At times, in an instant of abrupt lucidity, he wondered how it was possible that in such a short time he had already arrived at that point. He was lacking not only in gentleness, as a priest, and in charity, as a simple Christian, but even in the most basic dictates of humanitarianism. Was the demon that corrupted his predecessor already at work within him? And Padre Manuel would repeat that already as if violence were the inevitable and foreordained end of a process of evolution, as if the only horrible thing about his own case were the speed with which he had reached that end.

But this brief, superficial remorse melted away, exacerbating an anxious need for justification. After all, who was this sacristan? Who could guarantee his good intentions? When he functioned as an interpreter he undoubtedly distorted the words, misinterpreted the sentences. And not in good faith, no, but with the insidious purpose of hindering the priest’s plans. As if it weren’t enough that those plans were absurd!

And how slowly everything moved! The parishioners were prepared to pay the tithes and other offerings that the Church exacted from them annually; they were prepared to give the necessary alms and to tender money in exchange for the sacraments. Their generosity was all the more laudable in light of their poverty.

But their practice of religion ended there. They remained at the margin of true Catholicism. The priest could not instruct the people of Chamula on their spiritual duties or excite them to confession and penitence because the language barrier interposed itself between him and his flock. Given that barrier, how was he going to persuade them to eliminate some of the rites with which they tainted the church? The Indians would protest in outrage, as they did when Padre Manuel tried to prevent the mayordomo of Santa Margarita from getting drunk every time he had to change the statue’s garments in a ceremony that required inebriation.

“The hand of God has forsaken us.”

This certainty was affirmed in Padre Manuel after the first Sunday he spent in San Juan.