Toward That Which is Beautiful

by Marian O'Shea Wernicke

  After Compline that night, Kate had gone to Magdalena’s room. She knocked softly and whispered through the closed door, “May I come in?”

  Magdalena was in her nightgown, and Kate was startled at her shiny black hair. It reached almost to her shoulders. She saw Kate staring at it and laughed softly. “As you can see, I’ve been planning my exit for some time.”

  Kate grabbed her and hugged her. “I’ll really miss you.” They sat on the bed together whispering like two girls at a slumber party.

  The young woman stared at Kate. “Catalina, how do you stand it? You are intelligent. You could be anything.”

  Kate met her gaze. “Pray for me, Magdalena. And be happy—God wants you to be yourself.” She found she could say little more; after another embrace, she left the room quietly.

  Magdalena had left at dawn with Father Jack on a windy, rainy morning in late January. The three nuns had stood aimlessly in the courtyard for a while after the jeep disappeared through the gates of Santa Catalina. Without a word they’d cleaned Magdalena’s room and stored her freshly washed linens away, ready for the next time they had a guest.

  So to Kate, Sister Josepha’s suggestion they take a holiday came as a welcome relief. The superior had a definite plan in mind. “Next week is the Festival de la Virgen de la Candelaria in Copacabana. Sister Mary Katherine, you haven’t seen a real Peruvian festival since you’ve been up here. I suggest we drive over to Puno, and then go on to Copacabana and rent a room in a little pension there for one night. I think we can afford it.”

  “Well, I hope so,” laughed Jeanne Marie. “Last year it was only two dollars for a room with a communal bath.”

  Sister Josepha got up to clear the table. “Anyway, no one will be working or coming to school in Juliaca next week. They’ll all be at the fiesta.”

  Kate was grateful for the promise of a diversion. It would take her mind off Tom, she hoped.

  After breakfast on Thursday the nuns loaded their canvas bags into the jeep and waved goodbye to Marta and Tito in the courtyard. Alejandro had been fussing around the jeep for an hour, checking and re-checking the tires and the oil. He frowned as Jeanne Marie with a grin gunned the engine.

  “Con mucho cuidado,” he warned. “The roads are dusty now. You have to sound your horn when you go around a curve.”

  Jeanne nodded and backed up, shifted gears, and pulled out of the courtyard.

  “Despacio!” Alejandro’s voice echoed in the silent early-morning streets. Kate and Jeanne laughed together.

  “I bet you were a holy terror before you entered,” said Kate, looking at Jeanne, eager and intent on her driving. She had the window open, and her veil flapped in the wind. Sister Josepha sat in back, knitting a small navy blue sweater for Tito. Kate called back to her superior over the roar of the engine. “Sister, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you idle for two minutes.”

  Josepha put down her knitting with a rueful laugh. “The thing is,” she said shaking her head, “I feel guilty when I’m not busy. That’s my German background, I suppose.” She took up her knitting again.

  “Well, I’m glad I’m Irish then,” shouted Kate. Her heart lifted as the jeep sped over the plains toward the Lake. The morning was fresh and clear, and the sun glinted on the mountains in the distance. As they passed through a strangely quiet Puno, Kate wondered if the townspeople were on the way to Copacabana, too. After a while she saw terraces on the hills, and then a huddle of huts around a central square.

  “This is Chucuito, an old colonial town,” Jeanne said. “Next we’ll go through Juli.”

  Sister Josepha turned to Kate and shouted over the noise of the engine. “Did you know that the Jesuits came to Juli in the sixteenth century? They set up a training center for missionaries going to the remote regions of the Altiplano. They used the Inca’s system of organization as their model. They were so influential that the Spaniards kicked them out in the late seventeenth century.”

  “Why?” Kate wished she had studied more Latin American history before coming here.

  “Oh, I think they were worried by how effective the Jesuits were in organizing the campesinos, teaching them good methods of farming. The big landowners got nervous, I guess, and they put pressure on the government in Madrid to expel the Jesuits. Since then, very few priests have worked in these parts.”

  “When the Jesuits were expelled from South America, the people quickly reverted to their ancient faith,” said Jeanne.

  Kate was silent for a long time. She wondered if the people ever really accepted the beliefs of the missionaries. But then she remembered Christmas, and the reverence of the people as they came from far-away villages to celebrate the birth of el Niño Jesus. The old church had vibrated with faith that night—or was it longing? Maybe they were the same.

  They stopped in Juli to eat the picnic lunch Marta had packed for them, and Josepha led Kate past the church of San Pedro to a strange thatch-roofed building with ornately carved double doors. “That’s the House of the Inquisition.”

  They stared at the building. Kate had studied the history of the Catholic Church. Much of it was ugly, like an open sore on the face of a beautiful woman.

  Sister Josepha seemed to read her thoughts. “According to Father Tom, the Inquisition in Peru during colonial times tried cases of worldliness and corruption among the local clergy.”

  Kate wondered if those cases included priests who fell in love with nuns. At times she felt terrified at what was happening to her and Tom. As her mother would say, they were skating on thin ice. Then she would laugh at her fears, telling herself that nothing had happened yet. But something would, she knew. It was one thing to bravely declare her love and resolve in a letter. But Tom would be back, his eyes gleaming at her. She would have to work side by side with him, pretending a cool indifference to his every move. She forced herself to focus on Josepha’s lecture.

  “The indigenous people, by the way, were not considered suitable persons to be judged by the same standards as the Spanish Catholics.”

  “Lucky for them,” muttered Jeanne Marie. They turned away then, repelled by the place.

  By two o’clock they had reached Copacabana after following the great curve of Lake Titicaca, blue and remote in its purity. The roads were crowded with buses, old cars, and people on foot, all heading for the shrine of the Virgin on her feast day.

  After the austerity of the plains, Kate was startled at her first view of the town. It was sunny and welcoming, its buildings of adobe and red tile an oasis of color. The streets were wide and well paved, and a holiday bustle hummed in the thin mountain air.

  “This is one of the big feasts, the celebration of the Purification of the Virgin. Wait till you see her image in the Cathedral,” Sister Jeanne Marie said.

  Suddenly she slammed on the brakes and motioned to two young boys who were walking their bikes along the busy street. “Por favor, muchachos. Nos pueden decir donde está la Residencia Patria?” They waited while the boys conferred importantly in whispers.

  “Sí, madrecita. Está por allá. Por la esquina.” The taller of the two waved his arm vaguely in the direction of the next corner on the left. The other boy nodded his head, and Jeanne thanked them.

  Kate realized how happy she felt to be on the road, in a new place. The world of Juliaca was still strange to her after two months. She felt a constant strain as she tried to understand the new world she was in. Now for a few days she could play the part of the tourist. Best of all, there was nothing here to remind her of Tom.

  They found the small pension on the Plaza 2 de Febrero. Everything in this town revolved around the great dark Virgin; even the streets were named for her feast day.

  The three nuns entered a tiny vestibule and waited until their eyes became accustomed to the darkness. They finally made out a gray-haired woman, all in black, standing behind a desk, waiting for them in silence.

  In her heavy Midwestern US accent, Sister Josepha negotiated in Spanish for a double room with a
ccess to a hot shower. The señora insisted that the only time there would be hot water would be between two and four in the afternoon. They were finally given the key to a room that turned out to be wide and clean, with four single beds lined up against one wall. The two windows looked out over the plaza. In the distance gleamed Lake Titicaca.

  Kate stood at the window, watching a group of campesinos below struggling to put on the feather headdresses of their costumes. From above they looked like a flock of nervous birds as their feathers swayed and shone in the brightness of the afternoon sun. She could hear bands playing all over town. The music of a flute soared over the drums, and the chords of the charango increased the tempo. From further away came sounds of tubas and horns.

  They joined the crowds in the streets and made their way to the plaza and the shrine of Copacabana. The wide cobble-stoned plaza was thronged with people in their feast-day best. No one paid much attention to the three American nuns in their long white habits. The Dominicans had come here in the 1600s, Josepha explained, so their habits fit in with the colonial atmosphere. They stopped in front of a Moorish-looking arch. Through the arch Kate could see three tall wooden crosses against the blue sky where huge clouds mushroomed in the distance. The white cathedral was outlined against the dark, distant peaks of the Andes. Jeanne Marie wanted to take a picture, and posed Josepha and Kate in front of the arch.

  They passed through the arch, crossed the wide courtyard, and entered the cathedral. From brilliant sunshine they stepped into a vaulted dark space, chilled by stone never warmed by the sun. To the left of the altar, Kate noticed the towering pulpit carved in the ornate, heavy style so loved by the Spaniards. But who had carved this? It must have been the native people, taught by the craftsmen from the old world. What had they thought as they’d hewn out these cherubs surrounded by fruit and leaves? As she stared she saw a small carved serpent peeking from under a vine. His fixed smile made her shudder. The candle in the sanctuary lamp glowed through the silver filigree of its frame. Kate hurried to catch up with the other two nuns in front of the high altar.

  Towering above the gold and jewels of the altar was the black Madonna, encased in glass. Remote and young, the image stared out over the heads of the pilgrims who came to honor the Mother of God. Everyone was on their knees now, except Kate. She stood stubbornly, gazing at the carved face above her. It’s just an image, she thought. She watched the faces of the people around her. They wept, they murmured, they lifted their arms, pleading with the young Virgin to succor them. Their great trust moved her. She too sank to her knees and began to repeat the Litany of the Blessed Mother she had prayed only a few Mays ago as a teenager in the church at St. Roch’s. “Mystical Rose, Star of the Sea, Tower of Ivory, House of Gold, Ark of the Covenant, Star of David, pray for us . . .”

  When she looked up at last she saw Sister Josepha still on her knees beside her, her eyes shut tightly, her mouth whispering the Hail Mary as she clutched her worn rosary beads. Jeanne was not there. Kate rose and genuflected in front of the altar and maneuvered through the crowds streaming in to the back of the church, where she found Jeanne reading an inscription on a small stone. She looked up as Kate came near, and read aloud. “The statue of the Virgin de la Candelaria was carved in the late 1570s by the Inca artist Francisco Yupanqui, grandson of the Inca Tupac Yupanqui.”

  Again, this confusing mixture of Catholicism and the ancient religions of Peru. The town had been a shrine for the Inca before the arrival of the Spaniards. It had been built in honor of the sun god and his children Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo. In the sixteenth century, after the presentation to the town of the statue of the Virgin, miracles occurred. Soon the people were streaming in from the countryside to honor the Virgin. The cathedral had arisen from the faith of the pilgrims. All this devotion to a statue was foreign to Kate. It bordered on idolatry.

  “Come on, Kate. Let’s go see the dancing. This church is freezing,” Jeanne whispered to her as she grabbed her elbow and moved Kate out the door and into the sunshine.

  Kate was grateful for Jeanne Marie. Her mind was decidedly unmystical. Practical and brisk, she worked hard, yawned her way through early morning prayer, and shrugged at long discussions on the meaning of existence. She didn’t struggle with her life; it seemed to Kate, she relished her work. She was outraged only by human stupidity and cruelty. The body was her field of expertise, yet through her touch she repaired spirits as well as the bodies of her patients. Kate wished she had studied nursing. At least then she could be sure she was doing some good.

  As they waited in front of the cathedral for Sister Josepha to finish her rosary, Kate admired the modest courtyard to the side, a riot of red and purple and yellow flowers. She walked over and bent low to smell the poppies and chrysanthemums. There were wild flowers she had never seen, whose spiked blue and white shafts blended in a lush bed against the wall of the courtyard. Josepha joined them, and cried out at the sight of a garden that rivaled her own. Then she went to see if the small museum was open, hoping to find a caretaker who could give her some seeds. But the place was closed. Everyone had gone to the festival.

  Now they were in the street, and the smell of roasting beef reminded Kate of supper. She eyed the anticuchos hungrily, watching the man deftly slip the bite-sized chunks of meat on straw skewers while stirring sizzling pieces in the iron skillet on his stand. Kate looked at Sister Josepha. “I’m famished!”

  They bought six skewers, and Jeanne looked around for something to drink. There were chicha stands on every corner, and men were staggering through the streets after hours of celebrating. After finding a vendor selling sodas, they bought Cokes and sat together on a bench near the main plaza to eat. Kate ate greedily; the meat was spicy and hot. She licked her fingers behind her handkerchief, hoping no one noticed.

  Later the three nuns followed the crowds to a small stadium on a hill about twenty minutes outside of the town where rickety wooden bleachers had been set up. The scene reminded Kate of a high-school football game. They watched as group after group of fantastically dressed devil dancers swayed before them. Each town for miles around had a brotherhood of dancers. Jeanne told Kate how the men worked on their costumes all year, spending their meager funds on spangles and gold trim, which the women sewed into the fine cloth of gold and silk. Devils were everywhere with leering masks, prancing with giant phalluses swinging between their legs. Some dancers wore cartoon masks to portray the Spanish Conquerors beneath helmets of silver and gold. The women, in layers of petticoats called polleras, twisted and swung to the incessant beat of the drums and the high whine of the flutes. On their heads were huge feathered hats from which dangled streamers of curly silk ribbons.

  A float bearing the Inca was pulled in by a dozen men in bright red costumes. Kate watched one woman, taller and more slender than the others, twirl her handkerchief high in the air, bowing and weaving among the men who surrounded her. As it grew dark, the temperature plunged rapidly, a cool breeze coming off the Lake. Torches were lit, for there was no electricity this far from the town. In the swirling dust the dancing figures took on a red, hazy hue, as if they were performing in a lake of fire. On and on the music played.

  By now the dancers were drunk; Kate saw more than one person fall as he danced, and roll out of the way of the others. Sister Josepha stood up abruptly. “I think we’ve seen enough, Sisters.”

  Soon the nuns were working their way through the crowds milling around the stadium. A man turned to them as they passed, and Kate saw his penis in his hands. He bowed and greeted them, his urine plunging in a steady stream at their feet.

  Later, in their room, Kate stood at the window in her nightgown. Both Josepha and Jeanne Marie were asleep, and someone was snoring softly. Kate gazed at the people in the plaza below. The music was muted, but in the distance she heard the blare of horns. A man and woman staggered together, their arms around each other. They stopped beneath a tree, and in the dim light of the plaza Kate watched their bodies meld into a long p
assionate kiss. She felt a stirring deep inside, a fierce ache of desire like a clutching hand within. She and Tom should be below in the street, tipsy and happy, on their way home from a dance. She wanted to press against him and feel the length and hardness of his body against hers. But that would never be if they obeyed the rules she had so naively set.

  What had Tom thought of her letter? That she was a green girl, like Ophelia, “unsifted in such perilous circumstances”? Green she was at love, she thought as she lay down on the thin mattress and watched the moonlight through the gauze curtains. Outside the music throbbed in the long night of the festival of Copacabana.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sunday, June 28, 1964

  The bus winds along the coast through fog, twisting like Kate’s thoughts. She leans her head against the window, finally dozing in a fitful sleep punctuated by the huayno music coming from the driver’s portable radio. When she awakes, the gray light of dawn gleams on the Pacific, its waves crashing against the long stretch of beach. Kate drinks in the lonely beauty. Through the dusty windows to her left she glimpses sand dunes, spectral white in the early light. The curves and billows of the dunes swim before her like ghostly whales amidst blowing sand spray from the desert ocean. For all is desert now, all the way up the coast, yet beyond, the ocean stretches to the horizon.

  Kate swallows the rest of the Coke she has saved and munches on the last of her roll. Gazing out at the moon-like landscape, she mumbles the words of Lauds, the morning prayer: “Now in the sun’s new dawning ray, lowly of heart our God we pray . . .”