He was turning all this over in his mind when he thought he heard footsteps behind him as he entered the narrow streets of Santa Cruz. He stopped a couple of times but could see nothing suspicious. He walked on, keeping to the narrow strip of shade provided by the eaves of the houses. The sun beat down on Seville, and the white and ochre facades shimmered in the heat like the walls of an oven. Quart's jacket felt as heavy as lead. If there really was a hell, he thought, sinning Sevillanos would feel quite at home having already lived in an inferno for several months each year, here on earth. When he came to the little square with the church, he stopped before the railing hung with geraniums. He watched enviously as a canary dipped its beak into a bowl of water in its shaded cage. There wasn't a breath of air and nothing stirred, neither the curtains at the windows nor the leaves of the geraniums and orange trees. Sails on the Sargasso Sea.
It was a relief to cross the threshold of Our Lady of the Tears. Inside he found an oasis of cool shade that smelled of wax and damp. He stopped to catch his breath, still dazzled by the sun outside. By the door there was a small carved figure of Jesus of Nazareth. A tormented baroque Christ who'd been put through the third degree in the judgement hall: How many of you are there? Where do you keep your followers' gold and silver coins? What's all this about you being the son of God? Guess who ratted on you. His wrists were bound with rope, and large drops of blood dripped from his crown of thorns. He was looking up, hoping for someone to get him out of there on a habeas corpus. Unlike his peers, Quart had never felt a link with this man whose image he now had before him. Not even at the seminary, during the years of what he thought of as his breaking in, where his theology teachers meticulously took apart and reassembled the mechanisms of faith in the minds of young men destined for the priesthood. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" was the question to be avoided at all cost. But for Quart, who had already posed the question by the time he entered the seminary and was convinced there was no answer, this theological programming was superfluous. Being a prudent young man, he said nothing.
He glanced at the carved figure again. The Nazarene certainly had had guts. Nobody need feel ashamed to carry His Cross like a flag. Quart often regretted not having another kind of faith. Men black with dust beneath their chain mail had once shouted the name of God as they charged into battle, to win eternal life and a place in heaven with their slashing swords. Living and dying had been so much simpler then.
Mechanically, he made the sign of the Cross. Around the figure of Christ, which was in a glass display case, hung fifty or so ex-votos: brass or wax models of hands, legs, eyes, children's bodies, locks of hair, letters, ribbons, notes, and plaques giving thanks for a healing. Even a military medal from Africa tied to an old bridal bouquet. As always when he came across such devotion, Quart wondered how much anxiety, how many sleepless nights by a sickbed, how many prayers or stories of hope, pain, life and death were summed up by each of those objects that Don Priamo Ferro, unlike other priests more in tune with the rimes, allowed people to place around the figure of Christ in his small church. This was old-style religion, with a priest in a cassock intoning Mass in Latin, the vital link between man and the great mysteries. A church of faith and solace, when cathedrals, gothic windows, baroque altarpieces, images and paintings depicting the glory of God served the same purpose as television screens nowadays: to reassure man confronted with the horror of his own solitude, death and the void. "Hello," said Gris Marsala.
She had climbed down from the scaffolding and now stood before him expectantly, hands in the pockets of her jeans. As before, her clothes were covered with plaster.
"You didn't tell me you were a nun," Quart said reproachfully.
She suppressed a smile, smoothing her grey hair tied in a plait. "True, I didn't," she said, surveying him with a friendly expression, as if she wanted something confirmed. "I assumed a priest would sense it without anyone's help."
"I'm a rather slow-witted priest."
There was a brief silence. Gris Marsala smiled and said, "That's not what I've heard." "From whom?"
"You know Archbishops, angry priests." Her American accent was more pronounced with certain words. "Attractive women who ask you out to dinner."
"You can't possibly know about that," Quart said, laughing.
"Why not? Haven't you heard of the telephone? You just dial and speak. Macarena Bruner's my friend."
"Strange friendship. A nun and a banker's wife who's the talk of Seville"
"That's not at all funny."
He nodded placatingly, realising he'd gone too far. His remark, no matter what tactical purpose it might have served, was unfair. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.