'Give me a chance,' I said. His manner was benign, his voice gentle, and he had the sartorial inelegance of a man not used to matching the suit with the tie. With his directness was a whispered intimacy, of a soulful searching kind. I guessed that he had been a priest.
'I was a Jesuit priest,' he said. 'In the priesthood for fifteen years, I was. I served my novitiate in Ireland and Rome, and after I was ordained I went to the States. I was in Ecuador for a while as a missionary, then I had a parish in New York. I used to go to Belfast every now and then to see my family. It was very bad in '72 - "Bloody Sunday", British atrocities. My brother was tortured, my sister burned out of her house. I was really shaken. "Preach love to your fellow-men," they say, but how could I preach love to my fellow-men after what I had seen? Of course, it didn't all happen like that - it didn't hit me overnight. I had had doubts for seven years, but after that trip I was in bad shape. When I got back to New York, I went to my bishop and told him I wanted to have a six-month leave of absence. It's quite a normal thing, you know. Priests are human. They drink too much sometimes, they have personal problems - they need time to sort themselves out. With a leave of absence I would have no duties. I didn't have to say mass, only assist at mass. You know what I'm telling you.
'My bishop was flabbergasted. He couldn't believe what I was telling him. He said he had made a list of doubtful priests. He had actually drawn up this list of priests - fellers he thought would be leaving the priesthood sooner or later. And the funny thing was - I wasn't on the list. But he gave me a leave of absence all the same, and he said to me, "You'll be back."
'I had time on my hands - assisting at mass didn't take any time at all. So I got a job selling insurance. Was I good at it! I sold policies all over New York. Being a priest helped, I suppose - you can't beat the sincere manner if you want to sell insurance. I didn't care much about the money. It was the people that interested me, talking to them in their homes. And they didn't know I was a priest. I was a salesman you see, flogging my policies.
'At the end of six months I went back to my bishop and asked him for another leave of absence. He was surprised, oh yes, but I hadn't been on his list. He even smiled at me and said again, "I know you'll be back." But I knew I wouldn't.
'It's so easy to be a priest, isn't it? Well, you wouldn't know about that. But it is easy. All your needs are taken care of. There's no rent to pay, no food to buy. No cooking, no cleaning. You get presents. "Need a car, Father?" "Here's a little something for you, Father." "Anything we can do, Father? Just name it." I didn't want that, and I didn't want to go on selling insurance - in a way, that was like being a priest, too. I couldn't go home, and I couldn't stay in New York. I knew one thing -1 wanted out.
'I made a last visit to Belfast, saw the family, and the political things were just as bad as ever. My brother saw me to the plane, and as we were walking along I thought: You'll never see me again. That was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was harder than leaving the priesthood - turning my back on my brother and walking to the plane.
'I came straight to Ecuador. I had always been happy here and I had friends here. That was five years ago. I married an Ecuadorian. I've never been so happy in all my life. We have a child of fourteen months and one on the way - that's why my wife isn't with me tonight.
'Do I go to church? Of course, I do. I left the priesthood - I didn't leave the church. I never miss mass. I go to confession. You see, when I go to confession I'm not talking to the priest, I'm talking to God. I've got a job here. It's not a very important job, but I'll be here for some time.
'The hardest thing is not being able to tell anyone. How do you say, "I left the priesthood. I am married. I have children"? No one knows. It would be terrible for my mother. But funny things happen, strange things. My sister wrote to me a few years ago. She said, "If you ever decide to go over the wall, we'll understand." Why did she say that? And last Christmas, my other sister sent me some money. "You might need this," she says. She had never done that before - priests don't need money. But I can't face my mother. I think I have always taken suffering on myself to save other people from suffering. Would my mother understand this? I don't understand the depth of her understanding. You know what I'm telling you. It's a great pity. I dream about going home. In one of these dreams, I'm in Belfast. I see my old house and I walk up to the front door. But I can't go in - I'm frozen there on the steps, and I have to walk away. I have this dream every week.
'Oh, yes, I write home all the time. My letters - these letters about myself in Ecuador, the parish and so forth - they're masterpieces. Not a word of truth in them. I know my brother and sisters would understand, but I think it would kill my mother. She's over eighty, you see. She wanted me to be a priest. She lives for me. But, when she dies, I'll leave for Belfast the next day - I'll be on that plane like a shot. That's what hurts me most. That she can't know about me. And I can't ever see her again.
'Do you think I should write about it? I wish I could, but I can't write. I'll tell you what, Paul - you write it. It would make a good story, wouldn't it?'
To that Irishman, the Indians were sorely-pressed people who had not been given a chance; to Jorge Icaza, the Indians had the key to all culture; to my distant cousins, the Noreros, the Indians had real distinction and their past had been glorious; to most others, the Indians were hewers of wood and drawers of water and, on the whole, bumpkins.
I heard another view in Guayaquil. Mr Medina was a spinsterish and rather thorny Ecuadorian, with a thin moustache and a narrow head and severe grey eyes. His tie was tightly knotted, his trousers perfectly creased, the toes of his shoes polished and very sharp - it was hard to believe that there were five toes under those claw-like points. We had begun by talking about rats. Some people poisoned the rats, or trapped them, he said, but there was a better method. You used a high-pitched whine that was not audible to the human ear. It had the effect of driving the rats away - they found the noise unbearable. The local flour mills had been beset by rats, but this high-pitched whine -1 think he called it 'sonar' - had been a success. Sometimes, rats were locked into rooms with the sound, and in the morning they were found dead: the sound had tortured them to death.
'Juke-boxes have that effect on me,' I said. 'Especially Ecuadorian juke-boxes.'
'You cannot hear this sound, though apparently it gives some women headaches,' he said. 'I wish there was something like this they could use on the Indians.'
'What a neighbourly idea,' I said.
He gave me a thin smile. 'Ecuador's problem is a race problem,' he said. 'The Indians are lazy. They are not like your Indians. Sometimes they cut their hair and work, but not often. There are no poor people in Ecuador - there are only Indians. They are uneducated and unhealthy.'
'Why don't you educate them, then? Provide doctors and schools. That's why they're wandering forlornly around Quito and Guayaquil - they think that they can find in the cities what they lack in the countryside.'
They have no idea why they come to Guayaquil. They don't know what to do here. They sell a few things, they beg, some work, but they are all lost. They were always lost.'
'Even before the Spanish came?'
'Definitely. The Inca Empire was over-rated.'
'Who agrees with you?' I asked.
'Most people do, but they are afraid to say it. If you stayed here longer you would agree with me. The Incas - who were they? They had no great culture, no literature, nothing. It did not impress the Spaniards, it does not impress me even now. I don't know what these people are talking about when they show these pots and masks. Can't they see how crude these things are? The Incas weren't warriors - they didn't fight the Spaniards. They were simply overpowered.'