Good Offices

The three Lilias never asked for Tancredo’s help with their chores again, except those they had shared since he was a boy: accompanying them to market every Saturday, carrying the shopping, stacking it in the pantry, checking the cookers, repairing any electrical faults, hammering in or pulling out nails — undemanding domestic tasks. His work, over the last three years since he had finished night school, had revolved exclusively around the Community Meals and his private studies, directed and overseen by Father Almida himself: annotated Bible-reading, learning Latin.

His own work will have to wait now, he supposes, along with his shower and a change of clothes. He will have to go to the office, a sort of study where the Father attends to earthly matters and where he is waiting, wanting to see him — he needs me, Tancredo thinks, as the smallest of the Lilias said urgently.

Reverend Father Juan Pablo Almida was not alone. Seated at the oblong table with him was the sacristan. Pale as a sheet, Sacristan Celeste Machado gazed at the hunchback, astonished, as if he had only just met him. The sacristan was an obscure man, a shadow like the Lilias, and not just because he dressed all in black, but because of his deep reserve, a ring of blackness like a pit. Partially deaf besides, he roamed the place like any other shadow, looming up like the walls. Mute and dark. Stony. His inner gloom could freeze you. His eyes and facial expression screamed hatred and disgust, a secret repugnance that seemed exacerbated by proximity to the Lilias, who fled from him, or the presence of Tancredo, whom he ignored. He conversed — or his harsh voice rang out — solely with the Father or with Sabina, his goddaughter, and only when necessary.

Juan Pablo Almida, robust, exuding strength and health from every pore at sixty years of age — looking more like fifty — was at the head of both the table and the conversation. He had just said something his hunchbacked acolyte could not make out, but which — he sensed — referred to him: they were talking about him. The sacristan continued to examine him as though confronted by some ghastly hallucination. Why so surprised? Tancredo thought. Any self-respecting church needs its hunchback; they should know that better than anyone. Or were they astounded by the vast size of his head, the wisdom in his eyes — as Father Almida, describing him, had once put it — his stature, too tall for a hunchback, the extraordinary musculature God had seen fit to bestow on him, without being asked? Tancredo shrugged, resigned, and decided to let them admire him as much as they wished to for a few seconds. Almida and the sacristan were drinking the hazelnut liqueur that the parish lavished on its most distinguished guests or most unexpected visitors. Father Almida waved Tancredo to a chair on his right. As he sat down, he sensed the current of heat emanating from Sabina Cruz at the far end of the office, bent over the black writing-desk, unobtrusively tapping at the typewriter. She was wearing her blue headscarf; she didn’t even turn to look at him.

“My right-hand man has arrived,” Father Almida said, without taking his eyes off Tancredo. The sacristan inclined his head briefly, cupping his hand around one ear so as not to miss a word, a characteristic gesture that obliged him to turn his face to one side and stretch out his neck, and, as a result, look at his interlocutors out of the corner of his eye, as if spying on them.

Almida got straight to the point, explaining to the hunchback that our sacristan here was exceedingly interested in knowing more about the Community Meals. Those were his words: exceedingly interested.

“Tancredo,” Almida said in a confidential tone, “today was the meal for the elderly, was it not? How was attendance? Did many come along?”

“Only three empty seats, Father.”

“And there are ninety-nine seats.” Almida sipped his drink, visibly satisfied.

The sacristan nodded approvingly. Resting his immense, pale, watery eyes on Tancredo, he forced an incredulous smile.

“Is it always like that, the attendance?” he asked.