At the bottom of the field there was a little shallow stream running over brown pebbles. Mr. Lehr took off his dressing-gown and lay down flat on his back: there was something upright and idealistic even in the thin elderly legs with their scrawny muscles. Tiny fishes played over his chest and made little tugs at his nipples undisturbed: this was the skeleton of the youth who had disapproved of militarism to the point of flight: presently he sat up and began carefully to soap his lean thighs. The priest afterwards took the soap and followed suit. He felt it was expected of him, though he couldn't help thinking it was a waste of time. Sweat cleaned you as effectively as water. But this was the race which had invented the proverb that cleanliness was next to godliness-cleanliness, not purity.
[156] All the same, one did feel an enormous luxury lying there in the little cold stream while the sun flattened. ... He thought of the prison cell with the old man and the pious woman, the half-caste lying across the hut door, the dead child and the abandoned station. He thought with shame of his daughter left to her knowledge and her ignorance by the rubbish-dump. He had no right to such luxury.
Mr. Lehr said: Would you mind-the soap?
He had heaved over on his face, and now he set to work on his back.
The priest said: I think perhaps I should tell you-tomorrow I am saying Mass in the village. Would you prefer me to leave your house? I do not wish to make trouble for you.
Mr. Lehr splashed seriously, cleaning himself. He said: Oh, they won't bother me. But you had better be careful. You know, of course, that it's against the law.
Yes, the priest said. I know that.
A priest I knew was fined four hundred pesos. He couldn't pay and they sent him to prison for a week. What are you smiling at?
Only because it seems so-peaceful-here. Prison for a week.
Well, I've always heard you people get your own back when it comes to collections. Would you like the soap?
No, thank you. I have finished.
'We'd better be drying ourselves then. Miss Lehr likes to have her bath before sunset.
As they came back to the bungalow in single file they met Miss Lehr, very bulky under her dressing-gown. She asked mechanically, like a clock with a very gentle chime: Is the water nice today? and her brother answered, as he must have answered a thousand times: Pleasantly cool, dear, and she slopped down across the grass in bedroom slippers, stooping slightly with short sight.
If you wouldn't mind, Mr. Lehr said, shutting the bedroom door, staying in here till Miss Lehr comes back. One can see the stream-you understand-from the front of the house. He began to dress, tall and bony and a little stiff. Two brass bedsteads, a single chair and a wardrobe, the room was monastic, [157] except that there was no cross-no inessentials as Mr. Lehr would have put it. But there was a Bible. It lay on the floor beside one of the beds in a black oilskin cover. When the priest had finished dressing he opened it.
On the fly-leaf there was a label which stated that the book was furnished by the Gideons. It went on: A Bible in Every Hotel Guest Room. Winning Commercial Men for Christ. Good News. There was then a list of texts. The priest read with some astonishment:
If you are in trouble read Psalm 34.
If trade is poor Psalm 37.
If very prosperous I Corinthians, x, xii.
If overcome and backsliding James I. Hosea xiv: 4-9.
If tired of sin Psalm 51. Luke xviii: 9-14.
If you desire peace, power, and plenty John xiv.
If you are lonesome and discouraged Psalms 23 and 27.
If you are losing confidence in men I Corinthians, xiii.
If you desire peaceful slumbers Psalm 121.
He couldn't help wondering how it had got here-with its ugly type and its over-simple explanations-into a hacienda in Southern Mexico. Mr. Lehr turned away from his mirror with a big coarse hairbrush in his hand and explained carefully: My sister ran a hotel once. For drummers. She sold it to join me when my wife died, and she brought one of those from the hotel. You wouldn't understand that, father. You don't like people to read the Bible. He was on the defensive all the time about his faith, as if he was perpetually conscious of some friction, like that of an ill-fitting shoe.
The priest said: Is your wife buried here?
In the paddock, Mr. Lehr said bluntly. He stood listening, brush in hand, to the gentle footsteps outside. That's Miss Lehr, he said, come up from her bath. We can go out now.
[158] The priest got off Mr. Lehr's old horse when he reached the church and threw the rein over a bush. This was his first visit to the village since the night he collapsed beside the wall. The village ran down below him in the dusk: tin-roofed bungalows and mud huts faced each other over a single wide grass-grown street. A few lamps had been lit and fire was being carried round among the poorest huts. He walked slowly, conscious of peace and safety. The first man he saw took off his hat and knelt and kissed the priest's hand.
What is your name? the priest asked.
Pedro, father.
Good night, Pedro.
Is there to be Mass in the morning, father?
Yes. There is to be Mass.
He passed the rural school. The schoolmaster sat on the step: a plump young man with dark brown eyes and horn-rimmed glasses. When he saw the priest coming he looked ostentatiously away. He was the law-abiding element: he wouldn't recognize criminals. He began to talk pedantically and priggishly to someone behind him-something about the infant class. A woman kissed the priest's hand: it was odd to be wanted again: not to feel himself the carrier of death. She said: Father, will you hear our confessions?
He said: Yes. Yes. In Señor Lehr's barn. Before the Mass. I will be there at five. As soon as it is light.
There are so many of us, father ...
Well, tonight too then. ... At eight.
And, father, there are many children to be baptized. There has not been a priest for three years.
I am going to be here for two more days.
What will you charge, father?
Well-two pesos is the usual charge. He thought: I must hire two mules and a guide. It will cost me fifty pesos to reach Las Casas. Five pesos for the Mass-that left forty-five.
We are very poor here, father, she haggled gently. I have four children myself. Eight pesos is a lot of money.
Four children are a lot of children-if the priest was here only three years ago.
He could hear authority, the old parish intonation coming back into his voice-as if the last years had been a dream and [159] he had never really been away from the guilds, the Children of Mary, and the daily Mass. He said sharply: How many children are there here-unbaptized?
Perhaps a hundred, father.
He made calculations: there was no need to arrive in Las Casas then as a beggar: he could buy a decent suit of clothes, find a respectable lodging, settle down. ... He said: You must pay one peso fifty a head.
One peso, father. We are very poor.
One peso fifty. A voice from years back said firmly into his ear: they don't value what they don't pay for. It was the old priest he had succeeded at Concepcion. He had explained to him: they will always tell you they are poor, starving, but they will always have a little store of money buried somewhere, in a pot. The priest said: You must bring the money-and the children-to Señor Lehr's barn tomorrow, at two in the afternoon.