The Priest (9 page)

He almost didn’t hear the woman yelling at
him to get going, nor he did he seem to realize that she had thrown
a rag that hit him in the face. His legs were trembling, but he
felt better than he had ever felt. He bent to pick up the rag and
acting out of sheer habit, he cleaned himself. All of his senses
were focused on basking in the sunlight and breathing in the air
that smelled of the flowers and trees he had never seen.
This is
what outside looks like.
A smile appeared on his face before he
could hide his joy from the guard.

“What’s up with you? The electricity fried
your brain?” the woman asked under her breath.

“We have to move, otherwise we’ll never
reach Tarin before tonight,” the guard behind the wall called with
an annoyed tone.

Please, please let me stay here.
Mauricio’s eyes filled with angry tears. Another fast-running dot
crossed the field.
I’ll never know what that is.

“Almost done here. Don’t complain; it’s your
fault for not having shut off the collars before leaving the
Temple.”

“Your fault, you mean. I drive; you take
care of the slaves.”

Please, I’m not done yet. I haven’t had
enough time outside. I need more. I need to know what those things
are that are running so fast.

“Whatever.” The guard, satisfied by
Mauricio’s cleaning, tied his hands together, nudged her gun
against his shoulder blades, commanded him to get inside the van,
and pushed the button to roll down the shutter again.

Once the fresh air was replaced by the aroma
of the human bodies, Mauricio moaned loudly.
I’m going to
suffocate; this place, it’s too small. I can’t breathe.

“Don’t get sick on me again, or I’ll forget
that Tarin is waiting for three slaves,” the guard menaced, but
Mauricio wasn’t listening to her anymore.

The trip from the Temple to Tarin took the
whole day. Mauricio and the other two men were allowed to relieve
themselves twice. When the guard stopped the van to take a break,
Mauricio couldn’t believe that she was going to let him out
again.

I am out.
He wanted to laugh and cry
at the same time. Overloads of contrasting emotions were fighting
to dominate one another. Laughing won. He put his feet down
gingerly, as if by touching the red soil, it would shatter and
disappear.
I wonder what it feels like to walk with my bare feet
on it.
He looked around to see if the women were checking on
him.

“You, do what you’re supposed to,” the
driver warned him, whip in hand.

I hate you.
Mauricio sighed and
limited himself to getting down on his knees and scooping some red
dirt in his hands.
It disappears between my fingers, like water,
but it’s different.
He looked at his hands, colored by the
remaining dust, and brought them closer to his nose.
Oh…
He
sneezed before finishing his thought. A melodic noise echoed in the
crisp air and he raised his head to follow a small, dark-blue and
brown body flying toward a tree. The elation he had felt a moment
earlier was replaced by an emotion that left him looking for air.
“A bird singing… this is what a bird looks like. I’ve never thought
that something so small could produce such sounds.” His eyes filled
with tears. Something else caught his attention.
What are you? A
bug?
He crouched to take a closer look at a blade of grass that
was arched down by something black and round. A whole symphony of
chirping and clicking started a few seconds later and he smiled in
recognition.
Yes, you and your friends sound like the bugs
outside my cell.

“How long do we have to stay here?” the
driver asked, already climbing inside the van.

“Inside, now,” the guard ordered. “What’s so
funny, idiot?” She gave Mauricio a sharp look.

He waited a moment longer outside, and when
she turned to insult the other men, he grabbed a fallen leaf from
the ground and put it in his pocket.

The third time the van stopped, it was late
in the afternoon and the sun was a golden disk hovering in the
sky.

This is a sunset. No wonder the field
workers talk so much about it.
Mauricio stared at the sight,
eyes bright and mouth dangling open. “Have you ever seen anything
like that before?” he asked the two men squatting behind a short
bush. They looked at each other and then back at him as if he was
mad. “Look at the colors! Did you know that the reds and the
yellows could mix together? And the blue of the sky… Look how it’s
changing before our eyes,” he continued, incapable of stopping. He
needed to share his emotions with someone else.
Rosie, I wish
you were here with me, under this sky bleeding red and orange and
yellow.

“Idiot, stop talking; you aren’t here to
make conversation,” the guard reminded him.

Without warning, the whip made contact with
his back and he fell on all fours to the ground. He felt hard
objects under his hands and knees and when he lifted himself, he
noticed that he had landed on a sea of multicolored pebbles.

“Time to go,” the driver called.

He collected one of the pebbles and looked
as it changed colors when moved this way and that under the
sunlight.

“Are you deaf?” the guard asked him.

Mauricio quickly hid the pebble in his
closed hand and took one final breath. The wind played with the
brunches of a tall, weeping tree and a balmy scent penetrated
inside his nose and opened his lungs. He breathed slowly and let
the fragrance fill him, leaving him clean and refreshed. When he
was back inside the stuffy passenger compartment of the van, he
closed his eyes and touched the pebble and the leaf, imagining that
he was still out there with the birds and the bugs.

Several hours later, when Mauricio’s body
had reached its limit, the guard announced their arrival. The van
stopped and she went to open the shutter. It was dark outside, but
Mauricio could make out the silhouette of a building. It was big
and tall and towered over the short vegetation surrounding the
place. He looked at it forebodingly. Mauricio hoped the guard would
let him find the privacy of a bush before doing anything else.
Apparently, letting the slaves use the latrine wasn’t high on the
list of the guard’s priorities any longer.

“You’re officially out of my hair now,” she
said, clearly relieved when a tall door opened, revealing a light
inside the building. She saw another guard walking briskly toward
them and went to meet her. The two women exchanged greetings that
betrayed the fact that they were more than simply acquainted and
then remembered, several minutes later, that there was human cargo
to take care of.

The inside of the building wasn’t as
majestic as the outside. The guards walked them past two hallways,
then down a flight of stairs that ended at a large chamber lit by
sconces. There, Mauricio and the two slaves were separated. The two
men were taken into custody by the new guard, and Mauricio was led
just outside the chamber and left to wait in a small room with a
disproportionately tall ceiling and four circular holes at
shoulder’s height. The room was drafty as a result of the small
windows, but Mauricio didn’t mind the cold. It kept him sharp after
so many hours of dozing on and off. It also helped that the room
had a small toilet hidden behind a screen. After having relieved
himself, Mauricio sat on the floor and started playing with his two
new treasures; he rolled the pebble with his fingers and gently
traced the contours of the leaf. After a while, it became clear
that nobody was coming for him. This room was his new cell. He took
a better look at it and he didn’t like what he saw. The draft
wasn’t pleasant anymore. Mauricio was cold and hungry by the time
someone remembered that he was there.

“Let’s get to work.” A guard came to pick
him up.

At least this one is happy
, Mauricio
thought. In twenty-two years, he had been passed around by so many
guards that he couldn’t recognize one face from the other. But this
one was different; she looked happy.

“Have you ever worked in the fields?” the
guard asked.

Mauricio turned his head sideways, looking
for the person she was talking to.

“So, have you?” the guard, who didn’t look
old, but had a long white braid that contrasted with her dark eyes,
asked again.

Mauricio turned his head one more time, but
the guard’s gaze didn’t go past him.

“Do you still have your tongue?”

Mauricio had to admit that she wasn’t
hideous, and that she hadn’t touched him yet, although she was
sporting a whip and a gun, just like every other guard he had
met.

“I’ve never worked in the fields,” he said,
looking nervously at the woman. He hoped that she wasn’t the type
who got a kick out of getting slaves in trouble. He had met
that
guard before many times. It hadn’t been pleasant at
all.

“You were a semental, right?” she asked,
looking at him now.

Mauricio felt her eyes on him and didn’t
know what to think. Guards normally didn’t look directly at slaves
or talk to them. “Yes.” He thought it better to keep his answer
simple.

“You’ve never been outside then,” she
stated. “It’s hard work outside, but you’ll probably like the
change of venue.” The guard showed him the way.

Mauricio felt confused by the sad look she
gave him after the last sentence. He didn’t know if he was supposed
to reply to her words or not. So he decided to wait and see what
was required of him.

“Who gave you your name? Mauricio is a
unique name for a slave,” the guard asked, still looking at
him.

How do you know my name? And why do you
care?
“My father gave me this name when I was five or six.”
Mauricio found that he wasn’t comfortable with the guard’s eyes
focused on him. He wasn’t used to it. It completely ruined all his
efforts of being inconspicuous.

“You can call me Guen, by the way.” The
guard smiled at him.

What did she just say?
Mauricio
couldn’t be more surprised by the last bit of conversation.
There is something completely wrong about this. A guard is
talking to me, asking personal questions. Maybe I’m still
sleeping.
His level of uneasiness was rapidly growing
uncomfortable.
I hope she leaves me alone.
He focused on the
act of walking. She didn’t say anything else, and Mauricio had the
time to look at his surroundings. They remained on the same floor,
which was one lower than the entry level.
I don’t like it
here.
This place is scarier in the light of day than it was
last night.
The ceiling is too high, the tiled floor
radiates cold, and the draft is chilling my bones
. He followed
the woman from one side of the building to the other in blessed
silence.
This hallway goes forever and it’s so dark without
windows.
Finally, Guen slowed down and stopped before a big
door with an equally big window at its center that let in white
light.
Heavens bless me; it looks bright out there.
Mauricio
peeked at the view, but he had to avert his eyes for a moment.

“Here we are. Let me recalibrate your collar
first so that you can get out, and then I’ll leave you in the
capable hands of your field boss. See you later tonight.” A moment
later, Guen made a small gesture of salute with one hand to her
head, opened the door for him, held it until he walked through and
then turned away.

Mauricio was too shocked to say anything at
all and couldn’t shrug the feeling that there was something ominous
going on. He rubbed his eyes at the onslaught of natural light.

“I know, it’s hard to get used to the fact
that there are nice women,” a male voice intruded on Mauricio’s
thoughts. He turned to his right and was face-to-face with a slave
whose age he couldn’t tell. The man was taller than Mauricio,
strongly built, with olive skin and dark hair sprinkled with
silver. His eyes were the most distinctive feature of his whole
face: steel gray, speckled with green.

“I’m Arias, your field boss. Welcome to
Tarin.” The man offered Mauricio his outstretched hand and a warm
smile.

“I’m Mauricio.” He held the other man’s hand
reluctantly, intimidated by his field boss.

“Follow me to the cafeteria where you can
have something to eat and drink,” Arias said while walking toward a
low building on their right. “By the way, your collar is on another
frequency, but it still works outside. And, I can assure you first
hand, it stings.” The man’s hand went automatically to his
collar.

“I know, ‘Don’t do anything stupid or else.’
Don’t worry; I’m not the kind of person who does stupid things.”
Mauricio waved his hand in the air. He was frustrated and his tone
reflected his sentiment.

“I wasn’t worried,” Arias said, seemingly
amused by Mauricio’s outburst.

“I didn’t sleep, and I didn’t eat. My new
accommodation is cold and drafty. The guard who escorted me here,
Guen, is nice to me.”

“I already told you. It takes some time to
adjust to Guen.” Arias was laughing with mirth. “Regarding the lack
of sleep, you will just have to resist until tonight, but at least
you get to eat now.”

“Can you do anything about the cell?”
Mauricio asked, repressing a smile.

“No, unfortunately, I have no jurisdiction
on the accommodations. I can make your life easier while you are
here, though.” Arias gave a sideways look at Mauricio. They had
reached their destination.

“While I am here? I am not supposed to stay
here until I die?” Mauricio had heard the slight change of tone
when Arias had said it.

“That is what I meant,” Arias answered,
holding the door open for Mauricio. Inside the cafeteria, there
were other men, and it took some time to introduce Mauricio to the
others.