The Sisterhood

Chapter 11


Las Golondrinas Convent, Spain, Spring 2000





Menina pulled the thin pillow over her head to muffle the noise, but it came closer and got louder. Sor Teresa shrilled “Deo gratias!” in her ear and banged the breakfast tray on the table. Menina forced herself to sit up and pushed her hair out of her eyes.

“Hi!” she muttered, groggily trying to think where on earth she was, what day it was, and what was making such an unholy racket. “Gracias!” She pushed herself upright. Tuesday. It was Tuesday. The dawn chorus outside her window was on speed.

“Good, you are awake now, so I tell you, you are going in one hour, after Mass,” Sor Teresa said, “with Sor Clara to the Abbess’s rooms, look at paintings. I must go open the gate to the chapel, let people in for Mass.” Sor Teresa bustled out.

“OK, sí. Great. Thanks.” Menina rubbed sleep from her eyes, reminding herself where she was. She sank back against the wall sipping coffee and eating her slice of almond bread as slowly as she could to make it last. Then she grabbed her towel and toothbrush and went down the hall to the bathroom. The first thing she would do when she got back to civilization was take a long, long hot shower.

When Sor Clara came, Menina grabbed a notebook and ballpoint pen and followed the little old nun this way and that through the maze of corridors, until they could hear the cloister fountain. Sor Clara led her along the cloister’s colonnaded walk to the same doorway Menina had taken the day before, and then they were back in the dim locutio parlor. Menina felt she was starting to get her bearings in the maze of the convent.

Sor Clara tugged her arm and pointed to a huge basket on the floor holding broken chunks of bread. “Alejandro. Pobres pollos! Poor chickens!” She chuckled.

Menina needed light to work. “I can’t see,” she said in Spanish.

“Ah,” said Sor Clara, looking surprised. “Is it dark for you?” She tottered over to the far wall and tugged at a piece of heavy fabric that looked like a curtain. The room brightened, and a breeze stirred up dust in a shaft of sunshine. Sor Clara sneezed.

“Perfect,” said Menina, and sneezed herself. Pulling the curtain farther back and propping it there with a chair, she saw it was a heavy tapestry that had been hung from a pole. She looked at it closely. It was coarse wool, faded and frayed, though she could just see that it had been dyed bright colors once, and there was a pattern that looked like serpents and birds. There were several more like it hanging crookedly on the walls. All could use a trip to the dry cleaners.

“Nuns sit in this room in the winter,” said Sor Clara. “It is warm. Alejandro and other men bring wood.” She pointed to the pile of firewood stacked in an alcove. “We mend our clothes, read, say rosaries.”

Menina murmured, “Mmm, how nice,” anxious to get back to work on the girl’s portrait. She rolled a piece of bread until it was soft and set to work. Behind a veil of dirt, a flat red-and-black background set off the girl’s fine clothing and jewels that glowed faintly. She looked about fifteen or sixteen. Menina thought it must be an engagement portrait. The girl’s dark hair was studded with pearls, and a gold-embroidered tunic was pinned on each shoulder with a jeweled clasp threaded with ribbon. Beneath that was a white underblouse with jeweled sleeves, there was lace at her neck and wrists, and she wore a necklace with a star pendant. The girl was the only thing in the painting; there were no background details, no chair, books, sewing frame, pets, horizon, clouds or sky. Just a draped curtain and beyond that, blackness.

In her left hand the girl held a tightly closed fan close by her waist. In her right hand, she held a carnation against her heart. It disconcerted Menina the way its eyes held her own in an imperious, determined way. Forget the flower on the heart and the fact the girl was all dressed up like she was going to get married, Menina had the overwhelming impression that this was a young girl with a strong personality—a will of steel, in fact. There was writing in the upper right-hand corner of the picture. Menina used more bread and was rewarded by the appearance of florid script and a date: 1590, in gold Roman numerals. She stepped back and squinted, trying to make out the inscription. Finally her eyes adjusted to the letter s looking like an f, and she read out loud that the portrait was of Maria Salome Beltran of royal Inca and noble Spanish blood, the daughter of Don Teo Jesus Beltran and Dona Isabella Beltran de Aguilar, about to enter the convent of Las Sors Santas de Jesus de Los Andes. Like an engagement portrait, only the girl was engaged to Jesus.

But a distant memory came back to her: pictures on a wall, special girls. Dressed up to be nuns. The taste of hot chocolate and sweet cakes…she couldn’t pin it down, but it was definitely not anything she had experienced in the Laurel Run First Baptist Church.

Menina felt questions hanging in the air around the portrait. The girl looked beautiful and rich. But this convent she was going to seemed to be in the Andes, and she was part Inca. So how did a portrait of a nun-to-be painted in Spanish America nearly four hundred years ago get to the top of a mountain in Spain a million miles from anything?

“Aha!” exclaimed Sor Teresa. Menina whirled around. Glancing at her watch, she was startled to see she had been working for over five hours. There was a snoring sound coming from the chair where Sor Clara dozed. “Sor Clara!” Sor Teresa said loudly and reproachfully, and poor Sor Clara woke with a start.

Menina did her best to save Sor Clara from a scolding. “Sor Teresa, come and see the portrait I found! Perhaps you can tell me what it’s doing here.”

Sor Teresa squinted in Menina’s direction. She rubbed her eyes, stepped back, and squinted some more. “I cannot see as well as I used to. Is too much light. I cannot make out much.” Sor Teresa had turned her head as if to look at the painting, but was staring intently too far to the left. As if she couldn’t really see at all. Then Menina saw what she had not noticed before—that the nun’s eyes were filmy, the corneas opaque. Menina stuck a hand in front of Sor Teresa’s face and moved it back and forth. The nun blinked, but her eyes did not follow. The poor old soul, thought Menina.

“Sor Teresa, you can’t see it, can you?”

“God has dimmed my eyes that I may see better with my spirit,” Sor Teresa snapped. “And I can hear. I see what I see.”

“If you can’t see, how do you know where you’re going in the convent?”

“Oh the convent…I am here so many years; I know the way from when I could see. Now God guides my steps. And all your chattering makes me forget, you have a visitor. Come.” She closed the discussion of her eyesight firmly.

“Fantastic! My parents got in touch with the American consulate.” Menina breathed a sigh of relief. “Captain Fernández Galán must have got a phone to work after all.”

“Yes, is Alejandro. He is your visitor.”

“Oh.” Damn! “Why?”

“You ask him. Come to the locutio, where you can talk.”

“The what?”

“Nuns cannot go outside the convent. People visit, must talk to nuns though the locutio.” She pointed to the wall of heavy iron grillwork. “Alejandro sit on that side, you sit on this side,” ordered Sor Teresa. “Is locked. So nothing can happen. Ha! Alejandro not used to that!”

“I thought this place couldn’t get weirder,” Menina muttered. “What did I know?”

She heard footsteps and the captain drew back the curtain on the other side. “Good morning Mees Walker. I hope you survived your night in the convent.”

“Hi. Yes. It’s odd to be talking through iron bars. Like being in jail.”

“I understand. Is not the Ritz, but what is important is, the gate is strong. Trust me, why I bring you here is not crazy and why you should stay there is not crazy. I will explain later, but I am in a hurry now. I only want to ask why did Sor Teresa tell me, find a lot of bread and bring it for Menina. I think, she cannot be so hungry!”

“The bread is for the paintings—really, you should have asked Sor Teresa’s permission about that. She was furious when she found me looking for things. She thought I wanted to steal them. Or actually, she thought I was accusing you of putting me up to it.”

“I tried to ask her! You saw how she slammed the gate in my face.”

“Yes, well, whatever. You were right, there are lots of paintings and Sor Teresa agreed to let me have a look. I warned her that if anything looks promising an expert will have to look at it, but at this stage most of the paintings are so dirty I can’t tell what they are. Stale bread is an old-fashioned way to clean them. It’s not ideal but it’s all I can think of at the moment. Just so I can lift enough dirt from the surface to get some idea—I’m trying to be really careful and not damage the canvas or cause the paint to flake.

“The stuff hanging in the corridors looks worthless to me, but Sor Clara says there are portraits in the Abbess’s quarters,” Menina continued. “That’s where I’m looking now, and there’re more in the sala grande. But you said something about convents being looted during the civil war in Spain—just before World War II, right, in the 1930s? Was this one looted? Because it’s a mess in the convent, but somehow it doesn’t look like rampaging hordes came through. Maybe whatever was here before the war is still here.”

Alejandro was nodding on the other side. “You’re right, it wasn’t looted,” he agreed. “Unusually. Convents and churches and monasteries in other parts of Spain were burned by the Republicans, because the church helped the Fascists. Many nuns and priests were killed, but nobody burn Las Golondrinas. But here it is different. Nobody kill the nuns, even though most people here were Republicans. They would not attack them.”

“OK, I hope I find something that’ll bring in some money. I can see they need it. The nuns’ clothes are practically rags, and did you know Sor Teresa is blind?” Menina asked. “She needs to see a doctor; she may need a cataract operation or have glaucoma. And Sor Clara is just…old. One minute she’s fine and the next she’s confused. And they say they’re the younger ones. I haven’t met any of the others, but I think some older nuns are bedridden. There are lots of broken windows, so it must be freezing in winter. You can’t just leave a bunch of helpless old ladies to starve and freeze. And old people can have bad falls. What if one of them breaks a hip; how can Sor Teresa pick her up?” Menina was feeling indignant by now.

Captain Fernández Galán sighed. “I know. Is a big problem. In the village we try to help. We bring them food and in the winter they have the fireplaces and braziers—you know what is a brazier? People bring them wood, charcoal, and…”

“Wood and charcoal won’t heat a place as big as this! Besides, braziers are a fire hazard and charcoal fumes can kill you. Or a forgetful old nun will start a fire and the bedridden ones will burn up, starve to death, or die of hypothermia.”

“Yes, I know these things but the nuns are stubborn and will not leave,” he protested. “It is the life they chose. Is a matter of honor, a test of their faith to keep their vow to God to die here. In the old days there were always girls coming to be nuns or just to live in the convent and work, lay sisters they were called—didn’t take the vows or wear the habits, but lived like nuns. There was an infirmary for the old ones, and lay sisters to care for them. But no more nuns, no lay sisters even, for many years. And even people who bring food and wood and things they need, these people are growing old, too. The young ones, like my brothers and sisters, they come back for the holidays sometimes but don’t want to live in a village. They want city life, nice flats and cars, nice jobs and cinemas and holidays. Old nuns are not their responsibility.” He sighed.

“Is that why you still live here?” she asked. “To look after the nuns?”

“Sor Teresa was my mother’s favorite aunt. She saved my mother’s life once. Now my father is dead and my brothers have gone away, is just a few old nuns, many are my mother’s cousins. I am the only man from the family here, so yes, they are my responsibility. I have promised my father.” Just as Sor Teresa had said.

For a minute Menina was touched. Then she reminded herself that might sound nice now, but he had been extremely unpleasant and rude to her. Though, OK, she had to admit, he had rescued her from those workmen who were looking at her like a piece of meat. But she didn’t have to like him.

“I’ll keep looking. I’d like to help the nuns, too, and anyway, it’s kind of interesting. But don’t forget the bread—first thing tomorrow, OK? I have to use a lot and I don’t think the nuns have enough to eat as it is, so I don’t like to take theirs.”

“No problem. Is always leftover bread in the village, does not go to waste because they feed it to the pigs and chickens. I will bring it. See you then.”

No, don’t see me, just bring the bread, Menina longed to say. But didn’t.

By the time Menina ate her lunch of bread and cheese and some kind of cold tomato soup it was late afternoon, and Sor Clara had said it was her turn in the chapel, so they would finish for the day. They would look in the sala grande tomorrow.

Menina checked the underwear she had washed the previous evening. It was still wet. It needed to dry in the open air. She gathered it up and went to hang it in the pilgrims’ garden. She draped her clothes on a warm rock and filled her plastic bottle with water. Back in her room she picked up her notebook and wandered along the cramped little corridors Sor Teresa had said were the oldest part of the building. With the shutters to the garden stuck open, there was enough light to see what looked like two woodcuts, and between them a small portrait of a tonsured monk.

Peering closely, she saw the monk had a crooked nose, and wore a plain habit with a hood. Piggy little eyes squinted off into the distance, and a tight unsmiling mouth was pursed. Was the artist trying to show him as shortsighted? Or focused on something otherworldly or spiritual? She lifted it down to get more of the light on it. The longer she looked, the more she sensed he was looking at something that gave him a smug satisfaction. The longer she looked, the less she liked the monk. “Fr. Ramon Jimenez” it said over his head, and she was just able to make out the words “Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisicion.”

She hung it back up and turned her attention to the woodcuts which were in the line of his gaze. There was a jolly feel to the first one, a fiesta or something. Excited people pointing and holding up their children, soldiers, the dais draped in some kind of banner, people in plain tunics holding tapers.

The companion woodcut was less jolly. It showed the crowd of people in tunics tied together with ropes on a bonfire and a girl with long hair on her knees, raising her hands in supplication to a woman on the dais. The fiesta was taking place around people being burned alive. And on the dais, the same monk from the Inquisition was watching.

The woodcuts, with their strange combination of innocent joy at the spectacle of horrible suffering, were powerfully disturbing. Reeling from their impact, Menina backed away and fled to the garden, into fresh air and the long rays of the setting sun. She sank down on the marble bench and put her head in her hands. She hadn’t been expecting mere pictures to be so terrible. She knew what it was, the Inquisition burning heretics at the stake. It was a picture from a long time ago. The world was different now. Wasn’t it? Why did it feel like it was happening before her very eyes?

Menina sat there while the sun set, then went in and felt her way back along the corridor, averting her eyes from the horrible woodcuts and the evil monk. In her room the candle in the lamp had been lit and the covered tray was on the table. She ate, changed into her robe, tried to read another part of the guidebook, and fell asleep wishing she had a paperback romance or a magazine or anything that was part of her clean, ordered American world. She fell into an uneasy sleep and began to dream.

She was in a crowd pushing forward to see some spectacle in the plaza ahead. “Look,” said a man who turned out to be the fat bus driver. “See the spectacle, eh?” He pointed. At the end of the plaza was a great platform, full of priests and dignitaries, and some sort of festival seemed to be in progress. A religious procession filed past to assemble before the dignitaries on the dais. They were followed by another slower, drabber procession—barefoot men, women, and children, dressed identically in penitents’ gowns and holding tapers. The crowd waved and called out to them, jeering, shouting. A beautiful girl about Menina’s age looked at them, terror in her eyes. Names were solemnly read out and the people with the tapers began to cry out and weep. The girl Menina’s age fell on her knees before the dais, pleading to a woman wearing a crown. She was a Jewess because she had never known another faith, but she was a loyal Spaniard, about to be married, have mercy…

“Heretics!” cried the bus driver. “Burn them!” He licked his lips as the soldiers began to prod the procession toward the center of the plaza.

“Now comes the fun,” the bus driver exclaimed. There was a silence, then a roll of the drums and the fire was everywhere…her face hot from the fire, Menina woke to her own shriek of terror, twisting against the rope that bound her, desperate to escape the flames at her feet. She sat up in the narrow bed, trembling and rubbing her eyes to banish the nightmare. Just a dream, she told herself over and over, but to avoid it returning she lay awake, fighting off sleep the rest of the night.