Monsignor Quixote (15 page)

‘When have I ever despised you, Sancho?'

‘Oh well, thank your God that you've begun to speak again. Let's open the bottle.'

The wine he fished from the river was not quite cold enough, but he was anxious to complete the cure. They drank two glasses in what was now a friendly silence.

‘Is there any cheese left, father?'

‘I think a little, I'll go and see.'

Father Quixote was gone a long time. Perhaps the cheese had been hard to find. The Mayor got up impatiently as Father Quixote came out from under the bridge with a look of justifiable anxiety on his face, for he was accompanied by a Guardia. For a reason the Mayor could not understand he was talking rapidly to his companion in Latin and the Guardia too had a look of anxiety. Father Quixote said, ‘
Esto mihi in Deum protectorem et in locum refugii
.'

‘The bishop seems to be a foreigner,' the Guardia told the Mayor.

‘He is not a bishop. He is a monsignor.'

‘Is that your car under the bridge?'

‘It belongs to the monsignor.'

‘I told him he should have locked it. Why, he had even left his key in the starter. It's not a safe thing to do. Not around here.'

‘It seems very peaceful here. Even the cows . . .'

‘You haven't seen a man with a bullet hole through his right trouser leg and a false moustache? Though I expect he has thrown that away.'

‘No, no. Nothing of the kind.'

‘
Scio cui credidi
,' Father Quixote said.

‘Italian?' the Guardia asked. ‘The Pope's a great Pope.'

‘He certainly is.'

‘No hat or jacket. A striped shirt.'

‘No one like that has been around here.'

‘He got that bullet hole in Zamora. Narrow escape. One of ours. How long have you been here?'

‘About a quarter of an hour.'

‘Coming from where?'

‘Valladolid.'

‘Not passed anyone on the road?'

‘No.'

‘He can't have got much further than this in the time.'

‘What's he done?'

‘He robbed a bank at Benavente. Shot the cashier. Escaped on a Honda. Found abandoned – the Honda, I mean – five kilometres away. That's why it's not safe leaving your car unlocked like that with the key in the starter.'

‘
Laqueus contritus est
,' Father Quixote said, ‘
et nos liberati sumus
.'

‘What's the monsignor saying?'

The Mayor said, ‘I'm not a linguist myself.'

‘You are on the way to León?'

‘Yes.'

‘Keep an eye open and don't give a lift to any stranger.' He saluted the monsignor with courtesy and a certain caution and left them.

‘Why were you talking Latin to him?' the Mayor asked.

‘It seemed a good thing to do.'

‘But why . . .?'

‘I wanted if possible to avoid a lie,' Father Quixote replied. ‘Even an officious lie, not a malicious one, to use the distinction made by Father Heribert Jone.'

‘What had you got to lie about?'

‘I was confronted very suddenly with the possibility – you might say the temptation.'

The Mayor sighed. Father Quixote's silence had certainly been broken by the wine and he almost regretted it. He said, ‘Did you find any cheese?'

‘I found a quite substantial piece, but I gave it to him.'

‘The Guardia? Why on earth . . .?'

‘No, no, the man he was looking for, of course.'

‘You mean you've
seen
the man?'

‘Oh yes, that was why I was afraid of questions.'

‘For God's sake, where is he now?'

‘In the boot of the car. It was careless of me, after that, as the Guardia said, to leave the key . . . Somebody might have driven away with him. Oh well, the danger is over now.'

For a long moment the Mayor was incapable of speech. Then he said, ‘What did you do with the wine?'

‘Together we put it on the back seat of the car.'

‘I thank God,' the Mayor said, ‘that I had the number plate changed at Valladolid.'

‘What do you mean, Sancho?'

‘Those Civil Guards will have reported your number at Avila. They'll be on a computer by this time.'

‘But my papers . . .'

‘You've got new ones. Of course it took time. That's why we stayed so long in Valladolid. The garagist there is an old friend and a member of the Party.'

‘Sancho, Sancho, how many years in prison have we earned?'

‘Not half as many as you will get for hiding a fugitive from justice. Whatever induced you . . .?'

‘He asked me to help him. He said he was falsely accused and confused with another man.'

‘With a revolver hole in his trousers? A bank robber?'

‘Well, so was your leader, Stalin. So much depends on motive, after all. If Stalin had come to me in confession and explained his reasons honestly I would have given him perhaps a decade of the rosary to say, though I've never given so severe a penance to anyone in El Toboso. You remember what my ancestor told the galley slaves before he released them, “There is a God in heaven, who does not neglect to punish the wicked nor to reward the good, and it is not right that honourable men should be executioners of others.” That's good Christian doctrine, Sancho. A decade of the rosary – it's severe enough. We are not executioners or interrogators. The Good Samaritan didn't hold an inquiry into the wounded man's past – the man who had fallen among thieves – before he helped him. Perhaps he was a publican and the thieves were only taking back what he had taken from them.'

‘While you are talking, monsignor, our wounded man is probably dying for lack of air.'

They hurried to the car and found the man in a grievous enough state. The false moustache, loosened by sweat, hung down from one corner of his upper lip. It was lucky for him that he was small and had folded fairly easily into the little space which Rocinante offered.

All the same he complained bitterly when they let him out. ‘I thought I was going to die. What kept you so long?'

‘We were doing our best for you,' Father Quixote said in much the same words as his ancestor had used. ‘We are not your judges, but your conscience should tell you that ingratitude is an ignoble sin.'

‘We've done a great deal too much for you,' Sancho said. ‘Now be off. The Guardia went that way. I would advise you to keep to the fields until you can drown yourself in the city.'

‘How can I keep to the fields in these shoes, which are rotten from the soles up, and how can I drown myself in the city with a revolver hole in my trousers?'

‘You robbed the bank. You can buy yourself a new pair of shoes.'

‘Who said I robbed a bank?' He pulled out his empty pockets. ‘Search me,' he said. ‘You call yourselves Christians.'

‘I don't,' the Mayor said. ‘I am a Marxist.'

‘I've got a pain in my back. I can't walk a step.'

‘I've got some aspirin in the car,' Father Quixote said. He unlocked the car and began to look in the glove compartment. Behind him he heard a cough twice repeated. ‘I have some lozenges too,' he said. ‘I suppose there was a draught in the boot.' He turned with the medicine in his hand and saw to his surprise that the stranger was holding a revolver. ‘You mustn't point a thing like that,' he said, ‘it's dangerous.'

‘What size shoe do you take?' the man demanded.

‘I really forget. I think thirty-nine.'

‘And you?'

‘Forty,' Sancho said.

‘Give me yours,' the man commanded Father Quixote.

‘They are nearly as rotten as your own.'

‘Don't argue. I'd take your pants too if they would only fit. Now both of you turn your backs. If one of you moves I shall shoot both.'

Father Quixote said, ‘I don't understand why you went to rob a bank – if that's what you were doing – in a pair of rotten shoes.'

‘I took the wrong pair by mistake. That's why. You can turn round now. Get back into the car, both of you. I'll sit at the back and if you stop anywhere for any reason I shall shoot.'

‘Where do you want to go?' Sancho asked.

‘You will drop me by the cathedral in León.'

Father Quixote reversed out of the field with some difficulty.

‘You are a very bad driver,' the man said.

‘It's Rocinante. She never likes going backwards. I'm afraid you haven't much room there with all that wine. Shall I stop and return the case to the boot?'

‘No. Go on.'

‘Whatever happened to your Honda? The Guardia said you abandoned it.'

‘I ran out of petrol. I had forgotten to fill the tank.'

‘Wrong pair of shoes. No petrol. It really does look as though God was against your plans.'

‘Can't you drive any quicker?'

‘No. Rocinante is very old. She is apt to break down at over forty.' He looked in the driving mirror and saw the revolver pointing at him. ‘I wish you would relax and put the gun down,' he said. ‘Rocinante sometimes behaves a bit like a camel. If she shakes you up suddenly that thing might go off. You wouldn't be very happy with another man's death on your conscience.'

‘What do you mean? Another man?'

‘The poor fellow in the bank whom you killed.'

‘I didn't kill him. I missed.'

‘God does certainly seem have been working overtime,' Father Quixote said, ‘to preserve you from grave sin.'

‘Anyway, it wasn't a bank. It was a self-service store.'

‘The Guardia said a bank.'

‘Oh, they would say it was a bank even if it was a public lavatory. They feel more important that way.'

As they entered the city Father Quixote noticed that the gun always disappeared from view when they stopped at traffic lights. He could perhaps have jumped out of the car, but that would have left Sancho in danger, and if he tempted the man to further violence he would be sharing his sin. In any case he had no wish to be an instrument of human justice. It was a great relief when they met no Guardia or Carabinero before they drew up as close to the cathedral as he could get. ‘Let me look around and see that it is safe,' he said.

‘If you betray me,' the man said, ‘I will shoot your friend.'

Father Quixote opened the door. ‘All's well,' he said. ‘You can go.'

‘If you are lying,' the man warned, ‘the first bullet's for you.'

‘Your moustache has fallen off,' Father Quixote told him. ‘It's stuck to your shoe – I mean my shoe.'

They watched the man out of sight.

‘At least he didn't assault me like the galley slaves assaulted my forebear,' Father Quixote said.

‘Stay in the car while I go and buy you some shoes. You said size thirty-nine?'

‘Would you mind if we went into the cathedral first? It's been rather a strain, keeping Rocinante from bucking. If he had killed us the poor man would have been in really serious trouble. I would like to sit down just for a little in the cool – and to pray. I won't keep you long.'

‘I thought you were doing a lot of that while you drove.'

‘Oh yes, I was – but those were prayers for the poor man. I'd like to thank God now for
our
safety.'

The stone struck cold through his purple socks. He regretted that in Salamanca he had not chosen the woollen ones. He was dwarfed by the great height of the nave and the flood of light through a hundred and twenty windows which might have been the gaze of God. He felt as though he were an infinitely small creature set on the slide of a microscope. He escaped to a side altar and knelt down. He didn't know what to say. When he thought, ‘Thank you,' the words seemed as hollow as an echo – he felt no gratitude for his escape, perhaps he would have been able to feel a little gratitude if a bullet had struck him – this is the end. They would have taken his body back to El Toboso and there he would have been at home again and not on this absurd pilgrimage – to what? Or where?

It seemed a waste of time trying and failing to pray, so he gave up the attempt and instead tried to exclude all thought, to be aware of nothing, to enter a complete silence, and after a long while he did feel himself on the threshold of Nothing with only one step to take. Then he became aware of his left big toe colder than the other on the cathedral stone, and he thought: I have a hole in my sock. The sock – why had he not insisted on wool? – was not worth the price at that grand establishment patronized by Opus Dei.

He made the sign of the cross and rejoined Sancho.

‘Have you prayed enough?' the Mayor asked him.

‘I haven't prayed at all.'

They left Rocinante parked and walked at random through the streets. Just off the Burgo Nuevo they found a shoe shop. The hot pavements burnt Father Quixote's feet and the hole from which his left big toe protruded had grown considerably larger. It was a small shop and the proprietor looked at his feet with astonishment.

‘I want a pair of black shoes, size thirty-nine,' Father Quixote said.

‘Yes, yes, please take a seat.' The man produced a pair and knelt before him. Father Quixote thought: I am like the statue of St Peter in Rome. Will he kiss my toe? He laughed.

‘What's funny?' the Mayor asked.

‘Oh, nothing, nothing. A thought.'

‘You will find the leather of this pair very soft and supple, Your Excellency.'