Glad to be alone at last, Kate sat on the thin mattress. Her room was spare, just a bed, a small nightstand, and a desk with an iron reading lamp. On the desk, someone had put a few dried branches of eucalyptus in a clay ceramic vase. She walked over to the desk and inspected the vase. She saw that it was a woman’s body, squat and powerful with full breasts and a swollen belly. The two handles on either side were arms. What an odd decoration for a nun’s room. She wondered who had put it there.
During the night she awakened and sat up several times, gasping for air, her heart hammering beneath her ribs. When she lay back, she could feel blood surging through her veins. Her dreams that night were of riding, riding along a twisting road, where the mountains slipped in and out of high clouds so that she could not tell where she was going.
After breakfast the next morning, Sister Josepha clinked her spoon against her glass. “Benedicamos Domino,” she said, indicating the end of the Grand Silence of the night before.
“Deo Gratias,” the three intoned, and everyone looked at Kate.
“Did you sleep all right? I listened at your door a couple of times, but I didn’t hear anything,” said Sister Jeanne Marie. She looked fresh and efficient in spite of the interrupted night.
“Not really,” Kate said. “I felt like I was drowning several times.”
Jeanne Marie stood up to clear her place. “That’s the altitude. I’ve got pills if you need them. Marta can make you a cup of mate de coca after a while, too. That’s the remedy the people here swear by.”
“Mate de coca?” Kate had been told how the people of the highlands chewed coca leaves to deaden the hunger and cold of their days. Their teeth were often stained and dark from the leaves. Did the nuns use it, too?
Jeanne laughed at the expression on Kate’s face. “Don’t worry. It’s pretty harmless when taken in tea. I don’t think you’ll get addicted.”
Kate noticed that Sister Josepha had a hint of a frown playing around her blond eyebrows. The older nun spoke softly. “Try to get through the day without medicine. Just don’t exert yourself too much. I thought you might like to go with Marta to market this morning. I think I hear her in the kitchen.”
When Sister Josepha pulled back the plaid curtains, Kate saw that one wall of the living room and dining room was a series of French doors opening to a patio. Although there was no grass in the courtyard, neat gravel paths had been raked and bordered with clumps of pansies, splashes of purple and yellow in the dusty courtyard. A single eucalyptus tree shaded a corner where two wooden chairs faced each other.
“Wow! How did you get these flowers to bloom?” asked Kate. “I read that the soil was so poor up here.”
Sister Josepha smiled. “You know, I’m just a farm girl from Cottleville. Every time I go back to the States, I look for seeds of plants that I think can make it here.”
“It’s that Madre Josepha has the touch, as the people here say,” Sister Magdalena said, stirring her coffee briskly. In the morning light she looked more sturdy and confident then she had the night before.
With a crash the swinging door to the kitchen bounced open and a small dark shape hurtled into the room. “Buenos días, madrecitas.”
Kate saw a dark, fat little boy of about three dressed in a Mickey Mouse T-shirt and homemade pants. His bare chubby feet were covered with dust. He ducked behind each of the nuns, plucking their veils with a sly grin as he passed. When he stopped at Kate’s chair, she found herself staring into dark-rimmed pools of light. His straight black hair fell over his forehead, and Kate longed to slide it back to feel its silkiness.
“This is Tito, the son of Marta and Alejandro. They make everything function around here—so we put up with this little urchin.” Sister Josepha’s gruffness was undercut by the way she held the child close to her body.
Sister Magdalena abruptly pushed her chair and began gathering dishes with a loud clatter. Her lips were tight as she went into the kitchen.
Watching Magdalena’s retreat, Jeanne Marie whispered: “She thinks we spoil the child dreadfully. I’m afraid she doesn’t approve of the way Tito’s allowed to run wild around here.”
The door opened again and a young woman of about eighteen with straight black hair pulled into a pony tail stuck her head in. “Buenos días, madres.” Kate noticed the sibilant quality of the young woman’s speech, so different from the liquid music of Magdalena’s coastal Spanish. This teenager must be Marta, Tito’s mother and the convent cook.
While gathering up books and papers for the school day ahead, Sister Josepha called to Marta in the kitchen, “Come in and meet our newest Sister, Madre Catalina. She’ll go with you to market today.”
“Mucho gusto, madrecita.” Marta smiled, her broken teeth the only flaw in her young face. “La madre es muy jovencita, no?” She looked slyly at Sister Jeanne and winked. Kate sensed that Marta and Tito were an integral part of the household, and she’d have to adjust to the already existing alliances. Kate had never lived in a house with servants before. Having someone cooking for her and cleaning up after her made her self-conscious.
She thought of her mother, with three kids and a part-time job. Wouldn’t she have loved a Marta? Kate remembered that her mother had finally hired a slight white-haired lady named Miss Elsie to iron and babysit once a week while she escaped to go shopping and visit her mother.
Well, she’d learn a lot of Spanish and maybe some Aymara while living in the house all day with Marta and the child. But was this living the vow of poverty?
After helping Marta with the dishes, Kate set out with her and Tito on the daily shopping trip. “Do you go to the market every day?” she’d asked the young woman in Spanish, struggling to remember her Spanish verb tenses.
“Oh sí, madre. I must go each day to find what is fresh. Then I will decide what to put in the soup.”
They walked down the shady side street that the parish church faced, and soon came to the main street of the town. It was already bustling with business, for the morning began early in the mountains. As they walked the four blocks to the market, Kate stayed behind the mother and child, listening to Tito prattle in both Aymara and Spanish.
The market was a series of stalls where vendors spread out their wares and sat all day trying to sell hard potatoes no bigger than plums, beans, nuts, and sometimes fruit and onions. In one section dangled chickens and rabbits, plucked and shining. Kate wondered why they attracted no flies—perhaps because the cold dry air was inhospitable. She also saw a few barrels of fish, which Marta explained had been brought by truck from Puno very early that morning. In Kate’s honor, she explained, she wanted to buy a nice trucha, but fish could only be bought on important feast days because Sister Josepha held the purse strings tightly. Marta gave a short wicked laugh as she said this, which made Kate wonder what she thought of the Americans she worked for. She watched Marta make her way haughtily through the crowd, ignoring the many calls from vendors wanting her to look at their wares. Kate guessed that Marta’s position as convent cook gave her a status in the town that she relished.
After Marta selected the few things she needed for their meal, she guided Kate to a more chaotic section of the square. Aymara men and women squatted helter-skelter, their goods spread out on bright red and blue cloths on the ground. Here one could find curas, Marta explained, herbs, and potions for every need. In one area, Kate saw tiny curled-up dried creatures.
“What are those?” she said, gesturing. Marta explained they were llama fetuses, meant to be placed in the foundation of a new house or in a newly sown field.
“They make sure the house will bear fruit,” she said, and lifted one up for Kate to inspect. Kate was transfixed by the tiny figure of the unborn llama nestled in Marta’s rough palm. Suddenly her stomach heaved, and for one awful moment she felt she might vomit right there in the crowd. But the moment of nausea passed, and she hurried to catch up with Marta, determined to see everything.
There were ponchos for sale, made of llama wool
and the softer, rarer wool of the alpaca. Kate examined the beads, fingering the amulets and clay figures. She remembered the vase in her room and wondered if Marta had placed it there for her.
After lunch Kate went with Sister Josepha to the school, to meet the directora and the other teachers. Sister Josepha told her about Father Jack’s struggle with the government three years before to build a public school on the parish property with teachers paid by the government. The religion classes were taught by the nuns. “We won that battle,” Sister said, striding briskly across the courtyard, her veil sailing out behind her, “but now the problem is getting the children to come. Their parents need them in the fields, and the little girls have to stay home to tend the babies while their mothers help herd sheep or work the fields. Babies . . . too many!”
Kate wondered at that. Was Sister implying they should use birth control?
“The teachers are always complaining that they have to re-teach everything every two weeks because half the class is usually missing. But Señora Montoya, who grew up in Puno, runs a tight ship and the school has grown over the past three years.”
Sister Josepha hurried across the sunny gravel courtyard as the bell rang for afternoon classes. Kate struggled to keep up with her, her heart hammering fiercely from the effort. She knew Josepha had to be in her sixties; how was she able to move so fast?
“Señora Montoya is from Puno?” Kate asked, puzzled.
“Yes, she’s a graduate of the University of Cuzco. Father Jack stole her from a Maryknoll school in Lima to start his school up here. She knows and understands the culture of the Aymara so well, she is priceless here.”
They entered a one-story concrete building with a long hall. Kate heard the mingled sounds of songs and chants coming from several classrooms. A small woman in a gray suit walked quickly toward them.
Sister Josepha bowed slightly to the woman. “Señora Montoya, this is our new sister, Madre Catalina. She’ll begin teaching the religion classes tomorrow. And Sister, this is our very capable director, Señora Luz Montoya.”
Kate found herself looking down at the woman’s smooth oval face; Señora Montoya stood stiffly erect before giving Kate a slight bow. “Bienvenida, Madre Catalina. We have been waiting for you with much anticipation. Would you like to see the school?”
Kate walked beside her down the hall, trying to adjust her stride to the tiny quick steps of Señora Montoya.
“Please feel free to wander around and sit in on the classes. You will find an interpreter in each room who can speak both Spanish and Aymara, so just talk to them if you have any questions.” Señora Montoya bowed slightly again and walked into her office, motioning to Sister Josepha to follow her.
Kate wandered down the hall and saw that the school was really only four large classrooms and a cafeteria with long tables. At one end of the cafeteria, several women scoured pots and pans while talking and laughing. They quieted when they spotted Kate at the door.
“Buenas tardes, madrecita,” the women called out with smiles. Realizing that they probably spoke only Aymara, Kate simply bowed and smiled. This was going to be so frustrating, she thought. She should have studied Aymara for months instead of a few weeks. Even her Spanish wasn’t very good.
When Kate entered one of the classrooms, the children—rows of them in white coats—stood up and shouted greetings to her in unison. She looked into a sea of dark eyes. These were the youngest children; fifty or so were crammed at tables that reached to the back wall. They had pencils and notebooks in front of them, but no books that Kate could see. At the front of the room was a blackboard, and a map of South America was tacked to the wall. High over the teacher’s desk hung a crucifix, and just below it a picture of a suave, gray-haired white man in a dark suit—President Belaunde, Kate realized. Tomorrow she would be expected to teach this class, as well as classes in the three other rooms. Though an interpreter would be at her side, how would she know what the kids were really thinking and understanding? Her head began to ache.
Later, crossing the courtyard, she ran into Father Jack and a stocky young man dressed in khaki trousers and a blue work shirt. “Ah, it’s the newest addition,” Father Jack said with a grin. “And how did you survive the first night in Juliaca?”
Kate smiled in what she hoped was a sporting way, saying that she had at least survived. She held out her hand to the young man. “You must be Alejandro. I spent the morning with Marta and your son, Tito.”
Alejandro smiled widely, showing fine white teeth that contrasted sharply with his dark face. His eyes crinkled in the same way as his son’s, and his hand was rough in hers.
“Mucho gusto, madrecita. Bienvenida a mi pueblo.” His voice was low and his Spanish very careful. Father Jack had explained yesterday in the jeep that Alejandro was a local boy who, six years earlier, had gone off to school in Arequipa at the suggestion of the priests. They had recognized his intelligence and hoped he would become a leader in the community. He was now an essential part of the parish team, able to teach the ways of his people to the American missionaries and, in turn, skilled at explaining the priests’ teachings to the campesinos.
Kate wondered how he felt as he slipped continually from one world to another. As he walked away, Kate watched him snap his fingers at some boys who were chasing each other around the courtyard. Then he said something to them in Aymara, and they fell in behind him, matching his stride like soldiers.
Kate looked at the crinkled face of Father Jack, noticing the creases around his eyes and mouth for the first time. “I think I feel a little overwhelmed right now,” she confessed.
“Of course, you do,” he replied with New England briskness. “Give yourself time. With a name like O’Neill I know you’re a fighter. Have you seen the clinic yet?” Without waiting for her answer he walked quickly toward a low building beyond the priests’ house on the far side of the compound. As they passed the rectory Kate looked for Father Tom Lynch. But there was no jeep, and she felt oddly disappointed.
Entering the building from the bright midday sun, Kate was momentarily blinded. Then she noticed several women sitting on folding chairs around the room. They all had babies tucked into the shawls slung around their backs. Through an open door she glimpsed Jeanne Marie, her sleeves pinned up and a white apron stretched across her plump body. Bending over a baby, she listened intently to her stethoscope. The baby’s mother, with her sunken, toothless mouth, looked more like the child’s grandmother. When Jeanne noticed Kate and the pastor, she sighed as she straightened up.
“This one is hungry,” she said quietly, motioning toward the baby. “See how distended the belly is? And the arms and legs are pitiful.” She spoke rapidly in Spanish to a young woman who then spoke softly in Aymara to the impassive mother. The woman nodded and began wrapping the infant in a long white rag. Jeanne brought out two boxes of dried milk and explained carefully to the mother how she was to prepare it each day. She looked directly into the woman’s face, but the woman kept her eyes lowered, nodding her head as if she understood. She then wrapped the baby tightly in her shawl and shuffled off, clutching the boxes in her hand.
“She’s nursing the baby, but thinks she may be pregnant again. Her milk is drying up, she says. The baby cries all the time, and her husband is not patient.”
Jeanne looked at Father Jack. He was moving restlessly around the room, picking up things and then putting them down.
“She’ll probably be pregnant again in another month,” Jeanne added.
The pastor avoided her pointed look. “Well, I’m off,” he said. “I’m on my own for the next two weeks as Tom has gone out to the campo. He’ll make the rounds of baptisms, weddings, Masses, and probably some funerals. He left this morning at dawn.”
Kate felt a small drop in her heart, as if someone had deflated a balloon. She tried to convince herself it was the altitude.
Chapter Four
After their first meeting on the trip from La Paz to Juliaca, Kate hadn’t seen Father To
m for most of December except on the days when he celebrated early Mass in the freezing church. She’d spent those first weeks trying to learn how to teach the children of the Altiplano, frustrated by being removed from them by not one but two languages.
So it was a considerable relief from teaching when Sister Jeanne Marie asked her to go along on a sick call a week after she arrived. Alejandro picked them up in the jeep, and they sped across the plains under billowing clouds, the sunlight sharp and unrelenting in their eyes. The mountains gleamed purple in the distance, receding endlessly from them, luring them on. Kate shut her eyes; later she opened them on golden fields with llama and alpaca grazing in the stubble. Dust swirled around them. From nowhere a cluster of huts appeared and a dog came running out to greet them, barking furiously. Kate stayed outside with the children while Jeanne Marie went into the dark hut with Alejandro to see the sick old man, Hernán. Kate could hear him coughing, and when the two emerged from the hut, Jeanne Marie’s white apron was spotted with blood.
“Tuberculosis,” she said. “There isn’t much I can do except make him comfortable.”
As they drove off, Kate looked back. The family stood still in the dying day, silhouetted against red clouds. All around them stretched vast plains. She watched until their figures merged with the plains and disappeared.
That night after supper, Kate and Jeanne Marie had talked about their day while they cleaned up the kitchen. Jeanne complained wearily, “I get so tired sometimes of rushing off to see someone when it’s too late.” She was bent over the sink with her sleeves rolled back, scrubbing the iron frying pan with desperate vigor. “Three years ago there was an outbreak of diphtheria. Whole families were wiped out. I had plenty of vaccine in the clinic, but we couldn’t persuade the people to get the shots.” Polishing the faucets, she continued. “Many people in the sierra prefer to go to their own curanderos.”
Toward That Which is Beautiful Page 3
