Free Never an Empire by James Green Page A

shocked or surprised Maria she showed no sign of it.
    â€˜What I said. She ate some breakfast and left.’
    â€˜You sent her away? You sent her away before I had made any decision.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Then why did she go?’
    â€˜Because she wanted to go back to her village so she needed to start early. It isn’t safe for a woman travelling alone at the best of times but if she left it too late she would have to be on the road as the evening came on and that would be much worse. In the morning the road will have travellers: she can join someone and not have to walk all the way alone.’
    The news sank in.
    â€˜I see.’
    â€˜She has family there. She has no one here and what work could she do? She has no skills and she didn’t look too strong to me.’ She paused for a moment absently wiping the blade of the knife with her apron. ‘Who would want such a woman?’
    The question and the manner of asking it caused Father Enrique, whose head had bowed as her listened to Maria’s awful news, to look up at her. At once he could see that she knew.
    â€˜I would.’
    She stood for a moment. Then looked at the knife.
    â€˜I will get you a clean one before your food gets too cold.’
    Father Enrique watched her back as she left him. He felt devastated. The young woman was gone just as he had learned her name: Carmen. Would he ever see her again? He felt hot tears forming in his eyes and he wiped them away with the back of the hand which still held his fork.
    Maria returned, placed a clean knife beside his plate and stood as he slowly picked up the knife and tried to begin eating. But his appetite was gone. He put the knife and fork on his plate, pushed it away and turned to Maria. There were tears on his cheeks.
    Maria looked down at him.
    â€˜You think you love her?’
    â€˜I do love her.’
    â€˜Why? Because you got inside her? Because you lay on top of her and pumped her? Because you enjoyed having her?’
    He looked down at the plate, humiliated by the coarseness of the questions and the tone. Confronted by Maria’s brutal but nonetheless accurate description of how he felt any thought of seminary excuses fell away from him.
    â€˜It was a sin, but I couldn’t help myself.’
    Maria reached down and picked up the plate.
    â€˜And it’s a sin to waste good food with so many hungry mouths about, but you don’t seem too worried about that.’
    He tried to pull himself together. She was only the housekeeper. Whatever had happened he was still the priest.
    â€˜And she is married so for her it is even a worse sin.’
    â€˜How do you know she’s married?’
    â€˜Because she …’ but he managed just in time to remember that the seal of the Confessional could not be broken. What was said in Confession was between the sinner, the priest, and God. ‘I know, that is enough.’
    â€˜Well, so what? She came to you. You didn’t force her. If it doesn’t bother her it shouldn’t bother you. Being married is her affair.’
    â€˜But it’s still a sin, a terrible sin, for me and her.’
    â€˜So forget her and let the sin take care of itself.’
    He looked up at her with an almost childish appeal in his eyes.
    â€˜I can’t, and I don’t want to, even though it’s wrong, even though it’s a mortal sin I …’
    Maria put the plate down with a clatter spilling the knife and fork onto the table.
    â€˜Enough of that; that’s priest’s talk. Start thinking and talking like a man. You want her, very well, she’s already shown she’s willing, go after her and bring her back.’
    The idea, when said out loud like that, seemed almost possible.
    â€˜But what would people say if I brought a woman into my house?’
    She gave a short, sharp laugh.
    â€˜They all know there is a woman in your house.’
    â€˜They know about her, about us?