‘It’s going to be a wet night,’ Amaro said.
‘And it’s cold too,’ she said, wrapping her shawl around her. ‘I’ve been so afraid.’
‘Have you never seen anyone die before?’
‘No.’
They fell silent, he standing at the window, she leaning against the sideboard, her eyes cast down.
‘It really is rather cold,’ said Amaro, and his voice sounded odd, so troubling to him was her presence there at that hour of the night.
‘The brazier’s lit in the kitchen,’ said Amélia. ‘We’d better go in there.’
‘Yes, all right.’
They went into the kitchen. Amélia brought the brass oil lamp, and Amaro, going over to stir the contents of the brazier with a pair of tongs, said:
‘It’s ages since I’ve been in the kitchen! Have you still got the plant pots out on the window sill.’
‘Yes, and I’ve got a carnation now too.’
They sat down on low chairs beside the brazier. As she leaned towards the fire, Amélia could feel Father Amaro’s eyes silently devouring her. He was sure to speak! Her hands were trembling; she did not dare to move or look up for fear that she might burst into tears, but she longed for his words be they bitter or sweet.
At last the words came, grave words.
‘Miss Amélia, I wasn’t expecting to have this opportunity to speak to you alone, but since that is how things have turned out, it must be God’s will. And then you’ve changed so much towards me . . .’
She turned suddenly, her face scarlet, her lips trembling:
‘But you know perfectly well why!’ she exclaimed, almost crying.
‘I know. If it hadn’t been for the lies told in that wretched article nothing would have happened, and our friendship would be the same and everything would be fine . . . That’s precisely what I wanted to talk to you about.’
He drew his chair nearer to hers, and very gently, very calmly he said:
‘You know that article in which all our friends were insulted, in which my reputation was dragged through the mud, in which even your honour was besmirched? You remember, don’t you? Well, do you know who wrote it?’
‘Who?’ asked Amélia in astonishment.
‘Senhor João Eduardo!’ Amaro said quietly, folding his arms.
‘No, it can’t be!’
She had stood up. Amaro tugged gently at her skirt to make her sit down again, and his voice went on, patiently, softly:
‘Listen. Sit down. He was the one who wrote it. We only found out yesterday. Natário saw the original written in João Eduardo’s hand. It was Natário who uncovered the truth. By perfectly honourable means, of course, and because it was God’s will that the truth should emerge. Now listen. You don’t know what that man is like.’ Then he told her everything Natário had learned about João Eduardo, about the nights he spent with Agostinho, his insulting remarks about priests, his lack of religion . . .
‘Ask him if he has been to confession in the last six years, and ask him for his confession certificate.’
With her hands fallen limply in her lap, she murmured:
‘Good God, good God!’
‘Then I realised that as a friend of the family, as parish priest, as a Christian and as your friend, Miss Amélia . . . Because, believe me, I do love you . . . Anyway, I realised that it was my duty to warn you. If I were your brother, I would simply say: “Amélia, drive that man from this house!” I am not, alas, your brother. But I come with a devout heart to say: “The man whom you want to marry gained your good opinion and that of your mother on false pretences; he came here looking for all the world like a decent young man, but deep down he’s . . .”’
He got up as if too indignant to go on.
‘Miss Amélia, he is the man who wrote the article! He is the one who had poor Brito sent off to the wilds of Alcobaçã! Who called me a seducer! Who called Canon Dias a libertine! A libertine! Who tried to poison relations between your mother and the Canon! And who accused you, in the plainest of terms, of allowing yourself to be seduced! Do you still want to marry that man?’
She did not reply, her eyes fixed on the fire, two silent tears running down her cheeks.
Amaro paced angrily up and down, then returning to her side, he went on in mellifluous tones and with affectionate gestures:
‘But just suppose that he is not the author of the article and that he did not insult in print your mother, the Canon and your friends, there still remains his lack of piety. Imagine your future if you were to marry him. You would either have to accept his opinions, abandon your devotions, break with all your mother’s friends, never set foot in church again, be a cause of scandal to decent folk, or else you would have to oppose him, and your home would become a hell. You would have to justify everything. Fasting on Fridays, going to Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, keeping Sunday as a day of rest . . . And the quarrels you would have if you wanted to go to confession . . . Terrible. And having to put up with him ridiculing the mysteries of the faith. I can still remember the first night I came here, the disparaging remarks he made about the Holy Woman of Arregaça! And I remember too a night when Father Natário was talking about the sufferings of our Holy Father Pius IX, who would be taken prisoner if the liberals entered Rome . . . He laughed the idea to scorn, said it was a wild exaggeration. As if it were not true that, if the liberals had their way, we would see the Head of the Church, Christ’s Vicar, forced to sleep in a prison cell on a few bits of straw. These are his opinions, of which he makes no secret. Father Natário says that João Eduardo and Agostinho were overheard in the café near the main square saying that baptism was an abuse because everyone should be free to choose the religion they want, and not be forced, as a child, to be a Christian. What do you think of that? I say this to you as your friend . . . For the good of your soul, I would rather see you dead than bound to that man! Marry him and you will lose for ever the grace of God!’
Amélia raised her hands to her head and slumped back in her chair, murmuring sadly:
‘Oh, my God, oh, my God!’
Amaro sat down next to her, almost touching her dress with his knee, speaking now with paternal kindness:
‘And do you think, my child, that a man like that could have a good heart, could respect your virtue and love you as a Christian husband should? If a man has no religion, he has no morality. If a man does not believe, he cannot love, says one of our holy fathers. Once the first fire of passion is over, he will become cold and irritable, he will go back to Agostinho and to those women of easy virtue, he might even mistreat you . . . You would live in constant fear. A man who does not respect religion has no scruples: he lies, steals, slanders . . . Just look at that article. He comes here and shakes the Canon by the hand, then goes off to the newspaper and calls him a libertine. What remorse you would feel at the hour of your death! It’s all right as long as you’re young and healthy, but when the final moment comes, when, like the poor creature next door, you find yourself in the last agony, how terrible it would be to appear before Jesus Christ, having lived in sin at that man’s side! He might even refuse to let them give you the last rites! To die without the sacrament, to die like an animal!’
‘Please, Father, stop!’ exclaimed Amélia bursting into hysterical sobs.
‘Don’t cry,’ he said, taking her hand in his own two tremulous hands. ‘Listen, you can be open with me . . . It’s all right, calm down, we’ll find a solution. No banns have been published. Just tell him that you do not want to marry him, that you know everything, that you hate him . . .’
He was slowly squeezing and stroking Amélia’s hand. Then in a voice grown suddenly ardent, he said:
‘You don’t really care for him, do you?’
With her head fallen forward on her chest, she said very softly:
‘No.’
‘There you are, then!’ he said excitedly. ‘And tell me, do you love someone else?’
She did not reply, but she was breathing
hard, staring, wide-eyed, into the flames.
‘Do you? Tell me!’
He put his arm around her shoulder, gently drawing her to him. Her hands lay limply in her lap; without moving, she slowly turned to look at him, her eyes shining beneath a mist of tears, then, pale and weak, she slowly half-opened her lips. Trembling, he put his lips to hers and they remained motionless, locked in one long, deep kiss, teeth touching teeth.
‘Miss Amélia! Miss Amélia!’ came Ruça’s terrified voice.
Amaro leaped to his feet and ran into the next room. Amélia was shaking so much that she had to lean against the kitchen door for a moment, her hand pressed to her heart, her knees buckling. Only when she had recovered did she go down to wake her mother.
When they went into the dying woman’s room, Amaro was kneeling in prayer, his face almost resting on the bed; the two women fell to their knees; the old woman’s chest and sides were shaken by rapid breathing; and the more stertorous the breathing became, the more quickly the priest prayed. Suddenly the agonising sound stopped; they looked up; the old woman lay still, her eyes bulging and opaque. She was dead.
Father Amaro immediately led the two women into the dining room, and there, cured of her migraine by the shock, São Joaneira burst into tears, remembering the days when her poor sister had been young and pretty! And how she had been about to be married to the heir to the Vigareira estate!
‘And she had such a generous nature, Father. A saint! When Amélia was born and I was so ill, she didn’t move from my bedside day or night! And she was always so cheerful. Oh, dear God!’
Amélia was leaning against the dark window, staring dully out at the black night.
The door bell rang at that point. Amaro went downstairs with a candle. It was João Eduardo, who, on seeing the priest there at that hour of the night, stood dumbstruck at the open door. At last he managed to say:
‘I just came to see if there was any news . . .’
‘I see.’
The two men looked at each other for a moment.
‘Well, if I’m not needed . . .’ said João Eduardo.
‘No . . . thank you. The ladies are about to go to bed.’
João Eduardo turned pale with anger at Amaro’s proprietorial manner. He stood a while longer, hesitating, but seeing the priest shielding the flame with his hand from the wind in the street, he said:
‘Good night, then.’
‘Good night.’
Father Amaro went back upstairs, and having left the two ladies in São Joaneira’s bedroom (for they were too frightened to sleep alone), he returned to the room where the dead woman lay, relit the candle on the table, settled himself in a chair and began to read the breviary.
Later, when the house was in silence, the priest, feeling sleep overwhelm him, went into the dining room where he consoled himself with a glass of port that he found on the sideboard; and he was just enjoying a cigarette when he heard the sound of heavy boots outside, walking back and forth beneath the windows. The night was too dark for him to be able to make out who ‘the walker’ was. It was a furious João Eduardo keeping watch on the house.
XII
Early the next day, shortly after Dona Josefa Dias had got back from mass, she was most surprised to hear the maid call up to her from where she was cleaning the steps downstairs:
‘Father Amaro’s here, Dona Josefa!’
He had visited the Canon’s house only rarely of late, and so, flattered and curious, Dona Josefa shouted down:
‘Tell him to come up. There’s no need for formality. He’s like one of the family! Tell him to come straight up!’
She was in the dining room, arranging slabs of quince jelly on a tray; she was wearing a pair of blue-tinted spectacles and a black woollen dress which was frayed at the sides and pushed out above her ankles by the single hoop of a crinoline; she shuffled out onto the landing in her hideous felt slippers, and, for the benefit of the parish priest, she prepared a pleasant face beneath the black scarf pulled tight over her head.
‘What a nice surprise!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve only just got in from my first mass of the day. I went to the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary. Father Vicente was saying mass today. Oh, it did me so much good, Father. It makes such a difference. Now, don’t sit there, you’ll be in a draught. So the poor little cripple has passed away . . . Tell me what happened, Father . . .’
Father Amaro had to describe the death agony and São Joaneira’s grief, and how, after death, the old woman’s face appeared to grow young again, and what São Joaneira and Amélia had decided to do as regards a shroud . . .
‘Between you and me, Dona Josefa, it’s a great relief to São Joaneira . . .’ Then suddenly, shifting forwards in his chair, placing his hands on his knees, he said: ‘And what about Senhor João Eduardo, eh? He was the one who wrote that article!’
The old woman cried out, putting her hands to her head:
‘Oh, don’t even talk to me about it, Father, don’t even talk about it. The whole business has made me positively ill.’
‘Oh, so you know?’
‘Oh, yes, Father. I owe that to Father Natário; he came to see me yesterday and told me everything. Oh, the scoundrel, the reprobate!’
‘And you know, too, that he’s a close friend of Agostinho, that they sit drinking in Agostinho’s office into the early hours and go to the billiard room off the main square and make mock of religion.’
‘Please, Father, not another word. Yesterday, when Father Natário was here, it quite upset me to hear about such sinful behaviour . . . Father Natário was good enough to tell me about it as soon as he heard. He’s so thoughtful. But you know, Father, I always had my doubts about that man. I never said so, oh no, I’ve never been one to meddle in other people’s lives, but I had a feeling inside. He went to mass, kept the fasts, but I always had a suspicion that he was only doing that in order to deceive São Joaneira and Amélia. And now we see what he’s really like! I never really cared for him, Father, never.’ Then, her eyes glinting with wicked joy, she said: ‘And it looks as if the marriage is off too!’
Father Amaro leaned back in his chair and said very deliberately:
‘It would be unthinkable for a girl of good principles to marry a freemason who hasn’t been to confession for six years.’
‘Absolutely, Father. I would rather see her dead. She must be told everything . . .’
Father Amaro broke in, pulling his chair closer to hers:
‘That is precisely why I came to see you, Senhora. I spoke to Amélia yesterday . . . but, of course, in the midst of such misfortune, with the poor lady dying in the next room, I could hardly insist. I merely told her what had happened, advised her as best I could, told her that she risked losing her soul and leading a life of misery, etc. In short, I did what I could, Senhora, as a friend and as her parish priest. And, as was my duty (although I found this very hard to do, very hard indeed), I reminded her that as a Christian and as a woman, she had an obligation to break with the clerk.’
‘And what did she say?’
Amaro pulled a rueful face.
‘She didn’t say anything. She just looked sad and started crying. Naturally, she was very upset about the death in the house, and it’s clear that she’s not madly in love with him, but she wants to get married, she’s afraid that if her mother died, she would be left all alone. Well, you know what girls are like. My words obviously hit home, and she was very angry, etc., but I think it would be best if you spoke to her. You’re a friend of the family, you’re her godmother, you’ve known her ever since she was a child . . . You will doubtless bequeath her a tidy sum in your will . . . These are all important factors . . .’
‘You leave it to me, Father!’ exclaimed the old woman. ‘I’ll tell her what’s what!’
‘The girl needs guidance. Between you and me, she needs a confessor. Her current confessor is Father Silvério, and, far be it from me to criticise, but Father Silvério, poor old thing, really isn’t up to much as
a confessor. Oh, he’s very charitable, very virtuous, but he hasn’t really got what it takes. For him confession is a matter of form. He asks the usual questions about doctrine, then he takes the confessant through the ten commandments . . . you know the kind of thing. Obviously the girl doesn’t steal or murder or covet her neighbour’s wife! That sort of confession is of no use to her; what she needs is a confessor who will be firm with her, who will say to her – go that way! – and accept no rebuttals. The girl has a weak nature and, like most women, she simply cannot cope on her own; that’s why she needs a confessor who will rule her with a rod of iron, someone she will obey, someone to whom she will tell everything, someone she is afraid of . . . That is what a confessor should be . . .’
‘You’re the sort of confessor she needs, Father.’
Amaro smiled modestly:
‘You may be right. I would certainly advise her well. I’m a friend of her mother’s and I think Amélia is a good girl worthy of the grace of God. And whenever I talk to her, I always give her any advice I can. But you understand, there are some things you can’t discuss in the dining room, with other people about. That’s where the confessional is so important. That is what I lack, opportunities to talk to her alone. But I can’t possibly go to her and say: “Right, from now on you’re going to confess to me!” I’m always very scrupulous about such things . . .’
‘I’ll tell her, Father, I’ll tell her.’
‘That would be most kind of you. You would be doing that soul a great good. Because if the girl looks to me to guide her soul, then all her difficulties will be over, she will be set fair on the road to Grace. When do you think you’ll talk to her, Dona Josefa?’
Dona Josefa felt it would be a sin to delay the matter and was determined to speak to her that very night.
‘I think not, Dona Josefa. People will be there paying their condolences . . . The clerk, of course, will also be there . . .’
The Crime of Father Amaro Page 22