The Seville Communion (34 page)

"Did I say that?" Bonafé replied, impervious to Quart's contempt. "I must have meant the truth with a small t, Father."

"Get out."

"I'm sorry?" Bonafé was no longer smiling. He glanced warily at the key that Quart was gripping in his left hand. And now Quart took the other hand out of his pocket, its knuckles swollen and covered with dried blood, and the journalist's anxious eyes went from one hand to the other.

"I said get out, or I'll have you thrown out. I might even forget that I'm a priest and throw you out myself." He took a step towards Bonafé, who took two steps back.

"You wouldn't dare . . ." the journalist protested feebly. But he said no more. There were evangelical precedents: the merchants in the temple and all that. There was actually a very expressive relief on the theme only a few metres away, above the door of the mosque.

Quart grabbed Bonafé and dragged his small podgy person towards the door, to the astonishment of the concierge. Bonafé tried to readjust his clothing before receiving one last push that sent him through the door and into the street. His bag fell to the ground.

Quart picked it up and threw it out after him. "I don't want to see you again," he said.

Under the streetlight, the journalist was trying to recover his dignity. His hands were trembling and his hair was dishevelled. He was white with humiliation and fury. "I haven't finished with you," he managed to say at last. His voice cracked in an almost feminine sob. "You son of a bitch."

Quart shrugged; it wasn't the first time he'd been called that. He returned to the lobby. Behind the reception desk, one hand still on the telephone receiver - he'd begun to call the police - the concierge gaped, his eyes popping with astonishment and respect. Some priest.

Despite the cuts on his knuckles and the swelling, Quart could move the joints of his right hand without too much difficulty. Cursing his stupidity aloud, he took off his jacket and went to the bathroom to wash and disinfect the wound. Then he filled a handkerchief with all the ice he could find in the minibar and applied it to his hand. He stood for a while at the window, looking out at the illuminated Plaza Virgen de los Reyes and the cathedral beyond the eaves of the archbishop's palace. He couldn't get the encounter with Bonafé out of his head.

By the time the ice had all melted, his hand didn't feel too bad. He went over to his jacket and emptied the pockets. He placed their contents neatly on the sideboard - wallet, fountain pen, cards for making notes, loose change. The faded postcard to Captain Xaloc showed the church, and the water carrier with his donkey disappearing like a ghost into the white halo surrounding the picture. And the image, voice, smell of Macarena Bruner suddenly flooded Quart; the dam holding it all back burst. The church, his mission in Seville, Bonafé all turned as pale as the vanishing water carrier, and nothing remained but Macarena: her half smile in the darkness on the quay of the Guadalquivir, the glints of honey-coloured light in her dark eyes, the warm smell of her closeness. Carmen the cigarette girl rolling damp tobacco leaves against her thigh. Macarena naked on a hot afternoon, her tanned skin against white sheets and the sun filtering in horizontal stripes through the blinds. Beads of sweat at the forehead edge of her black hair, and in her dark triangle, and on her eyelashes.

It was still very hot. It was almost one in the morning when he went to take a shower. Slowly he undressed, dropping his clothes at his feet. As he did so, it seemed as if a stranger were staring back at him from the wardrobe mirror. A tall, grave man removing shoes, socks and shirt, and then leaning over to undo his belt and drop his black trousers to the floor. Then slipping his underpants down his thighs, uncovering his penis, which was stiff with the memory of Macarena. Quart stood looking at the stranger in the mirror. Slim, with a flat stomach, narrow hips, the pectorals firm and well defined, like the curve of the muscles on his arms and shoulders. Like a soldier, ageless and timeless, devoid of his chain mail and weapons, the silent man regarding Quart looked good. And what, he wondered, was the bloody point of looking so good?

The sound of running water and the awareness of his own body brought the memory of another woman. It was in Sarajevo, August
1992,
during a short, dangerous trip to mediate in the evacuation of Monsignor Franjo Pavelic, a Croat archbishop highly regarded by the Pope. Pavelic was under threat from both the Bosnian Muslims and the Serbs. It took 100,000
German marks for them to agree for the prelate to go to Zagreb and not be shot at a checkpoint, which had happened to his assistant, Monsignor Jesic, killed by a sniper. Quart arrived in a United Nations helicopter with an armed escort, the money in a briefcase chained to his wrist. This was Sarajevo in its most brutal period, the shelling of bread lines, twenty or thirty dead every day and hundreds of wounded piling up in the corridors of the hospital, without electricity or medicine; no room in the cemeteries, victims buried in football pitches. Jasmina wasn't exactly a prostitute. There were women who survived by offering their services as interpreters to journalists and diplomats at the Holiday Inn, and they often exchanged more than that for a can of food, a packet of cigarettes. Encouraged by his ecclesiastical garb, Jasmina approached Quart and told him the kind of story that was all too common in the besieged city: an invalid father, the war, the hunger, no cigarettes. Quart promised to get hold of cigarettes and food and she returned that evening, dressed in black to avoid the snipers. For a handful of marks, Quart got her a packet of Marlboros and some military rations. That night there was running water in the rooms, and she asked if she could take a shower, her first in a month. She undressed by the light of a candle and stood under the water while he watched, fascinated. She was blonde, with pale skin and large firm breasts. With the water running down her body, she turned to look at Quart with a smile of gratitude and invitation. He didn't move, his back against the door frame, he just smiled. That time it hadn't been a question of rules. It was simply that you couldn't receive certain things in exchange for merely food and cigarettes. So when she was dressed, they went down to the hotel bar, and in the light of another candle they drank half a bottle of brandy, while outside, Serbian bombs fell. Afterwards, Jasmina kissed the priest quickly on the mouth and ran off into the shadows.

Shadows and women's faces. The cold water running down his face and body made Quart feel better. He held his injured hand out of the water, rested it against the tiled wall. He stood there for a while, his skin tingling, then got out and dripped on the tiled floor. He dried himself lightly with a towel and lay down on the bed, face up. His naked body left a damp outline on the sheets. He put his wounded hand between his thighs and felt his flesh grow strong-and hard, from his thoughts and memories. He could make out a man walking alone between two lights, a solitary Knight Templar on a high plateau beneath a godless sky. He closed his eyes in anguish. He tried to pray, challenging the void behind every word. He felt immense solitude. A quiet, desperate sadness.

X

In Ictu Oculi

Look at that house. It was built by a holy spirit. Magic barriers protect it.

The Book of the Dead

Quart arrived at the church mid-morning, after a brief visit to the archbishop's palace and another to Deputy Superintendent Navajo. Our Lady of the Tears was deserted. The only sign of life was the candle burning at the altar. He sat in a pew and for a long time looked at the scaffolding against the walls, the blackened ceiling, the gilded reliefs of the altarpiece in shadow. When Father Oscar came out of the vestry and saw Quart, he didn't seem surprised. The assistant priest was wearing a grey clerical shirt, jeans, and trainers. He looked older than at their last meeting. His fair hair was unkempt, and he had dark rings under his eyes, visible behind his glasses. His face was greasy, as if he'd woken very early or had a sleepless night.

"Vespers strikes again," Quart told him, showing him the message that had been forwarded by fax from Rome. It had come at around one in the morning, about the time Quart had been dealing with Bonafé in the hotel lobby. The IEA agent didn't mention this to Father Oscar, however. Nor did he tell him that Arregui's team had again managed to divert the hacker to a parallel file, where the hacker left his message in the belief that he was communicating directly with the Holy Father. Father Garofi traced Vespers' signal to the telephone line of El Corte Ingles department store, in the centre of Seville, where the hacker made a loop to hide his trace.

The temple of the Lord is God's place, God's building. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy.

"One Corinthians," said Father Oscar, handing the paper back to Quart.

“Do you know anything about this?"

The young priest seemed about to speak, but instead shook his head dejectedly and sat down beside Quart. "You're still casting about blindly," he said, and added, "You're not as good as they said you were."

"When do you leave?" Quart asked, putting Vespers' message back in his pocket.

"Tomorrow afternoon."

"The place you're going is unpleasant."

"Worse than unpleasant," he said with a sad smile. "It rains about once a year. They might as well send me to the Gobi Desert." He gave Quart a look.

Quart raised a hand. "I had nothing to do with it," he said.

"I know." Oscar Lobato ran his fingers through his hair and stared a while at the candle on the altar. "Monsignor Corvo himself is getting even with me. He thinks I betrayed him." He laughed bitterly. "You know. I was trustworthy, a young priest with a brilliant future. That's why he decided to appoint me as Don Priamo's assistant. But instead of acting as the archbishop's mole, I went over to the enemy."

"High treason," said Quart.

"Yes. And there are certain things the Church will never forgive."

Quart nodded. He could testify to that. "Why did you do it?" he asked. "You knew better than anyone that it was a lost cause."

The assistant priest crossed his legs, resting his feet on the kneeler. "I think I answered that question during our last conversation." His glasses slid down his nose, making him look even more vulnerable. "Sooner or later Don Priamo will be made to leave the parish, and then the era of the merchants will have arrived . . . The church will be demolished and they'll cast lots for her garments." He laughed bitterly, staring straight ahead. "But I'm not so sure that the battle's been lost."

There was silence beneath the vault. The two priests sat motionless. "Until only a few months ago, I was a promising young cleric," Father Oscar said at last. "All I had to do was sit at the archbishop's

feet and keep my mouth shut. But I found my dignity here, both as a man and as a priest. Paradoxical, isn't it? That I should have learned dignity from an old priest with such an unpleasant manner and rough appearance; an Aragonese priest who's as stubborn as a mule, says Mass in Latin and dabbles in astronomy." He leaned back and folded his arms. "Life's strange. The fate that awaits me would once have seemed a tragedy. Now I see it differently. God can be anywhere, in any corner, because He goes with us. Jesus fasted for forty days in the desert. Monsignor Corvo doesn't know it, but now I feel like a real priest, with something to fight for. By sending me into exile, they only make me stronger and more determined. All they've accomplished is to make my faith rock-solid." "Are you Vespers?"

Father Oscar took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt. He squinted warily at Quart. "That's all that matters, isn't it? The church, Father Ferro, me - you don't really care about any of it." He clicked his tongue. "You have your mission." Absently, he cleaned one lens, then the other. "Who Vespers is," he said, "isn't important. The message is a warning. Or an appeal to whatever there is that's still noble in the firm that you and I work for." He put on his glasses. "A reminder that honesty and decency still exist."

Quart made a sour face. "How old are you?" he asked. "Twenty-six? With age you'll find you get over that nonsense."

Father Oscar raised an eyebrow. "Did you acquire your cynicism in Rome," he asked, "or was it something you already had? Don't be foolish. Father Ferro is an honest man."

Quart shook his head. An hour before, he had been at the archbishop's palace leafing through Father Ferro's file. Monsignor Corvo confirmed the main points during a brief conversation with Quart in the Gallery of the Prelates, beneath portraits of their graces Gaspar Borja
(
1645
)
and Agustin Spinola
(
1640
).
Ten years ago, Father Ferro was the subject of an ecclesiastical inquiry in the diocese of Huesca as a result of an unauthorised sale of church property. Towards the end of his time as parish priest in Cillas de Anse in the Pyrenees, a panel and a figure of Christ on the Cross disappeared. The figure of Christ was nothing special, but the panel dated from the early fourteen-hundreds and was attributed to the Master of Retascon. The local bishop was very concerned when he found out it was missing. The parish was a poor one, and that kind of episode was common at the time, when a parish priest was almost entirely free to dispose as he wished of the heritage entrusted to him. Father Ferro escaped lightly, with only a reprimand from his ordinary.

It certainly bore out what Bonafé had hinted at. Quart sensed that Corvo, uncharacteristically open on this occasion, was probably quite happy that this murky area of Father Ferro's past was becoming public knowledge. Quart suspected even that the journalist's source had been, directly or indirectly, the archbishop himself. In any case, the story about Cillas de Anso was true; Quart got the next instalment at police headquarters, when Navajo made a couple of calls to his colleague in Madrid, Chief Inspector Feijoo, head of investigations into thefts of works of art. An altarpiece by the Master of Retascon, identical to the one that disappeared from Cillas de Anse, was acquired with a receipt in due form by Claymore's Auctioneers in Madrid. Francisco Montegrifo, director of Claymore's and a well-known art dealer, confirmed that a certain sum was paid to the priest Don Priamo Ferro Ordas. A pittance compared to what the picture fetched at auction, but it was a question of supply and demand, Montegrifo pointed out to Chief Inspector Feijoo, who then passed the information on to Navajo.