Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not)

Father Salví would finish saying his final mass by about seven in the morning, his third in the space of an hour.

“The father is not well,” his parishioners said. “He is not doing things with his usual rhythm and elegance.”

He removed his vestments without a word, without looking at anyone, and without a single comment.

“Look out,” the sextons buzzed. “The hammer is about to fall, and fines will rain down upon us. And all because of those two brothers.”

He left the sacristy to go up to the parish house. Seven or eight women sat at the school entrance, along with a man who paced back and forth. When they saw him come in, the women all rose. One came forward to kiss his hand, but an impatient gesture from the priest stopped her cold by the time she had gone halfway across the room.

“He must have lost a real, kuriput,”¹³⁸ the woman exclaimed with a mocking laugh, offended by such a reception. Not to give her his hand to kiss. And she a monitor of the cofraternity, Sister Rufa. It was unheard of.

“And he wasn’t even in the confessional this morning,” added Sister Sipa, a toothless old woman. “I wanted to confess so I could take communion and get indulgences.”

“Well, I sympathize with you,” responded a young woman with a frank expression. “This morning I got three plenaries, which I dedicated to my husband’s soul.”

“Wrong thing to do, Sister Juana,” said the offended Rufa. “One plenary is enough to get him out of purgatory. You shouldn’t waste your holy indulgences. Do what I do.”

“I figured, the more, the better,” answered the simple Sister Juana, smiling. “But tell me, what do you do?”

Sister Rufa did not answer immediately. First she asked for a buyo, chewed it, looked at her listeners in order to make sure they were paying attention, spit to one side, and began, still chewing her tobacco.

“I don’t waste a single holy day. Since I joined the sisterhood I have gotten four hundred fifty-seven plenary indulgences, seven hundred sixty thousand, five hundred ninety-eight years of indulgences. I write down every one I get because I like clean accounts. I don’t want to cheat anyone, and I don’t want to be cheated.”

Sister Rufa paused and went on chewing. The women watched her in admiration, though the man who had been pacing stopped and said, somewhat disdainfully, “Well, I have gotten only four plenaries more than you, Sister Rufa, and a hundred additional years, and this year I haven’t even done much in the way of praying.”

“More than me? More than six hundred eighty-nine plenaries, nine hundred ninety-four thousand, eight hundred and fifty-six years?” Sister Rufa repeated, put out somewhat.

“That’s right. Eight plenaries more and one hundred fifteen more years in just a few months,” the man repeated. Grimy scapularies and rosaries hung from his neck.

“There’s nothing strange about that,” Rufa said, giving up, “You’re the provincial prefect.”

The man smiled, pleased.

“It’s not strange that I got more than you, really. I can almost, almost say that even when I sleep I get indulgences.”

“And how do you do that, señor?” four or five voices asked all at once.

“Tsuh,” the man answered, grimacing with a weary superiority. “I grab them here and there.”

“Well, in that case of course I can’t offer you any praise, sir,” Rufa protested. “You’ll go to purgatory for wasting indulgences. You must know that for every useless word you utter you’ll suffer forty days in purgatory, according to the priest, for every length of thread, sixty, and for every drop of water, twenty. You’re going to purgatory!”

“But I already know I’ll get out of there,” Brother Pedro replied, with a sublime confidence. “I’ve pulled many, many souls from the fire. I’ve made many, many saints. And even more so, in articulo mortis I can get even more if I want, at least seven plenaries. And I’ll be able to save others as I die!”

That said, he walked off haughtily.

“Nevertheless, you should all do as I do, not waste a single day and keep track of your accounts. I don’t cheat and I won’t be cheated!”

“What do you do, then?” Juana asked.

“You should copy the way I do it. For example, let’s say I get a year of indulgences. I mark it down in my notebook and I say, ‘Blessed holy sainted Father Domingo, do me the favor of looking into purgatory to see if there is someone who needs exactly one year, neither one day more or one day less.’ I flip a coin. Heads I do it, tails I don’t. Let’s say it comes out heads. I write down ‘collected. ’ And if it comes up tails, I hold on to the indulgence. That way I put together little groups of a hundred years that I mark off. It’s too bad you can’t do with them what you can with money: get interest. You could save more souls. Take it from me, and do what I do.”

“But I do something even better,” answered Sister Sipa.

“What? Better?” asked a surprised Rufa. “Can’t be. You can’t improve on my method.”

“Listen a minute and I’ll show you, sisters,” old Sipa replied sourly.

“Well . . . well, let’s hear it,” said the others.

After a cough (for effect), the old woman said the following: “You all know full well that by reciting the ‘Blessed for your purity’ and the ‘My Lord Jesus Christ, the sweetest father of pleasure’ you get ten years for each letter . . .”

“Twenty! No, less, five!” said several voices.

“One here, one there, doesn’t matter. Now, when a butler or maid breaks one of my plates, glasses, or cups, I make him pick up all the pieces, every one, no matter how small, and he has to recite the ‘Blessed for your purity’ and the ‘My Lord Jesus Christ, sweetest father of pleasure,’ and the indulgences I get I dedicate to the souls of the departed. Everyone knows about it in my house, except the cats.”

“But those indulgences are meant for the servants and not for you, Sister Sipa,” objected Rufa.

“And who is going to pay for my cups and my plates then? The servants are happy to pay for them this way, and I am, too. I don’t beat them, just a little slap or a pinch.”

“That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to do the same thing. Me, too,” said the women.

“But if the plate broke in two or three pieces, you don’t get very much,” the stubborn Rufa put in.

“Abá,” replied old Sipa. “I still make them pray, I put the pieces back together and we end up losing nothing.”

Now Sister Rufa could not figure out what to criticize.

“Let me ask you one thing, if you don’t mind,” said young Juana timidly. “You ladies understand heavenly things so well, purgatory, hell . . . I admit I’m ignorant about them.”

“Well, go ahead already!”

“In novenas and other booklets I often come across the charge: Three Our Fathers, three Ave Marias, and three Gloria Patri . . .”

“And so?”

“Well, I want to know how to recite them: three Our Fathers in a row, the three Ave Marias in a row, and then three Gloria Patri in a row, or three times one Our Father, one Ave Maria, and one Gloria Patri?”

“Well, it’s like this: the Our Father three times . . .”

“Excuse me, Sister Sipa,” Rufa interrupted. “You have to do it the other way. You don’t mix males and females. The Our Fathers are males, the Ave Marias females, and the Gloria are the children.”

“Eh, excuse me, Sister Rufa. Our Father, Ave Maria, and Gloria are rice, meat, and sauce. A mouthful of saints . . .”

“You’re wrong! Look, if you pray like that you’ll never get anything you ask for!”

“And you, because you pray that way, will never get anything out of your novenas,” replied old Sipa.

“Who?” said Rufa, getting up. “A little while back I lost a piglet, so I prayed to San Antonio and I found it, and then I sold it for a good price. Aha!”

“Oh? I happen to know your neighbor has been saying that you sold a piglet of hers!”

“Who? Has she no shame? Do you think I’m like you?”

The prefect had to intervene to make peace. No one remembered anything about Our Fathers. Instead they were talking about pigs.

“Please, please, one can’t complain about one piglet, sisters! The Holy Scriptures provide us with an example. The heretics and Protestants did not complain to Our Lord Jesus Christ when he flung a pair of their hogs into the water, and we, who are Christians and members of the brotherhood of the Holy Rosary, shall we complain about one piglet? What would our counterparts in the Third Brotherhood say about us?”

Everyone became quiet, admiring the teacher’s profound wisdom and afraid of what the Third Brothers would say. Satisfied with such obedience, the prefect changed his tone of voice and continued.

“The priest will have us called soon. We’ll have to say which preacher we have selected from among the three he proposed yesterday: Father Dámaso, Father Martín, or the coadjutor. I have no idea if the Third Brothers have made their selection. We need to decide.”

“The coadjutor . . .” Juana whispered timidly.

“Hm, the coadjutor doesn’t know how to deliver a sermon!” says Sipa. “Father Martín is better.”

“Father Martín!” someone exclaimed with disdain. “He has no voice. Father Dámaso is better.”

“That’s true, that’s true,” Rufa shouted. “Father Dámaso knows how to deliver a sermon, he’s almost like an actor!”

“But we can’t understand what he’s saying,” Juana whispered.

“Because he is very profound, which is why he preaches so well . . .”

At that point Sisa took off, carrying a basket on her head, said good day to the women, and went up the stairs.

“She’s going up! Let’s go up, too!” they said.

As she went up the stairs, Sisa could feel her heart beating violently. She had no idea what she was going to say to the priest to reduce his anger, nor what arguments she could make on behalf of her son. That morning, at the first light of dawn, she had gone down to her garden plot to pick her most beautiful vegetables, which she placed in her basket among banana leaves and flowers. She went to the riverbank to get pakô,¹³⁹ which she knew the priest liked in his salad. She dressed in her best clothes and with her basket perched atop her head, without waking her son she left for the town.

Trying to make as little noise as possible, she went up the stairs slowly, listening carefully for a child’s voice, familiar and alive.

But she met no one on the way, nor heard anyone, so she headed toward the kitchen.

There she looked everywhere. Servants and sextons greeted her coldly. She would say hello, but they would barely answer.

“Where can I leave these vegetables?” she asked, without letting on that she was offended.

“Over there, anywhere over there!” a cook answered, with hardly a glance, intent on his work. He was plucking a capon.

Sisa started putting her eggplants, patolas,¹⁴⁰ ferns, and the tender shoots of pakô on the table. Then she put the flowers on top. She half-smiled and asked a servant who seemed more agreeable than the cook, “Can I speak with the father?”

“He’s not feeling well,” the man answered quietly.

“And Crispín? Do you know if he is in the sacristy?”

The servant looked at her with surprise.

“Crispín?” he asked, knitting his brows. “Isn’t he at home? Are you trying to tell me he’s not?”

“Basilio is at home, but Crispín stayed here,” Sisa replied. “I would like to see him . . .”

“Yes, of course,” said the servant. “At first he stayed, then he left. He took a lot of things. This morning the priest told me to go to the barracks to let the Civil Guard know. I assume they have already gone to your house after the boys.”

Sisa clapped her hands over her ears and opened her mouth, but her lips moved in vain. Not a single sound came out.

“Look what kind of sons you have,” the cook added. “Everyone knows you’re a faithful wife, but the boys have taken after their father. Watch out that the younger one doesn’t turn out even worse.”

Sisa burst into bitter sobs, and collapsed onto a bench.

“Don’t cry here,” the cook shouted at her. “Don’t you know the father is unwell? Go cry in the street.”

The poor woman, virtually pushed out into the street, went down the stairs at the same time as the sisters, who whispered and conjectured about the priest’s illness.

The unfortunate mother hid her face in her handkerchief and repressed her sobs.

When she got to the street she looked all around, undecided what to do. Then as if she had made up her mind, she hurried away.