Monsignor Quixote Read online

  ‘That was the belief I thought you had.’

  ‘Oh no, Sancho, then perhaps I could have burnt my books and lived really alone, knowing that all was true. “Knowing”? How terrible that might have been. Oh well, was it your ancestor or mine who used to say “Patience and shuffle the cards”?’

  ‘Some sausage, father?’

  ‘I think today I’ll stick to cheese. Sausage is for stronger men.’

  ‘Perhaps today I’ll stick to cheese too.’

  ‘Shall we open another bottle?’

  ‘Why not?’

  It was over the second bottle as the afternoon advanced that Sancho said, ‘I have something to confess to you, father. Oh, not in the confessional. I’m not asking any forgiveness from that myth of yours or mine up there, only from you.’ He brooded over his glass. ‘If I hadn’t come to fetch you, what would have happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think the bishop believes I am mad. Perhaps they would have tried to put me in an asylum, though I don’t think Dr Galván would have agreed to help them. What is the legal position for a man with no relations? Can he be put away against his will? Perhaps the bishop with Father Herrera to help him . . . And then in the background, of course, there is always the archbishop . . . They will never forget that time when I gave a little money to In Vinculis.’

  ‘My friendship for you began then, though we’d hardly spoken.’

  ‘It’s like learning to say the Mass. In the seminary one learns never to forget. Oh, my goodness, I had quite forgotten . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The bishop left a letter for me.’ Father Quixote drew it from his pocket and turned it over and over.

  ‘Go on, man. Open it. It’s not a death warrant.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘The days of Torquemada are over.’

  ‘As long as there is a Church there will always be little Torquemadas. Give me another glass of wine.’ He drank it slowly to delay the moment of truth.

  Sancho took the letter from him and opened it. He said, ‘It’s short enough anyway. What does Suspensión a Divinis mean?’

  ‘As I thought, it’s the sentence of death,’ Father Quixote said. ‘Give me the letter.’ He put his glass down unfinished. ‘I’m not afraid any longer. After death there’s nothing more they can do. There remains only the mercy of God.’ He read the letter aloud.

  ‘“My dear Monsignor, it was a great grief to me to hear you confirm the truth of the accusations which I had felt almost sure must have been due to misunderstanding, exaggeration or malice.” What a hypocrite! Oh well, I suppose hypocrisy in a bishop is almost necessary and would be considered by Father Heribert Jone a very venial sin. “All the same, under the circumstances I am ready to think that your exchange of clothes with your Communist companion was not a symbolic act of defiance towards the Holy Father but was due to some severe mental disturbance, which also induced you to help a felon to escape and to visit without shame in your purple pechera as a monsignor a disgusting and pornographic film clearly denoted with an ‘S’ to mark its true character. I have discussed your case with Dr Galván who agrees with me that a long rest is indicated and I shall be writing to the Archbishop. In the meanwhile I find it my duty to announce to you a Suspensión a Divinis.”’

  ‘What does that sentence of death mean exactly?’

  ‘It means I mustn’t say the Mass – not in public, not even in private. But in the privacy of my room I shall say it, for I am innocent. I must hear no confessions either – except in an extreme emergency. I remain a priest, but a priest only to myself. A useless priest forbidden to serve others. I’m glad you came to fetch me. How could I have borne that sort of life in El Toboso?’

  ‘You could appeal to Rome. You are a monsignor.’

  ‘Even a monsignor can be lost in those dusty Curia files.’

  ‘I told you I had something to confess, father. I nearly didn’t come.’ It was the Mayor now who drank to give himself the courage to speak. ‘When I found you gone – there were two Americans nearby who saw what happened, they thought you were dead but I knew better – I thought, “I’ll borrow Rocinante to make for Portugal.” I have good friends in the Party there and I thought I would stay a while until all the fuss was over.’

  ‘But you didn’t go.’

  ‘I drove to Ponferrada and there I took the main road to Orense. On my map there was a side road which I meant to take, for it was less than sixty kilometres from there to the frontier.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Oh well, I got to the side road and I turned and I drove back to Valladolid and I asked my comrade in the garage to paint the car and change the number again.’

  ‘But why didn’t you go on?’

  ‘I looked at your damn purple socks and your bib and your new shoes which we had bought in León, and I remembered suddenly the way you had blown up that balloon.’

  ‘They seem insufficient reasons.’

  ‘They were sufficient for me.’

  ‘I’m glad you came, Sancho. I feel safe here with you and with Rocinante, safer than back there with Father Herrera. El Toboso is no longer home to me and I have no other, except here on this spot of ground with you.’

  ‘We’ve got to find you another home, father, but where?’

  ‘Somewhere quiet where Rocinante and I can rest for a while.’

  ‘And where the Guardia and the bishop won’t find you.’

  ‘There was that Trappist monastery you spoke of in Galicia . . . But you wouldn’t feel at home there, Sancho.’

  ‘I could leave you with them and hire a car in Orense to take me across the border.’

  ‘I don’t want our travels to end. Not before death, Sancho. My ancestor died in his bed. Perhaps he would have lived longer if he had stayed on the road. I’m not ready for death yet, Sancho.’

  ‘I’m worrying about the Guardia’s computers. Rocinante is pretty well disguised, but at the frontier they may be looking out for the two of us.’

  ‘Like it or not, Sancho, I think you will have to stay for a week or two with the Trappists.’

  ‘The food will be bad.’

  ‘And the wine too perhaps.’

  ‘We had better stock up with some Galician wine on the road. The manchegan is nearly finished.’

  III

  HOW MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE

  HAD HIS LAST ADVENTURE

  AMONG THE MEXICANS

  1

  They slept out for three nights, making their way with caution by little-frequented roads, from the mountains of Toledo, over the Sierra of Guadalupe, where Rocinante found it a strain when she climbed to over eight hundred metres only to find a yet greater strain when they reached the Sierra de Gredos, where the road wound up to over fifteen hundred metres, for they avoided Salamanca and headed for the Duero river which separated them from the safety of Portugal. It was a very slow progress which they made through the mountains, but the Mayor preferred the mountains to the plains of Castile because of the long perspectives where an official jeep could be seen from far away and the villages were too small to contain a Guardia post. A sinuous progress it was on third-class roads, for they avoided even the dangerous second-class yellow ones on the map. As for the great red roads, these they banned completely.

  It was always cold when the dark fell and they were glad to substitute whisky for wine to drink with the cheese and sausage. They slept afterwards with difficulty curled up in the car. When at last they were forced to come down into the plain the Mayor looked with longing at a signpost which pointed to Portugal. ‘If you only had a passport,’ he said, ‘we would make for Bragança. I prefer my comrades there to the Spanish ones. Cunhal is a better man than Carrillo.’

  ‘I thought Carrillo was a good man as Communists go.’

  ‘You can’t trust a Euro-Communist.’

  ‘Surely you are not a Stalinist, Sancho?’

  ‘I’m not a Stalinist, but at least you know where you are with them. They are not Jesuits. They don’t turn wit
h the wind. If they are cruel, they are cruel also to themselves. When you come to the end of the longest road of all you have to lie down and take a rest – a rest from arguments and theories and fashions. You can say, “I don’t believe but I accept,” and you fall into silence like the Trappists do. The Trappists are the Stalinists of the Church.’

  ‘Then you would have made a good Trappist, Sancho.’

  ‘Perhaps, though I don’t like getting up early in the morning.’

  After they had crossed into Galicia they halted at a village so that the Mayor could inquire where there was a vineyard at which they could buy good wine, for they were down to the last bottles of manchegan, and the Mayor distrusted all wine with labels. He was away for a full ten minutes and he had a sombre air when he returned, so that Father Quixote asked with anxiety, ‘Bad news?’

  ‘Oh, I have an address,’ he said and he described the route they must follow, and for the next half an hour he said nothing, indicating the turnings to take with his hand, but his silence was so heavily loaded that Father Quixote insisted on piercing through it. ‘You are worried,’ he said. ‘Is it about the Guardia?’

  ‘Oh, the Guardia,’ the Mayor exclaimed. ‘We can deal with the Guardia. Haven’t we dealt with them well enough near Avila and on the road to León? I spit on the Guardia.’

  ‘Then what’s upsetting you?’

  ‘I don’t like anything that I cannot understand.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘These ignorant villagers and their atrocious accents.’

  ‘They are Galicians, Sancho.’

  ‘And they know that we are foreigners. They think we will believe anything.’

  ‘What have they told you?’

  ‘They pretended to be very solicitous about the wine. They argued among themselves about three vineyards – the white was better in one, the red in another, and their last words were a warning – they pretended to be very earnest about it. They took me for a fool because I was a foreigner. The insularity of these Galicians! You will find the best wine in Spain, they told me, as though our manchegan was just horses’ piss.’

  ‘But what was the warning?’

  ‘One of the vineyards was near a place called Learig. They said, “Keep away from that one. The Mexicans are everywhere.” These were their last words to me. They shouted them after me. “Stay away from the land of the Mexicans. Their priests spoil even the wine.”’

  ‘Mexicans! Are you sure you heard right?’

  ‘I’m not deaf.’

  ‘What could they possibly mean?’

  ‘I suppose Pancho Villa has risen from the dead and is sacking Galicia.’

  Another half an hour and they had entered the land of wine. On their right hand the southern slopes were green with vines, and on their left a decrepit village lay, like an abandoned corpse, along a cliffside, a house here and there in ruins, a mouth of broken teeth.

  The Mayor said, ‘We don’t take the road to the village. We go fifty yards on and leave the car and take a path up.’

  ‘Up to where?’

  ‘They called him Señor Diego. In the end those fools agreed that his was the best wine. “The Mexicans haven’t got there yet,” they said.’

  ‘The Mexicans again. I begin to be a little nervous, Sancho.’

  ‘Courage, father. You were not daunted by the windmills, why be daunted by a few Mexicans? That must be the path, so we leave the car here.’ They parked Rocinante behind a Mercedes which had already usurped the best place.

  As they began to climb the path a stout man who wore a smart suit and a startling striped tie came hurrying down it. He was muttering angry words to himself. They narrowly avoided a collision when he stopped abruptly and blocked their way. ‘Are you going up there to buy wine?’ he snapped at them.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Give it up,’ the man said. ‘He’s mad.’

  ‘Who’s mad?’ the Mayor asked.

  ‘Señor Diego, of course. Who else? He’s got a cellar full of good wine up there and he won’t let me try a single glass, though I was ready to take a dozen cases. He said he didn’t like my tie.’

  ‘There could be a difference of opinion about your tie,’ the Mayor said with caution.

  ‘I’m a business man myself, and I tell you it’s not the way to do business. But now it’s too late to get the wine elsewhere.’

  ‘Why all the hurry?’

  ‘Because I promised the priest. I always keep a promise. It’s good business to keep a promise. I promised the priest to get the wine. It’s a promise to the Church.’

  ‘What does the Church want with a dozen cases of wine?’

  ‘It’s not only my promise. I may lose my place in the procession. Unless the priest will accept cash instead. He won’t take cheques. Get out of my way, please. I can’t stay here talking, but I wanted to warn you . . .’

  ‘I don’t understand what’s going on,’ Father Quixote said.

  ‘Nor do I.’

  At the head of the path there was a house much in need of repair and a table under a fig tree on which lay the remains of a meal. A young man in blue jeans came hurriedly towards them. He said, ‘Señor Diego will see nobody today.’

  ‘We have only come to buy a little wine,’ the Mayor said.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. Not today. And there’s no use telling me about the feast. Señor Diego will have nothing to do with the feast.’

  ‘We don’t want it for any feast. We are simple travellers and we’ve run out of wine.’

  ‘You are not Mexicans?’

  ‘No, we are not Mexicans,’ Father Quixote said with a note of conviction. ‘Of your charity, father . . . Just a few bottles of wine. We are on our way to the Trappists of Osera.’

  ‘The Trappists . . .? How do you know I am a priest?’

  ‘When you have been a priest as long as I have you will recognize a colleague. Even without his collar.’

  ‘This is Monsignor Quixote of El Toboso,’ the Mayor said.

  ‘A monsignor?’

  ‘Forget the monsignor, father. A parish priest, as I suspect you are.’

  The young man ran towards the house. He called, ‘Señor Diego, Señor Diego. Come quickly. A monsignor. We have a monsignor here.’

  ‘Is it so rare to see a monsignor in this place?’ the Mayor asked.

  ‘Rare? It certainly is. The priests round here – they are all friends of the Mexicans.’

  ‘That man we met on the path – was he a Mexican?’

  ‘Of course he was. One of the bad Mexicans. That’s why Señor Diego wouldn’t sell him any wine.’

  ‘I thought perhaps it was because of his tie.’

  An old man with great dignity came out on to the terrace. He had the sad and weary face of a man who has seen too much of life for far too long. He hesitated a moment between the Mayor and Father Quixote before, holding out both hands towards the Mayor, he made the wrong choice. ‘Welcome, monsignor, to my house.’

  ‘No, no,’ the young priest exclaimed, ‘the other one.’

  Señor Diego turned his hands first and then his eyes towards Father Quixote. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘my sight is not what it was. I see badly, very badly. I was walking with this grandson of mine only this morning in the vineyard and it was always he who spotted the weeds – not me. Sit down, please, both of you, and I will bring you some food and wine.’

  ‘They are going to Osera to the Trappists.’

  ‘The Trappists are good men, but their wine, I believe, is less good and as for the liqueur they make . . . You must take a case of wine for them, and for yourselves too, of course. I’ve never had a monsignor here under my fig tree before.’

  ‘Sit down with them, Señor Diego,’ the young priest said, ‘and I will fetch the ham and the wine.’

  ‘The white and the red – and bowls for all of us. We will have a better feast than the Mexicans.’ When the priest was out of hearing he said, ‘If all the priests here were like my gr
andson . . . I could trust him even with the vineyard. If only he had not chosen to be a priest. It was all his mother’s fault. My son would never have allowed it. If he hadn’t died . . . I saw José today pulling up the weeds, but I couldn’t see them clearly any longer and I thought, “It is time for me and the vineyard to go.”’

  ‘Is this your grandson’s parish?’ Father Quixote asked.

  ‘Oh no, no. He lives forty kilometres away. The priests here have driven him from his old parish. He was a danger to them. The poor people loved him because he refused to take money and say the Responses when anyone died. Responses, what nonsense! To gabble a few words and ask a thousand pesetas. So the priests wrote to the bishop and even though there were good Mexicans who defended him he was sent away. You would understand, if you stayed here a little while; you would see how greedy the priests are for the money the Mexicans have brought to these poor parts.’

  ‘Mexicans, Mexicans. But who are these Mexicans?’

  The young priest came back to the fig tree carrying a tray with plates of ham, four large earthenware bowls and bottles of red and white wine. He filled the bowls with wine. ‘Start with the white,’ he said. ‘Make yourselves at home. Señor Diego and I had eaten before the Mexican arrived. Help yourselves to the ham – it is a good ham, home cured. You will not get such ham with the Trappists.’

  ‘But these Mexicans . . . please explain, father.’

  ‘Oh, they come here and build rich houses and the priests are corrupted by the sight of money. They even think they can buy Our Lady. Don’t let’s talk about them. There are better things to speak of.’

  ‘But who are these Mexicans . . .?’

  ‘Oh, there are good men among them. I don’t deny it. Many good men, but all the same . . . I just don’t understand. They have too much money and they have been away too long.’

  ‘Too long away from Mexico?’

  ‘Too long away from Galicia. You are not taking any ham, monsignor. Please . . .’

  ‘I am very happy,’ Señor Diego said, ‘to welcome under this fig tree Monsignor . . . Monsignor . . .’

  ‘Quixote,’ the Mayor said.