The new bishop was intrigued by the story: what did the two pieces of paper say?
"On the piece of paper in my right pocket, I wrote: I am nothing but dust and ashes. The piece of paper in my left pocket, where I keep my money, says: I am the manifestation of God on Earth. Whenever I see misery and injustice, I put my hand in my left pocket and try to help. Whenever I come up against laziness and indolence, I put my hand in my right pocket and find I have nothing to give. In this way, I manage to balance the material and the spiritual worlds."
The new bishop thanked him for this fine image of charity and said he could return to his parish, but warned him that he was in the process of restructuring the whole region. Shortly afterwards, the priest received news that he was being transferred to Viscos.
He understood the message at once: envy. But he had made a vow to serve God wherever it might be, and so he set off for Viscos full of humility and fervor: it was a new challenge for him to meet.
A year went by. And another. By the end of five years, despite all his efforts, he had not succeeded in bringing any new believers into the church; the village was haunted by a ghost from the past called Ahab, and nothing the priest said could be more important than the legends that still circulated about him.
Ten years passed. At the end of the tenth year, the priest realized his mistake: his search for wisdom had become pride. He was so convinced of divine justice that he had failed to balance it with the art of diplomacy. He thought he was living in a world where God was everywhere, only to find himself amongst people who often would not even let God enter their lives.
After fifteen years, he knew that he would never leave Viscos: by then, the former bishop was an important cardinal working in the Vatican and quite likely to be named Pope--and he could never allow an obscure country priest to spread the story that he had been exiled out of envy and greed.
By then, the priest had allowed himself to be infected by the lack of stimulus--no one could withstand all those years of indifference. He thought that had he left the priesthood at the right moment, he could have served God better; but he had kept putting off the decision, always thinking that the situation would change, and by then it was too late, he had lost all contact with the world.
After twenty years, he woke up one night in despair: his life had been completely useless. He knew how much he was capable of and how little he had achieved. He remembered the two pieces of paper he used to keep in his pockets, and realized that now he always reached into his right-hand pocket. He had wanted to be wise, but had been lacking in political skills. He had wanted to be just, but had lacked wisdom. He had wanted to be a politician, but had lacked courage.
"Where is Your generosity, Lord? Why did You do to me what You did to Job? Will I never have another chance in this life? Give me one more opportunity!"
He got up, opened the Bible at random, as he usually did when he was searching for an answer, and he came upon the passage during the Last Supper when Christ tells the traitor to hand him over to the Roman soldiers looking for him.
The priest spent hours thinking about what he had just read: why did Jesus ask the traitor to commit a sin?
"So that the scriptures would be fulfilled," the wise men of the Church would say. Even so, why was Jesus asking someone to commit a sin and thus leading him into eternal damnation?
Jesus would never do that; in truth, the traitor was merely a victim, as Jesus himself was. Evil had to manifest itself and fulfill its role, so that ultimately Good could prevail. If there was no betrayal, there could be no cross, the words of the scriptures would not be fulfilled, and Jesus' sacrifice could not serve as an example.
The next day, a stranger arrived in the village, as so many others had before. The priest gave the matter no importance, nor did he connect it to the request he had made to Jesus, or to the passage he had read in the Bible. When he heard the story of the models Leonardo da Vinci had used in his Last Supper, he remembered reading the corresponding text in the Bible, but dismissed it as a coincidence.
It was only when Miss Prym told them about the wager that he realized his prayers had been answered.
Evil needed to manifest itself if Good was finally to move the hearts of these people. For the first time since he had come to the parish, he had seen his church full to overflowing. For the first time, the most important people in the village had visited him in the sacristy.
"Evil needs to manifest itself, for them to understand the value of Good." Just as the traitor in the Bible, soon after betraying Jesus, understood what he had done, so the people in the village would realize what they had done and be so overwhelmed by remorse that their only refuge would be the Church. And Viscos--after all these years--would once again become a Christian village.
His role was to be the instrument of Evil; that was the greatest act of humility he could offer to God.
The mayor arrived as arranged.
"I want to know what I should say, Father."
"Let me take charge of the meeting," the priest replied.
The mayor hesitated; after all, he was the highest authority in Viscos, and he did not want to see an outsider dealing in public with such an important topic. The priest, it was true, had been in the village now for more than twenty years, but he had not been born there; he did not know all the old stories and he did not have the blood of Ahab in his veins.
"In matters as grave as this, I think I should be the one to speak directly to the people," he said.
"Yes, you're right. It would probably be better if you did; things might go wrong, and I don't want the Church involved. I'll tell you my plan, and you can take on the task of making it public."
"On second thoughts, if
the plan is yours, it might be fairer and more honest for you to share it with everyone."
"Fear again," thought the priest. "If you want to control someone, all you have to do is to make them feel afraid."
The two women reached Berta's house shortly before nine and found her doing some crochet-work in her tiny living room.
"There's something different about the village tonight," the old woman said. "I heard lots of people walking around, lots of footsteps going past. The bar isn't big enough to hold them all."