Bel Canto(79)

Beatriz tried to look discreetly around the corner to see if the big man was crying. She thought she could detect a trembling in his voice. Were these the sorts of things other people dreamed about? Was this what they confessed? She checked the watch: 1:20.

“Ah, Oscar. Oscar.” Father Arguedas patted his shoulder. “It is just the pressure. It’s not a sin. We pray that our minds won’t turn towards terrible things but sometimes they do and it is beyond our control.”

“It feels very real at the time,” Oscar said, and then he added reluctantly, “I’m not so unhappy in the dreams. I feel a rage, but I’m glad to be killing them.”

This piece of information was perhaps more troubling. “The thing to do then is to learn. Pray for God’s strength, for His justice. Then when the time comes for you to go back to your home there will be peace in your heart.”

“I suppose.” Oscar nodded slowly, feeling unconvinced. He realized now that what he had wanted the priest to do was not to absolve him but to reassure him that it was impossible, the things he dreamed about. That his daughters were safe and unmolested in their home.

Father Arguedas looked at him very closely. He leaned in towards him, his voice full of portent. “Pray to the Virgin. Three rosaries. Do you understand me?” He took his own rosary out of his pocket and pressed it into Oscar’s big hands.

“Three rosaries,” Oscar said, and sure enough, there was a loosening of pressure in his chest as he began to work the beads through his fingers. He left the room thanking Father. At least if he could pray he would be doing something.

The priest took a few minutes to pray for the sins of Oscar Mendoza and when he was finished he cleared his throat and called out, “Beatriz, was that fun for you?”

She waited, dried her braid on her sleeve, then she simply rolled over onto her stomach so that now she was facing into the room. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You shouldn’t be listening.”

“You are a prisoner,” she said, but without much conviction. She would never raise her gun to a priest and so she pointed her finger at him instead. “I have every right to hear what you are saying.”

Father Arguedas leaned back in his chair. “To make sure we weren’t in here plotting to kill you in your sleep.”

“Exactly.”

“Come in now and make your confession. You have something to confess already. That will make it easier.” Father Arguedas was bluffing. None of the terrorists made confession, although many of them came to mass and he let them take communion just the same. He thought it was probably a rule of the Generals, no confession.

But Beatriz had never made confession before. In her village, the priest came through irregularly, only when his schedule permitted it. The priest was a very busy man who served a large region in the mountains. Sometimes months would pass between visits and then when he came his time was crowded up with not only the mass itself but baptisms and marriages, funerals, land disputes, communion. Confession was saved for murderers and the terminally ill, not idle girls who had done nothing worse then pinch their sisters or disobey their mothers. It was something for the very grown up and for the very wicked, and if she were to tell the truth, Beatriz considered herself to be neither of those things.

Father Arguedas held out his hand and he spoke to her softly. Really, he was the only one who ever spoke to her in that tone. “Come here,” he said. “I’ll make this very easy for you.”

It was so simple to go to him, to sit down in the chair. He told her to bow her head and then he put a hand on either side of the straight part of her hair and began to pray for her. She didn’t listen to the prayer. She only heard words here and there, beautiful words, father and blessed and forgiveness. It was just such a pleasant sensation, the weight of his hands on her head. When he finally took his hands away after what seemed to be a very long time, she felt delightfully weightless, free. She lifted up her face and smiled at him.

“Now you call your sins to mind,” he said. “Usually you do that before you come. You pray to God to give you the courage to remember your sins and the courage to release them. And when you come to the confessional you say, ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. This is my first confession.’ ”

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. This is my first confession.”

Father Arguedas waited for a while but Beatriz only continued to smile at him. “Now you tell me your sins.”

“What are they?”

“Well,” he said, “to start with, you listened in on Mr. Mendoza’s confession when you knew it was the wrong thing to do.”

She shook her head. “That wasn’t a sin. I told you, I was doing my job.”

Father Arguedas put his hands on her shoulders this time and it had the same wonderfully calming effect on her. “While you are in confession you must tell the absolute truth. You are telling that truth to God through me, and I will never tell another living soul. What this is is between you and me and God. It is a sacred rite and you must never, never lie when you make your confession. Do you understand that?”

“I do,” Beatriz whispered. He had the nicest face of anyone here, nicer even than Gen’s, who she had liked a little bit before. All the other hostages were too old, and the boys in her troop were too young, and the Generals were the Generals.