thing to suggest, Maria, a dreadful and deeply sinful thing.'

‘Oh, so you're a priest again, are you? Stopped being a weak man blubbering because he can't have his way with a pretty woman? Well, I'll tell you something, priest, it was the Church that ordained you and made you what you are and that same Church told you that a priest had to play the eunuch and couldn't have a woman, not any woman. Well, if it's a sin the Church can have its sin, but before the Church made you a priest God made you a man and God made women for men and men for women. That's God's way even if it isn't the Church's, so now you have to choose, sleep with Carmen and think of it like a priest as a sin, or sleep with her and think of it like a man, something from God, his gift to all men and women.'

And she took up the knife and fork, put them on the plate, and left him to his thoughts.

Father Enrique had been a bright student, but he had never come up against such a proposition as Maria had put before him nor, he knew, could he ever have come up with it. He was impressed. She had put it so succinctly, so clearly, and so compellingly. He wiped the last tears from his eyes and thought about it. It was what he had been struggling to find for himself all morning. By day he could still be a priest, a good and holy priest, and by night he could be a man, a good and loving man. He stood up and went to the kitchen.

‘Maria?'

‘Yes, Father?'

‘If I were to consider what you suggest.'

He paused.

‘Yes, Father?'

‘But to bring her back would cause scandal?'

‘Perhaps. But not necessarily.'

‘No?'

‘Something might be arranged.'

‘Yes?'

‘I think so.'

‘You think so?'

‘Yes, Father, I think so.'

‘Then I will leave the whole matter in your hands.'

‘Of course, Father.'

He felt better, happy, Maria would deal with it. And he felt hungry. He had hardly touched his meal.

‘Oh, and don't throw away that food. Re-heat it. I'm hungry and it is as you say, it would be a sin to waste it.'

‘Of course, Father.'

Chapter Ten

The message that he was coming to the village on a pastoral visit had been sent only three days in advance of his arrival. It was an incredibly short time, almost unheard of for a pastoral visit and impossibly short notice to arrange a proper welcome for such an important person as a priest. However, whatever could be done in such a short time had been done, but all the people of the village, from the highest to the lowest, knew it was but a poor showing. The head man and his family felt it most, of course, as they would be the village's public face during the welcome and at subsequent events. Despite everything, however, the news that the saintly young priest from San Juan Bautista would come and stay with them created a festival atmosphere and everyone had done their best. Great bunches of wild flowers, perversely prolific in their poor soil, had been collected and somehow flags had been manufactured. In every other way they could think of the people who had decorated the open space in the centre of the village where all the ceremonies would take place. Father Enrique's predecessor had been an elderly and somewhat infirm man, retired to San Juan by the bishop and told to do as little as he wished. He could not have made the journey even if he had wanted to, which he didn't, so it had been many, many long years since a priest had visited and stayed at their village: more than most could remember. They blessed God that they had lived to see such an event.

Father Enrique came on horseback accompanied by his housekeeper, to look after his domestic arrangements, and his sacristan, who would assist him in his religious duties. The housekeeper and the sacristan rode mules, each leading another mule, both heavily laden. It had been agreed that the baggage be limited to the bare essentials and be carried by a single pack mule. But, even though both housekeeper and sacristan insisted that they were only taking the very least they needed to carry out their various duties, in the end a second mule was added to the party.

To the rear, following Father Enrique, his housekeeper, sacristan, and pack mules were two uniformed men on horseback: armed police officers provided as a guard against attack. No one seriously expected that a priest might be attacked on the road but the chief of police in San Juan had insisted, claiming that Macario Sakay's bandits operated not so very far away in the mountains and would waylay anyone they came across, priest or not. It was, of course, no more than a propaganda exercise and everyone knew it. General Macario Sakay's forces were as loyal to the Catholic Church as everyone else but the chief of police was keen to show his superiors in Manila, and through them, the American civil governor, that he was suitably active in hunting down Sakay's forces and just as busy convincing the people that Sakay and his men were bandits not freedom fighters.

Once away from the town and the eyes of their superior the policemen made no attempt to hide their annoyance at having to leave their own comfortable station and go to some God-forsaken village to spend several nights sleeping on dirt floors for no good reason other than their chief wanting to make a show. They followed Father Enrique sullenly with their rifles slung over their shoulders and never once bothering to look out for any possibility of an attack which they knew, like everyone else, would never come.

When the party approached the village the police unslung their rifles, moved to the front of the group, and took charge. It was not that they were in the least bit interested in trying to convince the villagers that they were doing the job allocated them by their chief: they were far more interested in stamping their own personal authority on the people. They knew very well that police, coming for whatever reason, would be resented and if they once showed any weakness they would be treated as unwanted intruders or worse with the inevitable consequences for their food and lodging.

So it was that Father Enrique's little party was led smartly into the village centre by the uniformed men where they found the village gathered. The people had been patiently waiting for over two hours and as the party came to a halt the head man came forward, took off his hat, bowed, and waited. Father Enrique, unused to riding and uncomfortable from his journey dismounted with difficulty and stood for a moment, stiff, and, in certain places, quite sore. He was unprepared, therefore, when the head man stepped forward, took his hand, kissed it, and then stood back.

Father Enrique was embarrassed and, had he anticipated the action, would have prevented it. To kiss the hand, or more accurately, the Episcopal ring worn on the finger of the hand, was a mark of respect shown to bishops and above, not to humble parish priests but, once it was done, Father Enrique felt rather pleased that it had happened. The head man then led Father Enrique to a waiting group and introduced him. His wife and three children all followed their father's example and kissed his hand which Father Enrique allowed as he had decided that these were simple people, uneducated in the ways of Mother Church. To them he must seem as important as the bishop had been when he visited San Juan. He went on to be introduced to several other important men of the village and their families. All of them followed the head man and his family's example and Father Enrique graciously but humbly allowed himself to submit.