Monsignor Quixote

by Graham Greene

  ‘And squanders his inheritance in riotous living,’ Father Quixote interrupted.

  ‘Ah, that is the official version. My version is that he was so disgusted by the bourgeois world in which he had been brought up that he got rid of his wealth in the quickest way possible – perhaps he even gave it away and in a Tolstoyian gesture he became a peasant.’

  ‘But he came home.’

  ‘Yes, his courage failed him. He felt very alone on that pig farm. There was no branch of the Party to which he could look for help. Das Kapital had not yet been written, so he was unable to situate himself in the class struggle. Is it any wonder that he wavered for a time, poor boy?’

  ‘Only for a time? How do you make that out?’

  ‘The story in your version is cut short rather abruptly, isn’t it? By the ecclesiastical censors undoubtedly, even perhaps by Matthew, the tax collector. Oh, he is welcomed home, that’s true enough, a fatted calf is served, he is probably happy for a few days, but then he feels again the same oppressive atmosphere of bourgeois materialism that drove him from home. His father tries to express his love, but the furniture is still hideous, false Louis Quinze or whatever was the equivalent in those days, the same pictures of good living are on the walls, he is shocked more than ever by the servility of the servants and the luxury of the food, and he begins to remember the companionship he found in the poverty of the pig farm.’

  ‘I thought you said there was no Party branch and that he felt very alone.’

  ‘Yes, I exaggerated. He did have one friend, and he remembered the words of this old bearded peasant who had helped him carry the swill to the pigs, he began to brood on them – the words, I mean, not the pigs – back in the luxurious bed in which his bones yearned for the hard earth of his hut on the farm. After all, three thousand camels might well be enough to revolt a sensitive man.’

  ‘You have a wonderful imagination, Sancho, even when you are sober. What on earth did the old peasant say?’

  ‘He told him that every state in which private ownership of the land and means of production exists, in which capital dominates, however democratic it may claim to be, is a capitalist state, a machine invented and used by the capitalists to keep the working class in subjection.’

  ‘Your story begins to sound almost as dull as my breviary.’

  ‘Dull? Do you call that dull? I’m quoting Lenin himself. Don’t you see that the first idea of the class struggle is being lodged by that old peasant (I see him with a beard and whiskers like Karl Marx’s) in the mind of the Prodigal Son?’

  ‘And what does he do?’

  ‘After a week of disillusion he leaves home at dawn (a red dawn) to find again the pig farm and the old bearded peasant, determined now to play his part in the proletarian struggle. The old bearded peasant sees him coming from a distance and, running up, he throws his arms around his neck and kisses him, and the Prodigal Son says, “Father, I have sinned, I am not worthy to be called your son.”’

  ‘The ending sounds familiar,’ Father Quixote said. ‘And I’m glad you left in the pigs.’

  ‘Talking of pigs, couldn’t you drive a little faster? I don’t think we are averaging more than thirty kilometres an hour.’

  ‘That’s Rocinante’s favourite speed. She’s a very old car and I can’t make her strain – not at her age.’

  ‘We are being passed by every car on the road.’

  ‘What does it matter? Her ancestor never got up to thirty kilometres an hour.’

  ‘And your ancestor never got further in his travels than Barcelona.’

  ‘What of it? He remained almost in hailing distance of La Mancha, but his mind travelled very far. And so did Sancho’s.’

  ‘I don’t know about my mind, but my belly feels as though we had been a week on the road. The sausages and the cheese are a distant memory now.’

  It was a little after two when they mounted the stairs to Botin’s. Sancho gave the order for two portions of sucking-pig and a bottle of the Marqués de Murrieta’s red wine. ‘I’m surprised that you favour the aristocracy,’ Father Quixote remarked.

  ‘They can be temporarily accepted for the good of the Party, like a priest.’

  ‘Even a priest?’

  ‘Yes. A certain indisputable authority who shall be nameless –’ he gave a hasty glance towards the tables on either side – ‘wrote that atheist propaganda in certain circumstances may be both unnecessary and harmful.’

  ‘Was it really Lenin who wrote that?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, but better not use that name here, father. One never knows. I told you the kind of people who used to come here in the days of our lamented leader. A leopard doesn’t change his spots.’

  ‘Then why did you bring me here?’

  ‘Because it’s the best place for sucking-pig. Anyway your collar makes you a partial protection. You will be even more so when you’ve got your purple socks and your purple . . .’

  He was interrupted by the sucking-pig – indeed, for a while there was no opportunity to speak except by signs, which could hardly have been misinterpreted by any secret policeman: for example, the raising of a fork in honour of the Marqués de Murrieta.

  The Mayor gave a sigh of satisfaction. ‘Have you ever eaten a better sucking-pig?’

  ‘I have never before eaten a sucking-pig,’ Father Quixote replied with a certain sense of shame.

  ‘What do you eat at home?’

  ‘Usually a steak – I’ve told you Teresa is very good with steaks.’

  ‘The butcher is a reactionary and a dishonest man.’

  ‘His horse steaks are excellent.’ The forbidden word had slipped out before he could stop it.

  2

  Perhaps it was only the wine which gave Father Quixote the worldly strength to resist the Mayor. The Mayor wished to take rooms in the Palace Hotel and to pay for them himself, but one sight of the glittering, crowded hall was enough for Father Quixote. ‘How can you, a Communist . . .?’

  ‘The Party has never forbidden us to take advantage of bourgeois comfort so long as it lasts. And surely here if anywhere we can best study our enemies. Besides, this hotel is nothing, I believe, compared with the new hotel in Moscow which they have built in the Red Square. Communism is not against comfort, even what you might call luxury, so long as the worker benefits in the long run. However, if you wish to be uncomfortable and mortify yourself . . .?’

  ‘On the contrary. I am quite ready to be comfortable, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable here. Comfort is a state of mind.’

  They drove into a poorer quarter of the city, taking streets at random. Suddenly Rocinante stopped and nothing would make her start again. There was the sign of an albergue twenty yards down the street and a dingy doorway. ‘Rocinante knows best,’ Father Quixote said. ‘This is where we stay.’

  ‘But it’s not even clean,’ the Mayor said.

  ‘These are obviously very poor people. So I’m sure they will make us welcome. They need us. They didn’t need us at the Palace Hotel.’

  An old woman greeted them in a narrow passage with an air of incredulity. Although they saw no sign of other customers she told them that only one room was available, but it had two beds.

  ‘Is there at least a bath?’

  No, not exactly a bath, she told them, but there was a douche on the floor above and a basin with a cold water tap in the room they would share. ‘We’ll take it,’ Father Quixote said.

  ‘You are mad,’ the Mayor told him when they were alone in the room, which Father Quixote admitted was rather gloomy. ‘We come to Madrid where there are dozens of good and inexpensive hotels, and you land us in this unspeakable hostelry.’

  ‘Rocinante was tired.’

  ‘We shall be lucky if our throats aren’t cut here.’

  ‘No, no, the old woman is honest, I know.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I could tell from her eyes.’

  The Mayor raised his hands in despair.

  ‘Afte
r all that good wine,’ Father Quixote said, ‘we shall sleep well wherever we are.’

  ‘I shan’t sleep a wink.’

  ‘She is one of your people.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘The poor.’ He added quickly, ‘Of course they are my people too.’

  Father Quixote felt much relieved when the Mayor lay down on his bed fully clothed (he feared that his throat would be cut more easily if he undressed), for Father Quixote was not used to taking off his clothes in front of another, and anything, anything, he thought, might happen before nightfall to save him from embarrassment. He lay on his back and listened to a cat wailing on the tiles outside. Perhaps, he thought, the Mayor will have forgotten my purple socks, and he indulged himself in a waking dream of how their journey would go on and on – the dream of a deepening friendship and a profounder understanding, of a reconciliation even between their disparate faiths. Perhaps, he thought before he fell asleep, the Mayor was not altogether wrong about the Prodigal Son . . . all that happy ending, the welcome home, the fatted calf. The close of the parable did seem a little unlikely . . . ‘I am unworthy to be called your monsignor,’ he muttered as he lost consciousness.

  It was the Mayor who woke him. Father Quixote saw him, like a stranger, in the last light of the expiring day, and ‘Who are you?’ he asked with curiosity, not fear.

  ‘I am Sancho,’ the Mayor said. ‘It is time for us to go shopping.’

  ‘Shopping?’

  ‘You have become a knight. We must find your sword, your spurs, your helmet – even if it is only a barber’s basin.’

  ‘Barber’s basin?’

  ‘You have been asleep and I have lain awake for three hours in case they tried to cut our throats. Tonight it will be your turn to keep vigil. In this dirty chapel that you’ve landed us in. Over your sword, monsignor.’

  ‘Monsignor?’

  ‘You have certainly slept very deep.’

  ‘I’ve had a dream – a terrible dream.’

  ‘Of your throat being cut?’

  ‘No, no. Much worse than that.’

  ‘Come. Get up. We have to find your purple socks.’

  Father Quixote made no protest. He was still under the agonizing spell of his dream. They went down the dark stairs into the dark street. The old woman peered out at them as they passed with an appearance of terror. Had she been dreaming too?

  ‘I don’t like the look of her,’ Sancho said.

  ‘I don’t think she likes the look of us.’

  ‘We must find a taxi,’ the Mayor said.

  ‘First let us try Rocinante.’

  He only had to press the starter three times before the engine woke. ‘You see,’ Father Quixote said, ‘there was nothing really wrong. She was just tired, that’s all. I know Rocinante. Where do we go?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought you would know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘An ecclesiastical tailor.’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘You are a priest. You are wearing a priest’s suit. You didn’t buy that in El Toboso.’

  ‘It’s nearly forty years old, Sancho.’

  ‘If you and your socks last as long as that you will be more than a centenarian before you wear them out.’

  ‘Why have I to buy these socks?’

  ‘The roads in Spain are still controlled, father. Stuck in El Toboso you haven’t realized how all along the roads of Spain the ghost of Franco still patrols. Your socks will be our safeguard. A Guardia Civil respects purple socks.’

  ‘But where do we buy them?’ He brought Rocinante to a halt. ‘I’m not going to tire her for nothing.’

  ‘Stay here a moment. I will find a taxi and ask the driver to guide us.’

  ‘We are being very extravagant, Sancho. Why, you even wanted to stay at the Palace Hotel.’

  ‘Money is not an immediate problem.’

  ‘El Toboso is a small place, and I’ve never heard that mayors are paid very much.’

  ‘El Toboso is a small place, but the Party is a great party. What is more, the Party is a legal party now. As a militant one is allowed a certain licence – for the good of the Party.’

  ‘Then why do you need the protection of my socks?’

  But the question came too late. The Mayor was already out of earshot, and Father Quixote was alone with the nightmare that haunted him. There are dreams of which we think even in the light of day: was this a dream or was it true – true in some way or another: did I dream it or did it in some strange way happen?

  The Mayor was opening the door beside him. He said, ‘Follow the taxi. He assures me he will lead us to the finest ecclesiastical clothes shop outside Rome itself. The nuncio goes there and the archbishop.’

  When they arrived Father Quixote could well believe it. His heart sank as he took in the elegance of the shop and the dark well-pressed suit of the assistant who greeted them with the distant courtesy of a church authority. It occurred to Father Quixote that such a man was almost certainly a member of Opus Dei – that club of intellectual Catholic activists whom he could not fault and yet whom he could not trust. He was a countryman, and they belonged to the great cities.

  ‘The monsignor,’ the Mayor said, ‘wants some purple socks.’

  ‘Of course, monsignor. If you will come this way.’

  ‘I wanted to see,’ the Mayor whispered as they followed, ‘if they would demand any papers.’

  Rather as though he were a deacon arranging the altar before Mass the assistant laid out on a counter a variety of purple socks. ‘These are nylon,’ he said. ‘These pure silk. And these are cotton. The best Sea Island cotton, of course.’

  ‘I usually wear wool,’ Father Quixote said.

  ‘Oh well, of course we have wool, but we usually find nylon or silk preferred. It’s a question of tone – silk or nylon has a richer purple tone. Wool rather blurs the purple.’

  ‘For me it’s a question of warmth,’ Father Quixote said.

  ‘I agree with this gentleman, monsignor,’ the Mayor interrupted quickly. ‘We want a purple which strikes the eye, as it were, from a distance.’

  The assistant looked puzzled. ‘From a distance?’ he asked. ‘I don’t quite . . .’

  ‘We don’t want the purple to look accidental. We certainly don’t want a non-ecclesiastical purple.’

  ‘No one has ever found fault with our purple. Even the woollen purple,’ the assistant added with reluctance.

  ‘For our purpose,’ the Mayor said, giving a warning frown at Father Quixote, ‘the nylon is much the best. It certainly has a shimmer . . .’ He added, ‘And then, of course, we shall want . . . what do you call that sort of bib monsignors wear?’

  ‘I suppose you mean the pechera. I imagine you will need that in nylon too so as to match the socks.’

  ‘I have agreed about the socks,’ Father Quixote said, ‘but I absolutely refuse to wear a purple pechera.’

  ‘Only in emergency, monsignor,’ the Mayor argued.

  The assistant looked at them with deepening suspicion.

  ‘I can’t see what emergency . . .’

  ‘I’ve explained that to you – the state of the roads these days . . .’

  While the assistant did up the package, which he closed carefully with a scotch tape of the same ecclesiastical purple as the socks and the pechera, the Mayor, who had obviously taken a dislike to the man, began a needling conversation. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘you supply pretty well everything the Church needs – in the way of decoration.’

  ‘If you mean vestments, well, yes.’

  ‘And hats – birettas and the like?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And cardinals’ hats? The monsignor has not reached that stage yet, of course. I’m just asking for interest . . . One must be prepared . . .’

  ‘Cardinals’ hats are always received from His Holiness.’

  Rocinante had one of her moods and took a little time to start. ‘I’m afraid I
went too far,’ the Mayor said, ‘and aroused suspicion.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That man came to the door. I think he took the number of the car.’

  ‘I don’t want to be unkind,’ Father Quixote said, ‘but he looked the kind of man who might belong to Opus Dei.’

  ‘They probably own the shop.’

  ‘Of course I’m sure they do a lot of good in their own way. Like the Generalissimo did.’

  ‘I would like to believe in Hell if only to put the members of Opus Dei there with the Generalissimo.’

  ‘He has my prayers,’ Father Quixote said and stiffened his fingers round the wheel of Rocinante.

  ‘He’ll need more than your prayers if there’s a Hell.’

  ‘Since there is a Hell it will need only the prayers of one just man to save any of us. Like Sodom and Gomorrah,’ Father Quixote added, with some uncertainty whether he had got the statistics right.

  It was a very hot evening. The Mayor suggested that they should have dinner at the Poncio Pilato, but Father Quixote was firm in his refusal. He said, ‘Pontius Pilate was an evil man. The world has almost canonized him because he was a neutral, but one cannot be neutral when it comes to choosing between good and evil.’

  ‘He was not neutral,’ the Mayor retorted. ‘He was nonaligned – like Fidel Castro – with a slant in the right direction.’

  ‘What do you mean by the right direction?’

  ‘The Roman Empire.’

  ‘You – a Communist – support the Roman Empire?’

  ‘Marx tells us that to arrive at the possibility of developing a revolutionary proletariat we have to pass through the stage of capitalism. The Roman Empire was developing into a capitalist society. The Jews were held back by their religion from ever becoming industrialists, so . . .’

  The Mayor then suggested that they eat at the Horno de Santa Teresa: ‘I don’t know about her oven, but she was a saint very much admired by your friend, the Generalissimo.’ Father Quixote could see no reason why food and religion had to be linked together, and he was irritated when the Mayor then proposed the San Antonio de la Florida, a saint of whom Father Quixote had no knowledge. He suspected the Mayor of teasing him. In the end they ate a rather bad meal at Los Porches where the open air made up a little for the deficiencies of the menu.