The Priest

by Monica La Porta

  "At least they need me for something," Mauricio said under his breath. He gave a brief look at the room and then sat on the plastic chair waiting for him in the corner. The familiar transparent cup was there as well. Mauricio shook his head in disbelief. What is that supposed to mean? He thought about several scenarios and came out with one that was at least plausible. The women needed him for one last deposit. The fact remained that the President’s daughter had been mentioned, again. Mauricio couldn’t find any possible explanation for that girl needing him for anything. She was the purest of the pure breeds. And pure breeds only used sementals to conceive fathered women. But, now that he was thinking about it and connecting the dots—the plump guard, the nurses, the doctor—all of them had hinted at some sort of connection between the brat, as they called her, and him. It was true that he had only heard bits and pieces of scattered conversations, but the fact that he was still alive kind of validated his current train of thoughts. But he realized the little he knew and thought he understood about the world he lived in was probably wrong. Loud tapping on the door startled Mauricio, who was far away from completing his task.

  “The Priestess doesn’t have time to waste,” the guard yelled.

  “Give me a moment,” Mauricio grunted back, but kept his voice low. His mind was spinning with ideas, one wilder than the next, and his stomach was still painfully clenched. He still didn’t know what plans they had for him. How was he supposed to fill the blasted cup, if he couldn’t muster the right frame of mind?

  “Done yet?” The guard was pounding on the door, again.

  “I can’t,” Mauricio finally said, loud enough this time to be heard outside.

  “What do you mean you can’t? The Priestess is waiting for you!” The guard opened the door with an angry kick. “Do it now! I order you.” The woman’s face was becoming red at an alarming rate.

  “I can’t,” Mauricio repeated. What are you, deaf and stupid?

  “I will kill you for disobeying me—” The guard impulsively took her gun from the holster and aimed at him.

  “Stop!” someone outside the door said. The guard froze when she heard the imperious voice.

  “Did you forget my orders?”

  “Apologies, Your Holiness. I was only trying to teach him a lesson.” The guard turned around to face the Priestess, who was now towering over her.

  “I explicitly said that I wanted this semental unharmed. Did I, or did I not?” The Priestess looked stern. “You have been working with them for a lifetime, supposedly. Don’t you know a thing or two about their flawed physiology?” The Priestess asked.

  The guard cowered under the woman’s cold stare. “I thought he was just wasting your precious time, Your Holiness. Please, accept my apologies, again,” she whispered, kneeling on the floor.

  It suits you well, you bitch, he thought, forgetting for a moment his own predicament.

  “Listen well, all of you,” the Priestess looked outside the door, where a few guards were waiting for her orders. “Sementals should be treated differently from the other slaves. This semental in particular, must be treated differently from the others. Are we clear?” She paused to let the information sink in. “Are we clear?” the Priestess repeated, raising her already booming voice when the guards didn’t answer back; they looked terrified, but a unanimous chorus followed soon after. Everybody was perfectly clear about the semental in question.

  “Now, I want him in a new cell.” The Priestess shot a last look at the guard and then turned her head to address the rest of the group. “Make sure you don’t kill him until I order so, or you’ll follow his fate.” Then the Priestess did something Mauricio wasn’t expecting. She looked at him. Her eyes locked his in a stare that sent shivers down his spine, and then she turned to face the guards again. “You should be thankful that a slave tested your security system. At least I realized my guards aren’t guarding enough.”

  He stood there in his corner, hoping that she would leave soon. He wanted to faint. The Holy Priestess had looked at him and he was still alive. The realization that he wasn’t going to be killed any time soon hit him hard. He felt a physical blow to his stomach and vomited the entire meager, gooey meal on the floor.

  “You’ll take better care of the sementals under your jurisdiction.” The Priestess didn’t flinch at the spectacle. She just stepped aside and left, after giving another pitiful look at the guard whose face was greener than Mauricio’s.

  Mauricio found that he liked his new cell. The floor is dry; there isn’t mold on the wall; it isn’t cold; and the bed isn’t a slab of hard rock, he thought when he took stock of the place. And, what is that? A window? It was a small rectangular hole in the wall with metal bars, but he had never had a window in any of his cells before and thought it was the most beautiful thing. During the first week in his new residence, he spent all of his time staring at the light coming from outside. Outside. I wish I could see what’s beyond this wall. He imagined the sun illuminating the field workers’ long days. He had heard the men complaining about rain and wind, but he couldn’t understand what they meant. Images of beautiful, colorful things formed in his mind. He only knew life inside a series of dark cells that had changed from time to time—sometimes they were warmer, sometimes colder, but they remained always the same: colorless. He longed for colors and fresh air.

  Mauricio looked at the window high on the wall, wishing he could move his bed closer to use as a step, but it was bolted on the floor. Great view, nonetheless. The light changed constantly during the day and disappeared at night. Mauricio never grew tired of looking at the way the light moved on the floor from one corner of his small cell to the other. Sometimes the light was brighter, especially in the morning, other times it was warm and yellow. From the open window, the outside world slowly started pouring inside, and Mauricio discovered what the wind felt like when it blew through the metal bars. It’s not that bad, he thought. I like the sound of it. He also grew accustomed to the whispers of the field workers coming back at night. Today was good—they seem happy, or, Today wasn’t great—they are complaining more than usual. He started assessing the day depending on the field workers’ mood.

  He came to enjoy the singing of the birds first thing in the morning, and after a while, he was even able to recognize the sound of droplets of rain hitting the outside wall. And, once, the wind brought the rain inside his cell. He touched the small, wet tears and laughed. I wish I could walk outside and be drenched by it, so I’d know how it feels on my skin.

  Then, one night, another sound was channeled inside his cell—a voice he dreamed of every waking moment. Mauricio would have recognized her voice among a chorus of feminine ones, but she sang alone that night and every night after that. The first time he heard her, Mauricio thought he was dreaming. The girl’s voice was as crystalline and fresh as he remembered. She sang lullabies, and sometimes she told children’s tales with her soft voice. Mauricio knew what lullabies and tales were because of his father; her songs took him back to the time when he was just a scared little boy and his father soothed his fears with his voice. Mauricio cried for several nights, remembering everything he had lost, and he hated her for that.

  But, every morning, he woke up with a longing he had never felt before. She made him sad with her songs, but she also made him feel alive. He couldn’t get enough of that high. For once in his life, he had something to look forward to. Every day, long after the field workers had come back for their daily rest, when the square of light on his wall became a soft shade of yellow and then disappeared, Mauricio waited for her. She normally came out as soon as the darkness filled his cell. Mauricio could hear her short steps, light on the gravel, and after a few minutes, she would start tuning her voice with several scales. He thought that the girl had the most beautiful voice in the whole world.

  One night, Mauricio impatiently waited for the darkness to enclose his cell, but the girl didn’t come. He stood there, thinking that every second lasted an hour and hoping to hea
r her steps breaking the silence. His eyes started watering and his head lolled to one side, but he still waited. He woke up the next morning, sore and crouched on the floor in the same position he had been sitting in. His mood didn’t improve during the day and he failed to comply with his only task.

  The guard assigned to him, a tall and wispy brunette, the new face who had replaced the one the Priestess had rebuked publicly, didn’t beat him—Priestess’ orders—but managed to let half of his lunch fall on the floor of his cell.

  I won’t give you the pleasure to see me on all fours, scooping my meal off the ground. He slowly ate what was left on the plate; then he looked at the guard in defiance. His stomach was aching with hunger, but he sat on the bed and let the food go bad before his eyes. His dinner portion was even smaller than lunch. Mauricio didn’t say anything. As a slave, he could only control the way he accepted the adversities dealt him.

  The square of light moved on the floor of Mauricio’s cell and his heart started pounding. When the air became colder and the night bugs started chirping and clicking, he could barely stand still. He stood up and sat down dozens of times. Finally, the first shades of the night obscured the cell’s walls. Mauricio forced his body to stay still. Seconds, minutes, hours, all passed in a painful silence, but he refused to admit that he was going to spend the night alone again. Hours later, hungry and tired, he laid his head on the bed and started singing softly to lessen his pain. The following day was a replay of the first one. He didn’t fill the transparent cup. The tall guard was annoyed. His stomach paid the consequences.

  The third night came and Mauricio lay on his bed and closed his eyes tightly. When the square of light passed on his face and then disappeared beyond the wall, he felt the ache rise in his chest. He was also lightheaded. He had eaten close to nothing in the last two days and the pain devouring his stomach was growing stronger. Mauricio started singing, as he had the night before, and he lost himself in the act.

  “You have a beautiful voice,” the girl said from outside.

  At first Mauricio thought he was imagining things. Hunger did that to him sometimes. He was also very tired and his eyes didn’t want to open. He turned to one side of the bed and resumed singing.

  “Where did you learn how to sing so well?” the girl asked.

  Mauricio fought to open his eyes and sat on the bed. His head swayed one way and the other.

  “You are a slave,” the girl said.

  Mauricio thought that it was the stupidest thing to say. I have a man’s voice. What else can I be, if not a slave?

  “I'm not going to report you, if you talk to me.” The girl sounded cheerful.

  Mauricio couldn’t believe this conversation was happening, but he could hear his heart beating in his throat already.

  “I really like your voice. I wouldn’t do anything to put you in any trouble,” the girl said, seriously now.

  “I like your voice, too,” Mauricio managed to say in a whisper.

  “What did you say?” the girl asked and her voice sounded closer. She was probably standing right under the wall of Mauricio’s cell.

  “I like to hear you sing,” Mauricio said slightly louder.

  “When did you hear me?”

  “Every night you sing… except for the last two nights.” Mauricio hoped he hadn’t said too much.

  “I was sick,” she explained.

  “Oh… I hope you're better now.” What can I say to you? He had never had a conversation with a woman before. I don’t even know how to speak to another man, for Heavens' sake. The only person he had exchanged words with regularly had been his father, and he had loved him and protected him. But his heart was beating faster and he really hoped that she would keep talking to him.

  “I am, thank you. What were you singing?” she asked after a long pause, as if she was deciding what to say to him.

  “A song my father taught me when I was a boy.”

  “What does it say?”

  “It’s a kid’s song.” He was surprised by her question.

  “I don’t know the language of the song.”

  “It’s about a man talking to his little kid.” Mauricio had never thought until that moment that women wouldn't understand his father’s language. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. A long lost memory of his father telling him to be cautious when speaking their language around women resurfaced.

  “It’s… beautiful.” Her voice broke a little. “What does the word pax mean? You said it several times.”

  “Peace; the father wants his kid to live in peace,” he answered without thinking, despite what he had just remembered.

  “I would like to hear some more,” she said softly.

  Mauricio couldn’t believe the girl had asked him to sing for her. She was talking to him as if he were another woman. Although he couldn’t be sure of how women talked among themselves. He knew that she wasn’t talking to him as a man, in any case. The realization was so shocking that he lost the use of his tongue for several minutes.

  “I already told you; I am not going to call the guards if you talk to me.”

  “But you did last time!” Mauricio couldn’t help to retort and then regretted it immediately.

  “What?” The girl sounded confused by his outburst. “No! I can’t believe it… you are the slave who was found in my room three months ago?” She was genuinely surprised, but not angry. “It’s okay, as I already said, twice, I am not calling for help. The last time I saw you, I screamed because I was coming out of the anesthesia. You have to admit that your presence in my room was rather upsetting.” Her tone was calm.

  “I'm sorry if I scared you. It wasn’t my intention,” he said defensively.

  “I know. I saw the recording of what happened that day. You were very… gentle.”

  “I only wanted to see you.”

  “Why?”

  “I have heard you sing before, and I wanted to see what you looked like.” Mauricio felt a strange urge of telling the truth, even if he knew he was playing with fire.

  “You heard me before?”

  “I was left in a depository room next to yours. Sound traveled through the wall.”

  “What’s a depository room?”

  Mauricio was taken aback by this question. How was it possible that she didn’t know?

  “You can’t say?” she pressed.

  “No, it’s not that. I thought you knew. It’s a place the guards bring me to fill my quota of semen for the day,” he said slowly.

  “What do you mean?” The girl seemed interested.

  “I am a semental.” Mauricio thought that the name itself was enough explanation without having to be any more detailed.

  “What does a semental do?” she asked instead.

  Mauricio groaned. He really didn’t want to say anything else about the topic. The other men had always treated him like the plague for being a semental. He didn’t think that she was going to regard him any better. Maybe that explained why she was talking to him. She didn’t know who he was and what he did for the guards.

  “Guards use my semen to create fathered women,” he said and his voice was angry. Happy now? he thought.

  “Oh! I didn’t know.” The girl’s voice came as a barely audible whisper.

  “It’s not that I like doing it. I have no choice,” Mauricio said defensively and hurt.

  “I studied physiology at school, but they didn't explain to us how things work in detail. I didn’t know that there were particular slaves who… do only that,” she said in a conciliatory tone.

  He was astonished by her ignorance and, most of all, by the fact that she hadn’t run away by now.

  “You seem different from the other slaves,” she said, surprising him even more.

  Mauricio didn’t know what to say after that. He didn’t even know if she had meant it as a compliment. Probably not. Women didn’t compliment slaves.

  “In the recording, you stood there, watching me sleep. It felt like you were protecting
me,” she continued.

  He was completely at loss for words.

  “I must go now.” The girl concluded her soliloquy without adding anything else.

  Mauricio heard her steps moving away and wondered what had just happened. I just had a conversation with a woman. He kept thinking about that all night, playing the exchange over and over again. When the tall guard came to pick him up, he was still dazed by the events of the night before. He also hadn’t slept at all and he felt hunger beyond bearing, but he smiled at the tall woman who still regarded him with disdain. He followed her to the depository room and even managed to fill the cup as requested. He didn’t make it back to his cell, though. Black spots danced before his eyes when he stood up and then fainted.

  Chapter 5

  “What did I tell you regarding this semental?” Several voices talking at the same time woke Mauricio up, but only the Priestess’ voice overpowered all the others. He lay quietly and awaited his fate, while trying to assess where he was. The place was unfamiliar—too clean and too bright. He half closed his eyes, too curious to shut them down, but cautious enough not to let the women know he had come around.

  “Your Holiness, I was just following the rules. The slave wasn’t producing at all, and I punished him by giving him less to eat,” the tall guard said.

  Mauricio, even lying down, was still lightheaded. He followed the conversation, thinking the whole situation would have been rather amusing if the women hadn’t been talking about the propriety of starving him to death.

  The Priestess shook her head. “You obviously don’t understand, do you? You can’t reduce his food without asking my permission.” She was talking exceedingly slow, accentuating every word.

  “My apologies, Your Holiness. I thought that… the handbook says to punish slaves if… but I realize now I should have known better given that he is—” The tall guard lowered her head to stare at the floor when the Priestess raised one hand to silence her.

  “You are demoted, immediately.” The Priestess’ voice was calm. “From now on, I will personally hire all guards for the semental wing.” She was now talking to another guard.