Divided Loyalties (Serialized Novel in 2 Parts - 12 Chapters Each)

Chapter 5 - The Don Intervenes

Pedro took in the hush of his grandpa's open-casket funeral mass from the altar. Eduardo's generous ways gathered people around him, his funeral was not an exception. His voluptuous wood carvings didn't hurt either. They decorated hundreds of homes in Guanacaste.

Out of nowhere, while the altar boy in him went through the motions of serving in front of the parishioners, the floodgates of Pedro's anesthetized emotions drowned his control mechanisms. Tears filled his eyes. What did it? Tears, tears. Standing in front of everyone and now the tears. Pedro ignored the wet cheeks. Despite himself, he took solace in the ritual. In the mass the timing was just before the altar boy and the priest would go down to walk around the casket offering blessings of incense, Pedro was standing at the front left of the altar beside the elaborately decorated silver incense stand. He was awaiting instructions from Father Olvida. The Latin liturgy drummed over him, a mantra. He could have been walking in the jungle listening to the rushing thunder of a waterfall.

The upset young man in him fiddled with the chain that controlled the top of the incense holder. The prayer stopped. Before Father Olvida could turn to face his parishioners and move from his place at the back of the raised platform holding the sacraments, a slim man in a black suit opened the floor-to-ceiling church door, late for the mass.

People turned at the affront and the collective intake of breath that resulted when the parishioners realized who dared enter late gave all reason to pause. Father Olvida froze, his hands spread in an open-palmed gesture of welcoming. Don Saliero removed his hat and genuflected at the holy water stand. He stood and dabbed his forehead, heart and both shoulders with practiced ease for someone never seen at mass. The open door let light penetrate and accentuated the beams of dust rising from the floor in the sunbeams dropping through stained glass windows. Stunned parishioners could not help themselves; their curiosity locked their necks, as they looked back at the Don. The Don tilted his head respectfully and reached out to assist a shadow entering the church behind him.

The noise of a foot-dragging on marble caught Pedro's attention. He wiped away a tear. An old woman, all in black and wearing a veil just like his mother's appeared from the gloom beside the Don. Pedro shifted his stare to his mother at that moment. She was kneeling on the flagstones close enough for his youthful eyes to see her tears. He looked at the back of the church again and felt Don Saliero's gaze. The man's dark eyes communicated his suffering at the boy's loss across the whole length of the church. The seconds since the Don's arrival stretched, making time seem longer than normal. Unlike the rest of the worshipers, Pedro, in his role as the altar boy serving the mass, was standing not kneeling. He jiggled the chain beside him on the incense stand with his hand. The open cover of the ceremonial holder crashed down onto its holder. A heavy clap of brass on brass echoed into the vaulted open space.

People who were facing back to look at the intruder, turned back — the Don's spell broken — and Father Olvida appeared beside Pedro. The young server looked up. He mouthed, "Sorry, Father." The priest surprised him by discretely ruffling Pedro's hair and winking after offering his back to the gathered people while raising the cover again. Pedro watched as the older man added a lump of hot coal from a holder on the stand and pungent smoke rushed out when the priest raised the holder to the altar. The church organ played the Song of Farewell and it brought tears to most of the parishioners' eyes. The smoke caught in Pedro's eyes, releasing misty tears. Mistaking Pedro's tears for anguish, Pedro's mother cried harder and needed support from her neighbor, Consuela's mother, to stay balanced in her kneeling position. The two women rocked sideways a little until they caught their balance.

Father Olvida brought the incense holder first up above his head in an outward thrust and then down in three successive movements. He propelled it outward and then abruptly stopped it at each pause in the ceremony while repeating a prayer under his breath. The smoke twirled upward carrying Eduardo's soul ever upward in its grasp. Latin prayers accompanied the ritual. Pedro responded from practice to one of the Priest's gestures by picking up a large staff and walking ahead of the priest down the three stairs to the same level as the parishioners. Latin words echoed between the movements of the incense holder's chains. Requiem æternam Dona eis Domine et lux perpetua luceat eis. From years of practice serving funerals, Pedro repeated the sounds without understanding.

The priest and the boy circled the open coffin repeating prayers, the priest gesturing the three-fold thrusting movement of blessing using the incense to reverberate blessings and project them upward. Father Olvida genuflected at the head of the casket. His head turned to catch Pedro's eye. The older man indicated that Pedro should give him the staff he was holding. Not certain how to deliver the heavy staff, he moved it, scrapping the base over a bump in the flagstones. The priest nodded again and canted his head towards the casket. Pedro squinted and pointed surreptitiously at himself. Father nodded. Pedro, who was kneeling beside Father Olvida, got up and went to the casket, leaned over and kissed the cold skin, stood up and made the sign of the cross. Only then did he notice the line forming at the foot of the coffin. Pedro returned to his place beside the priest. As he took the staff back from Father Olvida, his free hand stretched across his chest under his cassock scratched a place slightly below his breast. A trickle of sweat had tickled him. He led the procession out of the church slightly behind Father Olvida and ahead of the pallbearers.

In front of the church in the white-hot sun of noon, Pedro stood aside as the pallbearers slid the now-closed coffin onto a horse-drawn buggy. All of the people from the mass followed. When the long walk to the cemetery and the burial service ended, Pedro removed the stifling cassock. Don Saliero and his mother appeared in front of him in the instant as his pupils adjusted to the sunlight without the cassock over his head.

The Don clicked his heels together gently and bent forward respectfully. He offered his outstretched hand to Pedro.

"Our deepest condolences," he said referring to his mother with a nod in her direction. The older woman, the Don's mother, said nothing.

"Don Saliero, you honor my grandfather's memory. Thank you," replied Pedro.

"I too lost my guardian at about your age. Permit me to give you some advice."

"Sir."

"I can see you are strong and will bounce back from this adversity. Don't forget, I am always here."

Pedro's mother cleared her throat, attracting Pedro's attention. He bent over a little and put an arm around his mother, supporting her as she got up from kneeling. Pedro looked on as surprised as all of their gathered friends when the Don's mother, a woman who received Holy Communion at her home and had not talked to anyone in the village since she arrived in Guanacaste many years earlier, slid up her veil. She then lifted Conchita's veil and leaned forward to kiss her on both cheeks. Pedro looked from woman to woman. With their eyes locked together, the Don's mother took Conchita's hands in hers and spoke in halting but correct Spanish.

"You are always welcome at our home. Come this Sunday with Pedro and anyone else you wish. We will say the rosary together, to ease your loss."