Good Offices

Tancredo’s eyes held the most perfect curiosity, but also age-old mistrust; he had endured his own version of the ceremony at the immense stone sink, where once upon a time the Lilias had bathed him and Sabina, naked, as children.

“Why drown them?” he managed to ask, approaching the Lilias.

“How could we not drown them?” they replied, pointing to the six defeated shadows on the edge of the sink. “We warned them ages ago. One of you is asking for it, we told them; you don’t let us cook, you drive us to despair with your stealing, we fill your stomachs and you steal, we take away the food and you steal more, what are we to do, cats? Cats like you had never happened to us before, especially you, Almida.”

And they pointed at one of the shadows on the stone.

To Tancredo they seemed like strangers. Other women: three demented old ladies from five hundred years ago, alive, but reconstituted from scraps, cobwebs: talking corpses.

“Help us, Tancredito,” one of them pleaded with great solemnity. “Help us bury them. They were asking for it. Imagine, one of them ate Father San José’s little rabbit, the little rabbit no less. And what time was that, when we didn’t notice? At what time did he gobble up that little rabbit that was so good and that we spent so much time over and put so much love and patience into, because we knew it was meant for a saint?”

Another interrupted, whispering: “If he’d only eaten some crackling, big chickens and little ones, every now and again, like he’d been doing before, that would have been fine. But he dared to go for the rabbit, and that was too much. He behaved badly toward us, see. May God forgive us this execution, which is for the good of the parish.”

Agile for their years, the three Lilias chose a faraway corner next to the wall, armed themselves with shovels and began to dig. Fascinated, Tancredo observed their work, their desperation, their increasing slowness, their clumsy legs, the desolation in their words: “How they’ve made us suffer,” they said, and went back to the task in hand, until they weakened, hands on hips, gray heads directed toward the cats, “How shameful that business with the priest,” they said to them, “aren’t you sorry? We’ll never forgive ourselves that the little rabbit for him and him alone ended up in one of your stomachs, but which one? The innocent often pay for the guilty, oh wicked devils. Almida, it must have been Almida,” they said, “it’s this one, he looks alive, it’s this one, this one, he laughs, he’s laughing.”

They suddenly seemed afraid. And, between complaints, dedicated themselves to pummelling the shadowy Almida with their fists. The Lilias’ complaints were his own suffering made flesh, Tancredo thought: just like him, a whole lifetime of service with nothing on the horizon but a whole lifetime of service.

“Father Matamoros is waiting for you,” he said.

“No, not yet. We must finish with our hearts what began in our souls. We already made a start, you saw for yourself. You’d better go, Tancredito, and entertain him. Talk to him about you and Sabina, for example. Why not? His advice will be illuminating. The two of you can’t go on as you are, don’t you see? One of these days the world will come to an end, and what will we have suffered for?”

That they should call on him to reveal his relationship with Sabina felt like a threat. Tancredo did not know how to reply. Those women knew everything, even from before he was born. He tried to ascertain from the Lilias’ faces whether there was mockery or compassion in their words. He discovered nothing there. Unconcerned, they carried on talking as though running through a list, each going in different directions, stopping from time to time at the open grave, staring hard at the cats with wide-open eyes, as if memorizing them, then withdrawing again in one direction or the other, crossing themselves. It was obvious that Tancredo was disturbing them. They were moving impatiently round the courtyard, and now their impatience was not so much to do with burying the cats as with Tancredo leaving the courtyard. Why do I disturb them so? he wondered. Maybe they didn’t want to bury their cats, as they should, with him there. Then why ask for his help? Was it possible, he thought, that once he had left the courtyard the Lilias would slither up the walls like giant snakes, roaring with laughter? Would they take to the air, congratulating themselves on their crime? He gave up. Who was he to defend the cats? He went out through the little gate in silence.

Once in the middle of the garden he hesitated. Where to go? He did not want to go near the church or return to the courtyard with the Lilias. A painful fit of laughter doubled him over, choking him. “My God,” he said to himself, “how was it they decided to drown the cats? How did they manage to catch them when they all seemed drunk? How were they able they do it?”