The Priest (10 page)

“Is it always like this?” Mauricio asked,
after he had already eaten more than his usual share of food.

“More or less.” Arias took a sip from his
steaming cup.

“What’s that you’re drinking?” Mauricio
asked, smelling the strong aroma.

“Coffee. Would you like some?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had anything but
water.” Mauricio wiggled his nose inhaling the robust scent wafting
his way.

“We can make things right immediately. I’ll
fetch a cup for you.” Arias stood up and went to the table with all
the assorted beverages.

Mauricio looked around, relaxing in his
chair. He wasn’t used to any of this, but he could get comfortable,
eventually. He nibbled on the last piece of bread left on his plate
and thought of how his life was changing. He noticed that Arias had
found someone on his way back and was talking animatedly. Mauricio
looked at the scene with envy. No man had ever talked to him that
way, with the exception of his father. And Rosie, who liked to
spend time with him, even though he wasn’t a woman. He missed
her.

“Hey, you!” Someone tapped Mauricio’s
shoulder.

“Yes?” He turned around to face three men
who were looking back at him with curious faces. They were
balancing generous portions of food on their trays.

“Is it true that you’re from the Temple?”
the dark one asked, picking at a piece of bread lying atop another
three different layers of meats and vegetables. His big fingers
clumsily knocked off a morsel of dark meat that fell out of the
tray and landed on the floor. The man didn’t seem to notice.

What a waste.
“Yes.” Mauricio wasn’t
used to conversation and also wasn’t sure that he wanted to talk to
them. These three men didn’t look friendly.

“Say, are you one of
them
?” the one
with lighter skin and a mustache asked, accentuating the last word
with a sneer. “You don’t mind, do you?” He sat at Mauricio’s table
and then motioned for the other men to join him.

I do mind.
“One of whom?” Mauricio
was already regretting having turned around.

“You have the clean face of a semental. Yes,
you definitely do,” the third one, a short guy with frizzy, red
hair, said, playing with his fork and sending rice everywhere.

Mauricio calmly cleared his tray of the
stray food that had landed on it.

“We could help with that, though,” the dark
one said.

“Yes, we’re good friends. We can break your
face for you. So you won’t look so pretty around here,” Mustache
added with a smile that made Mauricio cringe.

“Leave him alone.” Coming from behind, a
fourth man interrupted the series of suggestions about rearranging
Mauricio’s features. He pulled a chair from a nearby table and sat
at Mauricio’s.

“Or what?” Red hair was clearly the
belligerent type.

“You know exactly
what
,” the man
answered calmly. He was young and thinly built, but there was
something about the way he talked that made an impression on
Mauricio. The other three men evidently thought the same because
they stood up and left after few rude remarks about sementals and
the people who went to the trouble to defend them. They left behind
a trail of food on the table.

Wasteful idiots.
Mauricio had his
eyes on them until they disappeared in the crowd.

“Don’t mind them,” the man said, crossing
his arms on his chest.

“Good morning, Leander.” Arias had finally
found his way back, although Mauricio had the distinct feeling that
the older man had waited on purpose. Leander nodded back.

“Leander, this is Mauricio. Mauricio, this
is Leander.” Arias put a steaming cup of coffee before Mauricio and
mimed the act of drinking. “Try a small sip, and be careful because
it’s hot,” he warned.

“It’s… hot
and
bitter,” Mauricio
said, while pressing his palm against his scorched lip. The other
two men laughed.

“Another thing you’ll have to get used to,”
Arias said, sipping his coffee.

“I’m addicted to this stuff,” Leander
added.

“So, Leander here is going to show you what
to do.” Arias stood up, and without adding anything else, left.

Mauricio was getting a furious headache. And
he was getting anxious. He didn’t understand what was happening. He
felt comfortable with the three thugs making fun of him, for that
was his reality. The atmosphere in the cafeteria was putting him on
edge. He looked around and saw men chatting and talking to each
other or just readying themselves for a long day of work. They
seemed happy, not terrorized by the thought they could be breathing
their last air.

“Deep in thought, huh?” Leander put his
empty cup down on the table. The sound, more than Leander’s words,
brought Mauricio back to the present.

“In less than two days my life has changed
completely, and I’m not sure what to think,” Mauricio cautiously
answered.

“I wasn’t born here myself. I came to Tarin
only a year ago. And, like you, I hadn’t had the time of my life.”
Leander took the cup and went to refill it. Mauricio looked at his
new acquaintance and noticed that Leander limped slightly.

“How can you tell?” Mauricio asked when he
came back.

“I happen to have a pretty face as well, in
case you haven’t noticed.” Leander raised one of his brows and then
smiled.

“You were a semental?” Mauricio was
surprised. He took another sip of his lukewarm coffee.

“Yep. I came here straight from the Temple.”
Leander’s eyes were scanning the room.

“You were there?”

“I even saw the Priestess, once.” Leander
was now focused on a group of men sitting by the entry, at the
other end of the room.

“I did, too, recently. More than I wanted,
actually.” Mauricio found the coincidence interesting.

“We better start our day,” Leander announced
and turned his head toward the exit.

Mauricio couldn’t help but notice the long
stares Leander and the group of men exchanged. They weren’t
friendly, but at the same time, there wasn’t any hostility between
them. Leander didn’t pause to make introductions, so Mauricio
followed him outside to the fields.

“You’re going to like it. Not immediately,
not today for sure, but you’ll appreciate the opportunity to work
under the sun,” Leander said and then turned to face Mauricio.
“Enjoy every moment of it,” he finished.

They walked, following a path paved in
bricks that cut through a sea of tall grass, Mauricio trailing his
arms low to touch the tops of the foliage, waving in time with the
light breeze. His mind went into overload; the colors his eyes were
seeing were too bright; the sky was too blue, and the grass too
green. Even though he had experienced the thrill of being outside
just the day before, he was conditioned to the dull colors of the
inside world of the Temple, where everything was a shade of gray.
I’ll never get used to this.
The colors were pure and
undiluted, and the light shone bright—even the smells were too
intense.
Was it so vivid yesterday?
The grass had a peculiar
scent he couldn’t define with words, but it was fresh.
The air
is so crisp that it’s stinging my nose, but the sun is warm on my
skin.
His fingers were prickled by the rigid texture of the
stems forming the sea of undulating green grass.
“Where are all
the bugs?”

“I remember my first day outside,” Leander
said, after several minutes of silence.

Mauricio was glad he was given some time to
contemplate the scenery. “It’s magnificent,” he murmured. He hated
that his voice betrayed his inner turmoil. He was in awe.

“Yes.” Leander nodded and looked away.

Mauricio raised his head toward the sky,
closed his eyes and let the sun caress his skin.

“I should’ve given you a hat,” Leander
commented. “You are going to be tomato red by the end of
today.”

“I don’t care,” Mauricio thought out
loud.

“You don’t care now,” Leander replied
softly, but he didn’t add anything else to the subject.

“What do we do today?” Mauricio asked with
interest.

“You’ll help dig a trench, and I’ll help
remove the soil from the digging.”

They had reached the end of the sea of
grass, and before them was a vast expanse of brown land covered in
rectangles and squares in different shades of yellow, green, and
purple. The view stretched to the horizon and Mauricio saw that the
fields went on for miles and miles and a blue ribbon cut the land
in two. Mauricio squinted against the sun’s glare and noticed that
beyond the river, the colors of the fields changed to a palette of
oranges, reds, and greens.

“At Tarin, we take care of this side of the
field. The other farms are responsible for the orchards on the
other side of the river,” Leander explained.

“What does Tarin produce?” Mauricio was
filling his eyes with the peaceful sight.

“We provide the raw ingredients for cosmetic
products. The yellow is our mimosa tree production. The green is
made up of several aromatic herbs like sage, lemongrass, rosemary,
mint, and thyme. The purple is lavender of thirty different
varieties. Tarin got the perfumed bunch.” Leander indicated each
different square or rectangle with his outstretched hand.

“Where is the trench?” Mauricio asked, since
he didn’t see anybody digging anything in the vicinity.

“By the river.” Leander pointed a finger
toward a speck of activity happening far away from them.

“It is going to take the whole day just to
reach them!” Mauricio liked the idea of walking, but doubted that
it was productive.

“We are waiting for our ride.” Leander aimed
at another dark speck moving through the fields.

The car, very similar to the van that had
brought Mauricio to Tarin, reached them in less than a minute. This
time, Mauricio knew what was going to happen and his stomach didn’t
put up a fight. The field workers’ van had windows on both sides,
and Mauricio stuck his nose to one and looked outside the entire
ride. When the van stopped to let them out, he was surprised that
they had already arrived at their destination. It had looked so far
away from the trail.

“I’ll introduce you to the digging crew
now.” Leander accompanied Mauricio toward a group of men intent on
excavating a large amount of soil from a big, rectangular hole in
the ground.

Mauricio could hear the men joking about
something he didn’t understand, and he would have stepped back if
Leander wasn’t already there, pushing him forward.

“Guys, this is Mauricio. Mauricio, these are
your mates.” Leander smiled at Mauricio and then left to reach his
crew.

“Hey!” Mauricio called after Leander, who
paused and turned around.

“Do you need anything?” Leander asked with a
frown.

“Thanks, for earlier.”

“Sure.” Leander shrugged his shoulders and
walked away.

Mauricio jumped inside the hole to meet his
crew. He was greeted by several voices talking all at the same
time.

“I’m your boss here. I’m Grey; now take the
shovel and start helping.” The loudest of the lot threw him a tool
and attacked the soil with his own to show Mauricio what was
expected from him.

“Nice to meet you. All of you,” he said,
turning his head right and left to encompass the whole crew of
scruffy-looking men with his greeting.

“Likewise,” the closest to him answered with
a toothless smile.

“See if you are equally happy tonight when
we’re done,” another said and laughed. But it wasn’t an unpleasant
laugh. It wasn’t the scornful laugh that was the guards’
trademark.

Mauricio grabbed the shovel with two hands.
It’s heavy!
Then he took a good look at what the other men
were doing and tried to imitate them.
And
it isn’t as
simple as they make it look.
It took him several minutes to
catch up with the others, but Mauricio was satisfied with the
result when he started digging in time with the song the crew was
singing.
Did they just say… that
?
I can’t believe they
said that out loud.
He was so surprised by the double entendres
and the overall boldness of the lyrics that he forgot what he was
doing.

“Are you okay?” one of the men asked, his
eyes pointing at Mauricio’s hand.

“Just having fun listening to your songs.
Why?”
Am I doing something wrong?
he thought at first, but
then looked down, following the other man’s gaze, and saw what had
prompted the question. “Oh… crap,” he said, cradling his bleeding
hand. “I don’t know how this happened.”

“The shovel handle.” The man showed him the
tool Mauricio had thrown on the ground at the sight of his
blood.

“Right—”

Grey came close to Mauricio and gave a
perfunctory check at the injured part. “You’ll toughen up; don’t
worry. In a week, tops, you’ll have hard calluses to protect your
soft skin. You’ll look like the rest of us in no time.” He then
took a handful of green grass from the patch stretching out at the
excavation’s edge. “Chew the mint and then apply it on your hand.
The day past tomorrow, you won’t remember you cut yourself.”

Mauricio took the handful of what Grey had
called mint and chewed on it, as asked. He liked the taste of the
mint; it cleansed his mouth, and the smell of the chewed mush went
through his nose and straight to his lungs. He gingerly put the
mint on the cut skin of his hand. At first, he felt a pang of pain,
but after a moment, he felt better.

“It works every time,” Grey commented
proudly.

“Thanks,” Mauricio said while turning the
hand sideways, still trying to keep the chewed mint on it.

“Now, back to work. If you can’t hold the
shovel—”

“No, I’m fine. I can work. I promise.”
Heavens forbid I get introduced to another living soul
today...
Trying to remember all the names was becoming
increasingly harder.
I never thought to admit something like
this… but I just discovered I don’t dislike being alone that
much.
Maybe he was already too old to get acquainted with
humanity.