Good Offices

He decided to return to the courtyard, groping his way. Taking a deep breath, he leaned over the gate; he could see two of the Lilias dripping in the moonlight: they passed through the night in front of him. The other Lilia, in the depths of the darkness, stomped again and again on the earth bordering the grave. She had still not disposed of her shovel. The others were returning to the sink. “There was a place in the world to bury them after all,” one of them said, just as she was passing Tancredo. She stopped suddenly, lit by the moon, stopped in profile, bony, her gray hair falling over her face, her eyes wide, discovering him.

“Tancredito.” She raised her voice and smiled as though smiling at a child. “You’re not needed here now. Off you go.”

And she carried on toward the sink, where the other Lilia was already washing her hands.

Then Tancredo caught sight of the ladies. He caught sight of them just as he turned and left the courtyard. He caught sight of the old ladies of the Neighborhood Civic Association flattened like bats against the walls surrounding the big stone sink. Pale but calm, too serene. How had he not seen them before? They were all there, every one, the same seven or nine devout parishioners, feeble, confused grandmothers who not long ago had said goodnight in the drizzle, at the doors of the church. Seven or nine ladies? At this hour? Celestial grandmothers, housewives, helping to kill cats in the parish church. The whole time Tancredo was in the courtyard they had been hiding, not moving — why? So as not to be seen taking part in such a crime against cats? Surely it went against their dignity. Now, thinking him far away, they came alive again, their sullen expressions came back to life, their murmuring voices revived, they said goodbye furtively, by the light of the moon, and still they carried their umbrellas, in case of rain. They said goodbye to the Lilias, clustered around them. They were whispering. Making suggestions. And they went through the wide courtyard gates in single file, silent as thieves, back to their houses.

As the last one left, Tancredo sought out the Lilias.

“What were the ladies of the Association doing here?” he asked.

The smallest Lilia approached Tancredo and confronted him, eye to eye. Her yellow face was frightening, cold. She shook her head.

“You ask things that you shouldn’t,” she said.

And with that, still some way off, but coming closer, the sound of the Volkswagen’s motor approaching the courtyard gates electrified the Lilias and Tancredo.

“Almida,” the women said.

“They’re coming,” Tancredo said.

He did not run to open up. He could not. He felt thrown into a panic. The world, that night, was too out of kilter. And he admitted to himself, on top of everything, in his heart of hearts, that he had hoped Almida and the sacristan would never come back, that they had disappeared forever, like so many in that country, that the Volkswagen, with no one inside, would end up on some out-of-town rubbish dump, and that Friday’s journalists would greet the day with the news: PARISH PRIEST AND SACRISTAN DISAPPEAR.

“Tancredito, you go to the office,” the Lilias told him. “You should find San José in there. We saw him leave the kitchen. Take care to explain things to him. Pretend the telephone has just rung and you’re going to answer it. It’s not unusual for us to get up to attend Father Almida, but it’s extremely unusual that you and Sabina should be kissing on the altar, isn’t it? Off you go now, don’t let them see you.”

At that moment the courtyard gates opened. The sacristan himself was pushing them, bent and stealthy, in order to let the Volkswagen through, its headlights illuminating strips of shadow.

“The Lilias know everything,” Tancredo repeated to himself. The Lilias had spied on them all that time, their whole lives. He and Sabina were never alone. And he fled to the office, as if the telephone really had just rung.