There is some confusion among the witnesses, none of whom can remember which side they should be standing on, and Father Agamedes says the necessary words, folds and unfolds his stole, steals a suspicious glance at the sacristan, who arrives late, but what are you thinking, he’s not Domingos Mau-Tempo, that was years ago, and this isn’t the same priest, people don’t live forever. Nothing happened, the light didn’t change, the church didn’t fill up with thrones and seraphim, and a turtledove cooing in the garden continues to coo, preoccupied perhaps with other weddings, and Gracinda Mau-Tempo can now look at Manuel Espada and say, This is my husband, and Manuel Espada can look at Gracinda Mau-Tempo and say, This is my wife, which, as it happens, will only be true from this moment on, because the bracken at the fountain has never received these two bodies, though that once seemed a distinct possibility.
The bride and bridegroom are just crossing the tiny nave when the door of the church opens and in comes António Mau-Tempo in his army uniform, he’s late for his own sister’s wedding, a matter of delayed trains, missed connections, which left him furiously counting the kilometers between him and home, but finally, after António Mau-Tempo had uttered oaths capable of melting the bronze bearings on a train and alternately run and strode along the verge of the road, the driver of a passing fish truck succumbed to the magic spell of his uniform and asked, Where are you going, To Monte Lavre for my sister’s wedding, and dropped him off at the bottom of the hill, saying, Congratulate the happy couple for me, and António Mau-Tempo bounded up that hill like a mountain goat, walked straight past the big house and the guards’ barracks without so much as a glance, bastards, and then it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps the wedding was over, but no, there are still people outside, only a few more meters, up the steps in two strides, and there’s my sister and there’s my brother-in-law, I’m glad you could make it, brother, Oh, I’d have made it if I had to set fire to the whole regiment. Out in the street now, the main topic of conversation isn’t the wedding but António Mau-Tempo, who was given leave to come to his sister’s wedding, and since he then has to embrace everyone, father and mother, relatives and friends, the wedding cortege is slightly disrupted, patience, not that Gracinda Mau-Tempo is jealous, she has her magnificent husband, Manuel Espada, by her side, she stands arm in arm with him the way couples at the very smartest weddings stand, and she’s blushing furiously, Lord in heaven, why can you not see these things, these men and women who, having invented a god, forgot to give him eyes, or perhaps did so on purpose, because no god is worthy of his creator, and should not, therefore, see him.
The disruption was short-lived. Manuel Espada and Gracinda Mau-Tempo are once more the king and queen of the party, António Mau-Tempo having now joined his childhood friends, with whom he always needs to reinforce and refresh the bonds of friendship after his long absences in such places as Salvaterra, Sado and Lezírias, farther north toward Leiria, and now, during his national service. The wedding feast is being held in someone else’s house, lent for the day. There is wine, lamb and bread stew, with more bread than lamb, bride cakes, two bottles of fortified wine and a few tasty pigs’ ears, this is no banquet but the wedding of poor people, so poor that João Mau-Tempo would clutch his head if we were cruel enough to mention the expense and the quadrupled debt at the grocer’s and the haberdasher’s, the all too familiar dogs that will soon be snapping at the debtor’s heels, but which for the time being remain treacherously silent, Is there anything else you need, after all, it’s not every day your daughter gets married.
Until Father Agamedes joins them, no one can eat, wretched priest, he’s obviously not as hungry as I am, the smell of that stew is making my stomach rumble, I don’t know how I’ve lasted this long really, I deliberately didn’t eat supper last night so that I’d have more appetite today. One doesn’t own up to such feelings, of course, admitting that one didn’t have supper so as to be able to eat more at other people’s expense, but we’re all familiar enough with such human frailties, and therefore with our own, to be able to forgive them in others. Especially now that Father Agamedes has finally arrived and goes over to say a few words to Tomás Espada and the Mau-Tempos, words that Faustina doesn’t quite understand, although she nods vigorously and adopts an expression of filial unction, not that she’s a hypocrite, poor woman, it’s just that the timbre of Father Agamedes’s voice makes her ears buzz, otherwise she would be able to understand him perfectly. Father Agamedes is very fatherly with the bride and groom, he gestures with his right hand, blessing people on either side, and they forget about their hunger for a moment, but now it comes roaring back, at last we’re going to start. In came the platters and tureens, all borrowed, well, two of them weren’t, and as for Gracinda Mau-Tempo’s own meager collection of crockery, her
