Читать книгу Crocodile Tears онлайн

34 страница из 53

37

The image is strong, colourful, bright, as if taken from the cover of a magazine: the wintry morning light refracts as it passes through the stained-glass windows and falls on the man kneeling on the prie-dieu, tinting his grey suit and his gelled hair, colouring his whole person red, blue, violet and yellow. Autumn is nearly over and it’s very cold outside. On the walls to the right and left are representations of the Via Crucis – of the Stations of the Cross, to be more exact – and holy music that might be Bach drifts over the pews and aisles and altars and floats up to heaven from the parish church of Las Esclavas del Sagrado Corazón, on Calle Ellauri.

Antinucci is performing the penance that Father Ismael imposed on him just a few minutes ago: one Lord’s Prayer, one Hail Mary and one Gloria in exchange for God’s forgiveness for taking His name in vain and for having three unclean thoughts about the secretary at his law practice. The shafts of morning sunlight that enter through the stained-glass windows on the east side don’t bother him because his eyes are shut, squeezed tight. He prays conscientiously, lost in his act of contrition and oblivious to his surroundings, feeling neither heat nor cold. When he recites his prayers he forgets about everything and isolates himself from the iniquitous sinful world outside; he keeps his head down, his eyelids closed, and doesn’t even hear the muffled footsteps of tardy believers, the ones who always arrive at the last 38moment, just before Father Ismael steps up to the altar in his chasuble to celebrate Mass.