Good Offices

“Let him rest, Tancredito. You’ll have to sleep in the sacristy tonight. You should, out of Christian charity, give the Reverend your bed. We’ll take him there ourselves.”

Sleeping in the sacristy did not alarm Tancredo. On various occasions, due to one of Almida’s sisters coming to visit, he’d spent the night there: they had installed a mat for the purpose, a sort of mattress, tucked away among the plaster angels, and, hidden in the mountain of priestly vestments, a pillow and a blanket. It did alarm Tancredo that the Lilias should insist on carrying San José’s sleeping body themselves.

“Not you, Tancredito. You already helped us enough,” they said. Because Tancredo was getting ready to lift Matamoros himself; in fact, he had managed to get his hands under the priest’s armpits and was beginning to move him when he felt the bony, vicelike fingers of the Lilias on his arms. There was a short, undeclared battle for the priest’s body. With silent force, they obliged Tancredo to lay Matamoros back down on the floor.

“Alright,” Tancredo relented. “Very well.”

The Lilias’ faces were sweating.

“We’ll take him there ourselves,” they said again. And carefully, with the most exaggerated delicacy, the three raised the priest’s body.

“You light the way,” they told Tancredo, sarcastically. It seemed like an order. “At least give us light. Do something, for God’s sake.

We do everything around here, all by ourselves, for the love of God.”

For a fleeting moment, the Lilias’ faces looked demented, unfamiliar. One of them was drooling; the drool dampened her neck, smearing it white, like the froth that spews from the mouths of rabid dogs. The other had popping eyes, and the third displayed a peculiar twisted smile of unhinged happiness on her wide-open mouth, as if about to burst into silent laughter. He did not pay any more attention to them because as he moved out into the garden, beside the Lilias gratefully bearing San José’s body, he thought he spotted Sabina. From behind a willow tree, her round, white face peeped out for a moment, or seemed to peep out; it was not her, but the moon, its light uncovered, cloudless; the stars were shimmering in the sky. In the courtyard, where not a single vestige of cats remained, not a shadow, Father Matamoros went on his way in the Lilias’ arms, as though he were floating. He was a feather. His face lolled placidly against a skirt; at no time did he stretch or seem as if he might wake up. So still he seemed dead, yet he was snoring, and suddenly snored more and more loudly, out in the air, freely: he was snoring a ludicrous song, another song. Tancredo opened the door to his room, raised the candlestick to light the way and saw how the Lilias lay Matamoros down on the bed, his bed, undressed him with expert care and pulled the covers over him.

“Now go away, Tancredito,” they said. “We’re going to pray at his side.”

“He’s asleep.”

“But he’s snoring, and that’s bad.”

Tancredo still wanted to find Sabina. It was possible she might be waiting for him in this very room; anything was possible with Sabina. Had they surprised her by arriving unexpectedly with Matamoros? Was she hiding under the bed? Like a children’s game, he thought, a shameful game.

“The Father’s still asleep,” Tancredo said. He hesitated, nothing occurring to him that would provide a pretext for looking for Sabina under the bed. “How can he pray in his sleep?”

“He’s snoring, and that’s bad. If we pray, he’ll stop snoring.”

Tancredo knelt and looked under the bed, pulling out slippers he didn’t need.

“She’s not here,” a Lilia said to him. The others were smiling triumphantly and shaking their heads.

“Look for her somewhere else,” they said. “Look for her where no one, only God, can find her. We’ll see you in the morning.”

Another tremendous snore from the Father demanded their attention. Harassed, they turned back to him.

“Like a saint.” They began to pray, crossing themselves.

“See you in the morning,” they said to Tancredo.