“Put aside evil thoughts,” the priest would tell her when she confessed. And he would add with growing exaltation: “Repeat after me, child. I am a sack of foul-smelling filth. My sins are an abomination. I am pernicious, scandalous, incorrigible. I deserve to be locked away in a cell on bread and water until I die.” And rolling up his eyes to heaven: “My fault, my fault, my most grievous fault.”
Mayalde observed him with a smile, convinced he had lost his mind. The girl shrugged in amazement and kept her own counsel.
Father Mazón would sing these damn hallelujahs that have been repeated in Mexican churches for the past five hundred years and eventually move away from Mayalde, the object of his recriminations, and conclude by praising himself, remembering what they had told him at home when he disclosed his ecclesiastical vocation:
“Benito, there’s nothing theological about you.”
“Benito, you look more like a scoundrel.”
“Benito, don’t tell us you’re not pretty horny.”
He agreed with the last two propositions but decided to put them to the test by subjecting himself to the disciplines of the first: entering the priesthood.
His relationship with the beautiful Mayalde joined together his three temptations: the divine, the worldly, and the erotic. How far had it gone? In the village, one didn’t know for sure. The situation itself — priest with supposed goddaughter or niece who, in the end, turned out to be secret daughter — had occurred so often it couldn’t withstand another version. The strength of the tradition obliged one to think certain things. It also allowed us, a few of us, to propose the exception.
“That only happens in old movies, Doña Altagracia. Let’s say she really is his niece or an orphan or whatever all of you like and prefer, and the priest simply and openly exploits her as a maid without enjoying her as a concubine.”
Some said yes, others no. One, who tries to be fair, would not admit baseless gossip or unproven suspicions. But when Mayalde came down the mountain to the market, a melancholy silence surrounded her. The village smelled of wet dog, of lit hearth, of roasted food, of burro dung, of ocote pine smoke, of untouchable snow, of unpardonable sun. She moved as if she weren’t touching the ground. She was pursued by the evil thoughts of some, the suspicious silence of others, the ambiguous solitude of everybody. Was Benito Mazón a man of God or a damned sinner? In any case, only he dispensed the sacraments in this forgotten village. And if he gave us the host and extreme unction, what wouldn’t he give to the pretty girl who lived with him?
A few of us had been educated and did not believe the falsehoods of the Church. But nobody — not even one, who is an atheist, to tell the absolute truth — dared challenge the weight of religious tradition in the villages. The sky would fall down on us. Centuries and centuries of proclaiming ourselves Catholics has its importance. Being an atheist is almost a failure of courtesy. But one thinks that what the believer and the indifferent ought to share is charity and compassion. It isn’t justice that unites us. One knows Christians who go out of their way to be unjust. To inferiors. To children. To women. To animals. And who, beating their chests, proclaim themselves Christians and go to Mass on Sunday.
One is not like them. One tries to be sincere with the world and with oneself. One wants to be just even though one is not a believer. One thinks that even if one is not Catholic, justice is the most Christian thing there is. Because of justice, one helps others, and mercy is only a little medal they pin on us afterward.
Because of simple charity, then, one pretends not to see and lets him pass at night as one observes from the darkened window the limping young man who looks around in distress without knowing which way to go until one comes out in the midst of the silent ringing of the Angelus and directs him:
“Go up the mountain a little way. Follow the bells.”
“What bells?”
“Listen to them carefully. Up there you’ll be received with charity.”
I sent him away from the village because one knows very well who one’s neighbors are. The boy, his leg injured, with dirty bandages around his knee, torn clothing, and muddy boots, was going to be suspect, no matter who he was and where he came from. One is not accustomed to the sudden appearance of people one doesn’t know. One is predisposed against the stranger. Even more so in a village of less than a hundred souls lost in the volcanic heights of Mexico, a village of ash and snow, icy air, and numb hands. A village enveloped in a gigantic gray serape as if in a premature though permanent winding-sheet.
But if the stranger seeks refuge in the house of the priest, it means he has nothing to hide. The Church blesses those it receives. The boy could climb down from the church to the village without arousing anyone’s suspicions. What he couldn’t do was appear like this, hurt, confused, and exhibiting a youthful beauty as somber and dazzling as that of a black sun.
“Climb the hill. Take refuge in Christian charity. Ask for the priest. Find an explanation.”
“I was mountain climbing and I fell,” Félix Camberos said simply, for that was the name the boy gave when Father Benito Mazón opened the door as dawn was breaking.
“It’s very early,” the priest said disagreeably.
“Mountains are overcome early in the morning.” Félix Camberos smiled, for better or worse. “Just like piety.”
“All right, Mayalde, see to the stranger,” said the priest, feeling strangely trapped in a contradiction he did not understand.
Benito Mazón had seen the figure of the boy, and in his heart, he had reasons for charity as well as suspicion. They merged in the figure of Mayalde. Who would tend to the injured boy? Why not the priest? Because he would have to kneel before the injured man in a posture his arrogance rejected. He would have to display humility to a man younger than himself. And above all, handsomer. The priest caught Mayalde’s glance when Félix appeared. It was the face of a voiceless moon expressing everything by means of waxing and waning movements, as if a tide from heaven had carried the stranger to this desolate place.
Mayalde had not controlled her own face when she saw Félix. Father Benito noticed this and decided to place the young man in the girl’s care. Why? The reason seemed as apparent to the priest as it does now to oneself. Benito Mazón’s iguana’s profile and wolf’s eyes were the opposite of the statue’s profile and puppy’s eyes of Félix.
Father Mazón felt an uncontrollable impulse to place Mayalde in Félix’s hands and expose her to temptation. He savored the decision. It exalted him. He felt like a missionary of the Lord who first offers us the joy of sin in order to immediately impose the difficulty of virtue and to arrogate to himself, by means of confession, the right to forgive. Between one thing and the other, between sin and virtue (Mazón gloated) crawled a serpent made of temptation. The priest would not have to conquer it. But the girl would. This possibility was enough to assure her soul many hours of martyrdom, of harassment, of severity when he and Mayalde were alone again and he could corner her and feel the pleasure of humiliating and accusing her, and finally, with luck, the defeated girl would no longer resist.
Father Mazón went out to attend to his divine duties, and Mayalde remained alone with Félix. The girl was very discreet.
“Take off your trousers. Otherwise I can’t tend to your knee.”
Félix obeyed gravely, though he smiled and blushed just a little when he sat in front of Mayalde, displaying his brief, tight undershorts. She looked at him without curiosity and proceeded to clean the injury on his leg.