added hastily, 'If he's really dead, that is.'
They stared at each other for a moment. Then Silva said, 'It's been suggested to me that he might have been kidnapped and murdered by people from the league.'
A wary expression came into Father Angelo's eyes, but the only thing he said was, 'Really? The league, eh?'
After a moment of silence, Silva went on, 'I'm told that your colleague, Father Brouwer, actively supports the league.'
'Told by whom?'
'Sorry. That's confidential.'
'Hmm. Well, as to the league, it's probably best if you put that question to Anton himself, but if you think he might have had anything to do with Muniz's death you'd be wrong. He didn't.'
'You think so?'
'I don't think. I know. We go back a long way, Father Brouwer and I.'
Father Angelo settled back in his chair, rested his elbows on the arms and took another puff.
'Where were you on the thirteenth of May, 1976?' he asked.
It seemed like an abrupt departure from the subject, but Silva played along. 'I have no idea. Should I have reason to remember?'
'Probably not. But I do. I can remember exactly where I was on the thirteenth of May, 1976. I was with Anton Brouwer. He would have been
…'-he took another puff and made the calculation in his head-'twenty-four at the time. The two of us were suspended by our wrists, facing each other, in the cellar of the State Police headquarters in Cascatas. They hung us up on the evening of the twelfth. They took us down on the morning of the fourteenth. They had us hanging there for thirty-four hours.' ? 'Why?'
The priest went on as if he hadn't heard the question. 'I've always kept a diary. My memoirs. I hope to have them published someday. But I never wrote about that. The whole period of our most recent military dictatorship isn't covered in any degree of detail anywhere in my writings. It was too dangerous to write about then, and I can't bring myself to write about it now. But I talk about it, every now and then. I talk about it to someone like you, someone I don't know too well, or to someone I think should hear the story, and remember. Am I boring you?'
'Not at all.'
Father Angelo lit another cigarette from the glowing stub of his last and extinguished the stub in the overflowing ashtray. He dangled the cigarette in his mouth while he rubbed the ash off his fingers. Then he took another puff and went on.
'When the military took power in 1964, they told us they were doing it to reestablish law and order. We soon discovered that law was for the few and order only an excuse for oppression. In reality fear, not law, was the source of their power. Torture was one of their instruments for instilling that fear.'
'Why did they pick on you and Father Brouwer?'
'We'd set up a producer's and consumer's cooperative for the small farmers. They said it smacked of communism.'
'And they tortured you just for that?'
'Oh, no. In those days, even people who practiced mild socialism got in trouble with the government, but we did much more. We organized adult literacy groups. That interfered with their concept of education. They didn't want the underprivileged to be educated. Education could have led to resistance. That's what they said, anyway. We also established a small newspaper and made the mistake of calling it The Liberator. All the major newspapers were censored then. The smaller ones… well… they just raided the offices, beat the people, and destroyed the facilities. Three days after they'd done that to The Liberator they came for us.'
He took another puff. There was no breeze. The cloud of smoke hung about him, dispersing slowly in the air. The old dog lying near his feet whined in its sleep. He glanced at the animal, smiled, and continued.
'There was a police captain named Soares. I haven't seen him since the fourteenth of May, 1976, but when I close my eyes I can see his face as clearly as I can see yours now. At about nine-thirty on the evening of the twelfth they brought us into a room in the cellar of the police station. There were no windows. The walls were painted green. There was a drain in the floor, and there were hooks hanging from the ceiling. Captain Soares had several assistants in the room and while they hung us up from the hooks, he told us that there'd been assaults throughout the state. Money had been stolen from banks and some weapons had been stolen from one of the military installations. He said he was sure we could provide information about the people involved. When we told him we knew nothing, he ordered his assistants to strip us. One of those assistants, the only one I ever saw thereafter, is now a colonel in the State Police.'
'Ferran?'
'Ferraz. You know him?'
'Not personally. Not yet,' Silva said and then, before the priest could break the thread of his story, 'What happened next?'
Father Angelo stubbed out another cigarette and took the pack from his cassock. This time he didn't light another one right away. He held the orange-colored pack in his hands, turning it around from one side to the other, looking at it as if he'd never seen it before. His eyes were far away.
'I told you, didn't I, that they hung us facing each other? They worked on us, one at a time. It was ingenious in its perverted, disgusting way. I could see everything that was happening to Anton, and he could see everything that was happening to me. That made it worse: You not only saw a close friend being injured and broken, you could also anticipate that they'd soon be back to you, doing the same thing.'
The priest dug a disposable plastic lighter out of his cassock. It was pink. The color didn't suit him at all. Silva wondered if a woman had given it to him.
Somewhere in the near distance there was the sound of children's voices: 'Give it to me,' one of them said. 'Get your own,' another one said. Then there was a slap and a squeal. Father Angelo didn't react to any of it. He went on with his story.
'Captain Soares told Anton to open his mouth to receive the Eucharist. When he did, the Captain put an electric wire into it. A spark lit up the inside of Anton's mouth. I could smell his burned flesh. When he fainted, they threw buckets of cold water on him and turned to me. They only worked on us for about fifteen minutes at a time. Then they'd go away and leave us hanging. Sometimes they'd be back within minutes, sometimes it took several hours. They beat us with little boards, kicked us in the stomach and genitals, put out their cigarettes on our bodies. I still have the scars.'
He took a cigarette out of the pack, looked at the end of it, and rotated it between his fingers, remembering. 'The more we denied complicity in the robberies, the more they were convinced we had something to hide and the more determined they became to force us to divulge it. Up to a point, of course. After thirty hours or so they began to think differently. They gave us no food. They did give us water through a hose-sometimes not enough, other times, far too much. And yet we fared better than the others.'
'There were others?'
Father Angelo lit the cigarette with the little pink lighter and took a puff. Then he waved a hand back and forth in front of his face, dispersing the smoke, dispersing the memories.
'Oh, yes. Yes, there were others. Four other priests. Tito de Alencar, they released, but he hanged himself soon thereafter. He wasn't sure he was strong enough to resist if they arrested him again. He… knew things, you see.'
'What sort of things?'
'It's not important now. It wasn't even that important then, except-'
'Except, if he'd spoken, other people would have been hurt?'
'Yes. I can see you understand. Let it go at that.'
'And the other three?'
'Burnier, a Frenchmen, and two Belgians: Lukembein and Pierobom. These days, most priests are Brazilian- born, like me. It was different then.'
He drew again on his cigarette.
'What happened to them?'
'Murdered. All three. No one was ever officially charged, much less tried. Ever since then I've had more fear
