‘Of course we can’t,’ murmured Amaro.
‘Happened just in time, eh?’ said Natário, and he took a long sniff of snuff.
Then the sacristan came in; it was time to close the church; he wanted to know if they would be much longer.
‘We’ll be finished shortly, Senhor Domingos.’
And while the sacristan was closing the heavy bolts on the door that opened onto the courtyard, the two priests stood very close, talking in low voices.
‘You go and talk to São Joaneira,’ Natário was saying. ‘No, wait, it would be best if Dias spoke to her; yes, he should speak to São Joaneira. That would be safest. You talk to Amélia and tell her quite simply that she should put him out of the house!’ And he whispered in Amaro’s ear: ‘Tell her that he lives with a woman of easy virtue!’
Amaro drew back.
‘But I don’t even know if that’s true!’
‘It’s bound to be. He’s capable of anything. And besides it’s a way of convincing the girl . . .’
And following in the wake of the sacristan, who was jingling his bunch of keys and loudly clearing his throat, they left the church.
The chapels were hung with black cloth embroidered with silver; the bier stood in the centre, between four large candle-holders in which the candles were burning low; the broad velvet cloth covering Morais’ coffin fell in fringed folds; at the head was a wreath of everlasting flowers, and at the foot, suspended on a large scarlet ribbon, hung the habit of a Knight of Christ.
Father Natário stopped and, smugly taking Amaro’s arm, he said:
‘And, my friend, I’ve got another little surprise for the gentleman . . .’
‘What’s that?’
‘I’m going to cut off his supplies!’
‘Cut off his supplies?’
‘The fool was all ready to take up his job with the district government, as chief clerk. Well, I’m going to spoil that little arrangement. And Nunes Ferral, who is on my side and is a man of excellent ideas, will throw him out of the office where he now works . . . Then let him go and write articles for The District Voice!’
Amaro was horrified by this bitter intriguing.
‘God forgive me, Natário, but that will ruin the boy . . .’
‘I won’t be happy until I see him begging for bread in the streets, Amaro.’
‘Natário, please, that is most uncharitable, most un-Christian. And to say that in the Cathedral where God can hear you . . .’
‘Don’t you worry about that, my friend. This is how one serves God, not by mumbling paternosters. There is no charity for the impious. The Inquisition used fire on them, so it seems quite reasonable to me to use hunger. Everything is permitted to those who serve the holy cause. That will teach him to meddle in my affairs!’
As they were leaving the church, Natário glanced back at the coffin and, pointing at it with his umbrella, he asked:
‘Who’s in there?’
‘Morais,’ said Amaro.
‘The fat fellow with the pock-marked face?’
‘That’s right.’
‘The great fool.’
And then after a silence:
‘So the service was for Morais. I didn’t even realise, I was so caught up in my campaign. His widow will be very wealthy. She’s generous too, always giving presents. And Silvério’s her father confessor. That old elephant has all the luck.’
They left. Carlos’ pharmacy was closed; the sky was very dark.
In the square, Natário stopped.
‘To sum up then: Dias will talk to São Joaneira, and you will talk to Amélia. I’ll sort things out with the people at the district government offices and with Nunes Ferral. You two will take care of the marriage and I’ll take care of the job!’ And clapping Amaro jovially on the shoulder, he said: ‘That’s what I call attacking him through the heart and through the stomach! Now I must be off, my nieces will be expecting me for supper. Rosa has had the most terrible cold. The girl’s not strong, and I worry about her a lot. I just have to see her looking a bit peaky and I can’t sleep. Well, what can one expect when one has a good heart . . . See you tomorrow, Amaro.’
‘Yes, see you tomorrow, Natário.’
And the two priests parted as the Cathedral clock was striking nine.
Amaro was still trembling slightly when he reached home, but he was feeling determined and happy too; he had a delicious duty to perform. And in order to drive home that great responsibility, he said out loud, as he walked gravely about the house:
‘It’s my duty! It’s my duty!’
As a Christian, as a parish priest, as a friend to São Joaneira, it was his duty to go to Amélia and, quite simply, with not a glimmer of self-interest, tell her that João Eduardo, her fiancé, was the one who had written the article.
It was him! He had defamed the family’s friends, those erudite, respected priests; he had discredited her; he spends his nights in debauchery in Agostinho’s pigsty of a house; in private he insults the clergy and boasts of his lack of religion; he hasn’t been to confession for six years! As Father Natário says, the man’s a brute! Poor girl! No, she can’t possibly marry a man who would prevent her from leading the ‘perfect life’ and who would ridicule her beliefs! He would not allow her to pray or to fast or to seek out healthy guidance from a confessor; as St John Chrysostom says, ‘he would ripen her soul for Hell’! He was not her father or her guardian, but he was her parish priest, her shepherd, and if he did not save her from that heretical fate through his grave counsel and through the influence of her mother and her friends, he would be like someone who, asked to tend another’s sheep, cruelly opens the gate to the wolf. No, Amélia could not possibly marry that atheist!
And, at that hope, his heart beat fast with excitement. No, the other man would not have her. Just as he was about to take legal possession of that waist, those breasts, those eyes, of Amélia herself, he, the parish priest, was there to declare: Back, you scum! This woman belongs to God!
And he would take great care to guide Amélia to salvation. The article would be forgotten and the precentor reassured: in a few days he would be able calmly to return to Rua da Misericórdia, to resume those delicious evening gatherings – to regain his power over that soul and to shape it for Paradise.
It was not a plot to take her away from her fiancé, good heavens, no; his motives (and he said this out loud the better to convince himself) were honest and pure; it was his holy duty to drag her back from Hell; he did not want her for himself, he wanted her for God! True, his interests as a lover did coincide with his duties, but even if she were squint-eyed, ugly and stupid, he would still, in the service of Heaven, go to Rua da Misericórdia and unmask Senhor João Eduardo as a slanderer and an atheist!
And reassured by that argument, he went to bed happy.
But he dreamed all night of Amélia. He had run away with her and was leading her along a road that led to Heaven! The Devil was after him, he could see him, and he looked like João Eduardo, snorting hard and tearing with his horns at the delicate hearts of the clouds. So he hid Amélia beneath his priest’s cloak, devouring her with kisses. But the road to Heaven had no end. ‘Where is the gate to Paradise?’ he asked the golden-haired angels who passed with a rustle of wings, bearing souls in their arms. And they all replied: ‘In Rua da Misericórdia. At number 9, Rua da Misericórdia!’ Amaro felt lost; a vast, milky sky, as soft and giving as a bird’s plumage, wrapped around him, and he looked in vain for the sign of an inn. Sometimes a shining globe would slide past, inside which he could hear the sound of God in the process of creation; or a squadron of archangels, wearing diamond cuirasses and brandishing swords of fire, would gallop nobly by . . .
Amélia was cold and hungry. ‘Be patient, my love, be patient!’ he would say. Walking on, they came across a white figure holding a green palm leaf. ‘Where is God, our Father?’ Amaro asked him, still clasping Amélia to his breast. The figure said: ‘I was a confessor and now I’m a saint; the centuries pa
ss and immutably, sempiternally, I hold this palm leaf in my hand and am bathed in constant ecstasy. No colour ever touches this white light; no feeling shakes my eternally immaculate being; and fixed as I am for ever in good fortune, I feel the monotony of Heaven weigh on me like a cloak of bronze. Ah, if only I could stride about amongst Earth’s many forms of shamelessness, or plunge into the many varieties of pain, amidst the flames of Purgatory.’
Amaro muttered: ‘We did well to sin.’ But Amélia was fainting with weariness. ‘Let us sleep, my love!’ And they lay down and watched a floating, dusty cloud of stars falling like tares shaken through a sieve. Then the clouds began to arrange themselves around them, like the folds of curtains, giving off the delicate perfume of lavender sachets; Amaro placed his hand on Amélia’s breast; they swooned in tender ecstasy; they embraced and their hot, wet lips met. ‘Oh, Amélia!’ he murmured. ‘I love you, Amaro, I love you!’ she sighed. But suddenly the clouds drew back like the curtains round a bed, and Amaro saw the Devil approaching, talons on hips, his mouth open in a silent laugh. There was someone else with him, a man as old as the earth; whole forests grew in the coils of his hair; his eyes had the blue vastness of an ocean; and along the fingers with which he smoothed his endless beard walked rows and rows of human beings of all races, as if along a road. ‘These are the two individuals,’ the Devil said to him, lashing his tail. And behind them Amaro saw legions of saints, male and female, beginning to gather. He recognised St Sebastian with the arrows stuck in him, St Cecilia playing the organ, and, in their midst, he heard the bleating of St John’s flocks; and towering above them all stood the good giant, St Christopher, leaning on his pine tree. They were watching and whispering. Amaro could not free himself from Amélia, who was crying softly; their two bodies seemed unnaturally bound together; and in great distress, Amaro saw that her skirts were lifted to reveal her white knees. ‘These are the two individuals,’ the Devil said to the old man, ‘and since all of us here are lovers of female beauty, notice what pretty legs the girl has!’ Venerable old saints stood eagerly on tiptoe, craning necks that bore the scars of martyrdom; and the eleven thousand virgins clapped their wings and flew away like startled pigeons. Then the old man, rubbing his hands from which whole universes fell, said gravely: ‘I see, my friend, I see. So, Father, you go to Rua da Misericórdia, you destroy the happiness of Senhor João Eduardo (a gentleman), tear Amélia away from her mother and seek out a corner of Eternity where you can sate your lustful desires. I am old, this voice that once rang out so wisely over valleys has grown hoarse. But do you think I am afraid of the Conde de Ribamar, your protector, even if he is a pillar of the Church and a column of the Order? Pharaoh was a great king, but I drowned him, his captive princes, his treasures, his war chariots and his hordes of slaves! That is what I am like. And if the ecclesiastical gentlemen continue to scandalise Leiria, I am still capable of burning a city as if it were a scrap of useless paper, and I have plenty of water left for floods.’ Then turning to two angels armed with swords and lances, he roared: ‘Clap the father in irons and take him to abyss number seven!’ And the Devil whined: ‘Behold the consequences of your actions, Father Amaro!’ He felt himself plucked by fiery hands from Amélia’s breast, and he was about to struggle and cry out against the judge who had sentenced him, when a prodigious sun rising in the East fell full on the old man’s face, and, with a scream, Amaro recognised his Eternal Father!
He woke up bathed in sweat. A ray of sunlight was coming in through the window.
That night, João Eduardo, walking from the square to São Joaneira’s house, was astonished to see appear at the far end of the street, coming from the Cathedral, a procession bearing the Sacrament.
It was heading for São Joaneira’s house. Amongst the old ladies with their shawls over their heads, the torches picked out the scarlet cloth of copes; beneath the canopy glinted the gold of the parish priest’s stole; a bell was being rung ahead of the procession, lights came on in windows, and in the dark night the Cathedral bell tolled ceaselessly.
Alarmed, João Eduardo ran to join the procession, where he learned at once that the last rites were being carried to São Joaneira’s paralysed sister.
An oil lamp had been placed on a chair on the stairs. The servers rested the poles of the canopy against the wall, and Amaro went in. João Eduardo followed, feeling very nervous. He was thinking about that death; the period of mourning would delay the marriage; he felt troubled by Amaro’s presence there and by the power he would acquire at such a moment; and in the downstairs sitting room he asked Ruça almost querulously:
‘So what happened then?’
‘The poor woman started growing weak this evening and the doctor came and said she was dying and the mistress sent for the sacraments.’
João Eduardo judged it would be polite to attend the ceremony.
The old lady’s room was next to the kitchen and had, at that moment, a gloomy solemnity about it.
The table was covered by an appliqué table cloth on which stood a plate containing five cotton wool balls and two wax candles. The old lady’s white head and waxen face were barely distinguishable from the linen pillow case; her eyes were wildly dilated, and she kept tugging slowly and persistently at the top of the embroidered sheet.
São Joaneira and Amélia were kneeling by the bed, praying; Dona Maria da Assunção (who had happened to drop by on her way back from the farm) had remained in the doorway, terrified, sitting back on her heels, murmuring hail Marys. João Eduardo silently knelt down beside her.
Father Amaro, bent over the bed, almost whispering into the old lady’s ear, was exhorting her to abandon herself to divine mercy, but realising that she could not hear him, he knelt instead and rapidly recited the Misereatur; in the silence, his voice, which rose on the stressed syllables of the Latin words, had a touching sense of finality that made the two ladies weep. Then he got up, dipped one finger in the holy oils and, murmuring the ritual penitent words, he anointed eyes, chest, mouth and hands – the hands that for ten years had only moved to reach for the spittoon – and the soles of those feet that had only stirred to feel for the warmth of the hot water bottle. And then, having burned the cotton wool balls soaked in oil, he knelt down again, and remained there, unmoving, his eyes fixed on his breviary.
João Eduardo tiptoed back into the dining room and took a seat on the piano stool. Amélia would probably not play again for four or five weeks. Seeing the sweet progress of his love abruptly interrupted by death and its ceremonies, he felt overwhelmed by melancholy.
Much distressed by the scene, Dona Maria came out into the dining room, followed by Amélia whose eyes were red with weeping.
‘Ah, thank heavens you’re here, João Eduardo,’ the old woman said. ‘Would you be kind enough to accompany me back to my house? I’m all of a tremble. It took me completely by surprise, and God forgive me, but I cannot bear the sight of people dying. Even though she’s fading away like a little bird . . . and she certainly has no sins . . . Let’s walk together across the square, that’s the quickest way. Do forgive me. And forgive me, Amélia, but I simply cannot stay . . . My pains are beginning . . . It’s so very sad! Although it’s better for her in a way. Oh dear, I feel quite faint.’
Amélia had to take her downstairs to São Joaneira’s room and charitably comfort her with a glass of fortified wine.
‘Amélia,’ João Eduardo said. ‘If you need me to do anything . . .’
‘No, thank you. The poor thing won’t last much longer . . .’
‘Don’t forget, Amélia,’ Dona Maria da Assunção reminded her, ‘place the two holy candles at her head. It brings great relief to the dying. And if the death rattle goes on too long, add another two unlit candles to form a cross. Good night. Oh, dear, I can barely think straight . . .’
At the front door, as soon as she saw the canopy and the men with the torches, Dona Maria clutched João Eduardo’s arm and clung to him in terror – although this may also have had something to d
o with the fortified wine she had drunk, which always made her feel unusually affectionate.
Amaro had promised to return later, ‘to keep them company, as a friend, throughout that difficult time’. And informed of this kind undertaking on Amaro’s part, the Canon (who had arrived when the procession was going back round the corner towards the Cathedral) declared at once that, since his colleague Amaro would be spending the night there, he would go home and rest his bones, because, God knows, these upsets played havoc with his health.
‘And you wouldn’t want me to catch something and find myself in the same situation . . .’
‘Please, Canon,’ exclaimed São Joaneira, ‘don’t even say that!’ And she began to weep pitifully.
‘Well, good night, then,’ said the Canon, ‘and don’t upset yourself too much. After all, the poor creature didn’t have much of a life, and since she has no sins, she won’t be bothered to find herself in the presence of God. It’s for the best really, all things considered. Anyway, I’ll be off now, I’m not too good myself . . .’
São Joaneira was not feeling well either. The shock, so soon after supper, was threatening to bring on a migraine, and when Amaro returned at eleven o’clock, it was Amélia who opened the door and showed him up to the dining room, saying:
‘I’m sorry, Father, Mama has got a migraine, poor thing. She was in a terrible state. She went to bed, took a sedative and went to sleep.’
‘Let her sleep then!’
They went into the dying woman’s room. Her face was turned to the wall; from her open lips came a faint, continuous moaning. On the table now stood a thick candle which gave off a sad light; and in one corner, numb with fear, Ruça was saying the rosary as São Joaneira had told her to. Amélia said softly:
‘The doctor says that she can’t feel anything. He says that she’ll just moan and moan like that and then die suddenly like a little bird . . .’
‘May God’s will be done,’ Amaro murmured gravely.
They went back into the dining room. The whole house lay in silence; outside, the wind was blowing hard. They had not been together like this for weeks. Amaro felt intensely embarrassed and went over to the window; Amélia leaned against the sideboard.
The Crime of Father Amaro Page 21