Domingo's Angel

Chapter 5

Rosalba dressed herself with considerable care in the black silk left to her by her mother and the ivory comb and lace mantilla of her grandmother. Her grandmother had made the lace herself.

Rosalba remembered when she was a child, watching her grandmother sitting in the shade by the door, watching the world go by, her fingers working busily at the delicate lacework. The child Rosalba had wondered how she could do such delicate work when her hands were so swollen and knobbly with arthritis. But her grandmother had never complained. She had never wept and had never smiled. She took what came and she always knew best. She had been a power in the village. The chair by the front door was her throne. From it, she had given advice and handed down her orders. Her word was law and nobody had ever argued with the grandmother.

Now there was a woman!

Over the years Rosalba had tried to emulate her grandmother. Not at first, of course, not as a young girl when her blood ran high and she was in love. Not as a young mother, still in love, working hard alongside her husband to plough the land and plant the seed, bring in the harvest and prepare the food. Ay, she worked hard in those days and had no time to consider anything outside her own small world. But later, when the grandmother was long in her grave and her sons had grown. Later, when the world had changed and no-one was safe anymore. Then she tr to be strong like her grandmother. She showed a strong face to the world and did what she needed to survive. Hard times!

Sighing, Rosalba took the mantilla and set it carefully in her hair, then gave a nod of satisfaction to her reflection. There was no question as to whether she would look respectable.

* * * *

In the room behind the altar, the young priest changed into his vestments and arranged the bread and wine on a tray. He was hampered in these simple tasks by Juanito, the altar boy, who was the youngest son of Limping Pepe and seemed to have suffered the misfortune of being born after the family stock of brains had been exhausted.

"No, don't put it there!" He exclaimed, narrowly preventing Juanito from placing the bottle of wine on the extreme edge of the shelf. "Put it here, on the table. In the middle!" he almost screamed, as the boy began to balance the bottle precariously on the edge. There was more wine, but this was special. He had brought it from his home village, where the wine was far superior to the stuff they made here, and he had been saving it for today, his first mass. The boy gave him a bovine stare and moved the bottle very slightly further in.

The church bells began to ring for mass and the priest popped his head round the curtain to check that everything was in order. This time he very nearly did scream. The church was full. Not just full, overflowing. Everyone in the village and the countryside around had crowded in, and they were all dressed in fiesta clothes. The priest grabbed Juanito by the shoulders.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded. Juanito stared back in astonishment. "What is it?"

Juanito continued to stare at the priest in total incomprehension, his bottom lip beginning to tremble.

"Is it a fiesta? Nobody told me it was a fiesta day. I have nothing prepared!"

In dismay, the priest contemplated his first mass ruined.

"Or a wedding? Please tell me it isn't a wedding."

"A wedding?" repeated Juanito.

"Is someone getting married?" hissed the priest between his teeth. "Why are all these people here?"

Slowly the light of understanding dawned on Juanito's face.

"They have come to see the Angel," he said.

The priest dived for the curtain again and looked wildly up at the ceiling as if he expected the angel to be floating up there.

"No," said the boy, tugging at the priest's robe, "Domingo's angel. She is there, in the front row, next to Rosalba."

The priest looked down at the front row and there, sure enough, was a strange young woman sitting between Rosalba and Domingo goatherd. She was very pale and demure and wore a shawl over her head, looking, if anything, more like a Madonna than an angel. There was something disturbingly voluptuous about her, despite her demure expression. Rosalba was looking straight ahead with no expression at all, but somehow it was possible to tell that she was vastly pleased with herself.

The priest debated whether to try to get more out of Juanito, but decided now was not the time.

"Domingo's angel." He rolled his eyes in an expression of disbelief.

The congregation waited in hushed expectation as the priest raised his hands in blessing and began the mass.

* * * *

As his first words fell into the silence, he knew everything was going to be perfect. His rich, melodious voice rang clearly through the little church, filling every corner. The old people gasped in amazement. It was the first time they had heard the mass clearly for twenty years. The young girls gazed, transfixed, at the young priest, sighing quietly, feeling slightly uncomfortable and not quite sure why, wriggling on the narrow wooden bench.

A vast feeling of euphoria welled up in the tiny church, a mixture of melancholy and ecstasy, overwhelming and irresistible.

Angela, who had expected to be bored to tears, to her amazement, found herself swept up in the emotion of the other people and gripped by something very like religious awe. She could not follow the Latin, but it did not matter. She was affected by the beauty of the words, even though she could not understand them, and she felt her spirit lift in a kind of exaltation.

Juanito bumbled along behind the priest, not quite dropping anything, handing him the correct objects at more or less the right time. Nothing was going wrong.

The priest looked down at the congregation his congregation and was filled with an ecstasy that had nothing whatsoever to do with religion. Revelling in his own power, he leaned forward, gripped the lectern and gave the performance of his life.