"I don't know," she said with a shrug. "You've become a witness." She thought a moment. "They're all so alone. I think they want you to understand, or, rather, they want those who sent you to understand. Just like Aguirre, who deep down wanted his king to understand him."
"What about Macarena?"
Gris Marsala considered the wounds on Quart's knuckles. "She likes you," she said simply. "As a man, I mean. I'm not surprised. I don't know if you're aware of it, but your presence in Seville gives everything a special quality. I imagine that she's trying to seduce you, in her own way." She smiled like a mischievous little boy. "I don't mean in the physical sense."
"Does that bother you?"
The nun glanced at him with curiosity. "Why should it? I'm not a lesbian, Father Quart. I say that in case you're concerned about the nature of my friendship with Macarena." She laughed. "As for men in general and good-looking priests in particular, I'm a virgin by vow and by choice."
Embarrassed, Quart glanced out at the square beyond the woman's shoulder. "What's going on between Macarena and her husband?" he asked.
"She loves him." She looked surprised, as if it was so obvious it needed no explanation. She smiled ironically at Quart. "Don't look like that, Father. It's obvious you don't spend much time in a confessional. You know nothing about women."
Quart went outside and the sun fell on his shoulders like a heavy cloak. Gris Marsala followed, skirting round a pile of sand and gravel, and stopped by the cement mixer. The priest looked up at the belfry covered with scaffolding, and his gaze stopped at the headless Virgin above the door. "I'd like to see your apartment, Sister Marsala."
"You surprise me." "I don't think so." There was a silence.
"I hate being called Sister Marsala. Or is that a way of making your request sound official? After all, you are proposing to visit the apartment of a nun who lives alone. Aren't you worried about what people will say? Monsignor Corvo, for instance. Or your bosses in Rome. Although of course you keep your bosses in Rome informed."
Quart didn't know whether to frown or laugh. In the end, he laughed. "It's only a suggestion," he said. "An idea. I'm trying to piece together the puzzle. Seeing how you live might help." He looked straight into her eyes. She realised that he meant it.
"I see. You're looking for clues."
"I am."
"Computers connected to Rome. That sort of thing." "Yes."
"And if I refuse, will you get in anyway, as you did with Don Priamo's quarters?" "How do you know about that?" "Father Oscar told me."
There was too much information circulating, thought Quart, annoyed. They all told one another everything in that strange little club. The only person who had to struggle for information was he. With the sun beating down mercilessly, he suddenly felt very tired; he was tempted to loosen his dog collar and take off his jacket. But he didn't.
Gris Marsala walked slowly round the cement mixer. "Why not?" she said at last with a thoughtful smile. "There hasn't been a man in my apartment in the three years I've lived there. It'll be interesting to see how it feels. I'll try not to throw myself at you the minute I shut the door. Will you defend yourself like Saint Maria Goretti, or will I have a chance with you? Although at my age I don't think I'd be much of a test of anyone's resolve. It's hard, you know, for any woman to realise that she's lost her looks for good." Her expression became harder now. "Especially for a nun."
"Make yourself comfortable," she said.
The irony was thick. There was little of comfort in the small sitting room of her apartment, on the third floor. The narrow balcony looked out on to the Calle San Jose near the Puerta de la Carne. It took them only ten minutes to get there from Our Lady of the Tears. With the sun beating down, the streets were like furnaces and the whitewashed walls dazzled. Seville was all light. White walls and light in every variation, thought Quart as he had walked with Gris Marsala, zigzagging in search of shade. It reminded him of when he and Monsignor Pavelic ran from shelter to shelter down the streets of Sarajevo, avoiding the snipers.
As he put his sunglasses away, he looked around the. room. Everything was immaculately clean and tidy. There was a sofa with crocheted antimacassars, a television, a small bookcase containing books and tapes, a desk with papers, folders and pots of pens. And a personal computer. Sensing Gris Marsala's eyes on him, he went to the PC: a 486 with a printer. Powerful enough to be Vespers', but it didn't have a modem, and the telephone was across the room. The telephone, also, had an old-fashioned fixed plug.
He ran an eye over the books and tapes. She had mainly baroque music, but there was also quite a lot of flamenco, both classical and modern, and all of Camaron's albums. The books were treatises on art and restoration, and studies of Seville. Two of them, The Baroque Architecture of Seville by Sancho Corbacho and Guide to the Art of Seville and Surrounding Provinces, were full of slips of paper covered with notes. The only religious work was a worn, leather-bound bible. On the wall hung a framed reproduction of The Chess Game by Pieter Van Huys.
"Guilty or innocent?" asked Gris Marsala.
"Innocent, for the moment," he answered. "Due to lack of evidence."
She laughed. As he turned to face her, smiling, he saw his reflection in a mirror on the wall opposite. With an old, beautiful frame of very dark wood, the mirror stood out in the modest apartment.
The nun followed the direction of his gaze. "Do you like it?" she asked.
"Very much."
"I lived on sandwiches for several months to save up for it." She looked at herself in the mirror, then went to the kitchen for two glasses of water.
"What's so special about it?" asked Quart when he'd drunk his water.
"The mirror?" Gris Marsala hesitated. "You could say it's a kind of personal revenge. A symbol. It's the only luxury I've allowed myself here." She gave Quart a sardonic look. "That, and letting a man into my apartment, even if he is a priest. I haven't weakened too many times in three years, have I? We nuns are very strict." She made a theatrical sigh, and they both grinned. She gestured around the room. "From the beginning, as a novice, you're taught that in a nun's cell mirrors are dangerous," she said. "According to the rules, your image can be reflected only in the rosary and in the prayer book. You own nothing: you receive your habit, your underwear, even your sanitary towels from the hands of the community. If you're to save your soul, there must be no show of individuality or personal choice."
She went over to the window and opened the blind a little. Sunlight flooded in, making Quart squint.
"I've followed the rules all my life," she said. "And I've continued to do so here in Seville, despite this minor infringement of my vow of poverty. I had a problem. Macarena said she told you. A disease of the spirit more than of the flesh. I was the director of a university college for girls. I never exchanged a word with the archbishop of my diocese about anything but professional matters. Yet I fell in love with him, or thought I did, which is the same thing… And the day I found myself, aged forty, applying makeup in front of the mirror because he was coming, I realised what had happened." She showed the scar on her wrist to Quart. "It wasn't attempted suicide, as my colleagues suspected, but a fit of rage. Of desperation. When I came out of hospital and asked my superiors for advice, all they recommended was prayer, discipline and the example of our sister Saint Therese of Lisieux."
She was silent a moment, rubbing her wrist as if trying to erase the scar. "Do you remember Saint Therese, Father?" she asked. The priest nodded. "She had tuberculosis and slept in a freezing cell but never complained and never asked for a blanket. The good Lord rewarded her for her suffering by taking her unto Him at the age of twenty-four!"