Good Offices

Inebriated, but as if he were being buoyed up by a host of wings, ebullient, recently showered and shaved, his drunkenness was betrayed only by his crooked glasses and utterly blank, vacant eyes. He took the cruet from his pocket and showed it to Tancredo triumphantly. “Vodka,” he said, and winked. “Father Almida lives like a cardinal.” And he belched. Belched, when twenty yards away, at his back, the whole parish was waiting. It was an uncommonly large congregation, judging by the sounds of footsteps, breathing, throat-clearing, coughing. The news of the priest-cantor had spread through the neighborhood like wildfire in the night. The Lilias, Tancredo thought. The Lilias have summoned the whole world.

Then one of them — the small one again — offered him a cup of coffee. The others were helping Matamoros dress, making him splendid in immaculate white and blue. With coffee still on his lips, Tancredo followed behind the priest, passed into the church and was pained by the sight of the altar, with a feeling of regret close to tears. But soon the priest’s voice helped him forget, just as the Lilias and all the grandmothers of the Neighborhood Civic Association forgot themselves when they heard the sung Our Father, the Blessing, motionless, their hearts as one, their eyes fixed on the little Father, who again retired as if he had just fought the battle of his life. Completely drained, bent double, Matamoros — as he had done the day before — sat down in the sacristy’s only chair, next to the telephone. “One of these days my heart is going to break,” he said, and asked Tancredo for a whisky, a whisky, just like that, in the middle of the sacristy, like being in the bar of one of the brothels Tancredo used to visit in search of diners. Well then: a whisky was conjured up for him, in a tall glass, clinking with ice cubes, immediately, by the three Lilias.

“You are blessed, Father,” they said.

In the garden, seated at the edge of the fountain, freckled by the shade of the willow trees, under a cloudless sky and resting on a Friday, that Friday, the first Friday of their lives without cooking, sunk in the tranquil reverie of 11:00 in the morning, the Lilias heard Matamoros singing a bolero, sitting just as they were, beside them, at peace. Nearby, unnoticed by anyone, lurking in corners, leaning against the willows, floating, the seven or nine old ladies of the Neighborhood Civic Association were listening to the sung parable. Tancredo wondered, suddenly discovering that throng of spellbound statues scattered beatifically all around, when exactly the good ladies had entered the presbytery, and had they come through the church? The sacristy? Without asking permission, as if in their own homes? Almost midday, the sun was warming the walls, the time of the Family Meal was approaching, and the Lilias did not go near the kitchen. The adoring old women watched Matamoros drink, heard Matamoros sing, forgetting, or seeming to forget, that Juan Pablo Almida, their parish priest, their benefactor, was asleep and had to be woken up. “I must wake the Father,” Tancredo said to himself in one corner of the garden, but remained still, fixated by the song, just as hypnotized as the adoring women, or more so.

“We should wake Father Almida,” Sabina said suddenly, beside him, dressed in gray with a gray headscarf, her cold hand lightly touching him. “We have to warn him it’s almost midday,” she insisted, genuinely startled. “Time for the Family Meal, and Almida and my godfather are still sleeping.”

Tancredo did not reply. Sabina’s presence froze him, her hand in his.

“But nobody here seems to remember them,” Sabina went on. Her marvelling gaze roamed over the women’s entranced faces, as if she did not recognize them. “It’s unbelievable,” she said. “All this for the voice of a drunk.” She blushed. “And to think he almost got his talons into me last night.” She smiled, transfixed. “It’s a miracle in reverse.” She was observing Matamoros with the utmost curiosity; did she revere him too? “That Father is on the point of collapse.” She was amazed by him. “He’s like a party at dawn.” And, suddenly anxious: “Nobody seems to realize.”

Sabina could stand it no longer. She took a step forward, bit her lip.

“Father Almida won’t be long,” she yelled at the Lilias, still clutching Tancredo’s hand. “Doesn’t anybody care?” The song was silenced. Matamoros wiped the sweat from his forehead, rubbed his eyes; was he going to fall asleep? He seemed to sleep whenever it suited him, or had he really sung too much? Whatever the case, the drunken Lilias and the rest of the adoring women froze; time seemed to stand still.

“Father Almida will soon wake up,” a Lilia replied evenly. “Friday’s his favorite day; he’s not going to miss it.” Stooping, seated on the edge of the fountain, smiling, almost a girl leaning over the water, she was lit by the rays of the sun. Sabina loathed her.

Then, over and above everything else, came Matamoros’s labored voice.