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HOW MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE
CONFRONTED JUSTICE
1
They stopped on their way to Leon in a field on a river bank near the village of Mansilla de las Mulas because the Mayor claimed to have a great thirst. A small footbridge gave them a shadow in which they could leave the car, but in fact Sancho's thirst was only a subterfuge to break the silence of Father Quixote which was getting badly on his nerves. A drink might unlock Father Quixote's mouth, and he lowered a bottle of their manchegan wine into the river on a string, awakening the interest of some cows on the other bank. He came back to find Father Quixote staring gloomily down at his purple socks, and he could bear the inexplicable silence no longer. He said, "For God's sake, if you have taken a vow of silence go into a monastery. There are Carthusians at Burgos and Trappists at Osera. Take your choice, monsignor, which way we go."
"I am sorry, Sancho," Father Quixote said. "It's only my thoughts. . ."
"Oh, I suppose your thoughts are too high and spiritual for a mere Marxist to understand them."
"No, no."
"Remember, father, what a good governor my ancestor made. Don Quixote with all his chivalry and courage would never have governed so well. What a holy mess -- I mean a holy mess -- he would have made of that island. My ancestor took to governing just as Trotsky took to commanding an army. Trotsky was without experience, and yet he beat the White generals. Oh, we are materialists, I know, peasants and Marxists. But don't despise us for that."
"When have I ever despised you, Sancho?"
"Oh well, thank your God that you've begun to speak again. Let's open the bottle."
The wine he fished from the river was not quite cold enough, but he was anxious to complete the cure. They drank two glasses in what was now a friendly silence.
"Is there any cheese left, father?"
"I think a little, I'll go and see."
Father Quixote was gone a long time. Perhaps the cheese had been hard to find. The Mayor got up impatiently as Father Quixote came out from under the bridge with a look of justifiable anxiety on his face, for he was accompanied by a Guardia. For a reason the Mayor could not understand he was talking rapidly to his companion in Latin and the Guardia too had a look of anxiety. Father Quixote said, "Esto mihi in Deum protectorem et in locum refugii."
"The bishop seems to be a foreigner," the Guardia told the Mayor.
"He is not a bishop. He is a monsignor."
"Is that your car under the bridge?"
"It belongs to the monsignor."
"I told him he should have locked it. Why, he had even left his key in the starter. It's not a safe thing to do. Not around here."
"It seems very peaceful here. Even the cows. . ."
"You haven't seen a man with a bullet hole through his right trouser leg and a false moustache? Though I expect he has thrown that away."
"No, no. Nothing of the kind."
"Scio cui credidi," Father Quixote said.
"Italian?" the Guardia asked. "The Pope's a great Pope."
"He certainly is."
"No hat or jacket. A striped shirt."
"No one like that has been around here."
"He got that bullet hole in Zamora. Narrow escape. One of ours. How long have you been here?"
"About a quarter of an hour."
"Coming from where?"
"Valladolid."
"Not passed anyone on the road?"
"No."
"He can't have got much further than this in the time."
"What's he done?"
"He robbed a bank at Benavente. Shot the cashier. Escaped on a Honda. Found abandoned -- the Honda, I mean -- five kilometres away. That's why it's not safe leaving your car unlocked like that with the key in the starter."
"Laqueus contritus est," Father Quixote said, "et nos liberati sumus."
"What's the monsignor saying?"
The Mayor said, "I'm not a linguist myself."
"You are on the way to León?"
"Yes."
"Keep an eye open and don't give a lift to any stranger." He saluted the monsignor with courtesy and a certain caution and left them.
"Why were you talking Latin to him?" the Mayor asked.
"It seemed a good thing to do."
"But why. . .?"
"I wanted if possible to avoid a lie," Father Quixote replied. "Even an officious lie, not a malicious one, to use the distinction made by Father Heribert Jone."
"What had you got to lie about?"
"I was confronted very suddenly with the possibility -- you might say the temptation."
The Mayor sighed. Father Quixote's silence had certainly been broken by the wine and he almost regretted it. He said, "Did you find any cheese?"
"I found a quite substantial piece, but I gave it to him."
"The Guardia? Why on earth. . .?"
"No, no, the man he was looking for, of course."
"You mean you've seen the man?"
"Oh yes, that was why I was afraid of questions."
"For God's sake, where is he now?"
"In the boot of the car. It was careless of me, after that, as the Guardia said, to leave the key. . . Somebody might have driven away with him. Oh well, the danger is over now."
For a long moment the Mayor was incapable of speech. Then he said, "What did you do with the wine?"
"Together we put it on the back seat of the car."
"I thank God," the Mayor said, "that I had the number plate changed at Valladolid."
"What do you mean, Sancho?"
"Those Civil Guards will have reported your number at Avila. They'll be on a computer by this time."
"But my papers. . ."
"You've got new ones. Of course it took time. That's why we stayed so long in Valladolid. The garagist there is an old friend and a member of the Party."
"Sancho, Sancho, how many years in prison have we earned?"
"Not half as many as you will get for hiding a fugitive from justice. Whatever induced you. . .?"
"He asked me to help him. He said he was falsely accused and confused with another man."
"With a revolver hole in his trousers? A bank robber?"
"Well, so was your leader, Stalin. So much depends on motive, after all. If Stalin had come to me in confession and explained his reasons honestly I would have given him perhaps a decade of the rosary to say, though I've never given so severe a penance to anyone in El Toboso. You remember what my ancestor told the galley slaves before he released them, 'There is a God in heaven, who does not neglect to punish the wicked nor to reward the good, and it is not right that honourable men should be executioners of others.' That's good Christian doctrine, Sancho. A decade of the rosary -- it's severe enough. We are not executioners or interrogators. The Good Samaritan didn't hold an inquiry into the wounded man's past -- the man who had fallen among thieves -- before he helped him. Perhaps he was a publican and the thieves were only taking back what he had taken from them."