Good Offices

Although not albino, Sabina Cruz’s hair and complexion gave the impression that she was. Her skin was so white it seemed pink, and her silvery-blonde hair gave off a sort of dim radiance, the light of an agonizing flame. Slight and fragile in appearance, her head bent, she was even younger than Tancredo, but would soon enough look like one of the Lilias. With that blue scarf on her head, she was a nun without a habit. They waited until she was seated behind the distant writing-desk before resuming their conversation. All the same, it was pointless to pretend that the sacristan’s goddaughter was not a participant in it, at least as a witness.

“So,” the sacristan continued, and now his ironic eyes bored into the hunchback, “you impart the Word of God to stray sheep by way of the Meals.”

He said this as though unable to credit it: a hunchback in the service of God.

“Stray?” Tancredo was astonished. And his astonishment was sincere. His listeners’ air of expectancy obliged him to explain. “I would say ‘to the hungry sheep’.”

He immediately regretted his words, not even entirely agreeing with what he had said. The sacristan instantly turned red. But he recovered quickly.

“That’s the trouble,” he retorted. “We cannot limit the Meals to just being meals.” And then, flapping his long, bony fingers: “Nothing more than meals. Meals upon meals.”

He too must have his fears, thought Tancredo. Because the sacristan seemed to be exploding: he even ground his teeth for a second. His eyes brightened, as though he was on the point of tears. He prayed silently, or asked for help. Meanwhile Almida appeared to be ignoring his parlous state. Or pretending to ignore it.

The sacristan drew strength from somewhere, from the cold pouring in from the garden.

“Any meeting with God’s people,” he said, as if imparting a definitive lesson, the first of many, to Tancredo, “must be taken advantage of in all its dimensions.”

Now I get you, the hunchback thought.

“Celeste Machado wishes to assist with the Meals,” Almida interrupted, confirming what Tancredo had surmised.

“For example,” the sacristan went on intensely, “tell us what today’s results were, with the old people. How they expressed their concerns. What you said to them, how they responded.”

“We barely speak,” Tancredo said. “Speaking to the old people is impossible. You’ll see. They just want to eat, and then sleep, stay in the dining hall until the following Thursday. They’re worn out. They’re old. They do not believe.”

“They do not believe?” the sacristan spluttered in exasperation. “He said they do not believe, for God’s sake. . Did you hear that, Father Almida?” He could not manage another word.

“Yes, they believe, they believe. We are convinced that they do. Nothing is impossible for those who distribute the other bread: the Bread of God, His Hope.”

Father Almida had spoken. The sacristan wanted to resume his interrogation, but Almida got in first, interrupting him. “Listen,” he said. “Listen to Tancredo. He’s been doing this for three years. You can join forces and draw your own conclusions.”

“I’m talking about senile men and women,” the acolyte said, encouraged, “homeless people with no place to rest their heads. People who roam Bogotá all day. Who sleep in doorways. They do not want to hear Father Almida’s messages, messages that, nonetheless, I conscientiously read out to them. They want, quite simply, to have lunch. And to sleep. They pay no heed to anyone. They just want something to eat.”

He had gone too far, surely. Father Almida coughed several times, as if he were choking.

“If only,” he said finally, with a great deal of effort, “we could set up an old people’s home, and a permanent canteen, for all of them. But something is better than nothing. It is our grain of sand. You are my great helpers.” He gestured toward Sabina, toward Tancredo. He glanced fleetingly at his watch. He sighed. “These chats are very fruitful, thanks be to God. Tancredo is not entirely wrong about the old people: ill health dogs them; they are capricious. It is different with the blind, with the street children. . But, when all is said and done, the elderly do listen, and they believe. They believe, Tancredo, they do believe. They believe. The proximity of death is a real incentive to belief. Every Meal has its spirit, its time, its guest, and the sacrifice differs. Something happens with a woman who comes on Monday, something else with a woman on Friday; Monday’s woman is forsaken, a streetwalker, obliged by necessity to succumb, forced to be a symbol of immorality; Friday’s woman is a working mother, a daughter, a sister — in any case, woman at her dignified best, the most beautiful symbol of the family.”

An awkward, insurmountable silence reigned. The three men turned toward Sabina Cruz, as if she, a woman after all, were the indirect cause of this moment, this doubt, this sensation.