‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ the excellent lady continued, her face radiant. ‘The saintly Father Amaro would be at home here, don’t you think? It’s like holding heaven in your hand!’
The two other ladies agreed. She, of course, could afford to have her house decorated with such devotion, she was rich . . .
‘I don’t deny it, I’ve spent a few hundred mil réis on this room, not counting what I spent on the reliquary . . .’
Ah, the famous reliquary made out of sandalwood and lined with satin. It contained a sliver of wood from the actual Cross, a fragment from the Crown of Thorns and a scrap of material from the Baby Jesus’ nappy. Amongst the devout in Leiria, there were bitter mutterings that such precious items, being of divine origin, should be in the shrine in the Cathedral. Dona Maria da Assunção, fearful that the precentor would find out about that seraphic treasure, only showed it to a few close friends, in great secrecy. And the holy priest who had obtained it for her had made her swear on the Gospel not to reveal its provenance, ‘in order to avoid gossip’.
São Joaneira, as usual, drooled over the scrap of material from the nappy.
‘Wonderful!’ she murmured. ‘Wonderful!’
And Dona Maria da Assunção said in a low voice:
‘There’s none better. It cost me thirty mil réis, but I would have given sixty or a hundred for it. I would have given everything!’ she stammered, in raptures over the precious scrap of cloth. ‘My lovely little Baby’s nappy!’ she said, almost in tears.
She gave it a resounding kiss and put the reliquary away in a large drawer.
But the clock was striking noon, and the three ladies hurried to the Cathedral to get seats near the high altar.
Outside they met Dona Josefa Dias, who was also rushing to church, desperate to attend mass, her cape all awry and one feather in her hat coming loose. She had been in a positive frenzy with the maid all morning. She had had to do all the preparation for lunch herself. She was in such a state, she wasn’t sure even a mass could make her feel better.
‘Father Amaro’s coming today. You’ll have heard about his maid falling ill. Oh, and I forgot to say, my brother would like you to lunch with us too, Amélia. So that there are two ladies and two gentlemen, he says.’
Amélia gave a joyful laugh.
‘And you can come and fetch her in the evening, São Joaneira. Goodness, I had to get dressed so quickly, I think my petticoat is falling down!’
When the four ladies went into the Cathedral, the church was already full. It was a sung Eucharist. Although it went against the strict letter of the ritual, diocesan custom (of which good Silvério, who was very strict on liturgical matters, had always disapproved) required that whenever the Blessed Sacrament was exposed there was also to be music for violin, cello and flute. The highly decorated altar, with its relics on display, stood out in festive white: the dossal, the frontal, and the paraments for the missals were white with raised embroidery in pale gold; pyramids of white flowers and foliage filled the vases; swathes of decorative white velvet cloth had been hung like curtains on either side of the tabernacle and looked like two vast white wings, reminiscent of the Dove of the Holy Spirit; and twenty candlesticks topped by yellow flames flanked the steps leading up to the monstrance, in which was displayed on high, in a glitter of gold, the round, opaque host. Subdued whispers filled the packed church; now and again someone cleared their throat or a baby cried; the air was growing thick with mingled breath and the smell of incense; and from the choir, where the figures of the musicians could be seen moving about behind the necks of bass fiddles and behind the music stands, came the occasional moan of a violin being tuned or a high note from a piccolo. The four friends had only just found their seats near the high altar when the two acolytes entered from the sacristy, one tall and straight as a pine tree, the other flabby and dishevelled, each carrying one of the two tall consecrated candlesticks; behind them came squint-eyed Pimenta bearing the silver censer and wearing a voluminous surplice from beneath which appeared his huge flapping feet taking slow stately steps; then, accompanied by the rustle in the nave of people kneeling down and leafing through prayer books, came the two deacons; and finally, vested in white, eyes lowered and hands clasped in prayer, displaying the humble meditative quality demanded by the ritual and expressive of Jesus’ own meekness on the road to Calvary, came Father Amaro – still red in the face after the furious row he had just had in the sacristy, before donning his vestments, about the state of the albs.
And the choir immediately launched into the Introit.
Amélia spent the mass gazing in rapt amazement at Father Amaro, who was, as the Canon said ‘a real artist when it came to sung masses’; everyone in the chapter agreed, as did all the ladies. What dignity, what chivalry in the ceremonial greetings he addressed to the deacons! How well he prostrated himself before the altar, humble and submissive, as if he were mere ashes or dust before the Lord, who was watching from nearby, surrounded by His court and by His heavenly family! But he was especially admirable during the blessings; he passed his hands slowly over the altar as if to pluck up and gather in the grace that fell from Christ’s presence there, and then, with a broad, charitable gesture, he scattered it the length of the whole nave, over the vast expanse of white headscarves, to where the men from the country stood crowded together at the back, walking sticks in hand, staring in astonishment at the glittering monstrance! That was when Amélia loved him most, thinking to herself that those hands bestowing the blessing had passionately squeezed her hands beneath the table when they were playing lotto; that voice, with which he addressed her as ‘my love’, was now reciting ineffable prayers and it seemed to her far better than the moaning of the violins, and stirred her more deeply than the bass notes from the organ! She imagined proudly that all the women there probably admired him too, but the only time she felt jealous, the jealousy of a devotee aware of the charms of Heaven, was when he stood before the altar in the ecstatic position required by the ritual, as still as if his soul had soared high up into the Eternal and beyond the senses. However, she preferred him, because he felt more human and accessible, during the Kyrie or the reading of the Epistle, when he sat with the deacons on the red damask bench; she would have liked to have caught his glance then, but he kept his eyes modestly lowered.
Sitting back on her heels, smiling radiantly, Amélia admired his profile, his well-made head, his gold-embroidered vestments, and she remembered the first time she had seen him coming down the stairs in Rua da Misericórdia, cigarette in hand. How much had happened since that night. She remembered Morenal, the leap from the wall, her aunt’s death, that kiss by the fire . . . How would it all end? She tried to pray then and began leafing through her prayer book, but she suddenly remembered what Libaninho had said that morning about Father Amaro having skin as white as an archangel’s. It must indeed be very delicate and tender. She burned with intense desire, and imagined it must be a tempting visitation by the Devil; to drive it away she fixed wide eyes on the shrine and on the altar where Father Amaro, flanked by the deacons, was making semicircles of incense which signified everlasting praise, while the choir bawled out the Offertory . . . Then as he stood on the second altar step, hands in prayer, he himself was wafted with incense; squint-eyed Pimenta made the silver chains of the thurible creak loudly and the smell of incense rolled forth like a celestial annunciation; the shrine was shrouded in white volutes of smoke; and Father Amaro seemed to Amélia almost divine! Oh, how she adored him!
The church shook to the clamour of the organ at full blast; mouths wide open, the choir were singing at full pelt; above them, rising above the necks of the violins, the director of music, in the white heat of performance, was desperately waving a baton made from a rolled-up sheet of plainsong.
Amélia left the church feeling exhausted and looking very pale.
Over lunch at the Canon’s house, Dona Josefa told her off repeatedly for ‘not saying a word’.
Though she did no
t speak, under the table, her small foot was constantly brushing and pressing against that of Father Amaro. It got dark early now and so they had lit the candles; to accompany the dish of milk pudding which almost filled the middle of the table and on which Father Amaro’s initials had been traced in cinnamon, the Canon had opened a bottle, not of his famous 1815 duque wine, but of the 1847 vintage; it was, as the Canon explained, ‘a small homage’ by his sister to her guest. With his glass of 1847 wine Amaro immediately drank to the health of ‘the worthy lady of the house’. Dona Josefa positively glowed, a hideous sight in her green woollen dress. She was just sorry the meal had been so awful . . . Gertrudes was getting so careless. She had nearly burned the duck and the milk pudding!
‘But it was delicious, Senhora!’ protested Amaro.
‘Now you’re being kind. I did manage to step in just in time. A little more milk pudding, Father?’
‘No, thank you, Senhora, I’ve had quite enough.’
‘We’d better finish off this wine,’ said the Canon. ‘Have another glass.’
He himself drank it down slowly in one draught, uttered a satisfied ‘Ah!’ and settled back in his chair.
‘A good drop of wine that! Makes life worth living!’
His face was flushed and with his thick flannel jacket on and a napkin tied round his neck, he looked even fatter than usual.
‘Yes, a good drop of wine that!’ he said again. ‘Better than the stuff you had today at mass . . .’
‘Please, brother!’ exclaimed Dona Josefa, scandalised at his irreverence, her mouth still full of milk pudding.
The Canon shrugged scornfully.
‘And what’s wrong with that? It’s time you learned not to meddle in things you don’t understand. If you must know, the quality of wine at mass is of great importance. The wine should be good because . . .’
‘It contributes to the dignity of the holy sacrifice,’ said Amaro gravely, meanwhile stroking Amélia’s knee.
‘And not just that,’ said the Canon, immediately adopting a pedagogical tone. ‘If the wine is not good and contains additives, it leaves a deposit, and if the sacristan is not scrupulous about cleaning the chalice, it can start to smell really terrible. And then do you know what happens? The priest goes to drink the blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ and, taken by surprise, he pulls a face. Now do you see?’
And he planted a kiss on his glass. But he was in a garrulous mood that night and, after uttering a leisurely belch, he again addressed Dona Josefa, who sat in awe of his knowledge.
‘Since you’re such a know-all, sister, tell me something else: should the communion wine be white or red?’
Dona Josefa felt that it should be red so as to resemble Our Lord’s blood.
‘You put her right, Miss Amélia,’ boomed the Canon, wagging his finger at her.
Amélia declined with a giggle. Since she wasn’t a sacristan, how could she possibly know?
‘And you, Father?’
Amaro said laughingly that since it obviously wasn’t red, it had to be white.
‘Why?’
Amaro had heard tell that it was the custom in Rome.
‘But why?’ persisted the Canon in rumbling, pedantic tones.
Amaro did not know.
‘Because when our Lord Jesus Christ first consecrated the wine, he did so with white wine. And the reason is very simple, it is because, as everyone knows, at that time in Judaea they did not make red wine. Give me a little more milk pudding, will you?’
Then, apropos of the wine and the cleansing of the chalices, Father Amaro began complaining about Bento, one of the sacristans. That morning before donning his vestments – just before the Canon had come into the sacristy – Amaro had had to reprimand him about the state of the albs. In the first place, Bento sent them to be laundered by one Antónia who, to general scandal, lived out of wedlock with a carpenter and was not fit to touch holy vestments. That was the first thing. Secondly, the woman returned them in such a filthy state that it would be an insult to wear them during holy communion.
‘Oh, send them to me, Father, send them to me,’ said Dona Josefa. ‘I’ll give them to my washerwoman, who is a person of great virtue and returns the clothes looking absolutely immaculate. It would be an honour. I myself would iron them and we could even have the iron blessed . . .’
But the Canon (who really was in loquacious mode that night) interrupted her, and turning to Father Amaro, he fixed him with a stern look and said:
‘Regarding my visit to the sacristy, I meant to say, dear friend and colleague, that today you committed a punishable error.’
Amaro looked troubled.
‘What error was that, Master?’
‘After vesting,’ the Canon continued slowly, ‘when the deacons were already there beside you and you bowed to the cross in the sacristy, instead of making a low bow, you only made a half bow.’
‘Now just a moment, Master!’ exclaimed Amaro. ‘That’s what it says in the rubric. Facta reverentia cruci, bow to the cross, that is, a simple bow, a slight lowering of the head.’
And to demonstrate, he made just such a bow to Dona Josefa, who beamed and wriggled with glee.
‘Not so!’ declared the Canon who, in his own house and at his own table, was used to imposing his opinions. ‘And I have my authors to support me.’ And he let fall from on high, like great boulders of authority, the venerable names of Laboranti, Baldeschi, Merati, Turrino and Pavonio.
Amaro had pushed his chair back, ready for argument, glad, in front of Amélia, to be able to trounce the Canon, that master of moral theology and colossus of liturgical practice.
‘I maintain,’ he exclaimed, ‘I maintain, along with Castaldus . . .’
‘Stop, thief!’ roared the Canon, ‘Castaldus is one of mine!’
‘No, Castaldus is mine, Master!’
And they grew angry, each one claiming the venerable Castaldus and his eloquent authority. Dona Josefa bounced gleefully up and down in her chair, her face all creased with laughter, and she murmured to Amélia:
‘Isn’t it lovely to see them like this! The saints!’
Amaro went on, his head held high:
‘More than that, I have good sense on my side too, Father. Primo, the rubric, as I said initially. Secundo, the priest, while in the sacristy with the biretta on his head, should not make a deep bow because the biretta might fall off, and then where would we be? Tertio, it would lead to the absurdity of the priest making a deeper bow to the cross in the sacristy than to the cross on the altar!’
‘But the bow to the cross on the altar . . .’ bawled the Canon.
‘Is only a half bow. Read the rubric: Caput inclinat. Read Gavantus, read Garriffaldi. And that is how it should be! Do you know why? Because the priest is at his most dignified after mass since he has inside him the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. The point, therefore, is mine!’
And standing up, he vigorously rubbed his hands together in triumph.
The Canon was sitting slumped, like a stunned ox, his double chins resting on the folds of his napkin. Then after a moment, he said:
‘Yes, you’re quite right. I just wanted to find out what your response would be. He’s an honour to me, my student,’ he added, winking at Amélia. ‘Anyway, drink up, drink up! And then bring in some nice hot coffee, Josefa.’
However, at that point, they were startled by a loud ringing at the doorbell.
‘That’ll be São Joaneira,’ said Dona Josefa.
Gertrudes came in wrapped in a shawl and a woollen cape.
‘It’s a message from Miss Amélia’s house. The Senhora sends her regrets, but she can’t come, she’s not feeling well.’
‘Who shall I go home with, then?’ asked Amélia anxiously.
The Canon reached across the table and patted her hand:
‘If the worst comes to the worst, I’ll take you. Your virtue will be quite safe with me . . .’
‘Brother, really!’ cried Dona Josefa.
‘Oh, hush, sister. Out of a saintly mouth come only saintly words.’
The Crime of Father Amaro Page 30