The day you went away I knew I would never see you again. You were

stained red by the late afternoon sun, by the dusk filling the sky with blood.

From the time I left the house of that woman who let me use her bed, the one — I told you - I'd seen dissolving in the liquid of her sweat, from that time on I'd felt cold. And the farther I walked, the colder I got, until my skin was all goose bumps. I wanted to turn back; I thought that if I went back I might find the warmth I'd left behind; but

Later the two of them had strolled through the azalea-shaded cloister of the parish patio. They sat beneath an arbor where grapes were ripening.

"They're bitter, Father," the priest anticipated Father Renteria's question. "We live in a land in which everything grows, thanks to God's providence; but everything that grows is bitter. Tha

He stopped talking then. He said there wasn't much point in saying things he couldn't hear, things that evaporated in the air, things he couldn't get the taste of.

He never liked to relive that memory because it brought others with it, as if a bulging sack of grain had burst and he was trying to keep the kernels from spilling out.

Father Renteria picked up the coins, one by one, and walked to the altar.

"These are Yours," he said. "He can afford to buy salvation. Only you know whether this is the price. As for me, Lord, I throw myself at your feet to ask for the justice or injustice that any of us may ask ...For my part, I hope you damn him to hell."

And he

"I'm suspicious of my own shadow.

She gave them everything she had. She even gave them sons. All of them. And took the infants to their fathers to be recognized. But none of them wanted to. Then she told them, 'In that case, I'll be the father as well, even though fate chose me to be the mother.'

"Then it must be my sixth sense. A gift God gave me — or maybe a curse.

All I know is that I've suffered because of it."