“The most solid proof of Jesus’s authority is that he didn’t need distance to wield it but exercised it from the closest proximity to his neighbour. Power dresses itself in attributes (wealth, might, banking knowledge) that constitute its glory as it simultaneously creates remoteness. The powerful, when naked, feel impotent, but Jesus, the son of man, naked and barefoot, lived among men, remained among them and exercised over them the infinite sweetness of his infinite power…”
Always the infinite, the infinitely invariable, and the dilemma of power, thought the Count, who had last seen the inside of a church on the memorable day of his first communion. He’d prepared at Sunday catechism over many a month for that act of religious re-affirmation that he had to go through, knowing full well why: he would receive, from the priest’s hands, a small piece of flour that contained the whole essence of the great (infinite) mystery; the immortal soul and suffering body of Our Lord Jesus Christ (with all his power) would pass from his mouth to his (equally) immortal soul. This would be a necessary digestive step to possible salvation or the most terrible damnation, he now knew, and the knowledge transformed him into an (infinitely) responsible being. Nevertheless, at the age of seven the Count thought he knew a lot of other things much better: that Sunday was the best day for playing the best games of baseball outside his house, for going off to steal mangos from Genaro’s farm, for taking a bike ride – two or even three on each bike – to fish biajacas and swim in the Chorrerra river. Consequently, though delighted to dress him smartly in white so he could take his communion, the Count’s mother then seethed with an anger prohibited by the communion itself, as she heard the boy’s final word: he wanted to idle around on Sunday mornings and would not be going back to church.
The Count couldn’t imagine his return to a parish church, almost thirty years after defecting, would spark off the feeling he’d suddenly recovered a quiescent, not simply lost memory: the cavernous smell of the chapel, the tall shadows from the domes, the reflections of a sun dimmed by stained glass, the blurry glints from the main altar were all present in his memory of that poor, smallscale church in his barrio. Such memories were tangible in the inevitably luxurious church of the Passionists, with its Creole neo-Gothic finery, the highest domes decorated with filigree, celestial gold, the sensation of the smallness of humans provoked by a structure reaching for heaven and a profusion of hyper-realistic, human-sized images and gestures of resignation that seemed about to speak; became tangible in the church he’d now entered, in the middle of the mass, searching for the saviour he needed right now, namely Red Candito.
When Cuqui told him that Candito was in church the Count’s first reaction was one of surprise. It was the first he’d heard about Red’s profession of faith, but he was pleased, for he could talk to him on neutral territory. In front of that façade with towers like exotic European pines, the policeman had hesitated for a second about what he should do: but then decided to wait for Candito by participating in the mass himself. Conde breathed in the pliant smell of cheap incense; he sat on the back pew and listened to the Sunday sermon of that priest who was young and vigorous in his gestures and words, and spoke to his flock of the most arcane mysteries, of power and the infinite, in the tones of a good conversationalist:
“The paternity of Jesus, who revealed the paternity of God through fraternal solidarity. By relating to people from below, at their level, he not only saved the one who received the gospel, and Jesus was fulfilled as brother to men and as son of God. Hence the vulnerability of Jesus: his joy when simple people welcomed the revelation of God and his sorrow for Jerusalem, because of the authorities that wouldn’t receive him…”
Then the priest raised his arms and the parishioners who packed his church stood up. Feeling he was profaning an arcane mystery he himself had renounced, the Count took advantage of that movement to escape like a man persecuted into the light of the square, a cigarette between his lips and an amen in his ears chorused by people who were happy once again to have known the sacrifices made by their Lord.
Fifteen minutes later the believers began to process, their faces lit by an inner light rivalling the splendour of the Sunday sun. Red Candito, on the last step of the stairs, stopped to light a cigarette and greeted an old black guy who was walking by, dressed in a linen guayabera and straw hat, perhaps in flight from a 1920s photo. The Count waited in the middle of the square, and saw how his friend raised his eyebrows when he spotted him.
“I didn’t know you were a churchgoer,” the Count said, shaking his hand.
“Some Sundays,” admitted Candito who suggested they should cross the road. “It makes me feel good.”
“Church depresses me. What do you hope to find there, Candito?”
The mulatto smiled, as if the Count had said something stupid.
“What I can’t find elsewhere…”
“Of course, the infinite. You know, I now find myself surrounded by mystics.”
Candito smiled again.
“And what’s up now, Conde?”
They walked up Vista Alegre and the Count waited for his breathing to settle after their climb as the ochre structure of the school where Lissette Núñez had taught and where they had met came into sight.
“Yesterday I was thinking this bastard Pre-Uni seems to wield power over my destiny. I can’t throw it off.”
“They were good years.”
“I think they were the best, Red, but it’s not as simple as that. This is where we grew up, right? It was here I met most of the people who are my friends. You, for example.”
“I’m sorry about Friday, Conde, but you’ve got to understand me…”
“I do, I do, Candito. There are things you can’t ask of people. But a twenty-four year-old woman was teaching in one of the classrooms over there until she turned up the other day dead, murdered, and I’ve got to find out who did it. It is that simple. And I’ve got to find out for several reasons: because I’m a policeman, because the person who did it must be called to account, because she was a Pre-Uni teacher… It’s a fucking obsession.”
“What about Pupy?”
“It looks as if it wasn’t him, although we’re putting the screws on him. He told us something important: the head of Pre-Uni was having an affair with her.”
“Didn’t he do it then?”