See what?
Oh. I don't know, all the hope of the world draining away.
Man, you're a poet.
The beggar said: A poet is the soul of his country. Lightning filled the windows like a white sheet, and thunder crashed suddenly overhead. The one globe flickered and faded up near the ceiling. This is bad news for my men, the jefe said, stamping on a beetle which had crawled too near.
Why bad news?
The rains coming so early. You see they are on a hunt.
The gringo ...?
He doesn't really matter, but the Governor's found there's still a priest, and you know what he feels about that. If it was me, I'd let the poor devil alone. He'd starve or die of fever or give up. He can't be doing any good-or any harm. Why, nobody even noticed he was about till a few months ago.
You'll have to hurry.
Oh, he hasn't any real chance. Unless he gets over the border. We've got a man who knows him. Spoke to him, spent a night with him. Let's talk of something else. Who wants to be a policeman?
Where do you think he is?
You'd be surprised.
[107] Why?
He's here-in this town, I mean. That's deduction. You see, since we started taking hostages from the villages, there's really nowhere else. ... They turn him away, they won't have him. So we've set this man I told you about loose like a dog-he'll run into him one day or another-and then …
The man in drill said: Have you had to shoot many hostages?
Not yet. Three or four perhaps. Well, here goes the last of the beer. Salud! He put the glass regretfully down. Perhaps now I could have just a drop of your-sidral, shall we call it?
Yes. Of course.
Have I met you before? Your face somehow …
I don't think I've had the honour.
That's another mystery, the jefe said, stretching out a long fat limb and gently pushing the beggar towards the bed-knobs, how you think you've seen people-and places-before. Was it in a dream or in a past life? I once heard a doctor say it was something to do with the focusing of the eyes. But he was a Yankee. A materialist.
I remember once ... the Governor's cousin said. The lightning shot down over the harbour and the thunder beat on the roof: this was the atmosphere of a whole state-the storm outside and the talk just going on-words like mystery and soul and the source of life came in over and over again, as they sat on the bed talking, with nothing to do and nothing to believe and nowhere better to go.
The man in drill said: I think perhaps I had better be moving on.
Where to?
Oh ... friends, he said vaguely, sketching widely with his hands a whole world of fictitious friendships.
You'd better take your drink with you, the Governor's s cousin said. He admitted: After all you paid for it.
Thank you, Excellency. He picked up the brandy bottle. Perhaps there were three fingers left. The bottle of wine, of course, was quite empty.
Hide it, man, hide it, the Governor's cousin said sharply.
Oh, of course, Excellency, I will be careful.
[108] You don't have to call him Excellency, the jefe said. He gave a bellow of laughter and thrust the beggar right off the bed onto the floor.
No, no, that is ... He sidled cautiously out, with a smudge of tears, under his red sore eyes and from the hall heard the conversation begin again- mystery, soul -going interminably on to no end.
The beetles had disappeared: the rain had apparently washed them away: it came perpendicularly down, with a sort of measured intensity, as if it were driving nails into a coffin lid. But the air was no clearer: sweat and rain hung together on the clothes. The priest stood for a few seconds in the doorway of the hotel, the dynamo thudding behind him, then he darted a few yards into another doorway and hesitated, staring over past the bust of the general to the tethered sailing-boats and one old barge with a tin funnel. He had nowhere to go: rain hadn't entered into his calculations: he had believed that it would be possible just to hang on somehow, sleeping on benches or by the river.
A couple of soldiers arguing furiously came down the street towards the quay-they just let the rain fall on them, as if it didn't matter, as if things were so bad anyway you couldn't notice. ... The priest pushed the wooden door against which he stood-a cantina door coming down only to the knees-and went in out of the rain: stacks of gaseosa bottles and a single billiard table with the score strung on rings, three or four men-somebody had laid his holster on the bar. The priest moved too quickly and jolted the elbow of a man who was making a shot. He turned furiously: Mother of God! : he was a Red Shirt. Was there no safety anywhere, even for a moment?
The priest apologized humbly, edging back towards the door, but again he was too quick-his pocket caught against the wall and the brandy bottle chinked. Three or four faces looked at him with malicious amusement: he was a stranger and they were going to have fun. What's that you've got in your pocket? the Red Shirt asked. He was a youth not out of his teens, with gold teeth and a jesting conceited mouth.
Lemonade, the priest said.
What do you want to carry lemonade with you for?
[109] I take it at night-with my quinine.
The Red Shirt swaggered up and poked the pocket with the butt of his cue. Lemonade, eh?
Yes, lemonade.
Let's have a look at the lemonade. He turned proudly to the others and said: I can scent a smuggler at ten paces. He thrust his hand into the priest's pocket and hauled at the brandy bottle: There, he said. Didn't I tell you- The priest flung himself against the swing door and burst out into the rain. A voice shouted: Catch him. They were having the time of their lives.
He was off up the street towards the plaza, turned left and right again-it was lucky the streets were dark and the moon obscured. As long as he kept away from lighted windows he was almost invisible-he could hear them calling to each other. They were not giving up: it was better than billiards: somewhere a whistle blew-the police were joining in.
This was the town to which it had been his ambition to be promoted, leaving the right kind of debts behind at Concepcion: he thought of the cathedral and Montez and a canon he once knew, as he doubled this way and that. Something buried very deep, the will to escape, cast a momentary and appalling humour over the whole situation-he giggled and panted and giggled again. He could hear them hallooing and whistling in the dark, and the rain came down: it drove and jumped upon the cement floor of the useless fronton which had once been the cathedral (it was too hot to play pelota and a few iron swings stood like gallows at its edge). He worked his way down-hill again: he had an idea.
The shouts came nearer, and then up from the river a new lot of men approached: these were pursuing the hunt methodically-he could tell it by their slow pace, the police, the official hunters. He was between the two-the amateurs and the professionals. But he knew the door-he pushed it open, came quickly through into the patio, and closed it behind him.
He stood in the dark and panted, hearing the steps come nearer up the street, while the rain drove down. Then he realized that somebody was watching him from a window, a small dark withered face, like one of the preserved heads tourists buy. He came up to the grille and said: Padre José?
[110] Over there. A second face appeared behind the other's shoulder, lit uncertainly by a candle-flame, then a third: faces sprouted like vegetables. He could feel them watching him as he splashed back across the patio and banged on a door.
He didn't for a second or two recognize Padre José-in the absurd billowing nightshirt, holding a lamp. The last time he had seen him was at the conference, sitting in the back row, biting his nails, afraid to be noticed. It hadn't been necessary: none of the busy cathedral clergy even knew what he was called. It was odd to think that now he had won a kind of fame superior to theirs. He said José gently, winking up at him from the splashing dark.