Recently, however, Candito must have experienced a kind of mystical revelation. Contrary to what happened in his usual circles, where African religions ruled firm, promising pragmatically and comprehensively all kinds of protection and help in the material world (as well as in questions of love and justice, hatred and revenge), Red had begun to gravitate towards the Catholic Church, where, so he claimed, he was searching for a peace denied to him by the hostile, aggressive outside world. So, from time to time, he would go to mass or spend time in church, never taking confession, but praying his way, which meant asking God to grant peace and good health to him and his loved ones, including the three men who invaded his home well after ten o’clock at night.
Cuqui, the sinewy, obedient little mulatta now living with Red, opened the door and smiled when she recognized the new arrivals, who greeted her with a kiss.
“And where’s your husband?” Carlos asked, looking into the small room where someone was monologuing on television about the excellent forecasts for the next sugar cane harvest.
“He’s in church.”
“At this time of night?”
“Yes, he sometimes gets back at eleven…”
“He’s got a bad case,” interrupted the Count, and Cuqui nodded.
She knew Candito’s friends had a right to certain confidences that were denied her.
“If you want to go and look for him, it’s just around the corner.”
“What do you reckon, Conde?” hesitated Carlos. “He might not like that.”
“I spend my life dragging Candito out of churches. Come on… Cuqui, get the coffee on, we’ll have him here in no time,” the policeman assured her, as he started pushing Carlos’s chair again.
You could never have identified the Christian temple from its architectural appearance; it looked more like a warehouse, with a high tiled roof and double door, which when open hid the cross set there to indicate its function. Nevertheless, religious ecstasy spilled out of the place: the shouting and clapping of the faithful, intoning a rhythmic hymn of love to Jehovah, came down the street, impelled irrepressibly by a faith too vehement by half, and strong enough to halt the three friends in their tracks.
“That has to be it,” commented Skinny Carlos.
“You really think we should go in, Conde?” asked Andrés, always on the reticent side, as Carlos and Mario exchanged glances. The chorus now sounded a couple of decibels louder, and the clapping quickened, as if the Jehovah they invoked was nigh.
“No, better not go in. I’ll just take a peek to see if Red can see me.”
Without thinking why he did so, the policeman pulled down his shirt, as if trying to tidy his unkempt appearance, and crossed the small doorway to put his head inside the sacred precinct. And he was moved by what he saw: that church had nothing in common with the concepts of church stored in the Count’s Catholically trained brain. To begin with, there was no altar, always dominated by the image of the church’s patron saint; all there was on the clean, whitewashed wall was a simple wooden cross that bore no crucified Christ. The walls, also unadorned by saints and decorations, had large windows open to the night. Nonetheless, there wasn’t enough ventilation, and the Count’s face hit a hot, sweaty atmosphere exuded by the heaving mass of faithful gathered there, clapping like the possessed, while they sang in chorus with the short, thin black man who, without dog-collar or soutane, acted as the leader of that communion with the divinity, shouting periodically: “Yeah, you are, Jehovah!” enthusing the flock, which bellowed “Yeah, hallelujah!” The Count finally spotted Candito’s red head in the front rows and took a first step inside the church, when he was struck by a shocking disparity: he realized he was surrounded by people who knew of God’s existence and praised Him with an apparently inextinguishable physical and spiritual vehemence, and he was forced back to the door, driven by his evident inability to belong to that crowd of redeemed believers. Tidying his shirt yet again, beneath which he carried a gun, the Count returned to the street, racked by doubt: who was mistaken: he or all those people gathered in that church without altars or Christ? Those people who believed in something that could save them or he, a man who could hardly think of a couple of things worth saving?
“Fucking hell,” he said to himself, as he reached his friends, and Carlos looked at him in alarm.
“What happened, Conde, did they throw you out?”
“No… Yes… Listen, I think we’d better wait outside.”
“Hey, Candito, what the fuck are you doing as an Adventist, you, a half-Catholic who take your problems to an African high priest?” asked the Count, when they were finally able to rearrange the furniture in the small room to make space for Skinny Carlos’s wheelchair.
The smell of the coffee Cuqui was preparing wafted their way from the kitchen, and, still marked by the evidence of faith he’d just observed, the Count’s mind was now filled with the image of a rampant Candito clad in white castigating the evil one before a legion of the faithful.
“Don’t fuck around, Conde, don’t start interfering in people’s lives,” interrupted Carlos, and turned to Candito: “Hey, Red, so now you can’t have a little drink, smoke or swear, or…” and lowering his voice to a whisper, “or have a fling with a bit of skirt that offers itself?”
Candito shook his head: there was no hope for these guys.
“It’s not like you think. I’ve not been baptized yet. I don’t think I’m ready. I just go to the church every now and then and sit there.”
“Singing and clapping?” asked the Count incredulously.
“Yes, and listening to people speak of love, peace, goodness, cleanliness of spirit, hopes of salvation, quiet and forgiveness… Hearing things people don’t say elsewhere, spoken by people who believe in what they say. It’s better than selling beer or buying stolen leather to make shoes, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s true. You’re doing right,” affirmed Andrés.
“What? And will you take the same righteous path?” the Count demanded, and immediately regretted his sarcastic tone.
“What the fuck is eating you, Conde? I said Red was doing right. That’s all. Isn’t it, Candito?”
Their host smiled. The Count searched him for visible physical changes and thought Red’s smile seemed different: perhaps more peaceful, more accepting: strengthened and able to withstand jibes. A smile expressing a hope in belief.
“It makes sense for the Count to get like this, Andrés. Well, you know him better than I do… I once told him to watch out, because he was turning cynical, you remember, Conde?”
“Sorry, Red, it isn’t what Andrés is thinking, but the fact is even after I’ve seen you in action I can’t imagine you’re really into that,” replied the Count, trying to salvage something.
“And why can’t you imagine me into that? Isn’t it better than being a petty criminal for the rest of my life worrying every day in case the policeman knocking on my door isn’t you? Or downing a bottle of rum morning and night to forget how fucked I am, which is what you do? Isn’t it better to pray and sing a bit, Conde, and think someone somewhere only wants you to have faith and be good? You know, Mario, I’m sick of all the shit out there…”
“You said ‘shit’, Candito,” quipped Skinny, and Candito smiled. His inner peace is already becoming evident, thought the Count.
“Yes, of the shit everywhere. You know what my life’s been like. But I think you can change if you make it in time, although I’ve got to forget a lot of the things I’ve been for a long time. And besides, I don’t feel empty anymore, like I used to, and I’m learning you can’t live a life of emptiness. You get me?”