By Night in Chile

lectern, with his hood on, and seeing him there like that I felt it was wrong, so after getting another blanket from the sacristy and wrapping it around Fr. Antonio, I found the gauntlet and took the falcon and went out on to the patio where I contemplated the cold, crystal-clear night, and I removed the falcon’s hood and said to him: Fly, Rodrigo, and after I had said it twice more, Rodrigo took flight, and I saw him rise, regaining his
    confidence, and his wings seemed vast and they made a sound like metal blades, and a wind like a hurricane sprang up, and the falcon veered from his vertical course and my cassock flew up like a flag in the grip of uncontrollable rage, and I remember at that point I cried out again, Fly, Rodrigo, and then I heard a sound of crazy, multitudinous flight, and the folds of my cassock covered my eyes while the wind swept the church and its surroundings clean, and when I managed to remove my own hood, so to speak, I saw bundles of feathers on the ground, the small bloody bodies of several pigeons, which the falcon had
    deposited at my feet, or within a radius of no more than ten meters from where I stood, before disappearing, for that was the last I saw of Rodrigo, he
    disappeared into the sky over Burgos, where there are rumored to be other falcons who prey on small birds, and perhaps it was my fault, perhaps I should have stayed out on the patio calling him, maybe he would have come back, but a little bell was ringing insistently from the depths of the church, and when the sound finally registered in my consciousness, I realized it was the doctor and the housekeeper, so I left my post and went to open the door for them, and when I came back to the patio the falcon was gone. That night Fr. Antonio died, and I celebrated the last rites and took care of the practicalities until the next day, when another priest arrived. The new priest didn’t notice Rodrigo’s
    absence. The housekeeper may have, but she looked at me as if to say it didn’t matter to her. Perhaps she thought I had set the falcon free after Fr. Antonio’s death or perhaps she thought I had killed the falcon according to Fr. Antonio’s instructions. In any case she said nothing. The next day I left Burgos and went to Madrid, where nothing was being done to prevent the deterioration of
    churches, but I had other business to attend to there. Then I took a train and traveled to Namur in Belgium, where Fr. Charles, curate of Our Lady of the Woods, had a falcon called Ronnie, and Fr. Charles and I became good friends, we would often go cycling together through the woods surrounding the town, each with a basket full of picnic provisions and, without fail, a bottle of wine, and one afternoon Fr. Charles even heard my confession on the bank of a small river that flowed into a big river, on the grass, surrounded by wildflowers and tall oak trees, but I did not mention Fr. Antonio or his falcon Rodrigo, whom I had lost on that crystal-clear, irrevocable night. And then I took the train and said goodbye to the splendid Fr. Charles and set out for Saint Quentin in France, where I was welcomed by Fr. Paul, at the church of St. Peter and St.
    Paul, a little jewel of Gothic architecture, and a funny thing happened one day when Fr. Paul and I and his falcon Fever had gone out intending to clear the sky of pigeons, but there were none, much to my host’s chagrin, for he was young and proud of his bird, which was, in his opinion, the finest of all raptors, and the church of St. Peter and St. Paul was close to the main square and the town hall, from which there came a murmur of voices that seemed to be annoying Fr. Paul, so there we were, he and I and Fever, ready and waiting, when suddenly we saw a pigeon appear from behind the red-tiled roof of one of the buildings on the church square, and Fr. Paul released his falcon, who dealt swiftly and firmly with that bird, which had flown across from near the town hall and seemed to be heading for the main steeple of the delightful church of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the pigeon, struck by Fever, fell from the sky, and a murmur of surprise came from the main square of Saint Quentin, and Fr. Paul and I, rather than beating a hasty retreat, left the church and walked towards the main square, and there was the pigeon, a white dove, bleeding on to the paving stones, and a crowd of people standing around it, including the Mayor of Saint Quentin, and a good number of sportsmen, and only then did we