The child’s name was Juan, named after his father, and his mother was called Sara. Juan as seven years old when the nuns visited his village and told him that in November Monsignor would arrive to celebrate Holy Communion. It did not matter that the church lay in ruins because Mass would be celebrated in an open field. That news reached them in October. The village where they lived was called Las Moras. It was small, with something like twenty huts strung along a river on the slope of El Pital, a mountain lying on the frontier between El Salvador and Honduras, where wild cats still roam and there’s always mist in the pine woods at dawn and dusk throughout the year.
It’s a cold place and distant from almost everything because no highway goes that far. Just a minor dirt track not wider than a cart drawn by oxen. The huts were made of dried mud, mixed with reeds or bamboos. Their roofs could be made of any materials, but mainly tin sheets. During winter, when great storms are unleashed on that place and winds like small tornados, you had to protect these roofs by placing stones or whatever on top- bags filled with earth, bits of mud flower pots- for these roofs were not screwed in or hammered into anything. Many times the force of the wind dragged them off like handkerchiefs.
When November came, they heard that Monsignor would arrive on a Friday. They heard the news on Saturday, which in reality was not too complicated. Three families whose children were to take their first communion gave one hen each and another woman, whose grandchild would also take part, gave a duck. These four families between them organized a meal for the Monsignor. Children from villages nearby would also assist, but they didn’t have enough money or animals, so lunch would be shared by four families in the village, and not even all of them.
When the day arrived, Juan’s mother went with her children very early in the morning to the river to take a bath and she made them wash their hair with a scented soap. Normally they would wash with soap made of pig’s grease. The children detested the smell of that soap, but she did not mind because she was used to it. But for an occasion like a communion, especially one attended by the Monsignor, it was worthwhile buying sweet-smelling soap from the market.
Juan had three older brothers, who were eighteen, sixteen and fourteen years old. His parents had lost two girls who would have been twelve and ten, and a boy who would have been nine; he died two days after being born, and everyone put it down to the evil eye, an illness caused by a man passing through who had stayed for a week in a neighbor’s hut. The man had a ferocious look and had seen the baby during a visit to the hut to wish them luck with the boy. He had recommended them to take care with the mosquitoes because there was an epidemic of dengue fever. They should burn a branch of ocote and chase them away with smoke. After saying that he left. All this had taken place before eight in the morning. By dawn the next day, the baby had died.
With the death of that child they decided they would not have more children, so when Juan was born they believed it was a miracle, not only because he had arrived in this world with life but also because he was born with a fever that had lasted week and he did not die.
After their trip to the river, Sara dress Juan in a white shirt, also bought from the market, and although he didn’t wear his new trousers or his shoes, and put on his usual sandals, the new white shirt made him stand out from the other children.
Monsignor was Monsignor Romero and at that time it wasn’t necessary to say which Monsignor he was, for many people recognized him as the only one. He arrived at around eleven and gave an open-air Mass. They put up a table and a chair and the man talked about the blessedness and privileges of living in the country under starlight, because in he city could see so many stars, as well as being near a river, because in the city there were rivers but all were polluted and nobody would dare to bathe in them. Lastly, he said, you can see God in everything in the country, in the sound of the pines, in the mist that came down from the mountain, in the yellow beetles that walked on the leaves or in the fields of flowers. Everybody listen to him as you would listen to the advice of a truly loving father. After giving communion to the children, he kissed each one on the forehead. At the end of Mass, he said farewell with a blessing and chatted with the people who came up to him. Juan’s father said to his wife that this Romero was not like the other priests who lived in San Salvador, who never stepped out of their cars, and his wife said that was true and that they were lucky that he could give communion to their child as she already knew that their son had been born blessed and that this was one more proof.
When the people from the neighboring areas walked off, Monsignor accompanied the others to the home of one of the families. They had placed tables and chairs under an enormous ceiba tree whose foliage was so extensive and its branches so thick that Monsignor said it seemed like an upside-down mountain or a hill placed on its head. They sat down, but Romero did not want to sit at the head of the table. They offered him a refreshing horchata and he asked if he could drink out of a cup cut from the morro tree. Some woman said that they had cups and glass made of mud and he thought a large glass would be fine. A little while later, they served up chicken soup and they are and chatted like old friends. Many asked him about San Salvador, others about his life at San Miguel and someone asked him if he had traveled to Rome. Monsignor answered all these questions and several times aid that the soup was really delicious and the women were happy to hear this.
After the meal, the Monsignor went for a stroll with whoever wanted to accompany him, which was almost everybody at the meal. They walked to the river and sat on stones and he bent over to wet his hands. It wasn’t a river with deep currents. It’s waters were cold, for that region was in a mountainous zone. Monsignor aid that when he reached old age, if he ever did, he wanted to live near a river and walk every morning as he prayed whilst listening to the sound of the water, which was like music.
Half an hour later, Monsignor announced he had to go and said goodbye, embracing everyone and again kissing the children on their heads. He said he would return, and although nobody believed him because no one returns to these kinds of forgotten places in the country, surrounded by mountains, that man did return every six months or every year. He returned to celebrate Mass and give communion to other children, and people became very attached to the man who each time he came ate with them and strolled with them down to the river and didn’t mind taking off his shoes and walking barefoot among the stones or consoling some impertinent drunk who would come up to him or drink horchata or lemonade and talked to them naturally like an equal. They all thought he was a good man, and perhaps he was, because he didn’t stop visiting them even after being nominated as Archbishop of San Salvador and he began to appear more frequently in the newspapers or on the radio,. But that happened years later, and that day, when Juan was seven years old, they could not even have guessed it.
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