Monsignor Quixote Read online

  ‘Oh, so that’s how it’s done. I always imagined it to be a great deal more simple and more enjoyable. They seemed to suffer such a lot. From the sounds they made.’

  ‘They were pretending – this is acting, father – to have unbearable pleasure.’

  ‘They didn’t seem to find it pleasurable – or perhaps they were bad actors. They just went on suffering. And I saw no balloons, Sancho.’

  ‘I was afraid you might be shocked, father, but it was you who chose the film.’

  ‘Yes. By the title. But I don’t understand what the title had to do with what we saw.’

  ‘Well, I suppose that a maiden’s prayer is to find a handsome young man to love.’

  ‘That word love again. I don’t believe that Señorita Martin prayed for anything like that. But all the same I was impressed by the silence of the audience. They took it so seriously that I was really afraid to laugh.’

  ‘You wanted to laugh?’

  ‘Yes. It was difficult not to. But I don’t like to offend anyone who takes a thing seriously. Laughter is not an argument. It can be a stupid abuse. Perhaps they saw things differently from me. Perhaps it was beauty that they saw. All the same, sometimes I longed for one of them to laugh – even you, Sancho – so that I could laugh too. But I was afraid to break that total silence. There is something holy in silence. It would hurt me if in church when I raised the Host someone laughed.’

  ‘Suppose everyone in the church laughed?’

  ‘Ah, that would be quite different. Then I would think – I might be wrong, of course – that I was hearing the laughter of joy. A solitary laugh is so often a laugh of superiority.’

  That night in bed Father Quixote opened his volume of St Francis de Sales. He still found himself worried by those scenes of love-making in the cinema – worried by his failure to be moved by any emotion except amusement. He had always believed that human love was the same kind as the love of God, even though only the faintest and feeblest reflection of that love, but those exercises which had made him want to laugh aloud, those grunts and squeals . . . Am I, he wondered, incapable of feeling human love? For, if I am, then I must also be incapable of feeling love for God. He began to fear that his spirit might be stamped indelibly by that terrible question mark. He desperately wanted comfort and so he turned to what Sancho had called his books of chivalry, but he couldn’t help remembering that Don Quixote at the last had renounced them on his deathbed. Perhaps he too when the end arrived . . .

  He opened The Love of God at random, but the sortes Virgilianae gave him no comfort. He tried three times and then he struck a passage which did seem relevant to what he had seen in the cinema. Not that it made him happier, for it made him think that perhaps he had even less capacity to love than a piece of iron. ‘Iron has such a sympathy with Adamant that as soon as it is touched with the virtue thereof it turns towards it, it begins to stir and quiver with a little hopping, testifying in that the complacence it takes, and thereupon it doth advance and bear itself towards the Adamant, striving by all means possible to be united to it.’ And then came a question which pierced him to the heart. ‘And do you not see all the parts of a lively love represented in this lifeless stone?’ Oh yes, he had seen a great deal of hopping, he thought, but he had not experienced the lively love.

  The dreaded question mark was still stamped on his spirit when they set out next day. Rocinante was positively skittish after her stay in the garage and complained not at all when their speed mounted to forty – even forty-five – kilometres an hour, a speed which they only attained because Father Quixote was deep in his unhappy thoughts. ‘What is wrong?’ Sancho asked him. ‘Again today you are the Monsignor of the Sorrowful Countenance.’

  ‘I have sometimes thought, may God forgive me,’ Father Quixote said, ‘that I was specially favoured because I have never been troubled with sexual desires.’

  ‘Not even in dreams?’

  ‘No, not even in dreams.’

  ‘You are a very lucky man.’

  Am I? he questioned himself. Or am I the most unfortunate? He couldn’t say to the friend who sat beside him what he was thinking – the question he was asking himself. How can I pray to resist evil when I am not even tempted? There is no virtue in such a prayer. He felt completely alone in his silence. It was as though the area of the confessional box and the secrets which it held had extended beyond the box itself and beyond the penitent to include the car he sat in, even the wheel under his hand as they drove towards León. He prayed in his silence: O God, make me human, let me feel temptation. Save me from my indifference.

  X

  HOW MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE

  CONFRONTED JUSTICE

  1

  They stopped on their way to León in a field on a river bank near the village of Mansilla de las Mulas because the Mayor claimed to have a great thirst. A small foot-bridge gave them a shadow in which they could leave the car, but in fact Sancho’s thirst was only a subterfuge to break the silence of Father Quixote which was getting badly on his nerves. A drink might unlock Father Quixote’s mouth, and he lowered a bottle of their manchegan wine into the river on a string, awakening the interest of some cows on the other bank. He came back to find Father Quixote staring gloomily down at his purple socks, and he could bear the inexplicable silence no longer. He said, ‘For God’s sake, if you have taken a vow of silence go into a monastery. There are Carthusians at Burgos and Trappists at Osera. Take your choice, monsignor, which way we go.’

  ‘I am sorry, Sancho,’ Father Quixote said. ‘It’s only my thoughts . . .’

  ‘Oh, I suppose your thoughts are too high and spiritual for a mere Marxist to understand them.’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘Remember, father, what a good governor my ancestor made. Don Quixote with all his chivalry and courage would never have governed so well. What a holy mess – I mean a holy mess – he would have made of that island. My ancestor took to governing just as Trotsky took to commanding an army. Trotsky was without experience, and yet he beat the White generals. Oh, we are materialists, I know, peasants and Marxists. But don’t despise us for that.’

  ‘When have I ever despised you, Sancho?’

  ‘Oh well, thank your God that you’ve begun to speak again. Let’s open the bottle.’

  The wine he fished from the river was not quite cold enough, but he was anxious to complete the cure. They drank two glasses in what was now a friendly silence.

  ‘Is there any cheese left, father?’

  ‘I think a little, I’ll go and see.’

  Father Quixote was gone a long time. Perhaps the cheese had been hard to find. The Mayor got up impatiently as Father Quixote came out from under the bridge with a look of justifiable anxiety on his face, for he was accompanied by a Guardia. For a reason the Mayor could not understand he was talking rapidly to his companion in Latin and the Guardia too had a look of anxiety. Father Quixote said, ‘Esto mihi in Deum protectorem et in locum refugii.’

  ‘The bishop seems to be a foreigner,’ the Guardia told the Mayor.

  ‘He is not a bishop. He is a monsignor.’

  ‘Is that your car under the bridge?’

  ‘It belongs to the monsignor.’

  ‘I told him he should have locked it. Why, he had even left his key in the starter. It’s not a safe thing to do. Not around here.’

  ‘It seems very peaceful here. Even the cows . . .’

  ‘You haven’t seen a man with a bullet hole through his right trouser leg and a false moustache? Though I expect he has thrown that away.’

  ‘No, no. Nothing of the kind.’

  ‘Scio cui credidi,’ Father Quixote said.

  ‘Italian?’ the Guardia asked. ‘The Pope’s a great Pope.’

  ‘He certainly is.’

  ‘No hat or jacket. A striped shirt.’

  ‘No one like that has been around here.’

  ‘He got that bullet hole in Zamora. Narrow escape. One of ours. How long have you been here?’
r />   ‘About a quarter of an hour.’

  ‘Coming from where?’

  ‘Valladolid.’

  ‘Not passed anyone on the road?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He can’t have got much further than this in the time.’

  ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘He robbed a bank at Benavente. Shot the cashier. Escaped on a Honda. Found abandoned – the Honda, I mean – five kilometres away. That’s why it’s not safe leaving your car unlocked like that with the key in the starter.’

  ‘Laqueus contritus est,’ Father Quixote said, ‘et nos liberati sumus.’

  ‘What’s the monsignor saying?’

  The Mayor said, ‘I’m not a linguist myself.’

  ‘You are on the way to León?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Keep an eye open and don’t give a lift to any stranger.’ He saluted the monsignor with courtesy and a certain caution and left them.

  ‘Why were you talking Latin to him?’ the Mayor asked.

  ‘It seemed a good thing to do.’

  ‘But why . . .?’

  ‘I wanted if possible to avoid a lie,’ Father Quixote replied. ‘Even an officious lie, not a malicious one, to use the distinction made by Father Heribert Jone.’

  ‘What had you got to lie about?’

  ‘I was confronted very suddenly with the possibility – you might say the temptation.’

  The Mayor sighed. Father Quixote’s silence had certainly been broken by the wine and he almost regretted it. He said, ‘Did you find any cheese?’

  ‘I found a quite substantial piece, but I gave it to him.’

  ‘The Guardia? Why on earth . . .?’

  ‘No, no, the man he was looking for, of course.’

  ‘You mean you’ve seen the man?’

  ‘Oh yes, that was why I was afraid of questions.’

  ‘For God’s sake, where is he now?’

  ‘In the boot of the car. It was careless of me, after that, as the Guardia said, to leave the key . . . Somebody might have driven away with him. Oh well, the danger is over now.’

  For a long moment the Mayor was incapable of speech. Then he said, ‘What did you do with the wine?’

  ‘Together we put it on the back seat of the car.’

  ‘I thank God,’ the Mayor said, ‘that I had the number plate changed at Valladolid.’

  ‘What do you mean, Sancho?’

  ‘Those Civil Guards will have reported your number at Avila. They’ll be on a computer by this time.’

  ‘But my papers . . .’

  ‘You’ve got new ones. Of course it took time. That’s why we stayed so long in Valladolid. The garagist there is an old friend and a member of the Party.’

  ‘Sancho, Sancho, how many years in prison have we earned?’

  ‘Not half as many as you will get for hiding a fugitive from justice. Whatever induced you . . .?’

  ‘He asked me to help him. He said he was falsely accused and confused with another man.’

  ‘With a revolver hole in his trousers? A bank robber?’

  ‘Well, so was your leader, Stalin. So much depends on motive, after all. If Stalin had come to me in confession and explained his reasons honestly I would have given him perhaps a decade of the rosary to say, though I’ve never given so severe a penance to anyone in El Toboso. You remember what my ancestor told the galley slaves before he released them, “There is a God in heaven, who does not neglect to punish the wicked nor to reward the good, and it is not right that honourable men should be executioners of others.” That’s good Christian doctrine, Sancho. A decade of the rosary – it’s severe enough. We are not executioners or interrogators. The Good Samaritan didn’t hold an inquiry into the wounded man’s past – the man who had fallen among thieves – before he helped him. Perhaps he was a publican and the thieves were only taking back what he had taken from them.’

  ‘While you are talking, monsignor, our wounded man is probably dying for lack of air.’

  They hurried to the car and found the man in a grievous enough state. The false moustache, loosened by sweat, hung down from one corner of his upper lip. It was lucky for him that he was small and had folded fairly easily into the little space which Rocinante offered.

  All the same he complained bitterly when they let him out. ‘I thought I was going to die. What kept you so long?’

  ‘We were doing our best for you,’ Father Quixote said in much the same words as his ancestor had used. ‘We are not your judges, but your conscience should tell you that ingratitude is an ignoble sin.’

  ‘We’ve done a great deal too much for you,’ Sancho said. ‘Now be off. The Guardia went that way. I would advise you to keep to the fields until you can drown yourself in the city.’

  ‘How can I keep to the fields in these shoes, which are rotten from the soles up, and how can I drown myself in the city with a revolver hole in my trousers?’

  ‘You robbed the bank. You can buy yourself a new pair of shoes.’

  ‘Who said I robbed a bank?’ He pulled out his empty pockets. ‘Search me,’ he said. ‘You call yourselves Christians.’

  ‘I don’t,’ the Mayor said. ‘I am a Marxist.’

  ‘I’ve got a pain in my back. I can’t walk a step.’

  ‘I’ve got some aspirin in the car,’ Father Quixote said. He unlocked the car and began to look in the glove compartment. Behind him he heard a cough twice repeated. ‘I have some lozenges too,’ he said. ‘I suppose there was a draught in the boot.’ He turned with the medicine in his hand and saw to his surprise that the stranger was holding a revolver. ‘You mustn’t point a thing like that,’ he said, ‘it’s dangerous.’

  ‘What size shoe do you take?’ the man demanded.

  ‘I really forget. I think thirty-nine.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Forty,’ Sancho said.

  ‘Give me yours,’ the man commanded Father Quixote.

  ‘They are nearly as rotten as your own.’

  ‘Don’t argue. I’d take your pants too if they would only fit. Now both of you turn your backs. If one of you moves I shall shoot both.’

  Father Quixote said, ‘I don’t understand why you went to rob a bank – if that’s what you were doing – in a pair of rotten shoes.’

  ‘I took the wrong pair by mistake. That’s why. You can turn round now. Get back into the car, both of you. I’ll sit at the back and if you stop anywhere for any reason I shall shoot.’

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ Sancho asked.

  ‘You will drop me by the cathedral in León.’

  Father Quixote reversed out of the field with some difficulty.

  ‘You are a very bad driver,’ the man said.

  ‘It’s Rocinante. She never likes going backwards. I’m afraid you haven’t much room there with all that wine. Shall I stop and return the case to the boot?’

  ‘No. Go on.’

  ‘Whatever happened to your Honda? The Guardia said you abandoned it.’

  ‘I ran out of petrol. I had forgotten to fill the tank.’

  ‘Wrong pair of shoes. No petrol. It really does look as though God was against your plans.’

  ‘Can’t you drive any quicker?’

  ‘No. Rocinante is very old. She is apt to break down at over forty.’ He looked in the driving mirror and saw the revolver pointing at him. ‘I wish you would relax and put the gun down,’ he said. ‘Rocinante sometimes behaves a bit like a camel. If she shakes you up suddenly that thing might go off. You wouldn’t be very happy with another man’s death on your conscience.’

  ‘What do you mean? Another man?’

  ‘The poor fellow in the bank whom you killed.’

  ‘I didn’t kill him. I missed.’

  ‘God does certainly seem have been working overtime,’ Father Quixote said, ‘to preserve you from grave sin.’

  ‘Anyway, it wasn’t a bank. It was a self-service store.’

  ‘The Guardia said a bank.’

  ‘
Oh, they would say it was a bank even if it was a public lavatory. They feel more important that way.’

  As they entered the city Father Quixote noticed that the gun always disappeared from view when they stopped at traffic lights. He could perhaps have jumped out of the car, but that would have left Sancho in danger, and if he tempted the man to further violence he would be sharing his sin. In any case he had no wish to be an instrument of human justice. It was a great relief when they met no Guardia or Carabinero before they drew up as close to the cathedral as he could get. ‘Let me look around and see that it is safe,’ he said.

  ‘If you betray me,’ the man said, ‘I will shoot your friend.’

  Father Quixote opened the door. ‘All’s well,’ he said. ‘You can go.’

  ‘If you are lying,’ the man warned, ‘the first bullet’s for you.’

  ‘Your moustache has fallen off,’ Father Quixote told him. ‘It’s stuck to your shoe – I mean my shoe.’

  They watched the man out of sight.

  ‘At least he didn’t assault me like the galley slaves assaulted my forebear,’ Father Quixote said.

  ‘Stay in the car while I go and buy you some shoes. You said size thirty-nine?’

  ‘Would you mind if we went into the cathedral first? It’s been rather a strain, keeping Rocinante from bucking. If he had killed us the poor man would have been in really serious trouble. I would like to sit down just for a little in the cool – and to pray. I won’t keep you long.’

  ‘I thought you were doing a lot of that while you drove.’

  ‘Oh yes, I was – but those were prayers for the poor man. I’d like to thank God now for our safety.’

  The stone struck cold through his purple socks. He regretted that in Salamanca he had not chosen the woollen ones. He was dwarfed by the great height of the nave and the flood of light through a hundred and twenty windows which might have been the gaze of God. He felt as though he were an infinitely small creature set on the slide of a microscope. He escaped to a side altar and knelt down. He didn’t know what to say. When he thought, ‘Thank you,’ the words seemed as hollow as an echo – he felt no gratitude for his escape, perhaps he would have been able to feel a little gratitude if a bullet had struck him – this is the end. They would have taken his body back to El Toboso and there he would have been at home again and not on this absurd pilgrimage – to what? Or where?