Happy Families_ Stories - Carlos Fuentes [91]
A few of us had been educated and did not believe the falsehoods of the Church. But nobody—not even one, who is an atheist, to tell the absolute truth—dared challenge the weight of religious tradition in the villages. The sky would fall down on us. Centuries and centuries of proclaiming ourselves Catholics has its importance. Being an atheist is almost a failure of courtesy. But one thinks that what the believer and the indifferent ought to share is charity and compassion. It isn’t justice that unites us. One knows Christians who go out of their way to be unjust. To inferiors. To children. To women. To animals. And who, beating their chests, proclaim themselves Christians and go to Mass on Sunday.
One is not like them. One tries to be sincere with the world and with oneself. One wants to be just even though one is not a believer. One thinks that even if one is not Catholic, justice is the most Christian thing there is. Because of justice, one helps others, and mercy is only a little medal they pin on us afterward.
Because of simple charity, then, one pretends not to see and lets him pass at night as one observes from the darkened window the limping young man who looks around in distress without knowing which way to go until one comes out in the midst of the silent ringing of the Angelus and directs him:
“Go up the mountain a little way. Follow the bells.”
“What bells?”
“Listen to them carefully. Up there you’ll be received with charity.”
I sent him away from the village because one knows very well who one’s neighbors are. The boy, his leg injured, with dirty bandages around his knee, torn clothing, and muddy boots, was going to be suspect, no matter who he was and where he came from. One is not accustomed to the sudden appearance of people one doesn’t know. One is predisposed against the stranger. Even more so in a village of less than a hundred souls lost in the volcanic heights of Mexico, a village of ash and snow, icy air, and numb hands. A village enveloped in a gigantic gray serape as if in a premature though permanent winding-sheet.
But if the stranger seeks refuge in the house of the priest, it means he has nothing to hide. The Church blesses those it receives. The boy could climb down from the church to the village without arousing anyone’s suspicions. What he couldn’t do was appear like this, hurt, confused, and exhibiting a youthful beauty as somber and dazzling as that of a black sun.
“Climb the hill. Take refuge in Christian charity. Ask for the priest. Find an explanation.”
“I was mountain climbing and I fell,” Félix Camberos said simply, for that was the name the boy gave when Father Benito Mazón opened the door as dawn was breaking.
“It’s very early,” the priest said disagreeably.
“Mountains are overcome early in the morning.” Félix Camberos smiled, for better or worse. “Just like piety.”
“All right, Mayalde, see to the stranger,” said the priest, feeling strangely trapped in a contradiction he did not understand.
Benito Mazón had seen the figure of the boy, and in his heart, he had reasons for charity as well as suspicion. They merged in the figure of Mayalde. Who would tend to the injured boy? Why not the priest? Because he would have to kneel before the injured man in a posture his arrogance rejected. He would have to display humility to a man younger than himself. And above all, handsomer. The priest caught Mayalde’s glance when Félix appeared. It was the face of a voiceless moon expressing everything by means of waxing and waning movements, as if a tide from heaven had carried the stranger to this desolate place.
Mayalde had not controlled her own face when she saw Félix. Father Benito noticed this and decided to place the young man in