Istvan and Margit lifted their glasses. In the dark, outside the windows that opened toward the bay, the Angelus bell rang with an insistent, rapid rhythm. As if it had summoned him, Daniel appeared on the steps of the terrace. Margit noticed with satisfaction that he had put on the new tie, the gift from Istvan.
“Do you really want to go?” Istvan said, still resisting. “Wouldn’t it be better to go to the beach in front of us, to the ocean?”
“No. No.” She shuddered with aversion. “Let’s see the chapel and how they pray.”
When they were walking away from the radiantly lit hotel veranda, the night seemed milder. The sand glowed and a soft breath of warm wind drifted from the dunes. Fireflies flew over tufts of dry grasses. The bell urged them on, clanging beyond the palm grove.
“I told the priest you would be coming,” Daniel said with a self-satisfied air. “He was very glad. This way, please. Be careful of the roots. The path takes a turn.”
Between the gently sloping trunks of the coconut palms the sky teemed with stars — large stars that glittered nervously and hardly pierced the dusk. Now they could see the faithful, women and children, their figures moving noiselessly among the trees. Only a little lamp suspended from a black wrist made a splash of color on a sari donned for the holiday. Little lights arrived, converged, and gave off a soft glow through the open gates.
“I did not believe that you would come.” A friendly voice spoke up and a tall figure detached itself from the wall. Istvan felt the hearty, coarse pressure of a workman’s hand, a hand accustomed to wield the ax and shovel. “It is rare that any of the tourists drop in. They prefer the sea.”
They stood before the chapel gate. By the warm twinkle of the candles they could see a gray uncombed beard, a sharp glance from under bushy brows. The priest wore an orange linen habit — the color worn by Buddhist monks — and sandals on his bare feet.
“You are from England?”
“No. Madam is from Australia and I am from Hungary.”
The monk held Terey’s hand as if he were afraid he would wrest it away and escape. “Good heavens! What a surprise!” he said in a choked voice, and suddenly began to speak rapidly in Hungarian. “I also am a Hungarian, from Kolozsvár. A Salesian. I have been here since 1912.”
“Hungarians were still not free then.”
“Hungarians were always free. Only the kingdom…Are you an emigrant?”
“No. I am here temporarily.”
The priest looked him hard in the face. “And can you return there?”
“Can’t you?”
“That depends on the will of my superiors. They are accustomed to having me here, and I am reconciled to it. I had not thought that God would give me such joy on the holiday. I can speak in my native language! I even taught a pair of boys here. They picked up the words like a recording tape, but they are not Hungarians. It was as if I had taught parrots.”
“Are we detaining you, father?”
“No. Father Thomas Maria de Ribeira, an Indian from Goa, is saying mass. I will hold one later for the fishermen when they return.”
“What are you speaking?” Margit moved closer to them; they had almost forgotten her. “Is the priest Hungarian?”
“Yes.”
“Well — you are glad!”
“Yes. Don’t be jealous. Have you been in contact with our embassy, father?”
“No. They sent me the registration document, but I put it aside and there it lies.”
“And your passport?”
“Everyone knows me here. No one asks about documents. I have no intention of going anywhere. And for the last road no passport is needed. Heavens — what happiness, to speak Hungarian! Are you man and wife?”
“No.”
“But you are a Catholic — you came here—” the priest was troubled. He raked his beard with his hand.
“Yes.”
“Perhaps you both would like to join—”
“We have just finished dinner. It is impossible. Perhaps another time.”
They stood in silence for a moment. The monk seemed ashamed of his insistence. “I am sorry,” he said. “I would so have liked to hear a confession in our language. How I would enjoy being an instrument of grace to a countryman! Here — in India. It is no accident that has brought you to me.”
Margit stood leaning against the door frame, peering into the church. Warm light fell on her cheeks, which were tinted rose over her tan, and kindled on her hair. From inside came singsong voices repeating the litany, and the spicy smell of the warm throng.
Women entered, apologizing for their tardiness. They bent gently and touched the worn threshold with their foreheads, kissing their fingertips as they placed them on the floor. They threw lace mantillas over their hair, glancing at Margit as if she were not well brought up, then slipped inside.
“Then you will be able to see our Budapest?”
For a moment he did not answer.
“You know nothing about the events of November, father? About Kádár?”
“Who is he?”
“Or about the revolution, the fighting in Budapest?”
“No. I have no radio. I do not read the newspapers. But tell me: what happened there?”
Where to begin? How to tell him in a few sentences? Suddenly Istvan lost the will to speak. One would have to begin with the entire history of the last forty years. “Well, there is peace at the moment,” he said bitterly.
“And I was so upset. Praise God! Better not to read the papers; the reporters write such screaming headlines now, you begin to think there will be war tomorrow. And in the meantime nothing so terrible is happening. Nothing. And that’s good.”
Deep in the chapel a bell tinkled. The old man turned around and dropped heavily to his knees. He waved an admonitory hand, cutting off the conversation, urging them to fix their attention on the altar. Over the kneeling crowd Istvan saw, between the dark fingers of the priest, the golden flame of the chalice and the fragile white disk.
Women crept forward on their knees, suddenly stood erect, then sank down with their foreheads to the floor, hunched, breathless. A crowd of figures draped in white surged to the altar. The men shuffled on bare feet; the bundled fabric that secured their dhotis swung to the rhythm of their walk, falling like loose skirts below their knees.
Are they truly aware of what is taking place here? Do they understand the mystery? I believe. I know — but I have cut myself off, I am not being nourished from the source. In that moment he was stricken at the thought that he was excluded from this community, that he was under indictment. He himself was the prosecutor and judge. As long as I am with Margit, there is no forgiveness.
The Lord will not afflict his servant, will not retract the word that saves for eternity.
He raised his hand and covered his face, which was contorted with stinging remorse and anger at himself. Indeed, I knew all this, or should have known, if I feel so superior to fellow Catholics from this village in Kerala, fishermen, gatherers of coconut meat and fiber, peasant women wading in rice fields, girls bending under the burden of little brothers and sisters. Each of them could come here in a trustful spirit for the blessed bread; I alone cannot, as long as…Of his own will he condemned himself to estrangement, he abandoned them: yet another betrayal under the pretext of gaining freedom.
Margit slid closer to him and leaned gently against his arm. He felt her touch through his light clothing and his pain intensified. “That was beautiful,” she whispered. Her hair tickled his neck.
Does she comprehend nothing? She looks at the altar and the praying crowd as if it were a pageant full of light and color. And I will not try to explain it to her; I would have to say something detrimental to myself. He exists — we are even prepared to reconcile ourselves to that — so He can serve as a cane to lean on and then put in a corner so we have both hands free to seize the world. To visit in church as in a museum. We admire the statuary, the stained glass, conceived in a transport of humble adoration. His memory was bursting with images from tours of churches; he saw the upturned heads of people gazing at the frescoed vaults, hardly hearing the smooth recitation of the guide, who was extolling the choreographed gestures of the baroque saints or the agonizing tension of the dark figure at the moment of death.