She laughed quietly, wrinkling up her eyes. She must have been attractive once, thought Quart. In a way she still was. He wondered how many members of a religious order, male or female, could have done what she did.
Gris Marsala took a seat in the armchair while Quart remained standing. She smiled at him bitterly. "Have you ever visited a nuns' cemetery, Father Quart? Rows of small, identical headstones. And engraved on them, their adopted names, not the ones they were baptised with. They were members of an order; nothing else counts before God. They're the saddest tombs you'll ever see. Like a war cemetery with thousands of crosses with the inscription 'unknown'. They are so unbearably lonely, and seem to ask, what was it all for?"
Quart spoke cautiously, a hunter trying not to scare his prey.' "Those are the rules. You knew them when you took your vows."
"When I took my vows, I didn't know the meaning of words like 'repression', 'intolerance', and 'ignorance'. Those are the true rules. It's like Orwell's 1984: Big Sister's watching you. And the younger and more attractive you are, the worse it is. The gossiping, the cliques, best friends, envy, jealousy… You know the old saying: they come together without knowing one another, they live without loving one another, they die without mourning one another… If I ever stop believing in God, I hope at least I'll go on believing in the Last Judgement. I'd love to find some of my fellow nuns and all my superiors there!"
"Why did you become a nun?"
"This is turning into a confession. I didn't bring you here to unload my conscience. Why did you become a priest? Was it the usual story: a repressive father and over-affectionate mother?"
Quart shook his head. This wasn't the way he wanted the conversation to go. "My father died when I was very young," he said.
"Right. Another case of oedipal transference, as dirty old Freud would have said."
"I don't think so. I also considered joining the army."
"How literary. The scarlet and black." She played with the antimacassar. "My father was a jealous, domineering man. I was afraid of disappointing him. If you take a close look at many women's vocations, especially those of pretty girls, you'll often find long-term anxiety caused by the continual warnings of their fathers: all men want only one thing, and so on. From childhood lots of nuns are taught, as I was, to be careful with men and not lose control in front of them. You'd be surprised how many nuns' sexual fantasies involve beauty and the beast."
They regarded each other in silence for some time. Quart felt there was now fellow feeling between them based on awareness that they were in the same job. The strange and painful solidarity that arose between clerics in a difficult world.
"What can a nun do when she realises, at the age of forty, that she's still that little girl dominated by her father?" Gris Marsala went on. "A child who, out of the intense desire not to displease him, not to commit any sin, has committed the even greater sin of not really living her own life. Is it wise, or is it stupid and irresponsible, at eighteen, to renounce worldly love, and with it trust, surrender, sex? What is a woman to do when these feelings come too late?"
"I don't know," Quart said. He was friendly, sincere now. "I'm only a low-ranking priest. I don't have many answers." He considered the room, the modest furniture and the computer. "Break a mirror, perhaps, and then buy another. That takes courage."
"Perhaps," replied Gris Marsala. "But the woman in the mirror isn't the same." There was pain in her eyes when she looked up at Quart. "There are few things in life as tragic as awakening to the truth too late."
They were waiting for him at the Casa Cuesta Bar, punctual as always, sitting at a table under the sign for the Seville-Sanlucar-Coast steam train, around a bottle of La Ina sherry.
"You're a disaster," said Celestino Peregil. "You're making me look really bad."
Don Ibrahim frowned at the embers of his cigar, which were about to drop on to his white waistcoat. He pulled nervously on the ends of his singed moustache while Peregil let rip. Beside him, El Potro del Mantelete stared intently at his left hand, still bandaged, resting on the table. La Nina Punales seemed to be the only one indifferent to their common shame, her vacant eyes fixed on a yellowed poster on the wall – LINARES BULLRING, 1947, GITANILLO DE TRIANA, DOMINGUIN AND MANOLETE. Her long, emaciated brown hands had nails as red as her lips and coral earrings, and her silver bracelets jangled every time she filled her glass. She'd drunk half the bottle herself.
"It was really stupid of me to give you this job," said Peregil. He was furious, felt sick, and his tie was crooked. His face looked greasy, and his elaborate comb-over hairdo was in disarray. Just an hour ago, Gavira had hauled him over the coals. Results, imbecile. I pay you to get results, and for a week you've just been messing around. I gave you six million for this job, and we haven't got anywhere. Now, on top of that, there's this journalist, Bonafe, sticking his nose in things. Oh, and by the way, Peregil, when we get a moment, you can tell me what your business is with that creep. You can explain it to me really slowly, because I think there's something I don't know about. Now, you have till Wednesday. Understand? Wednesday. Because on Thursday I want no one in that church, not even God. Otherwise you're going to be shitting out the six million, bit by bit. You're a cretin, Peregil, a complete cretin."
"Dealing with priests brings bad luck," said Don Ibrahim.
Peregil, glaring at him, said, "You're the ones who bring bad luck."
"The business with the petrol," remarked La Niiia, "was a warning from God. The flames of hell." She was reading the poster for Manolete's last bullfight. Don Ibrahim looked tenderly at her Gypsy profile and smudged makeup, and once again felt the weight of responsibility. El Potro was waiting like a faithful dog. PeregiPs comment that they brought bad luck had probably only just sunk in. Don Ibrahim gave El Potro a reassuring look. "A warning from God," he said, echoing La Nina, out of respect and from lack of anything better to say.
uOthu.n
"Does that mean you're backing out?" asked Peregil. "Nobody's backing out," Don Ibrahim said with dignity, placing his hand on his chest. As he did so, ash dropped on to his paunch. "Nobody," repeated El Potro.
"So what are you going to do?" asked Peregil. "We're running out of time. There must be no Mass in that church this Thursday."
The former bogus lawyer raised a hand. "Let us weigh and consider," he said. "Though we may, for reasons of conscience, have decided not to strike at a sacred building, there's nothing to prevent or impede us from dealing with the human element." He drew on his cigar and watched a ring of Cuban smoke float away. "I refer to the priest."
"Which of the three?"
"The parish priest." Don Ibrahim smiled confidently. "According to intelligence gathered by La Nina around the neighbourhood and among the parishioners, the assistant priest is leaving tomorrow – Tuesday – so the parish priest will be alone." His sad, red eyes, lacking lashes since the petrol incident, rested on Pencho Gavira's henchman. "Do you follow, my friend?"
"Yes," said Peregil, shifting in his chair. "But I'm not sure where this is leading."
"You don't want a Mass there on Thursday, right?"
"Right."
"No priest, no Mass."
"Yes. But the other day you told me your conscience didn't allow you to break the old guy's legs. And while we're on the subject, I'm sick of your conscience."
Don Ibrahim looked round and lowered his voice cautiously. "We don't have to go that far. Imagine that this priest, this venerable minister of the Lord, disappears for two or three days without suffering any physical damage."
A faintly hopeful smile broke on the henchman's face. "Could you see to that?"
"Of course." Don Ibrahim drew on his cigar. "A clean operation. No blood, no broken bones. But it'll cost you a little more."
"How much more?" asked Peregil, suspicious.