Despite his views and rigid adherence to the rules, Quart was a clear-minded man. His lucidity was like a silent curse. It prevented him from accepting totally the natural order of things but gave him nothing in return to make such clarity of mind bearable. For a priest, as in any other walk of life that required a belief in the myth that man held a privileged position in the universe, such lucidity was awkward and dangerous, for it said that human life was totally insignificant. In Quart's case, only willpower, expressed as self-discipline, offered protection from the naked truth that gave rise to weakness or apathy or despair. Maybe that was why he remained sitting there beneath the blackened vault that smelled of wax and cold, ancient stone. He looked round at the scaffolding, at the figure of Christ with dirty hair surrounded by ex-votos, the altarpiece in gloom, the flagstones worn by the footsteps of people long dead. He could still see Father Ferro's unshaven, frowning face at the altar pronouncing the mysterious words, and twenty faces looking back at him, momentarily relieved of their human condition by the hope that there was an all-powerful father and a better life where the just were rewarded and the heathens punished. This modest church was far removed from the vulgarity of Technicolour religions where anything went – open-air arenas, giant television screens, Goebbels' methods, rock concerts, the dialectic of the World Cup, and electronic sprinklers for holy water. Like the forgotten pawns who didn't know whether there was still a king to fight for, some pieces chose their square – a place where they could die. Father Ferro had chosen his, and Lorenzo Quart, experienced scalp hunter for the Roman Curia, didn't find it difficult to understand. Perhaps for that reason he now had doubts, sitting in the small, dilapidated, lonely church that the old priest had made into his tower: a refuge where he could defend the last of his flock from the prowling wolves outside.
Quart sat turning this over for some time. At last he stood and walked up the aisle to the high altar, his steps echoing beneath the elliptical dome of the transept. He stopped in front of the altarpiece and beheld the carved figures of Macarena's ancestors at prayer on either side of the Virgin of the Tears. Beneath her regal baldachin, accompanied by cherubs and saints, surrounded by leaves and flourishes of gilded wood, Martinez Montanes's carving was visible in the semidarkness, with light from the windows filtering through the rational, geometrical structure of the scaffolding. She looked very beautiful and very sad, her face turned upwards almost reproachfully, her palms empty, open, held out as if she were asking why her son had been taken from her. Captain Xaloc's twenty pearls gleamed gently on her cheeks, her crown of stars and her blue tunic. Beneath the tunic her bare foot rested on a crescent moon crushing a serpent's head.
"… And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed…"
The voice came from behind him. Quart turned and saw Gris Marsala. She had come in noiselessly in her trainers.
"You creep like a cat," said Quart.
She laughed. As usual her hair was tied in a plait, and she wore a baggy sweatshirt and jeans spattered with paint and plaster. Quart pictured her applying makeup in front of a mirror before the bishop's visit, then her cold eyes multiplying in the fragments of shattered mirror. He looked for the scar. There it was: a pale line three centimetres long on the inside of her right wrist. He wondered if she'd meant to kill herself.
"Don't tell me you came to Mass," she said.
Quart nodded. She smiled indefinably. She noticed that he was looking at her scar, and turned her arm to hide it.
"That priest," said Quart.
He was about to add something but didn't – those two words said it all. After a moment she smiled again, as if at a private thought! "Yes," she said quietly, "that's exactly it." She seemed relieved and stopped hiding her wrist. She asked if he'd seen Macarena. Quart nodded.
"She comes here every morning, at eight," she said. "With her mother on Thursdays and Sundays."
"I would never have imagined she was so devout."
He hadn't intended it to sound sarcastic, but Gris Marsala stiffened and said, "Look, I really don't like your tone."
He took a few steps towards the altarpiece, regarded the Virgin, then turned to the woman again: "I'm sorry. But I had dinner with her last night, and she confuses me."
"I know you had dinner." Her blue eyes were fixed on him. "Macarena woke me at one in the morning and kept me on the phone for almost half an hour. One of the many things she said was that you would come to Mass."
"That's impossible," said Quart. "I came on impulse."
"Well, she was sure. She said that you would come, and would begin to understand." She stopped and looked at him with curiosity. "And have you?"
"What else did she tell you?" He tried to sound casual, ironic, but was afraid it was obvious that he wanted to know what Macarena had told her friend the nun. He was annoyed with himself.
Gris Marsala pursed her lips thoughtfully. "She said lots of things. That she likes you, for instance. And that you're not as different from Don Priamo as you think. She also said you're the sexiest priest she's ever seen." She smiled mischievously. "That was exactly how she put it."
"Why are you telling me this?" "Because you asked."
"Please, don't make fun of me. I'm too old for that. Look, my hair's grey, like yours."
"I like your hair that short. So does Macarena." "You haven't answered my question, Sister Marsala." She laughed, and her eyes crinkled.
"Drop the title, please." She pointed to her dirty jeans and the scaffolding against the walls. "I don't know if any of this is appropriate for a nun."
It wasn't, thought Quart. Nor was her part in the strange triangle formed by the two of them and Macarena Bruner. And maybe a fourth, Father Ferro, should be included. Quart couldn't picture Gris Marsala in a convent, in a nun's habit. She had come a long way since Santa Barbara.
"Will you ever go back?"
She took a moment to answer, looking down the nave at the pews piled up by the door. She hooked her thumbs in the back pockets of her jeans, and Quart wondered how many nuns could have worn jeans like that – she was as slim as a young girl. Only her face and hair showed age. There was still something very attractive about her, about the way she moved.
"I don't know," she said thoughtfully.*Maybe it depends on this church, on what happens here. I think that's why I haven't left." She spoke without looking at Quart, squinting at the sunlight in the doorway. "Have you ever suddenly felt a void where you thought your heart was? The feeling lasts only a moment, then everything goes on as before, but you know that things aren't the same and you wonder what's wrong."
"And do you think you'll find the answer here?"
"I have no idea. But we search in places that may have answers."
Quart shifted uneasily from one leg to the other. He didn't like this sort of conversation, but he had to persevere – it might yield clues.
"I think," he said, "we spend our whole lives roaming round our tombs. Maybe that's the answer."
To make it sound less important, he smiled, but she wasn't fooled by the smile.
"I was right. You're not like other priests."
Quart didn't ask what that meant. They were both silent as they walked up the nave, past the walls with flaking paint and the cornices with tarnished gilding. At last she spoke again.
"There arc things," she said, "places, people that leave their mark on you. Do you know what I mean? No, I don't think you do yet. I mean this town. This church. And Don Priamo, and Macarena." She stopped and smiled mockingly. "You need to know what you're getting into."