She listened to Tom’s heavily accented Spanish as he read the gospel of John:
When all things began, the Word already was. The Word dwelt with God, and what God was, the Word was. The Word, then, was with God at the beginning, and through him all things came to be; no single thing was created without him. All that came to be was alive with his life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines on in the dark, and the darkness has never mastered it. . . . So the Word became flesh; he came to dwell among us, and we saw his glory, such glory as befits the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.
Yes, she thought, flesh. God became flesh. That was the great truth. She clung to this God who had once become human, like her. Into the dense midnight of the Andes, the Light was coming. It was coming into Africa and India, China and Japan. All over Europe on this night people were hurrying to lighted churches, lifting their tired hopeful faces to the light. In the cities of America, well-dressed crowds, their stomachs full after the Christmas Eve dinner, were filling pews in warm, well-lit churches, waiting for the good news. Kate saw the world on this night, hushed and expectant, hungry for the light. And here, in a small forgotten speck of the world, the lights of the church came on, one by one, and the silent people there were bathed in light.
After Mass, Kate knelt for a while, watching people line up before the crib. They unwrapped their bundles and put down their offerings—corn and potatoes, wool, necklaces, even bottles of chicha—for the niño Jesus. Then they filed out into the cold Andean night. Marta and Alejandro walked out together, Tito slumped in his father’s arms.
At the door of the church the two priests greeted the parishioners, the vapor of their breath rising and disappearing in the frosty air. Father Jack grabbed Kate in a bear hug and thumped her on the back. “Feliz Navidad, Sister. Happy first Christmas in Juliaca.” His breath was warm, and he was sweating in spite of the cold.
Then she faced Tom. He took both of her icy hands in his. “Merry Christmas, Kate,” he whispered.
She looked into his eyes, unable to speak at hearing her name on his lips. She moved away to let others greet him, hoping he had not seen the trembling of her lips.
Later, as she read Christmas cards from home she had been hoarding for weeks to stave off Christmas-day homesickness, she felt the warmth of Tom’s hands. She was not sad at all. There was no other place she’d rather be on this night.
Chapter Six
After the beauty of Christmas, January had been a let-down for Kate. It rained much of each day as great storms rolled over the mountains and swept across the plains. Lightning forked down from the mountains, and thunder crashed in rumbling waves. Some days the fog and mist never lifted. But Kate knew that the weather bothered her less than the prospect of Tom’s imminent departure. She had been alarmed by the pang she felt when Jeanne Marie said he would be going down to Lima for R & R.
“R & R?” Kate said. “I didn’t know priests got that.”
“Oh yes,” Jeanne Marie laughed. “Maryknoll owns a house near the beach north of Lima called Casa Mariana. They use it for retreats, but it’s also available for their guys when they need to recuperate from the altitude. It must be nice,” she sighed. “No one ever thinks nuns need to recuperate.”
They were in the clinic where Jeanne Marie was finishing up her paperwork for the day. Kate was folding diapers, and as she looked out the window she noticed that the rain had changed to snow. She ran to the window. “Oh, it’s beautiful. I didn’t know it snowed here in Juliaca.” The flakes were still delicately small, but as she watched they thickened until eventually the courtyard disappeared in a whirl of white.
Jeanne Marie joined her at the window. “Darn it! We have a catechists’ meeting tonight. I’d rather sit by the fire and read a mystery. Would you mind bringing those diapers and bandages over to the house and finishing them tonight? You don’t have to go to the meeting.”
Kate noticed the droop of Jeanne Marie’s shoulders. Kate was tired, too, and looked forward to a quiet evening. Her mother had sent her a few records for Christmas, and she could listen to them while folding clothes.
After supper and Vespers in the living room, Josepha and Jeanne Marie put on their cloaks and gloves; when they opened the front-parlor door, a gust of wind blew snow into the room. Alone now, Kate put on her new Horowitz recording of Liszt’s “Nocturne,” thinking it would be just right for this snowy night. As the first quiet chords filled the room, she finished washing the dishes, her sleeves rolled up and a blue-checked apron covering her white habit. Magdalena had gone up to bed early, complaining of a headache. They were all worried about the novice, for she had seemed sullen and withdrawn lately. Something was wrong. Just as Kate thought that she should go check on her and offer her a cup of tea, she heard a knock on the door. She opened the door, and Tom Lynch stood framed by a swirling mass of white, a red muffler wrapped around his neck his only concession to the blizzard.
“Hello.” He stood awkwardly in the doorway, hunched against the cold.
“Come in. What an awful night.” Kate stepped back as he entered the small parlor, brushing off snow from his hair and jacket. Kate smelled the cold on him. She hesitated, wondering if they should sit in the formal parlor.
“I thought I smelled wood smoke from the chimney. You wouldn’t keep a traveler away from your hearth on a night like this, now, would ye?” Not quite meeting her eyes, he laid on the brogue thickly. Kate laughed, and led him into the living room, where Tom headed straight for the fireplace. He stood rubbing his hands while she went to hang up her apron. “Am I interrupting anything? Were you busy?”
“No, I was just going to fold some things for the clinic. Josepha and Jeanne Marie are at a meeting and Magdalena went to bed early.” He still didn’t meet her eyes, and his unexpected shyness brought out the hostess in her. “Look, you sit there in the big chair by the fire, and I’ll make some tea.” She went swiftly to the kitchen and turned on the gas under the kettle. Her hands shook as she spooned tea into the pot. He’s never done this before, just dropped by.
When she came back into the room, he was looking at the record album. For the first time he looked directly at her, his eyes dark and serious. “The music is lovely. I didn’t realize how much I missed it. Jack plays his Elvis records, but that’s about the extent of our culture over there.”
Kate laughed, thinking of the pastor listening to Elvis Presley in the mountains of Peru. “Sit down, Father. I’ll get the tea.”
“For God’s sake, Kate, my name’s Tom.”
“Okay then, sit down, Tom, and I’ll serve you your tea.”
“Much better.” He looked up at her and pulled a small silver flask out of his pocket. “A gift from my father. He used to take this to the Galway racecourse on a nippy afternoon. How about a drop of Irish whiskey in our tea?”
“Oh, you go ahead. But none for me, thanks.” She was aware she sounded like someone’s prudish aunt. But come to think of it, none of her aunts would ever have passed up a splash of whiskey.
“Come on, Kate, it’s not good for a man to drink alone, and I don’t feel like going to the bar in town tonight.”
Kate wondered if he did go into town to drink, watching him as he poured a generous dollop into each cup of tea.
“Nice,” he said as he looked at her over his cup. “Very nice.” The fire crackled and music filled the silence between them.
Kate was kneeling on the Inca rug in front of the coffee table, folding each small diaper carefully. Uncomfortable with their silence, Kate searched for something to say. “Did you say Galway? My mother’s people came from there. The name was O’Flaherty.”
Tom threw back his head and laughed. “I might have known.” He watched her puzzled face and laughed again. “There’s a legend in Galway that at one time there was a huge sign at the city gates that read ‘Beware the scourge of the O’Flaherty’s.’ They were a fierce clan that swept down on the city from time to time to wreak mayhem. So, you’re an O
’Flaherty. Tell me some more about yourself.”
Kate relaxed a little and told him about St. Louis and her family and growing up in America. She kept glancing up to see if he were bored, but every time his blue eyes were fixed upon her. Once he got up to poke the fading fire, and she admired the athletic grace of his body and the ease with which he wielded the heavy iron poker.
“And you? Did you grow up on a farm in Ireland?” She had finished folding by now, and had settled into the chair opposite his in front of the fireplace. Without thinking, she tucked her legs underneath her, and stared into the fire to hide from Tom the pleasure she knew must be on her face.
“Oh, no. I’m a city boy, or at least a town boy. We lived in Salthill, a few miles outside of Galway. There’s a boardwalk there on the beach. It’s a place where tourists come in the summer to catch the rare Irish sun.”
“I’ve never lived near the sea,” Kate said. “In fact, my first glimpse of the sea was in Lima. The sisters took me to the beach at Herradura one day, and it felt so strange to stand in the sand and feel it shift from under my feet as the waves went back out. I didn’t like it at first.”
“Ah well, you have to push out beyond those breaking waves and into the deep waters. Then the sea holds you and plays with you.” He held her glance for a long moment before looking into the fire. “I miss it sometimes, the sounds of it crashing along the rocks. It’s so quiet up here.”
“Is your family still there?” Kate was determined to prevent another silence.
“My parents are. They live in a bungalow they inherited from my mother’s father. My sister Mary Grace got married a few years ago, and her husband dragged her off to Dublin where he teaches. They have a little son now, named after me. I’ve never seen him.” He looked up suddenly. “You know, you remind me a little of my sister. You have that same kind of feistiness. We almost killed each other a few times growing up.” His smile lit up his dark face. Kate felt let down by the thought that she reminded Tom of his sister.
He went on. “I was always outside as a kid, fishing, playing football—that’s soccer to you Americans. But then I discovered books. My mother’s brother has a small bookstore on Middle Street in town. It’s called Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop.” He looked at her as if she should recognize the name. “Anyway, Charlie sells second-hand books, mostly Irish literature, but all the old classics, too. It’s a dusty, out-of-the-way little shop where you can hole up for a rainy afternoon and read until your eyes ache. So, when I wasn’t outside running around with my hooligan friends, my mother could always find me there in the afternoon or on Saturdays. When I was older I went to work for Charlie, and then went to University College to study literature.”
“Is that in Dublin?”
“No, right there in Galway. But I was restless. My father was pushing me to join the Army, like him.”
“I didn’t know Ireland had an army.”
“Ha—that’s the one thing the Irish have been best at: fighting. My father was a teenager during the Troubles and ran messages for the IRA. Anyway, the main thing he does now is patrol the border between Northern Ireland and the South. But I had another idea in my head for my future. I wanted to be a priest, but not a priest who stayed at home in Ireland and listened to old ladies’ confessions and played golf in Blackrock every Monday. I wanted to go far away, to be a missionary. So I played with the idea all the years I was at the university.”
He stopped and glanced at Kate. Her tea was cold beside her. She knew his was, too, but to get up now would break the mood.
“The only thing that stopped me then, quite frankly, was that I wasn’t sure I could give up women. Hell, I’m still not sure I can,” he laughed.
“Women in general, or a particular woman?” Kate kept her tone light, teasing.
“There was one woman—a real woman, not a girl. A married woman at that.” He looked at her. “Now I’ve shocked you, I see.”
Kate shook her head. She hadn’t reacted so much to the admission he’d fallen for a married woman as to the pain she’d seen in his eyes. Why was he telling her this? She waited.
“Oh, there’s not much to tell. She was the wife of one of my professors, at least ten or twelve years older than I. She was elegant and sophisticated, and I think she enjoyed having poor sex-starved students lusting after her. I thought it was love for a long time, and would sit in my room reading Yeats’ poems to Maud Gonne and thinking about her.” He shook his head.
“I love Yeats,” Kate said softly.
Tom recited:
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
Tom broke off suddenly, and Kate looked away to hide the tears that had surprised her. Gazing across the room at her, he said with an edge of bitterness, “I seem always to be longing for something I can’t have.”
She sat unmoving for a minute. Then she rose and deliberately broke the mood by saying with false cheer, “I’ll get us some more tea. Keep going with your story. When did you finally go to the seminary?”
But Tom had risen, too, and was heading for the door. “Oh, I went to Maynooth right after I got my degree. After four years there I was ordained, and spent a couple of years in Kerry. For the past seven years, I’ve been on loan to Maryknoll. I’m hoping they’ve forgotten about me back home. This life suits me—at least for now.”
Kate walked with him to the door. As he put on his jacket and tied the muffler around his neck, his eyes shone down at her. “Here’s your cloak, Kate. Walk outside with me a bit in the snow.”
She turned around so he could place it on her shoulders. For a moment nothing happened. Just as she started to turn around to see what was wrong, she felt his face close to her own. He said nothing, but placed the cloak firmly on her shoulders. They stepped outside into the snow-covered courtyard.
No flakes fell now. A million stars hung uncommonly near in the black sky. Conscious of her joy as she walked beside him, she wanted the earth to halt its spin toward dawn. No words passed between them.
Suddenly lights from a jeep caught them in its glare, and they froze. It was Alejandro, and now Kate, squinting, could see Jeanne Marie sitting next to him.
“There’s been an accident. A man from the village has dropped his child in the ditch and the baby drowned. He was drunk, and now he’s crying, begging for the priest to come and baptize the child.” Jeanne’s voice was exasperated but urgent.
“Damn,” Tom muttered under his breath. “The baby’s dead. I can’t baptize it, Jeanne. It’s not magic you know.”
Alejandro said nothing. He waited while the priest and nun stared at each other. Finally, Tom spoke.
“Okay, I’ll come and see what I can do. It just makes me so mad to get these calls after something terrible has happened.”
“Can I come, too?” pleaded Kate.
“No, there’s nothing you can do.” Tom had already jumped in the jeep, squeezing in next to Jeanne Marie.
“Tell Josepha what’s happened. I left her in the parish hall.” Jeanne’s voice had faded as the jeep roared off, making ugly black tracks in the snow.
Kate walked back to the convent alone, and for the first time that night felt the cold air penetrate to her very bones.
Chapter Seven
Two weeks after that night, Tom left for Lima. They saw each other briefly at odd moments, but he seemed distant and preoccupied. In his absence, Kate’s world had gone gray and cheerless. At last, she’d admitted the truth to herself: she was in love with him. One of her worst moments came when, reliving the night of his visit, she realized that when Jeanne had told them about the dea
th of the baby she had felt no compassion, no pity for the baby, only anger that their time together had been interrupted. What was happening to her? She begged God during meditation to help her get over this crush; if she called it a crush, it wasn’t serious.
She prayed and meditated, taught her classes, visited the sick, laughed and joked with the small group of teenagers from town who came to the weekly youth group. But in a terrible literal sense her heart was not in these things. She was discovering the tyranny of love, that awful dependence on a look, a smile, a gesture. She hated feeling this way. But suddenly she would feel a surge of happiness during her work, thinking of his smile, the deep tones of his voice.
She kept repeating to herself St. Thomas Aquinas’ definition of love: “To love is to will the good of the other.” If she loved Tom Lynch, she wouldn’t hurt him. That was the question, wasn’t it? What was good for this man? She decided at last that she could never tell him how she felt. She would enjoy seeing him, talking to him, knowing that he existed in the world. Then one of them would be transferred away and that would be that. He was a priest forever. She could not damage that and still claim she loved him. At night she wound her rosary though her fingers and tried not to remember his hands on her shoulders as he’d helped her with her cloak that night.
By February, Kate found herself more at home in the world of Santa Catalina. She had grown to love little Tito and spent time reading to him from a few small children’s books she’d found. He sat sprawled on her lap in the garden after lunch while she read to him Anibal Busca Aventuras. She inhaled the dust and sweat of his hair, combing it with her fingers. She loved the shape of his bottom in her lap, the feeling of his head against her breast as he sucked his thumb while she read to him.
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