The Bystanders
- The final chapter of Part One returns the reader to the stories of Mr. Tench, Padre José, the pious mother, Coral Fellows, and the lieutenant—people whose lives are being affected by the whisky priest.
- Wishing to communicate to those who knew him that he's still alive, Mr. Tench composes a letter to his estranged wife Silvia, living, he supposes, in Westcliff, England. He doesn't know what to say. He can't even remember what she looked like.
- We learn that Mr. Tench had tried to leave Mexico a couple times, but the outbreaks of revolution had depreciated the value of the peso, and the money he had saved lost its value and its power to get him out.
- The sound of the General Obregon returning from Vera Cruz reminds him of something, but he can't place it.
- A knock on the door from a patient takes him away from his thoughts and his letter.
- Padre José walks among tombstones in a cemetery that used to be called the Garden of God. It's a place that he can usually be alone with his memories. Among the graves are people he buried.
- Near the tombstone for Lopez, he encounters a family burying a five-year-old girl. The grandfather begs Padre José for a simply prayer.
- Fearful that the family would boast that their child was put in the ground with an official prayer, Padre José cannot trust them to keep a prayer of his a secret.
- Enticed by the respect he's receiving again, he's tempted to break the law and say the prayer, but fear returns "like a drug." He knows he's in the grip of despair.
- The mother continues to read to her children from the prohibited book about the young martyr Juan. As before, the girls are enthralled, while the sullen boy, Luis, is annoyed with it, finally shouting that he doesn't believe a word of it. The mother sends him to his father. He leaves the room, slamming the door.
- The boy's father is more understanding. He tells his son that the book remind his mother of the time the Church was thriving, when it offered music, lights, escape from the heat, and simply something to do.
- Watching soldiers marching out of step to the barracks is all the excitement Luis gets, but it brings him hope.
- Mrs. Fellows instructs her daughter using books from a private tutorial firm, but a headache forces her to stop the lesson for the day. Coral says she has a little one too.
- She asks her mother if she believes in God and the Virgin Birth. Mrs. Fellows wants to know who she's been talking to that she asks these questions. Coral replies that she just been thinking.
- Realizing it is Thursday and that her father, now out on the plantation, has forgotten to get the bananas to the quay, Coral takes charge to make sure the store is emptied. She is not resentful. She is a child, but her whole life is adult.
- Coral feels an awful pain in her stomach, but she continues to work.
- While inspecting that everything has been done properly, she comes to the place where the priest had slept and sees that he had drawn crosses on the wall with chalk.
- The Chief of Police is in the cantina, playing billiards and losing, when the lieutenant finds him and inquires into the status of his request to take and shoot hostages from towns harboring the priest.
- The chief says he trusts him, that they know each other, and that he can do as he thinks best.
- Not quite content, the lieutenant asks for this is writing or something from the Governor in writing. The chief says the Governor just said the same to him.
- Aware that he won't have the support of the higher ups if his plan fails or draws condemnation, but indifferent to his own future, the lieutenant restates his resolve to shoot as many people as necessary.
- Returning to the office, the lieutenant walks by a group of children playing. An empty bottle tossed by one of them lands and shatters at his feet. A sullen boy admits to throwing it, saying it was a bomb meant for a gringo.
- Wanting to make these youths understand that they and he are on the same side, the lieutenant shows the boy, Luis, his loaded gun. Luis salivates at the sight and the other children gather around.
- Here the author takes us into the twisted head of the Lieutenant and his desires are laid bare: to rid the world of falsehood and those who propagate it—the Church, the foreigner, and the politician. Even his chief, he muses, will need to go eventually, so he can begin the world again. Where's James Bond when you need him?