“It is your cross to bear,” the Father tells him, “and also your redemption. Resign yourself, Tancredo.”
At long last they set off into the streets in different directions, a decimated army, each with his or her bundle, a bag of scraps prudently tucked away, and he doesn’t know where they will go, where they will sleep that night or the next, or where they will eat tomorrow — perhaps in another church, he thinks, convincing himself of this in order to soothe his conscience. The shouts and shoves with which he thrust them from the church … others will help them, he thinks, and closes the door, but, as he does so, awaiting him, unwelcome, in the other tiny doorway that leads into the church itself, as if placed there by an invisible hand, lean the scrubbing brushes and the broom, the three pails of water, the cloths and the disinfectant soap, the endless work: the floor and walls must be left spick-and-span, the glass in the only window sparkling; the crucifixes adorning the walls must shine; the enormous, rough rectangular cedar table has to gleam, utterly spotless, as if for the Last Supper; and the chairs for the following day, exactly ninety-nine of them, must be made suitably immaculate and arranged in precise formation. Because tomorrow is Family Friday, the only meal attended by the Father, over which he presides accompanied by his household: the three Lilias, Machado the sacristan, his goddaughter, Sabina Cruz, and he himself, the acolyte, he himself, Tancredo, he himself, the hunchback.
What an other, what an other.
Tancredo averts his examining gaze from the window: forsaken.
Generally, it is 5:00 in the afternoon by the time he finishes clearing up, and only then does one of the Lilias appear in the tiny doorway, carrying his lunch on a heavy tray. He has lunch alone, dishevelled, sweaty from cleaning, smelling of rags, of disinfectant, his head bent over the plate, at times almost fearful. Fearful because sooner or later he raises his head and it seems he is still in the company of all those faces with their toothless, drooling mouths, which open ever wider and swallow him up, one arm after the other, one leg after the other; they gulp down his head at a single go. They do not devour him with their mouths alone: they devour him with their eyes, those eyes, dead eyes. He slams his fist on the table, but they do not disappear. “I am the meals,” he cries to himself — “I am the meal, I’m still their meal” — and with a racket like that made by the old people fleeing through the streets he lets out one last rasping sigh. “It is your cross,” the Father tells him. “It is your cross.” Closing his eyes, Tancredo sees more eyes, those eyes. Then he has a dreadful fear of being an animal, but an animal alone, an animal inside itself, devouring itself from within.
This particular Thursday, however, the presence of another of the Lilias saves him from his fear. It is strange: he has not yet finished his lunch when the Lilia appears on the threshold, her ancient voice full of echoes that whisper damply, urgently: “Father Almida needs you. He is in the office.” It is the youngest of the Lilias: shivering with cold, framed in the doorway, she wipes her hands on her apron and sighs deeply. Everything to do with the Father stirs her, even makes her stutter; she is attentive to the point of delirium; her eyes shine as if with fear; behind her small, bent frame Tancredo sees part of the presbytery garden, the willow trees, the great, round, yellow stone fountain, the violet afternoon darkening. “Go right now, I’ll look after your lunch,” she says, wrapped in her black shawl, and makes for the tray, arms outstretched. “I’ll reheat it for you later. You can have it in your room.”
It is strange because never before, in three years of Community Meals, has Father Almida ordered them to interrupt Tancredo’s lunch, his repose, his rest. The Father’s orders concerning this were categoricaclass="underline" “You must not bother Tancredo when he is having his lunch.” On one of the Tuesdays for the blind he became upset with the three Lilias because they had begged Tancredo, when he had barely finished his work, to help them in the kitchen: they wanted him to move the refrigerator, they wanted to clean out the coal stove, they wanted help pulling out the four electric cookers so they could sweep behind them and, while they were at it, get rid of a mouse’s nest that not one of the presbytery’s six cats had been able to reach. “Tancredo can help you in the morning,” the Father told them. “Any morning, but not after the Meals. He must have his own lunch, he must rest, and then he has to study before bed.” He also told them: “Ask nothing of Tancredo after the Meals, unless he and I agree otherwise.”
The three Lilias never asked for Tancredo’s help with their chores again, except those they had shared since he was a boy: accompanying them to market every Saturday, carrying the shopping, stacking it in the pantry, checking the cookers, repairing any electrical faults, hammering in or pulling out nails — undemanding domestic tasks. His work, over the last three years since he had finished night school, had revolved exclusively around the Community Meals and his private studies, directed and overseen by Father Almida himself: annotated Bible-reading, learning Latin.
His own work will have to wait now, he supposes, along with his shower and a change of clothes. He will have to go to the office, a sort of study where the Father attends to earthly matters and where he is waiting, wanting to see him — he needs me, Tancredo thinks, as the smallest of the Lilias said urgently.
Reverend Father Juan Pablo Almida was not alone. Seated at the oblong table with him was the sacristan. Pale as a sheet, Sacristan Celeste Machado gazed at the hunchback, astonished, as if he had only just met him. The sacristan was an obscure man, a shadow like the Lilias, and not just because he dressed all in black, but because of his deep reserve, a ring of blackness like a pit. Partially deaf besides, he roamed the place like any other shadow, looming up like the walls. Mute and dark. Stony. His inner gloom could freeze you. His eyes and facial expression screamed hatred and disgust, a secret repugnance that seemed exacerbated by proximity to the Lilias, who fled from him, or the presence of Tancredo, whom he ignored. He conversed — or his harsh voice rang out — solely with the Father or with Sabina, his goddaughter, and only when necessary.
Juan Pablo Almida, robust, exuding strength and health from every pore at sixty years of age — looking more like fifty — was at the head of both the table and the conversation. He had just said something his hunchbacked acolyte could not make out, but which — he sensed — referred to him: they were talking about him. The sacristan continued to examine him as though confronted by some ghastly hallucination. Why so surprised? Tancredo thought. Any self-respecting church needs its hunchback; they should know that better than anyone. Or were they astounded by the vast size of his head, the wisdom in his eyes — as Father Almida, describing him, had once put it — his stature, too tall for a hunchback, the extraordinary musculature God had seen fit to bestow on him, without being asked? Tancredo shrugged, resigned, and decided to let them admire him as much as they wished to for a few seconds. Almida and the sacristan were drinking the hazelnut liqueur that the parish lavished on its most distinguished guests or most unexpected visitors. Father Almida waved Tancredo to a chair on his right. As he sat down, he sensed the current of heat emanating from Sabina Cruz at the far end of the office, bent over the black writing-desk, unobtrusively tapping at the typewriter. She was wearing her blue headscarf; she didn’t even turn to look at him.
“My right-hand man has arrived,” Father Almida said, without taking his eyes off Tancredo. The sacristan inclined his head briefly, cupping his hand around one ear so as not to miss a word, a characteristic gesture that obliged him to turn his face to one side and stretch out his neck, and, as a result, look at his interlocutors out of the corner of his eye, as if spying on them.