The Good Conscience (15 page)

“Why haven't you come to confess?” said the priest as he rubbed the boy's undulant blond hair.

“I didn't need to,” said Jaime in a firm low voice. “I'm here now because they forced me to come.”

“Forced you? No one can force you.”

“Yes, they forced me. I have nothing to confess.”

Obregón smiled and tapped his fingers on the richly carved arm of the chair. “For you I am merely another man, is that it?”

“I'm a man, too,” the boy's tight lips replied.

“All of us are men. Our Lord was also a man, He suffered and died as a man.”

Jaime lifted his face and challenged the priest: “Yes, that is why I can talk with Him. He can understand me and I can beg forgiveness without any need for anyone…”

Obregón slapped his hand down on the arm of the chair and stood up. The western sun gilded his face and the altar. “No, Jaime, no one can say that. Two men are always needed to approach God. One man alone can't do it. Do you understand me, you who are a man now? Alone you can't do it.”

Was the boy only a child? Did he understand? His face was firm and raised, challenging. A shadow of doubt crossed his eyes. Jaime was remembering the words of Ezequiel Zuno. The priest's hand touched the boy's curly head again. The sun that is closest to man, the dying sun, shone upon them.

“How can I put it to you? I want you to understand, I don't want to force anything upon you. Have you ever prayed for others? Tell me: have you ever asked God to do something for someone else?” Obregón's voice became metallic and his hand fell heavily on the boy's shoulder. “Or have you challenged God the same way you challenge me? Have you merely offended him with your pride?” The priest began to pace, thinking of his next words.

“With my pride?” Jaime leaned forward. “Am I proud because I believe I must follow Christ's teachings just as He did?”

Obregón turned a flaming face: “You believe that you can equal Jesus Christ!”

“I believe that I can imitate Him.”

“How can I cure you of this evil!”

“Don't shout at me.”

“I'm listening, my son.”

The boy's words were serene and calm. Hearing them, Father Obregón felt a deep tenderness. The ancient damp richly adorned sacristy was converted into a stage with two actors. But poor Father Obregón, who had been such an excellent seminarian, who had begun his ministry so well prepared, had gradually lost over the years, here in the provinces, the habit of dialogue. He felt himself weak inside, yet he had to find the right words. This boy who had come armed with insolence had at least the healthy confidence to believe what he said. How could his priest answer him? Answer him truly, not with the tired everyday phrases used with the simple pious people of his congregation. He felt that Jaime's challenge was not wholly invalid. And this made him feel first ashamed of himself and then deeply tender toward the boy. He spoke quietly:

“Before you say anything, let me tell you something. You are a man, yes, but you are still very young. Your sins can't be very great. They can't be very different from those of other young men like you. Have you ever stopped to think that there are thousands and thousands of young people who, just like you…”

Obregón felt that his words were wrong, that they were dictated by weakness instead of true love.

“Each of us has to do his penance,” Jaime said coldly. Then, noticing the priest's anguished face, he went on: “Isn't that right, Father? What good does it do me to think that others may be worse than I am? I believe that I have my own special punishment, a penance that I have to do alone, as if I were … the only sinner in the world. When others don't realize that they have sinned, someone has to step forward and be penitent for them, doesn't he?”

“My son, my son, don't torture yourself in this way,” said the priest with more certainty, drawing near the seated and motionless boy. “Understand that your sins are no more than the sins of your years. They can only be sins of love that has begun to search and so far has found only itself. That can't be evil, you must not think that it is evil. Later, when you have to decide whether you are going to love someone besides yourself, God and your wife, that is when we will know if you have done right or wrong. So many are so ashamed of their first love, their self-love, that afterward they don't dare offer it to others. And that is what is serious, my son. Tomorrow that will be your test: to learn to love others. That is why I want to help you, so your love will flow out without sorrow or desperation. To imitate Jesus! You ask the hardest task of all. If you fail, you die of hopelessness. That is why you must trust me, and understand that to come to God, you need my aid, or the aid of some other person.”

“It doesn't matter if that other person is a very humble and poor man, or a woman who is a great sinner?”

“Christ came for them. But alone you can't do it, do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Jaime. “Yes, I think I do.” He smiled and kissed the priest's hand. “But, Father, I believe that everything you say, all that world of love, is possible for me only if I follow Christ's teaching.”

“We all believe that, my son. And in order to follow His teaching, we need the Church, which is Christ's Body on earth. How can you go one way while the Church goes another?” Father Obregón tapped the stones of the floor with a heavy shoe.

“The Church isn't Christ any longer,” said the boy harshly. “The Church is where
Doña
Asunción and Uncle Balcárcel and all the others come once a week in order to feel that they are decent. They come here as if they were going to a theater or a party, to be seen. Christ doesn't matter to them. They don't want to live like him, and what is more, they can't.

“Don't deny the possibility of goodness, don't judge others. That is hardly His teaching. Do you believe that your aunt and uncle, and your father, and all these good people, have committed great sins?”

“Yes, yes! They have all done much evil…”

“But it is not for you to punish them for the evil they have done, but what you must do is do good yourself.”

The sun disappeared and the room was suddenly dark. For several seconds Obregón could not see Jaime, and he was about to call out when he felt the boy embrace him.

“Father,” said the voice hidden in the priest's arms, “Can't we be what He wanted? Can't we forgive the evil in others, sacrifice everything in His name, assume as He did the guilt and the suffering of others, and lose ourselves in His heart? Why don't you yourselves follow him in everything? Why don't we all sacrifice as He did and live in humility and poverty? I am guilty, Father! Punish me, whip me!”

The boy sobbed in Father Obregón's arms, his nostrils full of the penetrating smell from the priest's armpits and the stink of his seldom-washed clothing.

“Compose yourself, my son. You tear my heart. Don't cry. Listen to me.” A thick dampness was seeping through the boy's shirt, staining the priest's hands, but Father Obregón did not notice. “I've spent fifteen years in my ministry. I am forty. Take my handkerchief, blow your nose, go on … In those fifteen years I have heard thousands of confessions. I admit it: sin is monotonous and unchanging. It is the same in everyone. Sometimes I think that my poor sinners hardly deserve absolution, for they don't sin seriously, and they don't merit a serious penance…”

“Punish me, Father! I want to know how much I can stand!”

“Jaime, compose yourself.” He still did not feel the dampness on his hands from the boy's back. “We are merely humans, the best of us is mediocre. And it is for those who have confessed to me, ordinary people, it is for them that Christianity lives, not for exceptional beings. The saint is an exception. But religion is an everyday affair, for men and women of whom it cannot be asked, if we are charitable, anything fiery. How can we demand that they assume the sins of everyone?”

Jaime drew back. “You compromise! Christ doesn't love those who go halfway!”

The priest rose and a deep sigh escaped him. He walked to the big chest and lifted his cassock to look for the matches in his trousers. He lit two faint candles. “Saint Francis of Sales said that he served God in a human way and in accordance with his times, in the hope that some day he would be able to serve him in a divine way and in accordance with eternity.”

The boy's weak voice, still strained from sobs: “And what is the human way?” In spite of the candles, his figure was invisible. Father Obregón blew out the match and a gray twist of smoke ascended nervously toward the ceiling.

“God wants us to be faithful in the little ways that His Providence has put within our reach. We are mortal, feeble, and we can do no more than fulfill the daily duties of our condition. There are great things which do not depend upon us. The sublime is far above us. We must content ourselves.” The priest's voice, low and pious, sounded cavernous in the sacristy. “Your father, Jaime, is one of the little men God loves. You must not offend him, but must love him too.”

“How do you know?” said Jaime, turning.

“I know. You must understand that you are no better or worse than all the rest, and that each of us in his own way fulfills the divine law. You call that compromise. I call it charity. Now go, it is late, and come back tomorrow and confess properly. It is late and I am tired.”

Jaime kissed Obregón's hand and walked away. It was only then that the priest saw his full figure, the blue trousers and the white shirt, and realized that the boy was walking painfully, almost stumbling. Jaime reached the gate of the wooden grill and suddenly stopped and doubled over.

“I feel very sick, Father.”

And only then did Obregón discover his own hands covered with blood. The boy was now walking slowly down the central aisle. Father Obregón suddenly understood and ran after him. He collapsed on his knees at the boy's feet. Lifting his face, he cried:

“Pray for me!”

Balcárcel observed the scene from the last pew in the church. When the priest fell to his knees, Balcárcel stopped playing with his watch-chain and started to step forward and make his presence known. But confusion paralyzed him.

Jaime reached the church door. His uncle tried to take his arm. The boy repulsed him and walked in front of him home along narrow dark blue streets where lampposts were just lighting, and the burned scent of spring rose from the paving stones.

Chapter 8

J
AIME HAD NOT SEEN
Juan Manuel since the night at Irapuato. Now spring vacation had begun and Jaime had fallen sick again, of fever. His convalescence was prolonged several weeks. He read novels, drank lemonade, and received long visits from his aunt. They did not speak of what had happened. Asunción knitted, with her bust very straight and her shoulders not touching the back of the chair.

“How time runs!” she commented. “Only yesterday Pascualina Barona's nephews were little boys, and this year they are going to graduate. Have you thought about what you will do when you finish preparatory? I hope you'll study law. Law was your father's golden dream, but the Revolution…”

Señorita
Pascualina and
Doña
Presentatión would drop by every afternoon. Jaime would close his book and his eyes.

“Is he sleeping?”

“Poor child! A boy that age is the Calvary of parents!”

“Don't worry, Asunción, we haven't told anyone. We've said that he has diphtheria.”

“What would people say if they knew he had gone out into the mountains to flagellate himself!”

“Hell soon grow up now. It will all pass.”

Then the two women would relate the week's religious happenings to Asunción, who because of her attendance upon Jaime was unable to go out, and tell of conversations with Father Lanzagorta and comment upon last Sunday's sermon.

Balcárcel never entered Jaime's room. Rodolfo did, however, and his presence irritated Jaime more than anyone's. He would recognize his father's slow step in the corridor and immediately close his eyes. Rodolfo would draw near the bed and grip its gilded rungs, and although he knew the boy was pretending, stand there for a long time. Behind his closed eyes, Jaime was cold and hostile; he wanted Rodolfo to feel that he was now being paid in his own coin for his rejection of Adelina. Against this bitterness was opposed the hope that his father would go find her and help her, the wonderful act of manhood and honesty that would allow Jaime to love him again.

Rodolfo understood well enough that he had lost his son's affection. He did not know why. He thought again and again, sadly now, of their happy times together a few years ago. Rodolfo's life had become rutted and empty. Weekdays he attended the clothing store, where business was always a little worse today than it had been yesterday. Boredom took him to double-feature Mexican motion pictures in the evenings. Sunday mornings he drank beer in the Jardín del Unión with his old friends. Saturday nights he crept out of the house and went to a bordel, where a short brown-skinned girl with a mole on her forehead expected him at ten exactly. His visits with her were quick and silent, only the essential words were spoken, they had never exchanged names. He always noticed how she looked away when he laboriously unhooked his suspenders and dropped his trousers. When he left her, the next man would already be waiting in the hall. Then he would walk slowly home, at eleven in the evening, to the stone mansion.

Jaime improved and one day dared to ask Asunción if his friend Juan Manuel had been to see him. His aunt said no.

“Haven't you learned your lesson yet? You have to begin to think about what lies ahead of you. Dedicate yourself to your studies and forget your peasant friend and your crazy ideas. You see how I've managed to calm down your uncle; he even lets you read anything you want to now.”