The Sisterhood

Chapter 4


Spain, Holy Week, April 2000





Malaga was airport hell. Menina lost track of Professor Lennox, the only person she recognized from her flight. At the information desk where Menina tried to find out when her flight to Madrid would leave, a harassed young woman threw up her hands. “Nobody knows about your charter. Is Semana Santa! I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t go today. You must wait over there.” She pointed vaguely toward the departures hall, another heaving mass of people. Menina felt she either had to lie down and die from her hangover or get herself to Madrid somehow and meet her group at the hostel.

“Is there another way I can get to Madrid—a train, or a bus?”

“Trains impossible this week unless you have a reservation, is Semana Santa, but you can take a bus from the airport. There, past the telephones. Longer than train but nice sceneries. You get there tonight.”

Next Menina tried to call her parents on a pay phone. It wasn’t easy. The operator’s lisping Spanish sounded different from the Latin American accent she was used to, and when she couldn’t understand the operator finally hung up. An elderly woman stopped and showed her what to do, and finally there was a ringing tone and her father answered. Sleepily. “Menina? You OK?”

No, not really. “I’m fine. Sorry, I forgot about the time difference. It must be four thirty in the morning…”

At the other end Virgil yawned. “Naw, it’s OK, honey. Glad you got to Madrid in one piece. Make the most of it. Go shopping with that new Visa card. Get your mother a pocketbook; I hear they got nice leather in Spain. Don’t worry about anything else. By the time you get home the whole mess will have blown over.”

“OK, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it…but I’m not in Madrid yet, Dad. There was bad weather and we got diverted to Malaga. It’s kind of crazy at the airport, and nobody knows when there’ll be another plane to fly us up to Madrid. Rather than sleep on the airport floor I’m taking a bus up to Madrid. I’ll get there tonight.”

“You be careful. Don’t go talking to strange men!”

“Strange men!” Menina couldn’t help laughing. “I’m not five years old.”

“By the way, speaking of strange men, last night after we got back from the airport a man and a woman, nice couple, rang the doorbell, looking for you. They’d seen that article in the paper—well, you know the one, it was in yesterday—anyhow, they had had something to do with the Catholic Church and the adoptions of you hurricane kids. Your mother served them cake and coffee and we showed them your file for old times’ sake. They said they’d love to see your medal, it was supposed to be real old, and asked when you’d be back. I told them not for a while, you’d just gone off to study some old painter in Spain, and they…”

The phone made a pipping sound. Menina found she had no coins left.

“…They had some idea our last name was Smith, asked when we moved here from Chicago—don’t know where they got that—but we straightened that out and…”

“My money’s run out! Bye, call you when I…” and the line went dead.

Menina hung up and picked up her backpack. It weighed a ton. She hadn’t paid attention to that in Atlanta, but now she opened it to see why. In case the airline lost her bag she had put in a sweater, a spare T-shirt, a change of underwear, clean socks, tampons, and the velvet bag that contained the old book from the nuns because she really didn’t want to lose that if her suitcase went missing. She had tossed in the small Latin dictionary she had used in high school, too, in case she needed to tell the people at the Prado what the Latin part was—it seemed too short to be a prayer book. They could figure out the Spanish part themselves.

She dug deeper and found the miniature toiletries, and aspirin, some small towels that expanded when wet that Menina had once used at summer camp, and a new travel bathrobe, all stuffed in by her mother. Then she exclaimed, “Oh no!” At the very bottom, her mother had hidden the heavy old guidebook to Spain that Menina had tried to leave behind. In the side pocket Sarah-Lynn had put in a couple of spiral notebooks, ballpoint pens, and Menina’s favorite Hershey bars. In another side there were two bottles of water Menina had bought at the airport in Atlanta.

The woman who sold her a bus ticket said, “Is Semana Santa,” and everything was crazy; there were no direct buses. She would have to go toward Ronda, then change. She gave Menina a bus schedule, pointing at a stop where she would have to transfer. And Menina mustn’t miss it; there was only the one bus a day to Madrid from there.

The bus driver, a swarthy man whose stomach hung over his waistband, stood by the open baggage hold sucking a toothpick. Menina showed him her ticket and the name of the place she was supposed to change buses for Madrid. “Si! Le dire.” I’ll tell you. The driver smiled, flashing a gold tooth before throwing her suitcase in. He held out his hand for the backpack but Menina shook her head. She’d take it to her seat and read her guidebook.

Menina found two seats to herself, took two aspirin and fished out the guidebook. Fifteen minutes later the bus pulled out of the airport, going west along a coastal highway dotted with construction sites and new holiday villa developments. Out to sea an oil tanker hovered on the horizon, sun danced on the waves, and a gleaming white gin palace motored closer to shore as they wound along the coast.

Then the bus turned inland and the villas gave way to new-planted fields and an occasional old farmhouse with wooden lean-tos added on the back. Sun shimmered on the silvery leaves of olive trees planted in rows on walled terraces. Plodding horse-drawn carts laden with firewood, women in black stockings and cardigans and faded headscarves carrying loaves of bread, an elderly couple leading a donkey with wicker-clad wine jars on its back across a field where wildflowers rippled in the breeze.

Menina opened her guidebook. Andalusia, it said, was derived from Arabic, “Al Andalus,” and traces of the Moorish civilization that flourished in the Iberian Peninsula between 711 and 1492 could be seen everywhere. “Look closely and you will see the footprint of the Moors—terraced fields, fountains and arches, orange and almond trees, and even churches that contain traces of the mosques they once were. The modern road follows an ancient way linking the mountains to the coast. It is possible to see the white stones that mark it, and it is still used by people who live in the mountains. Archaeologists have found shards of pottery stained with the purple dye from Tyre, and half-buried altars dedicated to the Phoenician goddess Astarte, suggesting the Phoenicians had traveled into the mountains from the coast before the Romans colonized the Mediterranean. This pre-Roman route continues east into the mountains, probably to France.”

The guidebook drew the reader’s attention to the white villages clinging to the mountain face. These dated from the time of the Moors. Even so many hundreds of years later, old customs, legends, and superstitions lived on in them.

Menina found something soothing and reassuring about this history, about the fact time moved on, life moved on. Maybe eventually it would move on for her, too.

She read on about the Semana Santa celebrations that had drawn travelers and pilgrims to Andalusia for hundreds of years, still held in many of the villages. They were part religious, part fiesta, and part drama, designed to advertise the Christian triumph over the Moors to the populace. Most involved decorated floats, some centuries old, that carried images of the crucified Christ, the Virgin Mary or saints, or sometimes saints’ relics—bits of bones, dried blood or desiccated body parts, often believed to have miraculous powers—in jeweled containers. Everyone joined in the procession: priests and acolytes and local dignitaries in their medals and decorations at the head, followed by religious brotherhoods called confraternidads, nuns, laypeople, and often a special contingent of children. Processions usually took place at night, through torchlit streets and with all the participants carrying candles. Afterward, fiestas went on until dawn, with wine and singing and dancing, special food, and people dressed up in traditional costumes. Gypsies traveled from near and far, setting up market stalls, selling horses on the side, and singing, adding to the ceremonies with their unique laments for the dead Christ and his grieving mother, another centuries-old tradition dating back to the Reconquista.

Had Semana Santa been celebrated this way in Tristan Mendoza’s time? Menina put down the book to think about it and watched a bird of prey circling the sky over the valley. It drifted on the thermals, around and around. Watching it was hypnotic, and Menina drifted off.

An hour later she woke with a start when the bus halted, thinking the stop must be the place where she’d change, but the bus driver looked back and shook his head no. She pushed her window open and leaned out to see they were in a plaza before a whitewashed church. The plaza was full of people, many wearing Andalusian costumes—women with ruffled skirts and high combs in their hair and men in braid-trimmed jackets, some on horseback. There were tourists who looked plain by comparison, holding cameras and moving slowly through a market set up in the center, where swarthy men and women jostled to sell carpets and lace and copper utensils spread out on blankets to the tourists. Somewhere the smell of food cooking, like a barbecue or sausages, filled the air.

Then a slow insistent drumbeat made itself heard over the noise, and the people in the square fell silent as the drumbeat grew louder, moving aside to leave a path through the crowd. A somber chanting sound came with the drums, like someone was on a microphone. Then a procession passed slowly in front of the bus, led by a priest in black robes carrying a tall pole with a crucifix draped in black gauze. A group of boys in robes followed behind him, chanting responses to the microphone.

Then Menina caught her breath. A huge black-draped float bearing a larger-than-life plaster image of the grieving Madonna appeared, swaying above the crowd and dwarfing the grimacing, sweating men who carried it on their shoulders. Beneath an enormous silver-filigree halo, a wimple and black veil framed the Virgin’s white, grief-stricken face. A rosary of outsize black pearls with a silver cross swung from her hands raised in prayer. At her feet lay the tortured, twisted body of the dead Christ, red blood dripping realistically from his wounds. The image dominated everything in the square, and some of the women selling carpets began to sing in a shrill, keening harmony, a primitive lament raw with grief and suffering that sent chills down Menina’s back.

The next part of the procession was even stranger. Behind the swaying Madonna, also walking in slow time to the drumbeat, came figures in purple robes and tall conical hoods that covered their faces completely save for narrow slits for their eyes. They held what looked like whips made from barbed wire. Every few steps and in sync, the hooded figures swung the whips onto their backs, ritually beating themselves. A few had faint red patches on their shoulders. Then with a roll and a final thud, the drumbeat ceased and the procession halted. The singing stopped. In the silence an order rang out and the men carrying the float shifted their weight in unison and lowered it down on the plaza. The float bearers, wearing thick pads where their shoulders took the weight, rubbed their necks and wiped their brows. The hooded men took off their hats and many lit cigarettes. Wine and coffee were produced.

“Están practicando,” announced the driver, half turning his head toward the passengers and gesturing with his thumb. Practicing. The driver leaned out his window and exchanged laughing comments with some of the men before slapping the side of the bus and starting the engine. As they pulled away Menina stared back, feeling shaken. In Laurel Run, Easter was lilies at church, colored eggs, and ladies in new hats. What she had just seen was raw and visceral—about death and blood and terror and the iron grasp of religion.

Menina thought they must be getting close to the place where she would change buses. When it didn’t happen she began to wish she had bought some food at the airport. By three, with her stomach grumbling, she stood up to retrieve a Hershey bar from her pack. Just then the bus swung wide round a precipitous hairpin bend, throwing her off balance. Grabbing the baggage rack with both hands, she felt the bus turn again as it wheezed slowly up a narrow street leading into a white village that hung over the valley, then stopped at the edge of a plaza with a large tiled fountain, a white church with a red tiled roof, orange trees in bloom, and a café with tables outdoors in the sunshine.

The driver stood up and announced they would stop for “la comida” for one hour. He pointed at his watch, and said to be back on the bus on time. People should take all their possessions with them; Spanish people were honest but even this high up there were many Africans and other illegal immigrants nowadays who stole things. He winked at Menina, patted his stomach and beckoned. She busied herself with her backpack and handbag and ignored him. After she ate she would have a look inside the church and avoid the driver like the plague.

In the café, a boisterous group of men stood round a bar laden with wineglasses and bottles even though it was only lunchtime. The driver’s gold tooth flashed as he moved over to make room for her beside him. Menina turned quickly and went to sit outside at one of the tables under the orange trees, took her pad of paper out, and began sketching the church, the flowers, and what looked like the ruins of an old castle on the rocks above. She was dying for a cheeseburger or a club sandwich, but the waiter shook his head. He would bring her something. She didn’t understand what, but nodded and wolfed down the dish of small black olives that arrived with her Coca-Cola. Then she ate a large potato omelette with herbs and peppers. After she paid the bill she felt too full to get up and visit the church right away.

The people from the bus were still inside the bar and the plaza was deserted. The only sounds were the swallows flitting overhead, and the fountain in the center of the plaza. Little bursts of sweet scent drifted her way from the orange blossoms, bees buzzed, and the hot sun on her back felt relaxing. Menina laid her head on her pack on the table and closed her eyes for a minute.

A jolt on the back of her chair woke her. Struggling to remember where she was, Menina saw a boy sprinting away down a narrow gap between the houses. It was late afternoon and the plaza was in shadow now. She shivered and reached for the handbag she had hung on the back of her chair. To her horror it wasn’t there. She sprang to her feet, looked around her and under the table but the handbag with her money, passport, and airline ticket home, as well as her new Visa card, was gone. With a sinking heart she knew the running boy must have stolen it. Surely the driver would still let her back on the bus, he had seen her ticket…but the place where the bus had parked was empty. It had left without her and her suitcase was on it. “No,” she whimpered. “No!” Her stomach knotted in dismay.

And then she was afraid. The square had filled up with the workmen she had seen drinking in the café earlier, now hammering together some large structure at the edge of the plaza. Seeing a young woman by herself, a few came closer. “You are friendly girl, no?” one asked in Spanish, with a furtive smile that revealed bad teeth. His friend whistled softly and raised his eyebrows. The men raked her body with their eyes and exchanged a joke in a guttural language Menina did not understand, but the gist of which was all too clear. One of them rubbed his fingers together in a universal language for money. “A little drink, yes?” said a man. Laughter.

There was menace in the air and only some instinct for preservation made her force herself to behave calmly, not to act like a victim. Across the plaza a sign said Policia. Thank God. Pointedly ignoring the men, she forced herself to sling on her backpack in an unhurried fashion and then walk calmly past the leering men across the plaza, feeling their stares on her back. She was seriously in trouble with no money or passport, but the police would help her call the American consulate in Madrid about getting a new passport, and—much as she dreaded the explanations that would be necessary—she could phone her parents to wire her money. But how stupid of her to get into such a mess!

The door to the police station was unlocked. Menina walked in calling, “Hola?” She didn’t see anybody at the front desk. She wandered down a corridor to the only room with a light on. Inside was a single policeman at a desk covered with files, absorbed in reading something. He looked up with surprise when Menina knocked at his open door. Menina was relieved to see it wasn’t some teenage rookie. The policeman looked thirty-ish, with a mustache and thick dark hair. The collar of his uniform was unbuttoned.

“Señora? ¿qué puedo hacer para usted?” What can I do for you? He stood up at once, buttoning his collar hastily as if embarrassed she had caught him relaxing. He was as tall as Menina, heavy but fit, with an air of authority that was reassuring under the circumstances.

She struggled to explain in Spanish. “Excuse me; I have to report a crime. I fell asleep in the square and my bag with my money and my passport was stolen. My bus left. My suitcase was on it…the men in the square were…pretty unpleasant.” She was hyperventilating and suddenly dizzy. “Could I sit down, please?”

The policeman eyed her narrowly. He introduced himself as Captain Fernández Galán and to Menina’s surprise his polite expression altered to one of disapproval. He pulled a chair to his desk for her and said in English, “Please. You must fill out an informe del crimen.”

She shrugged off her backpack and sat. He pushed what he had been reading so intently to one side, and sighed. Looking distracted, he checked several drawers before finding and retrieving a form. He put it and a pen down in front of her. “Can you read it?”

Menina nodded.

“English?”

“Americana.”

“Mrs.?”

“No, señorita.”

“Please, I speak English,” he said abruptly. “Fill out your name here,” he said, pointing to a box on the form. He frowned as she wrote “Menina Walker.” At least he wasn’t leering at her like the bus driver and men outside. She looked back down at the form, her lips moving as she read and reread the questions in Spanish. Still shaken by the encounter in the plaza, she found her mind had gone suddenly, totally blank. After a minute he pulled the form back impatiently. “Mees Walker, explain to me what happened and I fill it in. Otherwise we are here all night.”

He sat down, clicked his pen, and wrote while Menina told him her age and what was in her bag. Her passport—no, she didn’t have the passport number—about six thousand euros in travelers checks, a thousand or so in cash, her return plane ticket, and a Visa card. She didn’t have the Visa number either. She explained about the tug on the back of her chair in the square and the running boy and then realizing her bus had gone.

He gave her a look that said just how stupid he thought she was, and asked where was she going.

“I was going to Madrid from Malaga, and the lady who sold me the ticket said to take the bus I was on, then change at the stop after Ronda, for the one to Madrid. The bus driver promised to tell me when to get off.”

Nervously, she trailed to a halt midsentence. She could hear the men outside hammering something and shouting to each other. What was she going to do when it was time to leave the police station?

“Place of birth?”

She told him and he looked surprised. “Why did you say that you were American?”

“I am. I was adopted.”

“Occupation? No, don’t tell me, is it ‘model’ or ‘actress’?” he asked. Menina thought he sounded sarcastic.

“I’m in college.”

His heavy brows gave him a stern expression. “Mees Walker, in a few days, we have some tourists who come for the Semana Santa procession, but not many rich ones. We are just an old village in the mountains. At this time of year some British retired people and the Catholic tourists who want to see our religious festival in a few days come but”—he spread his hands expressively—“nothing is here for muchachas de la llamada.”

“The what?”

“Expensive girls—what is the English expression? The polite one, I think it is ‘call girls’—in southern Spain, for the yachts, the rich men. The most expensive ones can pass for convent girls. Like you, for example.”

“What?”

He slammed his hand on the desk. “Oh please, Mees Walker! I am a policeman—you cannot fool me. You think you are not obvious? Following the rich Arabs, the drug smugglers, the people who deal in arms, with their parties on the yachts where a beautiful girl is always welcome. But here in the mountains is mostly poor foreign workmen who find work at Easter to build the Semana Santa floats, because most men in the villages are away working or getting too old. Or maybe you have problem with the drugs and any men with even a little money will do. Though I admit, you do not look like you have a problem with the drugs. Yet.”

Menina’s mouth dropped open. He had called her a prostitute? And a drug addict? She had been in the police station less than twenty minutes—what had she done to make such a terrible impression? “I’m not a…a…call girl,” she stammered. “Or a drug addict. I’ve never even seen a drug that I know of. I just want to go to Madrid to…”

“Madrid? Is this the road to Madrid?” he interrupted and swept his hand toward the window and a view of the mountains.

“How would I know? It’s my first time in Spain!”

“I wish, Mees Walker, whatever you are, that you had not come here. Because now someone must take care of you, and I cannot because I am too busy.”

I hate Spain, Menina thought bitterly. It had begun to dawn on her that she might be in more trouble than she thought. No one knew where she was. She didn’t know where she was. And if this horrible policeman thought she was a prostitute, then the men in the square must have come to the same conclusion. That would explain the hissing and the comments. She was so worried now that she hardly heard the captain asking her another question.

“I said, why do you go to Madrid?”

“I need to go to the Prado. I have to write about an artist for college…”

“Picasso, I expect?”

“Picasso? Of course not!” Mention a Spanish artist and people always said Picasso, but there were no Picassos at the Prado. Though it might be better not to say so.

“Ah, so you think Picasso is not at the Prado?” The captain raised his eyebrows.

“No the Picassos are at the Reina Sofia Museum!” Menina snapped. This man was not just rude, he was irritating. He probably knew perfectly well where the Picassos were! “The artist I’m studying is older, Tristan Mendoza, you won’t have heard of him, most people these days haven’t. He was a portrait painter—his only work is in the Prado. I have a medal with the same…”

Menina knew she had gone on long enough. “Look, never mind, you don’t want to hear about all this. May I please use your phone to call my parents? I’ll reverse the charges of course, but they’ll be worried and my father can wire me some money and—”

Captain Fernández Galán had gone quiet and was looking at the ceiling. “An old artist?” he asked, as if this was the strangest thing he’d ever heard.

“Y-Y-Yes!” she stammered.

“Hmmm.” Clearly he was trying to think of another sarcastic response. What a horrible, horrible man! It had been a long, hard day and Menina suddenly felt very tired and teary. She searched in her pockets for tissues but they were in her handbag. And that was gone. Gone! Everything was gone! She was an idiot, had messed up and she was frightened and, oh God, what was she going to do? She was unable to stop tears rolling down her cheeks, and swiped her sleeve across her eyes like a child.

There was a light touch on her arm. “Please.” She raised her head to see the captain offering her a white cotton handkerchief. It even looked clean. She took it warily and muttered, “Thanks.” She wiped her eyes and nose, and thought the captain looked less irritated. More resigned. “Tristan Mendoza, eh? Was when? What did he paint?”

“Oh—” Sniff. “Probably mid- to late sixteenth century.” Sniff. Did the man want an art history lesson? “Portraits. Women mostly. But he might have also—”

“And you have really studied old paintings?”

“Well, not every one ever painted,” Menina couldn’t resist retorting. “But yes, in college.”

“OK. That is different. Is only one thing to do now.”

“I know; let me make some phone calls please!”

The captain shook his head, spread his hands and shrugged expressively. “Unfortunately I regret it is not possible to call anyone. I have a cell phone but it is no use up here, no connection. And we have a few telephones in the village but the line is out of order—this often happens in Spain, especially in the mountains. Now is Semana Santa, and no one can fix until after Easter. No Internet, no e-mail, no phone. Believe me, that is a big problem for me too at the moment.”

“OK, can you please give me a ride to somewhere with a working phone, someplace with a hotel? Then I’d be out of your way.” In her pocket she still had Professor Lennox’s card. Thank heavens. She would call Professor Lennox and beg her to get her out of this mess.

He shook his head. “No, I am sorry, but I cannot leave the village for the time being. Not until after Easter. So, unfortunately, you must stay here till then.”

This was a whole new problem. Semana Santa had only just begun. And it would be another week before she could let her parents know she was OK. They would be frantic. And where was she supposed to stay?

He seemed to read her mind. “Is somewhere you can stay but I must take you up there myself.”

“I can pay for a hotel when my father wires money,” she said, trying to regain some kind of control.

Captain Fernández Galán shook his head and stood up. Now he looked faintly amused. “No wires here. No hotel either. But money is not necessary where I take you.”

This was more worrying than anything he had said so far. But it was the policeman or the men in the square. She bent to struggle into her heavy backpack to find the captain had already reached down and picked it up and was holding the door open for her. Outside he strode away from the square, leading her up narrow winding streets between whitewashed houses. Aromas of onions and garlic frying in hot oil filled the chilly evening air. She heard women talking and the clatter of dishes. Normality. But hopes of a spare bed in one of these homes faded as they left the houses behind. The captain was leading her up a steep rise that had once been terraced. They followed a narrow path between some olive trees. In the distance, the last pink and orange glow of a spectacular sunset was fading behind the mountains. He stopped and pointed to the dark bulk of the ruined castle above them. “We are going there.”

“Oh?” Menina looked for lights, some sign of habitation, but it looked deserted. And ominously dark at the end of the path. They reached an arched gate in the wall and stopped. It had two heavy, iron-bound wooden doors with a latticed hatch. Was it a prison? There was no sound but birds. How could she have been stupid enough to come to a totally deserted spot with a man convinced she was a prostitute? An armed man at that.

“Where are we?” Menina asked warily, starting to back away. She was fit—she could outrun him, get back to the village. But what then? Would someone in one of those houses they had passed take her in?

The captain seemed to sense her mood. “Do not be frightened. This is a convent, very old convent, maybe oldest in Spain. No one knows the real name; people call it Las Golondrinas because, listen, the golondrinas.”

The captain pulled a rope and Menina jumped as a bell clanged loudly over their heads and disturbed the swallows who rose in a noisy, scolding crowd. “No one knows when the first nuns are here. But was before the Reconquista. It was a Moorish village, but when the Moors are in Spain, there are many Christians, many Jews. They must pay a special tax and not make trouble against the Moors, but is OK to be Christians and Jews. And nuns make no trouble. Once they go in, the nuns they never leave the convent. Tax is no problem either—convent was rich, and girls bring money when they come to be nuns. The girls, they come here as babies and they become nuns.

“Oh that sounds…as babies? Why? How did they know they wanted to be nuns if they were babies?”

“Was orphanage. They have no parents, maybe they have no choice. I don’t know.”

He gave the bell another tug. “The nuns make medicines and cakes and sweets.” He pointed to the window covered by dark iron latticework. “They sell there, to pay the religious tax. And because it is very old, very holy convent, there were many pilgrims coming here, people sorry for their sins. There was a kind of hospital—sick people come, too, Muslim and Jewish sick people, nuns treat them as well as Christians, and an orphanage.”

“Sounds busy.” Menina’s feet hurt and she was so tired by now she was ready to lie down and sleep under the olive trees. But what if the men in the plaza found her?

“Yes, great ladies, queens even, they make the pilgrimage here because it is so old, so holy. In the chapel is a tomb of a princess from the north, from Leon, was Christian, who came here to be a nun in the time of the Moors, and behind the convent are caves in the mountain where nuns were buried, like the catacombs in Rome. But now”—he shrugged—“is not so important, no one comes. Is only a few old nuns. They still make sweets to sell to the tourists at Semana Santa. This does not make a lot of money. Nuns are very poor now, poor and old. Is hard for them. They get sick. People in the village still help, bring them food so they don’t starve, and wood for the fires but in winter is very cold.”

He pointed up and Menina squinted in the dusk. She couldn’t see much. “Windows broken. Everything broken. They say it will close when the last nun dies. Terrible to think there will be one old woman all alone here, all the rest dead. Is many years ago, when I was a boy, a few pilgrims were still coming, but no more for a long time. But there are rooms where pilgrims and travelers could stay. Is why I bring you.”

“Maybe it wasn’t a good idea. No one’s answering the bell,” Menina said anxiously. She couldn’t decide whether it was better to take refuge inside such a creepy place away from the men in the square or whether there was no way she was setting foot in it. “Let’s not bother them.”

“Don’t worry, nuns are there, only a little deaf. Always it is necessary to wait and ring for some time before they hear.” He rang the bell again. “Besides, it is good for them if a visitor knows about paintings.”

“Why?”

“Because the old convents, the old monasteries, like this one, they have paintings. If you stay here you can help, see if you think any paintings are worth money, so the nuns can sell. They could have heat, the sick ones have nurses and medicine, they can fix some broken things.”

“That sounds like a good plan, but really, I’m no specialist. Look, I’m only in junior college! You need an expert.” She felt for the card in her pocket. “But there is an expert, a famous one, on our tour, Professor Lennox. She’s half Spanish. I think. And I could call her if I could just get to a phone,” Menina wheedled. How could there be absolutely no phones? “I have her cell phone number.”

“But I told you, is no phones. No electricity even, here. But please, try. Is good if you find something, but if not, then you cannot. Don’t worry. Sor Teresa speaks a little English. She learned as a girl, so you can ask her.”

No phone, now no electricity. Great! But he’d said please…

Just then the latticed window opened from inside. A high-pitched old voice exclaimed, “Aha!” and demanded crossly to know who was ringing the bell, saying something about having no polvorónes at this hour.

“Ah, Sor Teresa,” said Captain Fernández Galán, removing his cap and sounding suddenly polite and respectful. He wished the speaker good evening, called her “Tia”—aunt—and launched into an explanation in rapid Spanish. Menina caught enough to understand he was saying there was a nice American girl with him who had unfortunately been robbed and missed her bus, a very nice girl who needed a place to stay until after Easter and couldn’t she use one of the pilgrim’s rooms.

The lattice slid closed and there was a sound of a bolt being drawn back, then the heavy wooden door was opened by a bent old woman in a nun’s habit, carrying a lantern. She muttered grumpily, “Deo gratias, Alejandro,” by way of greeting. She didn’t seem happy to see them. Something about them interrupting the evening vigil.

The captain explained. Menina tried to follow, catching a word here and there—her name and the words “Madrid” and “Malaga” and “student.” He was getting around to the paintings in the convent when Sor Teresa interrupted, as if she were scolding a small boy. Her thin old voice replied in staccato Spanish, something that sounded to Menina like no, they weren’t having another of his women…the last one had…going and coming at all hours…a great disturbance…shocking…cigarettes…short skirts. Menina heard her spit a word that sounded like “hippies.”

Sor Teresa paused for breath and Captain Fernández Galán resumed his plea, apologized if the last girl behaved badly…on his parents’ grave he had never seen Menina before this afternoon. A nice girl.

Menina was surprised to hear the captain defend her as a “nice girl.” An hour earlier he had called her a prostitute. And it sounded like the captain parked his girlfriends at the convent? How odd. But she needed a place to stay. Menina leaned forward to assure the nun in the best Spanish she could muster that she wasn’t a girlfriend or a hippie, she didn’t smoke, didn’t want to go anywhere, she wouldn’t cause any problems, please, please, let her stay until the next bus to Madrid. Sor Teresa stared at Menina as if she were looking straight through her, then opened the gate wider and, none too gently, grabbed Menina’s arm, and pulled her in.

The captain was adding something again about showing Menina the convent’s pinturas and please could Sor Teresa speak English—but Sor Teresa ignored him, and began to swing the gate closed. He just managed to shove Menina’s backpack in before it slammed shut, snatching his hand back just in time.

Sor Teresa bolted the gate and turned to Menina. “You stay,” she snapped in English, “inside convent. Not going out of the convent with mens! No mens.”

“Yes, ma’am!” said Menina, wearily picking up her backpack. Nothing suited her better than no men. “Of course…sí…comprendo.”

Sor Teresa made a “humpff” sound as if she didn’t believe it and hobbled ahead surprisingly fast, holding her lamp high. The lantern threw a bobbing pool of light around them, as she led Menina down one corridor after another. Menina saw broken floor tiles and closed doors, but beyond the light everything was pitch black and nobody else was about. There was a powerful smell of mildew and dust, and a mouse or something scampered past.

Finally Sor Teresa stopped in the corridor and creaked open one of the closed doors. She held up the lantern. “Here,” she said, in Spanish. The room was a small, musty whitewashed cell, with a crucifix askew on the wall and a wooden stand for kneeling beneath it, a shuttered window and a bed made up with yellowed linen sheets, a folded blanket, and patched embroidered cases on the pillows. There was a chair and small table under the window. On the table was a glass hurricane lamp. Sister Teresa dusted off the table with the hem of her habit and said, “Por alimento.” She felt in the pocket of her habit and retrieved two part-burned candles and a matchbox. She lit one of the candles and put it in the lamp, then handed the other candle and matchbox to Menina who said “Gracias,” trying not to sound as dismayed as she felt. Sor Teresa beckoned for Menina to follow her back into the dark corridor. Sor Teresa pushed another creaking door open. “Servicios,” the old nun said. “Toilet.”

“Oh…” Menina faltered. She held her candle up and could just make out a hole in the floor, a pile of old newspapers, and a rusty pump over an ancient stone sink on legs on the far wall. No electricity and now this! Sor Teresa had disappeared. Since by now she needed a pee in the worst way, she used the primitive toilet and tore off pieces of newspaper she guessed was meant to be toilet paper. The pump needed a lot of priming before it groaned loudly and regurgitated icy water over her hands.

As she groped her away back along the dark corridor, a draft made the candle flicker alarmingly, and her shadow jumped creepily along beside her. She was relieved to see a feeble glow from the open door of her room and she saw a tray covered with a linen cloth had been left on the table. Someone had brought her supper! Beneath the cloth was an earthenware bowl of pungent garlicky soup, bread, cheese, and a little carafe of red wine. Menina realized she was very hungry. The soup had an egg in it, poached by the hot broth. It was delicious and she mopped the last bit up with the bread and washed the cheese down with the wine.

She undressed and put on the travel robe her mother had put in her backpack. It was made of lightweight fleece, welcome in the dank room. The mattress, on the other hand, was thin and lumpy. She shifted about to get comfortable.

She shut her eyes and was drifting off when down in the village slow rhythmic drumbeats started again, and then the same kind of wailing singing she had heard earlier that day began, too. She would never sleep now. She sat up and reached for her guidebook, the only thing she had to read. She hoped the candle in the lamp wouldn’t go out before morning. How was she going to survive a week of this?

She woke, slumped against the wall with the book open on her lap. Her watch said six thirty. Slowly she focused on the bare little room, trying to remember why she was in it. In the early light she saw that her supper tray had been taken and another tray left on her small table. This time it was coffee, hot milk, and warm almond bread. She felt guilty—her parents would have a fit if she let old ladies wait on her like room service.

Just then, she heard voices whispering something. She went to the window to see if anyone was on the other side, then there was a knock at the door. Menina turned from the window and gasped. In the middle of the floor a group of girls in somber wide-hooped skirts and white ruffs of the sixteenth century sat grouped together as if for a photo. They stared at her with pleading eyes. “Sala grande…locutio sala…sala de las niñas…jardín de peregrinos,” whispered young voices.

“What? Qué?” Menina rubbed her eyes and looked again, but there were only dust motes floating dreamily on the slanting rays of sun. Stress and jet lag did funny things.

Sor Teresa hobbled through the door, barking, “Deo gratias.” She said that Menina could join them for Mass while she was there—the convent chapel had an entrance door, and every morning it was unbarred for the old ladies who came to Mass. Menina could sit with them.

Menina declined, explaining she was not Catholic. Before she could offer to carry her tray to wherever the kitchen was and wash her dishes, Sor Teresa snatched the tray and snapped that she must get back to the vigil.

Menina retrieved an airline toothbrush and toothpaste, and Holiday Inn soap, braved an icy wash from the pump, and dressed. Then she tried to read her guidebook some more, waiting to see if Sor Teresa or someone came to talk to her about the paintings, but soon Menina decided. She couldn’t just sit in a small space with nothing to do. Maybe she could find the paintings herself. She wished Becky were here.