Mingolla gestured toward the pews with his rifle. ‘Tell the others to stand up.’
‘They’re frightened,’ said the priest. ‘They’re only girls.’
‘They can’t be too frightened,’ Mingolla said. ‘One tried to take my rifle.’
‘They were just trying to protect me.’
Again Mingolla motioned with the rifle. ‘Tell ’em.’
The priest called out in Spanish, and one by one the girls stood. They were all young, in their teens, and several were pregnant. Wearing white cotton shifts. With their dark skins and black hair and stoic faces, they might have been sisters.
‘What’s the story here?’ said Mingolla.
‘Huh! I tell you what’s the story!’ Corazon jabbed a finger at the priest’s face. ‘This motherfucker been feedin’ lies to these women to get ’em on their backs.’
‘No, that’s not…’
‘Don’t tell me no lies!’ said Corazon. ‘I was raised by bastards like you. Fuckin’ Catholic Church been screwin’ people here since they first come!’
‘I can’t deny…’ the priest began.
‘Goddamn right you can’t!’ Corazon paced away.
Mingolla was less interested in the priest’s explanation than in Corazon’s uncharacteristic passion, but he said, ‘Let him talk.’
‘I can’t deny the Church’s excesses,’ said the priest. ‘Though since before the war we have fought on the side of the people.’
Corazon sniffed.
‘But I assure you, I’m not taking advantage of the girls.’ He made a gesture of helplessness. ‘Something’s goin’ on here… it’s extraordinary. Hard to explain.’
‘I bet,’ said Corazon.
‘Who’s the father?’ Mingolla pointed to one of the pregnant girls.
‘I am,’ said the priest. ‘But…’
‘What I tell you?’ Corazon went chest to chest with the priest. ‘These holy men… I know some that fuck anything that moves. Women, boys.’ She stuck her nose in the priest’s face. ‘Animals!’
Something about Corazon’s vehemence rang false to Mingolla. It was as if she was performing for him, putting on a show to convince him of her humanity, her untampered soul. And maybe that was what his bad feeling about the place had been trying to tell him. Not that there was danger of bodily harm, but a danger that he might buy what Izaguirre was selling.
‘You’re from New York, aren’tcha?’ said Mingolla.
The priest looked blank for a moment, then nodded. ‘Brooklyn.’
‘I’m from Long Island.’
‘I hardly remember the place,’ said the priest absently. ‘So much has happened.’
‘Yeah? Like what? What’s happening now?’
…David…
…it’s okay… be out soon…
The priest heaved a sigh. ‘Maybe she’s right about me.’ He nodded at Corazon. ‘Maybe I’m only erecting a justification for violating the rule of celibacy. I wouldn’t be the first priest to suffer delusions.’
‘Delusions… bullshit!’ said Corazon. ‘The man ain’t got no delusion, he just wanna little pussy.’
‘But even if they’re delusions,’ the priest continued, ‘they still have substance. This place’—he looked up to the ceiling, following the flight of a swallow—‘the foundations are carved from an enormous boulder that the Indians claim has magical properties. Maybe it’s true. Even when I first came here I could sense life in these stones. It seems to attract life. Like the swallows. Generations that have never flown beyond these walls.’
‘Lotta churches like that,’ said Corazon.
‘True, but the swallows here…’ The priest gave a wave of his hand. ‘You wouldn’t believe me.’
‘Bet your ass,’ said Corazon.
‘Shut up!’ Mingolla told her.
‘The fuck I will! You don’t know these bastards!’
She was about to say more, but Mingolla cut her off and told the priest to go on.
‘Have you ever seen the murals they paint down here?’ asked the priest. ‘In bars and hotel lobbies? They’ll have ocean liners and volcanoes and racing cars and Jesus all in the same painting. It seems nonsensical, random. But I’ve come to believe that that tendency is at the heart of a syncretic process permeating the region. You see it—the process—at work in every area of life, and I believe it’s all reflective of something more important going through that same process.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘God… or at least the idea of God.’ The priest held up a hand as if to ward off ridicule. ‘I know, I know! Ludicrous, demented. But we—the girls and I—live every day in that process, in the syncretic blending of Christ and some Indian spirit.’ He rushed his words to override Corazon’s interruption. ‘You’d have to stay here to understand, to feel the truth of what I’m saying. But you must believe me! I haven’t coerced the girls… at least not knowingly. They were drawn here, just as I was drawn to violate my vow of celibacy. Drawn by dreams, voices. Intimations. The scheme of the new god is working itself out in us. Pagan and benign.’ He touched his necklace and muttered something in a language unfamiliar to Mingolla; he pointed to the girls. ‘Ask them if you want. They’ll tell you.’
‘Sure they will,’ said Corazon. ‘They fuckin’ brainwashed.’
‘What’s your new god alla ’bout?’ Mingolla asked.
‘It’s not yet clear,’ said the priest. ‘We keep adding to the image, and someday it’ll be complete. But…’
‘What image?’
‘Here, I’ll show you.’ The priest started off along the east aisle, beckoning, and they followed him toward the side altar. Standing at the back of the altar, mounted on a head-high pedestal and fronted by banks of flickering candles, was a twice-life-size statue of the Virgin clad in a stiff gilt gown whose folds looked like flows of golden lava. Gems encrusted the bodice, and a golden cross hung from her neck. Spiderwebs moored the statue to the walls, frail intricate supports billowing slightly in the wash of heat from the candles, and a beetle was crawling on the chipped forehead. Much of the pink plaster of her face had been eroded; painted symbols figured her cheeks and neck. A knife was taped to her left hand, and in her right she held a clump of flowering weeds. The dim lighting made her appear monstrous and decaying, yet there was a kind of organic magnificence about her; it seemed to Mingolla that the movement of the spiderwebs and the inconstant shadows cast by the candles were the result of imperceptible breathing.
‘You’ve seen all there is to see,’ said the priest. ‘Will you leave now… please?’
‘Why you want us to leave so bad?’ Corazon asked. ‘What you hidin’?’
‘Nothing, nothing at all. But you’re interfering with the process. We need solitude, we need to focus on the Conception.’
‘I s’pose we might as well,’ said Mingolla.
‘Ain’t you gonna do nothin’ ’bout these women?’ Corazon was outraged.
‘What should I do?’
‘Take ’em outta here, man! Get ’em ’way from this fucker!’
Mingolla turned to the body of the church, saw that the girls had gathered at the entrance to the side altar. ‘You ladies like it here?’ he asked. ‘Or you feel like leaving?’
They edged away, silent, their eyes looking as hard as obsidian.
‘Guess they’re happy,’ said Mingolla. ‘Thank you,’ said the priest.
‘You don’t know what you doin’!’ Corazon shook her finger at Mingolla. ‘These fuckin’ priests, they crazy! They get so desperate for God, they start thinkin’ they God themselves. That they know everything ’bout God. And then they mess with you. I know!’
‘How do you know?’ Mingolla asked.
Corazon drew a long breath. ‘When I was little, thirteen, this priest, man, he used to take me into the rectory… givin’ me special instruction, he tell my mama. Say he see somethin’ spiritual in me. At first he just tellin’ me ’bout the Mysteries, y’know. But then he start showin’ me. The Mysteries! Huh! After a year I know more ’bout the Mysteries than most married ladies.’