The Fountains of Silence(43)
The priest clears his throat. “Shall you make a good confession today?”
His voice revives Ana from her daydream.
“Sí, Padre. I told two lies, gossiped once, and engaged in flirtatious behavior with an American boy.”
Ana is too frightened to confess her true feelings to anyone but herself.
Ana fears confession.
49
Puri parts the heavy drapes and enters the confessional of the Madrid church. She kneels and her pulse begins to tick. If faith is so easy, why is confession so difficult? She clears her throat.
“Hail Mary the Purest.”
“Conceived without sin,” responds the priest.
“It has been one month since my last confession.”
At the priest’s invitation she reluctantly begins.
“I judge the behavior of others. I am resentful of parents who forsake their children. It angers me when people are ungrateful for all that our great country offers them.” Puri prattles on until the priest interrupts her.
“You speak easily of the sins of others. And what of your own sins?”
Puri stares into her lap. She cannot bear to look at the shadow of the priest before her. She has tried so hard. Puri knows it is her sacred duty to defend purity. Those before her have confronted it successfully. Saint Francis of Assisi rolled in the snow, Saint Benedict threw himself into a thornbush, and Saint Bernard plunged into an icy pond. Why, oh why, thinks Puri, is it all so hard?
“I’ve had . . . impure thoughts,” she whispers to the priest.
Puri loves being a good Spaniard. Puri loves the Catholic Church.
Puri hates confession.
50
Staying at the hotel, instead of traveling to Toledo with his parents, is conditional upon his mother’s one requirement: Daniel must attend Mass on Sunday.
The concierge provides a list of three churches. Daniel selects the one closest to the hotel. He arrives before Mass in order to give confession.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been two months since my last confession. I accuse myself of the following sins: I entered an argument that was not my own and caused bodily harm to two men while defending another. I opened a telegram with private information, I harbored anger toward my father, and”—he lowers his voice—“there’s a girl I can’t stop thinking about.”
“It is not for you to fight the battles of others,” says the priest. Following penance, the priest imparts absolution. “Through the ministry of the Church, may God give you pardon and peace. I absolve you of your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
“Amen,” says Daniel.
Daniel appreciates confession but feels most content when sharing truths with someone he feels close to.
As he parts the drapes and exits the wooden booth, Daniel has a strong feeling that what he’s about to do could send him back to the church.
Daniel may need confession.
Despite his success, Hernando remembers growing up in hunger-stricken post-war Spain as if it were yesterday. He lived in a tin-roofed shack in Vallecas, a working-class quarter of Madrid. “We were always hungry,” he says. “I had to rummage for food in the rubbish dump like the other children. I ate banana skins and cheese crusts from the bins outside the houses of the rich.” To feed his five children, his father hunted rabbits at the gates of Franco’s El Pardo palace; had he been caught he would have been beaten by the Guardia Civil.
—ALFONSO DANIELS
“Property in Spain: Castles in the Sand,”
The Telegraph, February 19, 2009
51
“Ay, no, se?or, that area is not for tourists,” cautions the concierge with a wagging finger. “Do not go there. Instead, enjoy this Sunday weather and go to Retiro Park or the Prado Museum.”
The words of the hotel concierge are lost on Daniel. He looks at the directions from Nick and studies the route on the map. It’s not far. Perhaps twenty minutes.
“?Ahí no! Do not go there. It’s not for you, se?or.”
Daniel thinks of Ana. The way she looked at him in the embassy courtyard. He slings his bag over a shoulder and retrieves the keys to the rental car from his pocket. “I’ll be fine. This isn’t a tourist outing. I’m visiting someone.”
* * *
The black Buick is unnoticeable in the city center, but as Daniel reaches the outskirts of Madrid, the sedan becomes a boat in the desert. Luxury hotels and shops disappear. Manicured landscaping and paved lanes give way to dirt roads, scrubby bushes, and the occasional scoliotic tree. The roads wind through ashen landscape, dusty and bleached by the sun. There are no knife grinders or lottery vendors on the street, just tired men with frowning shoulders and sagging donkeys pulling wagons of terra-cotta pots.
Daniel approaches two Guardia Civil on horseback with rifles. Despite the heat, they wear black patent-leather hats and long capes. Their trancelike faces are instantly menacing. He grips the steering wheel as a distinct feeling emerges. He is venturing out of bounds. It’s a sensation that’s uncomfortable, foreboding. The nerves at the base of his neck ignite, sending caution signals to his mind.