Monsignor Quixote Page 12

  It seemed a waste of time trying and failing to pray, so he gave up the attempt and instead tried to exclude all thought, to be aware of nothing, to enter a complete silence, and after a long while he did feel himself on the threshold of Nothing with only one step to take. Then he became aware of his left big toe colder than the other on the cathedral stone, and he thought: I have a hole in my sock. The sock – why had he not insisted on wool? – was not worth the price at that grand establishment patronized by Opus Dei.

  He made the sign of the cross and rejoined Sancho.

  ‘Have you prayed enough?’ the Mayor asked him.

  ‘I haven’t prayed at all.’

  They left Rocinante parked and walked at random through the streets. Just off the Burgo Nuevo they found a shoe shop. The hot pavements burnt Father Quixote’s feet and the hole from which his left big toe protruded had grown considerably larger. It was a small shop and the proprietor looked at his feet with astonishment.

  ‘I want a pair of black shoes, size thirty-nine,’ Father Quixote said.

  ‘Yes, yes, please take a seat.’ The man produced a pair and knelt before him. Father Quixote thought: I am like the statue of St Peter in Rome. Will he kiss my toe? He laughed.

  ‘What’s funny?’ the Mayor asked.

  ‘Oh, nothing, nothing. A thought.’

  ‘You will find the leather of this pair very soft and supple, Your Excellency.’

  ‘I am not a bishop,’ Father Quixote said, ‘only a monsignor and God forgive me for that.’

  The man fitted the shoe over the undamaged sock. ‘If the monsignor would just take a few steps . . .’

  ‘I’ve taken more than a few steps in Leon already. Your pavements are hard.’

  ‘Certainly they must have been, monsignor, walking without shoes.’

  ‘These shoes are very comfortable. I will take them.’

  ‘Would you like them wrapped or will you wear them, monsignor?’

  ‘Of course I will wear them. Do you think I want to walk barefoot?’

  ‘I thought perhaps . . . Well, I thought, maybe it was a penance . . .’

  ‘No, no, I am not, I fear, a holy man.’

  He sat down again and let the man fit the other shoe over the protruding toe which he adjusted with gentleness and even a touch of reverence, pushing it back into the sock. It was obvious that to be in contact with a monsignor’s naked toe was a new experience for him.

  ‘And the other shoes? The monsignor does not require them wrapped?’

  ‘What other shoes?’

  ‘The ones that monsignor has discarded.’

  ‘I didn’t discard them. They discarded me,’ Father Quixote said. ‘I don’t even know where they are. Far away from here, I expect, by this time. They were old shoes anyway. Not so good as these.’

  The man saw them to the shop door. He asked, ‘If you would give me your blessing, monsignor?’ Father Quixote sketched the sign of the cross and mumbled. In the street he commented, ‘The man was far too respectful for my liking.’

  ‘The circumstances were not normal, and I’m afraid he is likely to remember us.’

  On the way back to Rocinante they passed a post office. Father Quixote halted. He said, ‘I am anxious.’

  ‘You have reason. If that scoundrel you saved is caught and talks . . .’

  ‘I was not thinking of him. I was thinking of Teresa. I can feel in my head like a thunderstorm that something is wrong. We have been away such a long time.’

  ‘Four days.’

  ‘It’s not possible. It seems a month at least. Please let me telephone.’

  ‘Go ahead, but be quick about it. The sooner we are out of León the better.’

  Teresa answered the telephone. Before he had time to speak she said in a tone of fury, ‘Father Herrera is not here and I don’t know when he will return.’ She cut the line.

  ‘Something is wrong,’ Father Quixote said. He dialled again and this time he spoke at once. ‘This is Father Quixote, Teresa.’

  ‘Praise be to God,’ Teresa said. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘León.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  The Mayor said, ‘You shouldn’t have told her.’

  ‘What are you doing there, father?’

  ‘Telephoning to you.’

  ‘Father, the bishop is in a terrible state.’

  ‘Is he ill, poor man?’

  ‘He’s in a holy rage.’

  ‘What’s wrong, Teresa?’

  ‘He’s been on the telephone twice to Father Herrera. Half an hour it was they were talking both times with no thought of expense.’

  ‘But what about, Teresa?’

  ‘About you, of course. They said you are mad. They say you should be shut in a madhouse to save the honour of the Church.’

  ‘But why? Why?’

  ‘The Guardia have been searching for you in Avila.’

  ‘I haven’t been in Avila.’

  ‘They know that. They say you are in Valladolid. And they say you exchanged clothes with the Red Mayor to escape.’

  ‘It’s not true.’

  ‘They think you might be mixed up with those mad Basques.’

  ‘How do you know all this, Teresa?’

  ‘Do you think I’d let them use your telephone and not leave the kitchen door open?’

  ‘Let me speak to Father Herrera.’

  ‘Give nothing away,’ Sancho said. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Father Herrera is not here. He left yesterday before it was light to see the bishop. The bishop’s in such a fetch it wouldn’t surprise me if he telephoned to the Holy Father himself about you. Father Herrera said to me it was a terrible mistake that the Holy Father made appointing you a monsignor. I said to him that’s blasphemy. The Holy Father can’t make mistakes.’

  ‘Oh yes, he can, Teresa – little mistakes. I think I’d better come home at once.’

  ‘You can’t do that, father. The Guardia will grab you for sure and you’ll end your days in the madhouse.’

  ‘But I’m no more mad than Father Herrera is. Or the bishop, come to that.’

  ‘They’ll pretend you are. I heard Father Herrera say to the bishop, “He’s got to be kept out of mischief. For the sake of the Church.” Stay away, father.’

  ‘Goodbye, Teresa.’

  ‘You will stay away?’

  ‘I must think about it, Teresa.’

  Father Quixote said to the Mayor, ‘The Guardia have been in touch with the bishop and the bishop with Father Herrera. They think I’m mad.’

  ‘Well, there’s no harm in that. They thought your ancestor was mad too. Perhaps Father Herrera will behave like the Canon and start burning your books.’

  ‘God forbid. I ought to go home, Sancho.’

  ‘That would prove you mad indeed. We have to get away from here quickly, but not to El Toboso. You should never have told Teresa that you were in León.’

  ‘She has a mouth like a padlock. Don’t worry. Why, she never even told me about the horse steaks.’

  ‘There’s a lot else to worry about. These computers work like lightning. They may be confused for a while by the change in the number plate, but if the Guardia have fed your title into the machine, we are in for trouble. We’ll have to take off your bib and your socks again. I don’t suppose there are many monsignors driving around in an old Seat 600.’

  As they walked rapidly away to where they had parked Rocinante, Sancho said, ‘I think we should abandon the car and take a bus.’

  ‘We’ve done nothing wrong.’

  ‘The danger is not what we have done, but what they think we have done. Even if it’s no longer a crime to read Marx it’s still a crime to hide a bank robber.’

  ‘He was not a bank robber.’

  ‘A self-service store robber then – it’s a crime to hide him in the boot of your car.’

  ‘I won’t abandon Rocinante.’ They had reached the car and he put his hand protectively on the wing where he could feel a dent which ha
d been caused when he scraped once against the butcher’s car in El Toboso.

  ‘Do you know Shakespeare’s play Henry VIII?’

  ‘No, I much prefer Lope de Vega.’

  ‘I wouldn’t like Rocinante to reproach me as Cardinal Wolsey did his King.

  “Had I but serv’d my God with half the zeal

  I serv’d my king, he would not in mine age

  Have left me naked to mine enemies.”

  You see this bruise on her bonnet, Sancho? It was seven years ago and more that she suffered it through my fault. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.’

  2

  They drove out of León the quickest way, but as the road climbed Rocinante showed signs of fatigue. The mountains of León rose before them, grey, stony, jagged. The Mayor said, ‘You told me you wanted silence. The time has come to choose between the silence of Burgos and the silence of Osera.’

  ‘Burgos is a place of unhappy associations.’

  ‘Bravo, monsignor, I had thought the memory of the Generalissimo’s headquarters might have attracted you.’

  ‘I prefer the silence of peace to the silence which comes after success – that silence is like the permanent silence of death. And not a good death either. But you, Sancho – doesn’t the thought of a monastery repel you?’

  ‘Why should it? They can defend us against worse evils, as Marx wrote. Besides, a monastery has the same advantage for us as a brothel. If we don’t stay too long. There are no forms to fill up.’

  ‘Osera then, Sancho, and the Trappists.’

  ‘We shall at least have good Galician wine there. Our manchegan will soon be running low.’

  They picnicked on wine only, for the cheese was gone with the robber and the sausage was finished. They were nearly a thousand metres up and the whole empty landscape lay below them, and a small wind freshened the air. They finished a bottle quickly and Sancho opened another. ‘Is that wise?’ Father Quixote asked.

  ‘Wisdom is not absolute,’ Sancho said. ‘Wisdom is relative to a given situation. Wisdom too varies with the individual case. For me it is wise to drink another half bottle in a situation like ours when we have no food. For you of course it may well be folly. In that case, when the time comes, I will have to judge what it is wise for me to do with your half of the bottle.’

  ‘That time is unlikely to come,’ Father Quixote said. ‘In my wisdom I must prevent you drinking more than your share,’ and he poured himself out a glass. He added, ‘I don’t understand why our lack of food can affect the wisdom of our choice.’

  ‘It is obvious,’ Sancho said. ‘Wine contains sugar and sugar is a very valuable food.’

  ‘In that case if we had enough wine we should never starve.’

  ‘Exactly, but there is always a fallacy to be found in a logical argument – even in those of your St Thomas Aquinas. If we substituted wine for food we would have to stay where we are and so we would eventually run out of wine.’

  ‘Why would we have to stay?’

  ‘Because neither of us would be capable of driving.’

  ‘True enough. Logical thought does often lead to absurd situations. There is a popular saint in La Mancha who lost her virginity when she was raped by a Moor in her own kitchen when he was unarmed and she had a kitchen knife in her hand.’

  ‘She wanted to be raped, I suppose.’

  ‘No, no, her thought was quite logical. Her virginity was less important than the salvation of the Moor. By killing him at that moment she was robbing him of any chance of salvation. An absurd and yet, when one thinks of it, a beautiful story.’

  ‘This wine is making you talkative, monsignor. I wonder how you will put up with silence in the monastery.’

  ‘We shall not have to be silent, Sancho, and the monks have permission to speak to their guests.’

  ‘How quickly this second bottle has vanished. Do you remember – what a long time ago it seems – how you tried to explain the Trinity to me?’

  ‘Yes. And I made that terrible mistake. I allowed a half bottle to represent the Holy Ghost.’

  ‘We won’t make that mistake again,’ Sancho said as he opened a third bottle.

  Father Quixote made no protest, and yet the wine was working in his brain like an irritant. He was ready to take offence as soon as an opportunity arose.

  ‘I am glad,’ the Mayor said, ‘that unlike your ancestor you enjoy your wine. Don Quixote frequently stopped at an inn, he had at least four of his adventures at an inn, but we never hear of him drinking so much as a glass. Like us, he had many meals of cheese in the open air but never a glass of good manchegan to wash it down. As a travel companion he wouldn’t have suited me. Thank God, in spite of your saintly books, you can drink deep when you choose.’

  ‘Why are you always saddling me with my ancestor?’

  ‘I was only comparing . . .’

  ‘You talk about him at every opportunity, you pretend that my saints’ books are like his books of chivalry, you compare our little adventures with his. Those Guardia were Guardia, not windmills. I am Father Quixote, and not Don Quixote. I tell you, I exist. My adventures are my own adventures, not his. I go my way – my way – not his. I have free will. I am not tethered to an ancestor who has been dead these four hundred years.’

  ‘I am sorry, father. I thought you were proud of your ancestor. I never meant to offend.’

  ‘Oh, I know what you think. You think my God is an illusion like the windmills. But He exists, I tell you, I don’t just believe in Him. I touch Him.’

  ‘Is he soft or hard?’

  Father Quixote began to raise himself in wrath from the grass.

  ‘No, no, father. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to joke. I respect your belief as you respect mine. Only there’s a difference. I know that Marx and Lenin existed. You only believe.’

  ‘I tell you it’s not a question of belief. I touch Him.’

  ‘Father, we’ve had a good time together. This is the third bottle. I raise my glass in honour of the Trinity. You can’t refuse to drink that toast with me.’

  Father Quixote stared glumly into his glass. ‘No, I can’t refuse, but . . .’ He drank and this time he felt his anger dissipate and in place of the anger a great sadness grew. He said, ‘Do you think that I am a little drunk, Sancho?’ Sancho saw tears in his eyes.

  ‘Father, our friendship . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes, nothing can alter that, Sancho. I only wish I had the right words.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘And the learning too. I am a very ignorant man. There was so much that I was supposed to teach in El Toboso that I didn’t understand. I didn’t think twice about it. The Trinity. Natural Law. Mortal sin. I taught them words out of textbooks. I never said to myself, do I believe these things? I went home and read my saints. They wrote of love. I could understand that. The other things didn’t seem important.’

  ‘I don’t understand what worries you, father.’

  ‘You worry me, Sancho. Four days of your company worry me. I think of myself laughing when I blew up that balloon. That film . . . Why wasn’t I shocked? Why didn’t I walk out? El Toboso seems a hundred years away. I don’t feel myself at all, Sancho. There’s a giddiness . . .’

  ‘You are a little drunk, father. That’s all.’

  ‘Are these the usual symptoms?’

  ‘Talking a lot . . . giddiness . . . yes.’

  ‘And sadness?’

  ‘It takes some people that way. Others become noisy and gay.’

  ‘I think I shall have to stick to tonic water. I don’t feel up to driving.’

  ‘I could take the wheel.’

  ‘Rocinante doesn’t like a strange hand. I would like to sleep for a little now before we go on. If I’ve said anything to offend you, Sancho, forgive me. It was the wine that spoke, not me.’

  ‘You’ve said nothing bad. Lie down for a while, father, and I’ll keep watch. Vodka has given me a good head.’

  Father Quixote found a patch of soft turf b
etween the rocks and lay down, but sleep did not come immediately. He said, ‘Father Heribert Jone found drunkenness a more serious sin than gluttony. I don’t understand that. A little drunkenness has brought us together, Sancho. It helps friendship. Gluttony surely is a solitary vice. A form of onanism. And yet I remember Father Jone writing that it is only a venial sin. “Even if vomiting is produced.” Those are his very words.’

  ‘I wouldn’t accept Father Jone as an authority on morals any more than I would accept Trotsky as an authority on Communism.’

  ‘Do people really do terrible things when they are drunk?’

  ‘Perhaps, sometimes, if they lose control. But that’s not always bad. It’s good to lose control on occasions. In love for example.’

  ‘Like those people in the film?’

  ‘Well, yes, perhaps.’

  ‘Perhaps if they had drunk a little more they would have been blowing up balloons.’

  An odd sound came from the rocks. It took a moment for the Mayor to recognize it as a laugh. Father Quixote said, ‘You are my moral theologian, Sancho,’ and a moment later a light snore took the place of the laugh.

  3

  It had been a tiring day, they had drunk well, and after a little while the Mayor too slept. He had a dream – it was one of those final dreams one has before waking of which even the small details stay hauntingly in the memory. He was searching for Father Quixote, who was lost. The Mayor was carrying the purple socks and he was worried because the mountainous path Father Quixote had taken was very rough for a man bare-footed. Indeed, he came here and there on traces of blood. Several times he tried to shout Father Quixote’s name, but the sound always died in his throat. Suddenly he emerged on to a great marble paving and there in front was the church of El Toboso from which strange sounds were coming. He went into the church, carrying the purple socks, and perched up on top of the altar like a sacred image was Father Quixote, and the congregation laughed and Father Quixote wept. The Mayor woke with a sense of a final, irreparable disaster. The dark had fallen. He was alone.

  He went, as in his dream, to look for Father Quixote, and he was relieved to find him. Father Quixote had moved a little way down the slope, perhaps so as to be closer to Rocinante, perhaps because the ground was softer there. He had taken off his socks and made a pillow with them for his head with the help of his shoes and he was deeply asleep.