The Sisterhood

Chapter 35


Las Golondrinas Convent, Spain, April 2000





Menina used the last scrap of soap and the dregs of the shampoo and scrubbed herself in the icy water until she was numb but relatively clean. She brushed the dust off her clothes and boots and tried to smooth the wrinkles out of her sweatshirt. Without a mirror she couldn’t tell whether she looked any better. Probably not. As long as she smelled better.

She met Alejandro at the gate where he and another man had delivered a huge basket to Sor Teresa, food sent by the village café for the nuns’ Easter celebration. Menina carried foil-wrapped dishes that smelled heavenly to the nuns’ kitchen and left Sor Teresa rubbing her hands in satisfaction. Then Menina and Alejandro walked down to the village. Halfway there, the aroma of lamb and herbs roasting over coals rose to meet them. The plaza was noisy, crowded with people sitting around old wooden tables, whole families together for Easter, all talking all at once. Children ran about, and from time to time one or another of the old black-clad women gossiping by the fountain stopped midsentence to chide a child in a shrill warning voice.

As they walked past, men rose to slap Alejandro on the back and shake his hand. “You’re a hero,” said Menina as he detached himself from yet another group of congratulators.

“No. Just a policeman. Doing police work.”

“You’re a hero to those girls,” she answered firmly. “You saved them and who knows how many others from a living hell.”

“And you helped. Almira says you were so brave; she will never forget you.” Alejandro pulled out a chair for her.

“Almira’s the brave one,” said Menina with feeling. People were talking to them from other tables and staring at her, but right now all she cared about was food. A little plate of deep-fried something appeared, to be followed by more little plates—of almonds, olives, shrimp, peppers stuffed with salty cheese, thin slices of dark-red ham, and a carafe of red wine. Menina tried to be ladylike and eat slowly, but she was so hungry it was hard. Before she knew it she was polishing off the last bit of ham. The rest of the little dishes were empty. She looked up and saw Alejandro watching, amused. She blushed. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I think I ate most of that. It was so good I got carried away.”

“No, is good. I see you like Spanish food,” he said, grinning broadly. He had been up and down, standing to greet people who stopped at their table, all wanting to congratulate him, ask after his family, and wish him happy Easter, clucking with dismay over the fact his brothers and sisters and their families had not come home for the holiday. Alejandro said firmly that he had told them to stay away this year, and everyone said, “Ah!” knowingly and nodded. “The police operation. El Sting.” A woman asked if Alejandro’s sister still sent him chocolate fish.

They all studied Menina with undisguised interest. She guessed they were asking each other where Alejandro had met a girl who looked such a mess after his string of hot girlfriends. Alejandro introduced her as an art student, and said she had been working at the convent, looking for paintings the nuns could sell. There was an approving murmur as this information was passed from table to table. Everyone seemed to know she had been there, and she soon learned that most of the older people had a story about Las Golondrinas and the civil war to tell her. Alejandro pointed out those villagers at the tables nearby who chopped wood for the nuns or took food or bought polvorónes, or who still had relatives among the nuns.

Several people told Menina that it was a scandal the bishop wanted to close the convent. It was part of the local history, since before the Reconquista. Did Menina know that once this village had been part of a great estate in the valley, owned by a wealthy Moorish family? They pointed out this person and that person as being their descendants. “Even Alejandro, his ancestors lived in the valley once, must be Moorish many years ago.” There was a chorus of agreement.

“Ah yes, it is true,” said Alejandro nodding. “On my mother’s side.” An elderly man leaned over from the next table. Did Menina the American know what the Reconquista was?

They talked about the Reconquista like it was yesterday. Just like the way older people in Georgia talked about the American Civil War, or “the Late Unpleasantness,” as some of the older ladies in Laurel Run called it. When Menina nodded and said she did know about the Reconquista, about 1492, wasn’t it? Word of her response seemed to pass from table to table. Again, people nodded approvingly, and the elderly man at the next table stopped eating and shifted his chair closer to tell her that, with all the trouble in the world today between Jews and Muslims and Christians, Menina should know that at one time the Moors and the Christians and the Jews all lived together in peace in Andalusia. Menina said she was reading an old Chronicle of the convent that said the same thing.

An old lady, one of the grandmothers, said that whatever people said against the Catholic Church, there was something good and holy about the convent.

That would explain why the church wanted to close it, the old man snapped back. Roars of laughter.

Menina laughed, too. She was having a good time. More wine, then bread arrived, followed by lamb and artichokes and rice. The shadows lengthened and plates of small pastries appeared. Someone began to play a guitar. Alejandro shifted Menina’s chair so she could see the guitarist. “I think now it is better to eat dessert slowly,” he said with amusement.

“Yes, I know. I’ve overdone it. But everything was so good!” said Menina. The waistband of her jeans felt tight. A thin cat curled itself around her ankles and she fed it a scrap of lamb. Somehow Alejandro’s chair had moved so they were sitting side by side, watching the musicians, and people singing spirited songs that she couldn’t understand all the words to but were apparently very funny, and this old man or that grandmother leaping from their chairs to perform a little flamenco to general applause.

It grew dark. Small lights came on in the orange trees. Coffee came and went, along with small glasses of some fierce brandy-like spirit that took Menina’s breath away just smelling it. More plates of small sweets. More coffee. Alejandro’s arm hovered casually on the back of her chair, not quite touching her shoulders. Menina thought she would like to sit like this forever. It felt peaceful and safe. She felt good.

Someone lit a bonfire. “I am thinking something and I am just going to say it,” said Alejandro, looking straight ahead. “I am glad you missed your bus. Don’t go tomorrow. Stay a little longer. You have another two weeks before your flight. I know you will want to go back to America, but maybe you can stay a little.” Menina drew away. What exactly did he mean? With him?

Alejandro saw surprise and alarm in her eyes and said quickly, “Sor Teresa says it is good to have a young person in the convent. Especially a well-brought-up girl who is respectful. There you have many chaperones, and here,” he swept a hand at the square of celebrating villagers, “are more. The village is very old-fashioned. Every one of these people will be watching every move you make, just like they watch me, and it will be the main topic of discussion until you leave. So you are very safe here.” He smiled.

“I can believe that! But…” Only a few days ago she had thought she wanted to leave more than anything in the world. But now she had found the paintings, and the part of the Chronicle she had read had whetted her appetite to read the rest and see if things fit together as she was beginning to think they might. She would really like to be here when Professor Lennox came. But—OK, it was impossible to ignore—Alejandro sounded like he was holding out another reason. Not pushing, asking. Testing the water. She had thought she never wanted to have anything to do with a man again. And she wasn’t sure she did. Yet. But…did she want to go through life wondering if she had been too much of a coward thanks to a bad thing, to miss her chance with a good one?

It was her decision. Menina decided to dip a toe in the water. “Maybe I should stay a bit longer if you really think Sor Teresa won’t mind?”

He shook his head. “Believe me, she won’t!”

Menina hastened to say, “I mean, I should because I never told you about the paintings I found. Or what the Chronicle says. You said something about ‘old stories about the convent,’ and I wondered if maybe they’re actually in the Chronicle, maybe that’s why the nuns gave it to me with the medal…oh, it’s too long to go into tonight. I’m too tired and full and sleepy to make sense and you’re probably too tired to listen. Besides, you haven’t told me about the people from the cofradia or whatever you called it, who were looking for me…look, when I can get my head together we still have to talk about a few things before I go. There’ll be another bus.”

“Yes, we are not finished talking,” he said.

“But if I stay I have to call my parents. First thing. OK?”

“Of course, no problem now. To find a telephone with a good connection we must drive down to the valley. First thing in the morning we will go. And then we can stop for lunch. But now I will take you back to the convent, because you are right, I am tired.” Alejandro pulled her to her feet and they climbed the terraces still hand in hand. Menina didn’t notice that until he let hers go. The gate had been left a little ajar. They both yawned as they said goodnight and went their separate ways.

The next morning Alejandro drove—very fast—a long way down the twisting mountain road until they reached a roadside café that Alejandro said had a reliable phone. He dealt with the operator, and when the Walkers finally picked up he started to walk away. Menina called him back. “I might need your help here.”

Later, over coffee, Menina was still red-eyed from an emotional conversation with a frantic Virgil and Sarah-Lynn who said the Spanish police hadn’t been able to tell them much, and they had been told to stay put in case Menina contacted them. Now that they knew where she was, they would take the next flight to Spain. Menina assured them over and over she was perfectly alright but they weren’t going to believe it till they saw her.

Then when Sarah-Lynn was about to hang up she said they’d let Theo know where she was. He had been more worried than anyone—the papers had got hold of the story that his fiancé had disappeared and reporters were driving the Bonners crazy trying to find out if she had been kidnapped and if the kidnappers were demanding a large ransom.

Oh hell! Menina thought. She told her parents firmly not to talk to reporters or tell Theo where she was; she never wanted to see him again. From now on, what she did was none of his business. When Sarah-Lynn tearfully urged her to think twice about what she was throwing away, Menina said, “Mama, I’m thinking about what I get back by living my own life. Something really interesting has happened—I found some old paintings, it’s kind of exciting, a really big deal actually. I need to see what happens next with that. If I married Theo I couldn’t do that. I’d live his life, not mine. I don’t love him, for one thing. No, I don’t think he loves me, not at all. Really, Mama, I don’t care anymore what people will say! They’ll just have to say it and then we’ll all forget about it. I’m sorry to upset you, but I’ve made up my mind about this.” Menina was shaking. Her mother was convinced she ought to marry Theo, and for the first time ever she was standing up for what she wanted. She had never spoken to her mother so assertively. “I told you, Mama, I don’t want a last chance to change my mind!”

At that point Alejandro held out his hand for the phone and introduced himself as the local police captain. He assured them Menina was fine, and he was looking forward to meeting at the airport in a couple of days. Just let them know what time. He hoped they would have a pleasant flight. Then he hung up. Menina was tearful after her outburst and suddenly a lot less assertive, and wandered off to the restroom to splash cold water on her eyes. Sitting down again she said, “Talking to my parents makes me feel like I’m twelve years old again and messing up.”

“But you are not twelve—you are a grown woman. Something terrible happened to you, but you still found strength to help other girls to whom bad things were done also, things that were not their fault either. You help the nuns because you have a good heart. But instead of thinking ‘I am a strong person, a good person, a clever person who can do many things’ you let other people decide for you because you want to please them. But in life you must take responsibility for what you do. If you are having second thought about Theo, if you are sorry you say you do not want him…then you should go back to him.”

No way! Menina raised her head, looked him in the eye and said firmly, “I meant what I said. I’m finished with Theo. And even though you say I mustn’t blame myself for…for…I was carried away by who he was, what my mother and other people thought of him and his family. It blinded me to the fact that he and his family wanted a nice presentable Hispanic wife to get Hispanic votes. One they could control. I think I was just too stupid to see it. No. I wasn’t stupid, I just…hoped everything was the way people said it was.”

She took a deep breath. “If I had married Theo it would have turned bad eventually and been an even bigger mess, probably with children involved. What he did showed me how despicable he is. But when I felt so shattered, what helped most was when you said it wasn’t my fault and that it was good to be angry. And I was so angry at Theo then. Well, you heard me! Then when you asked me to help Almira and told me what happened to trafficked girls, I realized you knew what you were saying about being angry at the right person. And that’s when I started to think maybe, like you said, I didn’t bring the rape on myself. It changed the way I looked at things.”

Menina managed a painful smile. “And you know what else helped? The fact that you disliked me, that you thought I was stupid to get my bag stolen, that you called me a prostitute. If you had such a poor opinion and still thought it wasn’t my fault, well, I could trust that.”

“I am sorry. I was a bully, but I was worried about Almira and the whole operation. I couldn’t let anyone jeopardize that. But I did not choose my words well.” Alejandro held out his hand, palm up, and Menina hesitated, then put hers into it and they sat looking at each other, holding the moment, neither saying anything because each of them knew it was important to choose their next words very carefully.

A man cleared his throat and broke the spell. “Alejandro? Excuse my interrupting, but you did ask me to come and meet—Ah, is this the lady? Encantado, señorita! You are even more beautiful in the flesh than in the missing-person photo.”

“Ernesto! I told Menina about you.” Alejandro sprang to his feet and embraced a little nondescript gray-haired man with a pipe in his hand and a paper under his arm. They sat and exchanged pleasantries while Alejandro ordered coffee. Alejandro told Menina to start at the beginning. Ernesto lit his pipe and sat back to listen.

“I better start with this.” She put the velvet bag on the table. “Ernesto, Alejandro says he told you about my medal and how I got it.” Then she withdrew the book from its velvet bag along with two notebooks. “I told Alejandro that the nuns in the convent where I was adopted also gave me an old book. See, swallow on the medal, swallow on the book cover, you can just make it out. Beyond taking a quick look inside I never tried to read it, really. It’s an old Chronicle and you know, a sixteen-year-old couldn’t care less. I brought it to give to the Prado since it was old and in Spanish and I hoped they’d help me with research on the medal in exchange. But since I’ve been at the convent with nothing else to read, I dipped into it. And what’s odd is, I think the Chronicle and this medal actually came from Las Golondrinas, a long time ago, and wound up in the place where I was rescued in South America, I think to hide them from the Inquisition. Most of the Chronicle is in Spanish in old-fashioned writing, and I may have gotten some of it wrong, but that’s the gist.

“But it mentions a ‘Gospel’ over and over until I wondered what had happened to the Gospel. But there’s a part of the Chronicle in Latin and while I was stuck in the convent I had a look at it, and I began to think, hey, that is the Gospel. And I think the reason the nuns wanted me to have the book is that the Gospel tells the story of where the medal came from.”

Ernesto kissed his hand to her. “Hermosa e inteligente!” he exclaimed. Beautiful and intelligent.

“Still the ladies’ man, Ernesto,” murmured Alejandro.

“Listen, you two! There’s more. I get the impression the Gospel dates back to Roman Spain in the early days of Christianity, though the Chronicle says it was recopied, so maybe the Latin’s been simplified. And I kept reading and rereading it because it was such an odd story, and I wanted to translate it right, but it says Jesus had a sister named Salome and that she came to Spain and founded the order that started the convent up there.” She pointed in the direction of Las Golondrinas. “She looked like Jesus, according to eyewitnesses, and she even acted like Jesus. And this medal”—she held it up—“was hers. Jesus gave it to her. And one way of looking at the Gospel, if you put it all together, is that it says women are just as close to God as Jesus was. And I guess it also means that Mary was never the virgin the Catholic Church says, or that she even needed to be.”

Ernesto’s expression had changed to one of horrified alarm. He put his hand on Menina’s protectively. “My dear, you have done an excellent job, but you do not understand the significance of this Gospel you have found. The Catholic Church says the Virgin Mary is the link between man and God, that she is the ever-virgin mother of God…this is doctrine decided by the bishops in a theological conference called by the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century! Council of Nicaea, that was the one. By that time, who knew what the truth was. But by making the matter one of faith it was beyond challenge. If there is evidence Jesus had a sister, the church was wrong, the Virgin Mary was not a virgin forever. I am sure that in the past anyone suggesting such things would have been accused of heresy.”

Ernesto shook his head and continued. “I am an old Republican and a nonbeliever, but this is serious! The couple who were looking for you, the missing-person poster…Now I know why! They want this book and this medal, and they will do anything to get it so that no one will find out what is in the Gospel. What I do not understand is how they knew Menina had it.”

“I can tell you,” said Menina. “There was a story about me in the paper when I got engaged, and there was a picture of my medal and the Chronicle and a bit about why I had them.”

Both men were plainly worried now. Alarmed, Menina looked at Alejandro. He had risked his life for the Albanian girls and from the grim look in his eye she knew he would do the same for her. “I have my gun,” said Alejandro. “I’ll see what we can do about police protection—”

What have I done? For a moment the old Menina, the good girl, quailed to think this new mess was her fault—but a new Menina told the old Menina to shut up and think. And the answer came to her. Call Becky.

Menina pushed her chair back and said firmly, “Guns and police won’t be required, gentlemen. I know exactly what to do. The last thing to do is hide the story; better to publicize it as much as possible. Alejandro, please help me make another call. My best friend is…a journalist who would love to get a story this big. And I owe her; she’s the reason I’m in Spain at all. And if Ernesto would contact Professor Lennox.” She pulled Professor Lennox’s card from her pocket. “She’s a specialist in sixteenth-century Spanish art and the organizer of my tour. I didn’t make a good first impression, but I bet you could charm her into coming up here and taking a look at what’s at the convent. She’s very attractive, by the way.” Ernesto picked up the card and said that it would be a pleasure.

“And I’ll keep working at the Gospel translation. What I would really like is a desk and a chair.”

“I can manage that,” said Alejandro.

For the next two days before everyone arrived, Menina walked down the hill to the police station, carrying the Chronicle, her dictionaries, and the notebooks. After huddling on a stone bench and squinting in candlelight, it was luxury having a desk and a decent lamp. She polished and checked her translation and transcribed different versions in longhand while Alejandro completed a long report about the weekend’s operation. Telephone engineers finally came and repaired the telephone connection. Alejandro took calls from Interpol and Ernesto, and Menina spoke to her parents and Becky.

At the end of the second day, Ernesto came to join them for dinner and over coffee Menina read them her day’s work:


The first story of the Gospel of our Foundress Salome, told by Salome to our scribe


On a hot afternoon in Judea, Jesus, the son of Joseph the Carpenter and his wife, Maryam, led his younger sister Salome to join a group of boys laughing and splashing on the banks of a stream. The boys fell silent as Jesus sat Salome on the bank and waded into the stream to join them. No one dared splash or jostle him. In the Temple rabbis called him a strange prodigy, a boy who knew the alphabet without being taught, knew the law, and who boldly lectured the rabbis instead of the other way around. Children sent to fetch water from the well said that when Jesus did so he carried it back to his mother in a cloth instead of a jar. Accidents happened to playfellows that angered him—he had cursed a boy who pushed him and the child’s hand had withered. A child who had taunted him unkindly, as children do, dropped down dead. It was said that when a neighbor accidentally severed his foot from his leg with an ax, Jesus picked up the twitching foot and joined it back onto the leg while the injured man stared at his bloody ax in shock. Some claimed he had restored life to a man who had fallen from a high roof onto his head, although those who had not been present disputed this, insisting the injured man must have merely been unconscious and not dead. Witnesses insisted the roof had been very high, the man’s head was smashed, and blood had trickled from his ears before Jesus approached, then he had sat up and walked away, shaking himself. When questioned about these things, Jesus only shrugged and said, “It is God’s will these things happened.”

People whispered the boy was an infant sorcerer or a demon, and parents ordered their children to give the prodigy a wide berth. So the boys didn’t ask Jesus to join in their play, and after a minute Jesus shrugged and walked alone down the stream looking for minnows.

Salome kicked off her sandals, too, but the water was deep so she sat and dabbled her dusty toes up and down.

“What are you making?” she asked the boy nearest her. He was slapping wet clay into a high mound.

“Girls belong indoors. Go home!” he muttered.

“A fort,” said another boy, scooping up more muddy clay and shaping it into a wall around the mound. “One that’s too strong for the Romans.” He looked over his shoulder as he said this. “Judas Maccabeus and his army are waiting inside for the enemies of Israel to come close, then they will burst out and kill them to the last man. Their blood will soak the ground.” As he said the word “blood” he slapped on handfuls of mud so violently that Salome was splattered. She wiped her face with her forearm but knew better than to complain.

“Death to the Romans. May they bury their children,” said the boy building the fort loudly, and spat with contempt. Jesus stood up straight and frowned at the speaker. The boys stopped what they were doing and held their breaths until Jesus went back to his minnows.

Two older boys came splashing over to tell their friends building the fort to be quiet. One slipped and fell, knocking down the fort’s walls and provoking angry shouts from the builders. The rest of the boys gathered around, shouting and arguing about who was at fault. Suddenly there was a tussle and the knot of shouting boys slipped and shoved and slid on the muddy bank of the stream, trampling the last vestiges of the fort and knocking Salome into the water. She tried to get out of the way but they knocked her down again and again. Her head went under the water. Choking and frightened, she struggled for a foothold in the streambed but it was too slippery and she couldn’t stand up. Then a boy’s foot went into her stomach and she felt the boys on top of her no matter how frantically she tried to push them off. Trapped, she tried to call her brother, but muddy water filled her mouth and nose and she couldn’t breathe…The boys’ shouting grew fainter. There was no sound but a gurgling bubble.

When Salome opened her eyes she was lying on the bank, still unable to draw breath. Her chest hurt and Jesus was shaking her. Finally she turned her head and vomited dirty water. The boys stood at a distance terrified, only held back from running away by a greater fear of what might happen to them and their families if they didn’t pacify Jesus first.

“Don’t cry,” said Jesus to Salome, ignoring them. He pulled her to sit upright and patted her back.

“Is Salome alright?” asked one anxiously. “We didn’t see her.”

“We’re sorry!” muttered another sullenly. “Say sorry,” he hissed at the others.

“Sorry, sorry. It was an accident, Salome,” they mumbled, keeping wary eyes on Jesus. “Little girls should stay home with their mothers and sisters,” said the bravest one, though he didn’t say it very loud. “It’s where girls and women belong. Then they wouldn’t fall in the water…”

“Stupid girl!” muttered another.

Jesus ignored them. Salome rubbed her eyes with her fists. She coughed some more to get the mud out of her throat.

“Watch.” Jesus took some wet clay from the bank and rolled it in his hands. “Look, a swallow!” he said. Salome was dubious. It looked like a ball of mud.

Jesus set it on the ground. “Here, we’ll make some more.”

He made a circle of lumps around Salome and gave her one to hold.

“Now watch!” Jesus clapped his hands and Salome felt the cool clay in her hand grow warm and soft and feathery, then it began to chirp and move its wings. She shrieked with surprise and delight. “You made a bird!” she exclaimed.

“No, I only shaped the clay; it is a bird by Jehovah’s will,” said Jesus, and the swallow flew out of Salome’s hands and into the air. Jesus clapped his hands again and the other lumps began to flutter and chirp as well, hopping about on the bank around Salome before flying into the air. “All things that happen, happen by Jehovah’s will, Salome.”

The watching boys were rooted to the spot, terrified first by what they had done. Salome had been lying under the water with her mouth and eyes open when they had finally noticed her under their feet. Dragging her body onto the bank they knew she was dead, and the look on Jesus’s face when he came splashing from his minnows to push them away promised a terrible retribution. Now the drowned girl was alive and laughing and clay swallows were flying around her shoulders. With one accord, the boys scattered, running for home, wailing that the boy Jesus had a sister touched by sorcery, too.


Menina read the story to Alejandro and Ernesto as they sat in the café waiting for the café owner to bring them supper. “There’s a painting of that, in the sala de las niñas.” said Menina.

“Serafina Lennox is going to be very, very surprised,” muttered Ernesto as their food came.

“And there’s more,” said Menina

“Don’t keep us in suspense!” exclaimed Ernesto.

“Wait till I’ve eaten!” Menina laughed.


The second story of the Gospel of our Foundress Salome, this is dictated by our first Abbess, of blessed memory, who witnessed these things and later dictated them to our first scribe.


The Coast of Hispania, 37 AD


Two Roman centurions in a harbor tavern watched as the merchant’s ship pulled into the harbor among the fishing boats and dropped its anchor. It belonged to a Palestinian merchant named Joseph, from Arimathea, who came several times a year to take on provisions before sailing on to Britannia where he traded spices and wine for tin and lead from the Britannia mines.

The centurions sometimes purchased a ribbon or a few cheap silver bangles from him to give Flavia, the youngest of the port’s whores. She loved trinkets. At fourteen, Flavia preferred the younger soldiers who would compete for her favors, but if older men gave her a pretty present she would favor them.

Joseph’s boat pulled into shore and dropped anchor. A group of women and their belongings were bundled roughly off the boat and dragged through the shallows toward the shore. “New whores.” The centurions looked at each other and smiled. “Flavia will scratch out the eyes of any more beautiful than she is.”

Sailors strode through the water, dragging women who were hampered by waterlogged skirts and cloaks. The younger ones shrieked and stumbled and the older ones pleaded. From the boat, bearded men watched from the stern with folded arms and pursed mouths. Only the last woman, carried roughly ashore between two sailors, did not beg or protest or cry. She spat and fought.

She kicked the sailors who deposited her roughly on the shore. She had a handsome face, tanned from the Levantine sunshine, with dark eyes and heavy brows that met over a long nose. She threw back her head and her head covering fell off to reveal a tumble of black hair almost to her waist. She raised her fist and shook it at the men in the boat. In a clear voice she shouted, “For shame, Joseph! Shame on you all, to treat women so! We have traveled with you and endured the same hardships. We have softened the hearts of those who would have thrashed you for your arrogance and your squabbling. Now, to lure us here with lies…saying there was need of us in Britannia…Deceiver, miserable carrion! May your sails rot and your cargo spoil and the winds carry you out of sight of land until you repent.” She ignored a sailor who flung a small bag of coins at her feet and hurried out of kicking range.

Joseph leaned over the gunnels and shouted back, “Look to yourselves now, women! We warned you, beware of Salome!” He shook his fist back at her. “She has led you astray from the law and a Jewish woman’s duty, to her home and family. Was Moses a woman? Were the prophets women? Can women study Torah? It is written that the synagogue and study house are the province of men. A woman’s voice in the Temple is like the braying of an ass. You think of a community of women and scholars, bah! Stay there until you come to your senses!”

A breeze spun the woman Salome’s long hair out around her head as she shouted something back. Her cloak billowed behind her and she shouted angrily and shook her fist as the sailors lifted the anchor, raised the sails, and began to tack back into the Mediterranean. Salome stamped her foot angrily. “A vixen!” muttered the first centurion. “No, a witch or a sorceress, the wind bears her curse after them…see that cloud on the horizon? Has she conjured a storm to sink them on the Bicaien Sea?”

But the cloud was only birds, returning from Africa after the winter was over. Headed for Hispania, flying low. For a moment the boat was in shadow as they passed overhead.

Onshore, Salome picked her veil up and threw it over her head. She retrieved the coins and turned to the other women. “Come, have courage! It must be God’s will. We will go and find our brother Titus and our sister Octavia. It is something to be on dry land again. It will be a comfort to enjoy the fellowship of others besides those stiff-necked fools. Come.” She began to pull the women to their feet.

A young girl with painted eyes and ringlets emerged from the door of the tavern. She sauntered slowly down to the beach to stare at the women. She pointed, arm jangling with cheap bracelets, and cried shrilly that she needn’t bother scratching anyone’s eyes out after all.

“Child,” said Salome.

“Flavia,” said the girl. She pointed to the medal Salome was wearing. “Pretty,” she said, leaning close enough to flick it insolently with her fingernail. “Sell it to one of those fellows—they’ll give it to me.” She pointed at the centurions. Then she walked back to the tavern with a deliberate sway in her hips that was not lost on the two men.


A year later the same centurions watched as Joseph and the men sailed back into the port. They were met on the shore by Titus, the husband of Octavia, the deaconess. “Welcome,” said Titus, rather sourly. A small crowd gathered to see what would happen next.

“Greetings, Titus! Have our women learned their lesson? Keeping modestly indoors, are they? Ha ha!”

Titus stared at Joseph. “You old fool! All the women here, Octavia my wife and my daughters among them, have taken themselves to the mountains. They…they have a community of women, with no men, the mountain…I hold you responsible for bringing that woman, sister or not…” Titus’s speech could not keep pace with his anger.

“You mean Salome?” ventured one of the new arrivals.

“Who else would cause so much trouble, idiot! The women hadn’t been here two days before she began preaching. What set her off was the prostitute Flavia. Salome found her weeping over her rough treatment at the hands of a centurion—nothing out of the ordinary for those girls, that’s what they’re for. But Salome was angry, and became angrier when Flavia told her she was with child. She began preaching against those who use women ill by selling them. Whores stopped working, and gathered to hear her instead. And when she was done, Salome insisted Flavia join the Sabbath meal at my house—imagine! Octavia defied me and welcomed her!”

“Why didn’t you order Octavia to send the harlot away instead of allowing her to defile the Sabbath meal? Is she not your wife to command? Is it not your house?” asked a man.

Titus shuffled his feet. “You have no idea what they’re like when they get something in their heads. One or two, you can beat into submission, so many…” He shrugged. “But that’s not all…someone asked Salome if she had her brother’s powers. She insisted her brother Jesus was a prophet who claimed no powers. He and she were ordinary Jews, servants of God seeking to do God’s will on earth. The women began shouting they were servants of God as well. Just imagine! Even the whores! And they would no longer serve men but God.”

Within days the commander of the Roman camp was threatening to punish the entire Jewish community unless they silenced Salome. The whores were refusing to work and demanding to be baptized, and the whore master was busy flogging them.

Joseph stared at him aghast. “Where are the women now?”

“There.” He pointed toward the mountains. “Most of the women have gone—our wives, daughters, sisters, and the whores. The women claim they will live in the mountains like the Essenes—no husbands, no children—a religious community. Of women!”

“The mountains? Essenes were in the desert!”

“That’s not the point! Wherever they are, it’s against the law, against nature. Even Octavia has gone, saying they will need women who are educated as she has been. I blame her parents—why teach a girl to read and write? The camp commander sent soldiers to bring them back, with Salome in chains.”

“Have they returned yet?”

“No. Because something else happened.”


Menina, Alejandro and Ernesto had reached coffee and dessert by this stage. The café owner had brought plates of the small sweet pastries left over from Easter and the table was littered with crumbs that Menina was gathering up with the tips of her fingers as she spoke. “I can’t wait for you to see the paintings themselves. One of them is a painting of the women on the beach—the curious thing about it is a cloud in the corner that looks like an accident or mildew. You hardly notice it at first, then it starts to draw your eye until it’s the most important thing in the painting. There’s also a portrait of Flavia—well obviously as Tristan Mendoza imagined her,” said Menina. “My guess is, he got a last chance to paint a sexy woman and he went for it. And now that I’ve read this I think one of the pictures is of the Sabbath meal Flavia was invited to. Now here’s the last part…”


Here is the third story of the Gospel of our Foundress Salome dictated to our scribe Octavia by our first Abbess, of blessed memory, who witnessed these events with her own eyes.


I, Flavia, left the town in search of the other women as soon as I could escape. I had been locked up by the commandant to prevent my joining the other whores and was used so mercilessly by the soldiers, because the other whores had gone, that I thought I would die. Still when God opened the way for me to go I found strength to flee for my child’s sake. And by mercy I was able to join the others. All of us were anxious, fearing husbands and fathers and soldiers and the whoremaster.

Every night Salome gathered us and repeated her brother’s teachings about a good life, through serving God and sharing and kindness among ourselves. Is there hope of finding something beyond the cruelty of men in this life? Her words are like warmth and sunlight. But to think of women going all alone into the mountains to live! Away from men! My heart lifts even though our lives will be hard, if we survive at all. Following the swallows we found an old road marked with white stones. Local people pointed to a mountain where they say there are caves inhabited by an old settlement of Carthaginian women, and we used Salome’s fund of Roman coins to purchase bread and porridge, woven baskets for catching fish, and even goats until we were driving a small herd. A few women who grew tired were persuaded to stay behind by men needing wives in the little settlements we passed through, but most of us kept on.

After weeks of walking, living on wild fruit and catching fish in the mountain streams, tired and footsore, we reached the place where the caves are. We saw no sign of any living person, but found terraces of untended olive trees full of fruit, with a broken press and more terraces where grapevines and fields of wild beans flourished. There was a stone enclosure with the remains of huts where goats must have lived, fruit trees, and many mountain springs with fresh water. We found old combs, a few chipped pots and water jars, small sharp bone tools, some rotting blankets, and a small stone altar with a goddess and an inscription even Octavia cannot decipher. We drove the goats into the enclosure and barricaded it against wolves, then set about making our homes in the caves. We all worked hard, knowing that winter was coming; getting firewood, drying fruit and fish and wild beans, which we ground into a kind of paste to make bread, repairing the press as well as we could and taking turns yoking ourselves to a kind of harness to press oil. We made cheese from the goats’ milk, gathered wild herbs to dry in the sun, and one of our women found hives of bees and managed to remove the honeycombs. We all long for salt, but there is none. Still, our rough encampment is habitable. If others have survived here, we may survive, too. Salome leads us in prayers each morning and night.

Then one day at the end of summer, as the evenings were turning cold, and we were hastening to collect as much firewood as possible before winter, a boy arrived from one of the villages below with terrifying news—a party of centurions was coming. Many wept and I swore that I would not go, but would throw myself from the cliff first. Salome said we must have faith in God and above all not be distracted from our tasks.

Though we expected the centurions every minute, still they did not come and we were relieved to think they had turned back and ceased to worry about them. One day Salome stayed below while the rest of us ventured a longer way up the mountain than usual to collect fallen branches after a storm. We heard angry shouts below, and leaving our piles of wood we began hurrying back to camp. To our horror, from above we could see Roman soldiers rushing into our camp, and the first ones were advancing on Salome. One clutched her gown and ripped it from her shoulders. Another tore her shift from her body. She turned this way and that trying to run, naked save for the medal round her neck, and they blocked her way and taunted her to prolong her fear and the moment of retribution. There were cries of “Teach the witch a lesson first, then teach the others” as they closed in for her. We stumbled down toward her crying, “No!” and saw Salome look up beyond us. Then the swallows came, their shrill cries, louder and louder, and a dark mass of birds descended on the soldiers, pecking at their eyes and helmets. The soldiers slashed with their swords, wounding each other and cutting many birds into pieces.

Then the mountain rumbled and shook beneath our feet, and a terrifying sound like the roar of God threw us and the soldiers to the ground. The rock behind Salome split open. As boulders rained down from the mountain Salome ducked her head and slipped inside the crevasse. The earth shook again and the fissure closed behind her. Those soldiers still alive cried out in terror that the place was the preserve of some goddess and fled, dragging the wounded.

Trembling and weeping we climbed down to see the place where Salome had disappeared. The ground was covered with blood and the bodies of men and swallows, and among them something glittered. I picked it up. Salome’s medal. I slipped it over my head. “We will not go back” I vowed. “Salome is here…Here we will stay.” The swallows flew off the next day. And where Salome had entered the mountain, a spring appeared in the rock.


The yawning café owner had gone home to bed. It was after midnight and he left the keys and an open bottle of wine on the table. Alejandro muttered his thanks, saying he would lock up and drop the keys in the café owner’s letter slot.

“There’s a painting of the third Gospel, too,” said Menina. “Put the six Tristan Mendozas together and you have a religious cycle. Really, it’s so extraordinary I keep thinking I must be mistaken about everything—I’ll be relieved when someone else has a look at it.”

“But if you go back to the beginning of the Chronicle, this was what the nuns hoped would happen, that someone would bring the medal and the Chronicle back to the convent and put it all together. Only I think—though I can’t be sure—that Tristan Mendoza must have painted the cycle after the four girls left the convent. Because between the time he arrived at the convent and the time the four girls left, he painted a group portrait of the five that were here. So maybe that’s still in the convent somewhere.”

There was silence in the café. Ernesto took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Beyond a doubt you have made the discovery of a lifetime in this Chronicle. The paintings, the key to their meaning, the history of the convent…”

“And maybe a little of my own family history. Reading the Chronicle I think this medal might have been in my birth family for a long time, maybe even been connected to another miracle. And I have this weird feeling, like maybe on account of that connection I was meant to find all this and put it together.”

“You are…I cannot find the words to tell you what you are,” said Alejandro. “No words to say what you have done.” This time he did take her hand across the table, not caring if Ernesto saw.

“I have a feeling this is just getting started,” said Menina. She smiled at him. “I think…like the poet said, ‘the best is yet to be.’”