II
High at the garden’s centre, nailed to a massive tree of wood, stood out the Sacrifice. From behind, fir and pine thrust their long green boughs, as if eager to screen that torn and unclad shape. From below, jasmine and geranium, carnation and rose, sent upward an unfailing incense.
That way, in the heat of mid-afternoon, came Padre Anzar. Thin-lipped he was, and hollow-eyed. In one hand he held a trowel, in the other a knife. Down the front of his brown cassock, mingling at knee height with red
