She said: Yes, father. She seemed quite satisfied: she had brought him down by fifty centavos a head. The priest went on. Say a hundred children, he was thinking, that means a hundred and sixty pesos with tomorrow's Mass. Perhaps I can get the mules and the guide for forty pesos. Señor Lehr will give me food for six days. I shall have a hundred and twenty pesos left. After all these years, it was like wealth. He felt respect all the way up the street: men took off their hats as he passed: it was as if he had got back to the days before the persecution. He could feel the old life hardening round him like a habit, a stony case which held his head high and dictated the way he walked, and even formed his words. A voice from the cantina said: Father.
The man was very fat, with three commercial chins: he wore a waistcoat in spite of the great heat, and a watch-chain. Yes? the priest said. Behind the man's head stood bottles of mineral water, beer, spirits. ... The priest came in out of the dusty street to the heat of the lamp. He said: What is it? with his new-old manner of authority and impatience.
I thought, father, you might be in need of a little sacramental wine.
Perhaps ... but you will have to give me credit.
A priest's credit, father, is always good enough for me. I [160] am a religious man myself. This is a religious place. No doubt you will be holding a baptism. He leant avidly forward with a respectful and impertinent manner, as if they were two people with the same ideas, educated men.
Perhaps ...
He smiled understandingly. Between people like ourselves, he seemed to indicate, there is no need of anything explicit: we understand each other's thoughts. He said: In the old days, when the church was open, I was treasurer to the Guild of the Blessed Sacrament. Oh, I am a good Catholic, father. The people, of course, are very ignorant. He said: Would you perhaps honour me by taking a glass of brandy? He was in his way quite sincere.
The priest said doubtfully: It is kind ... The two glasses were already filled: he remembered the last drink he had had, sitting on the bed in the dark, listening to the Chief of Police, and seeing, as the light went on, the last wine drain away. ... The memory was like a hand, pulling away the case, exposing him. The smell of brandy dried his mouth. He thought: What a play-actor I am. I have no business here, among good people. He turned the glass in his hand, and all the other glasses turned too: he remembered the dentist talking of his children, and Maria unearthing the bottle of spirits she had kept for him-the whisky priest.
He took a reluctant drink. It's good brandy, father, the man said.
Yes. Good brandy.
I could let you have a dozen bottles for sixty pesos.
Where would I find sixty pesos? He thought: in some ways it was better over there, across the border. Fear and death were not the worst things. It was sometimes a mistake for life to go on.
I wouldn't make a profit out of you, father. Fifty pesos.
Fifty, sixty. It's all the same to me.
Go on. Have another glass, father. It's good brandy. The man leant engagingly forward across the counter and said: Why not half a dozen, father, for twenty-four pesos? He said slyly: After all, father-there are the baptisms.
It was appalling how easily one forgot and went back: he could still hear his own voice speaking in the street with the [161] Concepcion accent-unchanged by mortal sin and unrepentance and desertion. The brandy was musty on the tongue with his own corruption. God might forgive cowardice and passion, but was it possible to forgive the habit of piety? He remembered the woman in the prison and how impossible it had been to shake her complacency: it seemed to him that he was another of the same kind. He drank the brandy down like damnation: men like the half-caste could be saved: salvation could strike like lightning at the evil heart, but the habit of piety excluded everything but the evening prayer and the Guild meeting and the feel of humble lips on your gloved hand.
Las Casas is a fine town, father. They say you can hear Mass every day.
This was another pious person. There were a lot of them about in the world. He was pouring a little more brandy, but going carefully-not too much. He said: When you get there, father, look up a compadre of mine in Guadalupe street. He has the cantina nearest the church-a good man. Treasurer of the Guild of the Blessed Sacrament-just like I was in this place in the good days. He'll see you get what you want cheap. Now, what about some bottles for the journey?
The priest drank. There was no point in not drinking. He had the habit now-like piety and the parish voice. He said: Three bottles. For eleven pesos. Keep them for me here. He finished what was left and went back into the street: the lamps were lit in windows and the wide street stretched like a prairie in between. He stumbled in a hole and felt a hand upon his sleeve. Ah, Pedro. That was the name, wasn't it? Thank you, Pedro.
At your service, father.
The church stood in the darkness like a block of ice: it was melting away in the heat. The roof had fallen in in one place, a coign above the doorway had crumbled. The priest took a quick sideways look at Pedro, holding his breath in case it smelt of brandy, but he could see only the outlines of the face. He said-with a feeling of cunning as though he were cheating a greedy prompter inside his own heart: Tell the people, Pedro, that I only want one peso for the baptisms. … There would still be enough for the brandy then, even if he arrived in Las Casa like a beggar. There was silence for as long as two [162] seconds and then the wily village voice began to answer him: We are poor, father. One peso is a lot of money. I-for example-I have three children. Say seventy-five centavos, father.
Miss Lehr stretched out her feet in their easy slippers and the beetles came up over the veranda from the dark outside. She said: In Pittsburgh once ... Her brother was asleep with an ancient newspaper across his knee: the mail had come in. The priest gave a little sympathetic giggle as in the old days; it was a try-out which didn't come off. Miss Lehr stopped and sniffed. Funny. I thought I smelt-spirits.
The priest held his breath, leaning back in the rocking-chair. He thought: How quiet it is, how safe. He remembered townspeople who couldn't sleep in country places because of the silence: silence can be like noise, dinning against the ear-drums.
What was I saying, father?
In Pittsburgh once ...
Of course. In Pittsburgh ... I was waiting for the train. You see I had nothing to read: books are so expensive. So I thought I'd buy a paper-any paper: the news is just the same. But when I opened it-it was called something like Police News. I never knew such dreadful things were printed. Of course, I didn't read more than a few lines. I think it was the most dreadful thing that's ever happened to me. It ... well, it opened my eyes.
Yes.
I've never told Mr. Lehr. He wouldn't think the same of me, I do believe, if he knew.
But there was nothing wrong ...
It's knowing, isn't it ...?
Somewhere a long way off a bird of some kind called: the lamp on the table began to smoke, and Miss Lehr leant over and turned down the wick: it was as if the only light for miles around was lowered. The brandy returned on his palate: it was like the smell of ether that reminds a man of a recent operation before he's used to life: it tied him to another state of being. He didn't yet belong to this deep tranquillity: he told himself-in time it will be all right, I shall pull up, I only ordered three bottles this time. They will be the last I'll ever [163] drink, I won't need drink there-he knew he lied. Mr. Lehr woke suddenly and said: As I was saying ...
You were saying nothing, dear. You were asleep.
Oh, no, we were talking about that scoundrel Hoover.
I don't think so, dear. Not for a long while.
Well, Mr. Lehr said, it's been a long day. The father will be tired too ... after all that confessing, he added with slight distaste.