He closed the letter and it dropped to the floor. "What does he say?" Teresa asked.
"He wants to drive me away from El Toboso," Father Quixote said in a tone of such despair that Teresa went quickly back into the kitchen to hide from his sad eyes.
II
HOW MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE
SET OFF ON HIS TRAVELS
1
It happened a week after the bishop's letter had been delivered to Father Quixote that local elections were held in the province of La Mancha and the Mayor of El Toboso suffered an unexpected defeat. "The forces of the Right," he told Father Quixote, "have re-formed, they seek another Generalissimo," and he spoke of certain intrigues of which he was very well informed between the garagist, the butcher and the owner of the second-rate restaurant, who, it seemed, wanted to enlarge his premises. Money, he said, had been lent to the landlord by a mysterious stranger and as a result he had bought a new deep freeze. In some way which Father Quixote was quite unable to fathom, this had seriously affected the election results.
"I wash my hands of El Toboso," the ex-Mayor said.
"And I am being driven away by the bishop," Father Quixote confided, and he told his melancholy story.
"I could have warned you. This comes of putting your trust in the Church."
"It is not a question of the Church but of a bishop. I have never cared for the bishop, may God forgive me. But you, that is another matter. I am deeply sorry for you, my dear friend. You have been let down by your party, Sancho."
The Mayor's name was Zancas, which was the surname of the original Sancho Panza in Cervantes' truthful history, and though his Christian name was Enrique he permitted his friend Father Quixote to tease him with the name of Sancho.
"It is not a question of my party. Three men alone have done this to me," and he mentioned again the butcher, the garagist and the affair of the deep freeze. "There are traitors in every party. In your party too, Father Quixote. There was Judas. . ."
"And in yours there was Stalin."
"Don't bring up that old stale history now."
"The history of Judas is even older."
"Alexander VI. . ."
"Trotsky. Though I suppose you may be allowed now to have a difference of opinion about Trotsky." There was little logic in their argument, but it was the nearest they had ever come to a quarrel.
"And what about your opinion of Judas? He's a saint in the Ethiopian Church."
"Sancho, Sancho, we disagree too profoundly to dispute. Let us go to my house and have a glass of malaga. . . Oh, I forgot, the bishop finished the bottle."
"The bishop. . . You allowed that scoundrel. . ."
"It was a different bishop. A good man, but the cause of my trouble all the same."
"You had better come to my house then and have a glass of honest vodka."
"Vodka?"
"Polish vodka, father. From a Catholic country."
It was the first time Father Quixote had tasted vodka. The first glass seemed to him to lack flavour -- the second gave him a sense of exhilaration. He said, "You will miss your duties as a mayor, Sancho."
"I plan to take a holiday. I have not stepped out of El Toboso since the death of that scoundrel Franco. If only I had a car. . ."
Father Quixote thought of Rocinante and his mind wandered.
"Moscow is too far," the voice of the Mayor went on. "Besides, it is too cold. East Germany. . . I have no desire to go there, we have seen too many Germans in Spain."
Suppose, Father Quixote thought, I am expelled to Rome. Rocinante could never make so great a distance. The bishop had even spoken of a mission field. Rocinante was near the end of her days. He couldn't leave her to die by some roadside in Africa to be cannibalized for the sake of a gear-box or a door handle.
"San Marino is the nearest state where the Party rules. Another glass, father?"
Without thinking Father Quixote extended his hand.
"What will you do, father, away from El Toboso?"
"I shall obey orders. I will go where I am sent."
"To preach to the converted as you do here?"
"That is an easy sneer, Sancho. I doubt if anyone is ever fully converted."
"Not even the Pope?"
"Perhaps, poor man, not even the Pope. Who knows what he thinks at night in his bed when he has said his prayers?"
"And you?"
"Oh, I am as ignorant as anyone in the parish. I have read more books, that is all, when I was studying, but one forgets. . ."
"All the same you do believe all that nonsense. God, the Trinity, the Immaculate Conception. . ."
"I want to believe. And I want others to believe."
"Why?"
"I want them to be happy."
"Let them drink a little vodka then. That's better than a make-believe."
"The vodka wears off. It's wearing off even now."
"So does belief."
Father Quixote looked up with surprise. He had been gazing with a certain wistfulness at the last drops in his glass.
"Your belief?"
"And your belief."
"Why do you think that?"
"It's life, father, at its dirty work. Belief dies away like desire for a woman. I doubt if you are an exception to the general rule."
"Do you think it would be bad for me to have another glass?"
"Vodka has never done anyone any harm."
"I was astonished the other day at how much the Bishop of Motopo drank."
"Where is Motopo?"
"In partibus infidelium."
"I've long ago forgotten the little Latin I once had."
"I didn't know you ever had any."
"My parents wanted me to be a priest. I even studied at Salamanca. I have never told you that before, father. In vodka veritas."
"So that was how you knew about the Ethiopian Church? I was a little surprised."
"There are small bits of useless knowledge which stick to one's brain like barnacles to a boat. By the way, you have read how the Soviet cosmonauts have beaten the endurance record in outer space?"
"I heard something of the sort on the radio yesterday."
"Yet in all that time they haven't encountered a single angel."
"Have you read, Sancho, about the black holes in space?"
"I know what you are going to say, father. But the word holes is used only in a metaphoric sense. One more glass. Don't be afraid of any bishop."