for.
“Do you still smoke?” he asked the Count, who nodded. “Well, give me one. That’s one pleasure I’ll allow myself today.”
The Count took two cigarettes out of the packet and then lit the priest’s and his. They both exhaled at the same time and were enveloped by the same cloud of smoke.
“I want to talk to you about the Transfiguration. Something has happened which reminded me of that passage, but I failed Bible History.”
The priest, who’d recovered his rocking speed, contemplated his cigarette before speaking.
“I knew you wanted to get something out of me… Do you know why I used the passage on the Transfiguration that day?”
His eyes tired of following the pendulum marked by the priest’s face, the Count looked towards the painting which represented the arrival at Mount Calvary.
“You really want me to guess?”
“I’m sorry, I’m becoming old and stupid, and ask stupid questions
… I did so because I felt very sick, and in that passage, when God appears before the apostles, Jesus understands the human soul more than ever and tells his disciples: ‘Arise, be not afraid’… And not everyone can understand the dimensions fear can have. And that day, you understand, I went in great fear of death.”
“And after six days, Jesus taketh Peter, James and John his brother and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart. And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him. Then answered Peter and said unto Jesus: Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles, one for thee, one for Moses and another for Elias. While he yet spake, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud which said, This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him. And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them, and said: Arise, be not afraid. And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.
“And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead.
“This is chapter seventeen according to St Matthew. Mark and Luke also relate the Transfiguration, and, listen to this interesting detail, Mark saw it thus: ‘And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them.’
“Conde, you know, the scholars say that this happened on Mount Tabor, some forty miles from Caesarea. It’s a strange mountain, because it stands a thousand feet above the plain of Esdrelon, and reigns in solitude, as if it had sprung from the ground or fallen from heaven. On the mountain meseta the Byzantines raised a basilica with two chapels that the Crusaders rebuilt several centuries later and entrusted to the Benedictines. After the Crusades, the Muslims transformed it into a fortress in the year 1212. The latest news I have is that the present basilica was consecrated in 1924 and has a central facade flanked by two towers.
“But what is important in all this is that it was on Mount Tabor that Jesus’s divine character was publicly revealed for the first time, that he was recognized by his father and introduced as the Messiah. Hence the disciples saw the appearance of Jesus, who must have been really dirty after such a long journey over the sea and desert, profoundly transformed: his clothes, skin and hair shone, but in reality everything was the result of an inner brilliance necessary to receive the revelation from his father. It is then the greatness of Jesus is made manifest: being who he is, introduced as a divine being, he doesn’t lose his humanity and understands the fear of his followers, who have witnessed something that transcends them infinitely. And do you know why? Because I think Jesus predicted his own fear when he talks to them about how his work will be carried through: his glory will be in a resurrection, but first he must endure the suffering and sacrifice which await him on the cross, that was the necessary test for this greater miracle to take place. Beautiful and heartrending, don’t you think? And if He was afraid and understood what fear is, why should we deny ourselves such a human sentiment? Perhaps the most human of all, Conde.”
Quite the contrary, thought the Count, already set on forgetting biblical transfigurations too remote from sordid, earthly transvesting, as he took another look at Faustino Arayan’s house and compared it to the dark, damp cavern inhabited by Alberto Marques, whence the transvestite Alexis had emerged on his last night-time excursion. An unbridgeable, impossible abyss existed between those two vital spaces, of established strata, self-interest, merits forgotten and recognized, favours lost and opportunities grasped or not, which distinguished them and set them apart, like light and shadow, poverty and opulence, sorrow and happiness. Nevertheless, in life and death, Alexis Arayan had fused the extremes of his origins and destiny, and created an unlikely link.
From the moment his car turned into Seventh Avenue in Miramar, under the still benevolent sun of that August morning, the Count felt he was entering another world, its face more pleasant and better washed than that of the other city – the same city – they’d just crossed. And now, in front of Faustino Arayan’s house, he brought his idea full circle: quite the contrary, when he thought how the original owners of that preening mansion with its windowpanes still intact had no doubt also tried to delineate a drastic difference between two worlds, the best of which – naturally for them – they had intended to magnify by building that house: oh, those good old bourgeois pretensions to permanence… At this moment, perhaps in Miami, Union City or wherever the hell they were, thirty years on, they must still miss the precise beauty of that construction where they’d invested fistfuls of dreams and money, thinking it was eternal. But people usually get it wrong, the Count told himself, penetrating the maze of his mind as it raced on and thinking that, if he’d lived in a house like that, he’d like to have owned at least three dogs running around the garden. And who’d pick up the shit? he wondered, lifting a foot in his imagination to avoid doggy deposits, and decided to do without his pack of hounds and devote his time – and this was beyond debate – to cherishing the library he’d have on the second floor, overlooking the garden.
On his journey the Count had also gleaned from the lips of Sergeant Palacios two choice items of disturbing news: Salvador K.’s blood, like the murderer’s, was AB, and nobody in the vicinity of the studio on Twenty-First and Eighteenth had seen him on the night of the crime, although they’d seen him go in more than once with Alexis Arayan. According to the Count’s calculations, those two tickets meant he was sure to win the raffle he’d bought into.
Manuel Palacios rang the bell and the maid opened the door.
“Come in,” she said, without saying good-day, and pointed them to the armchairs in the sitting room. “I’ll tell Faustino right away.” And she disappeared on ghostly tiptoe.
The Count and Manolo looked at each other, laughed and prepared to wait. Ten minutes later, Faustino Arayan appeared.
He was wearing a guayabera that was so white and elegant the Count wouldn’t have dared to wear it for a minute: it was resplendent rather than white, with tenuous tucks, a shiny thread and the maker’s name discreetly but visibly embroidered on the top right-hand pocket. The grey pin-stripe trousers displayed the precise crease of an expert iron, while his dark patent leather moccasins seemed light and comfortable.
“Good-day,” he said, holding out a hand; a strong, solid, pink hand, like its owner, whose only sign of being in his sixties was an almost totally bald pate which distinguished the equally shiny roundness, noted the Count, of his enormous head.
“I’m really sorry to trouble you today, companero Arayan. We know you had a bad day yesterday, but…”
“Not to worry, not to worry…”
“Lieutenant Mario Conde,” he introduced himself, and pointing to his colleague, he said, “and Sergeant Manuel Palacios.”
“I told you, Lieutenant, not to worry. You’re doing your job, and I have to do mine today, because life goes on…”
“Thanks,” said the Count and observed the ashtray from Granada, as clean as ever, as if it had never been used.
“Just a moment, I’ll get us a drop of coffee, if you’d like one?” asked Faustino Arayan, and without waiting for a reply, he whispered: “Maria Antonia.”
The black woman appeared like a flash, with a tray of three cups of coffee, as if she’d been waiting for the gun from behind a starting line. The damn bitch floats, the Count was convinced, and he was the first to be served. When she’d passed the cups around, she left the tray on the table and flitted back into the inner recesses of the
