Toward That Which is Beautiful

by Marian O'Shea Wernicke

  She opened the door and was swept up in his arms as he whirled her round and round the living room. Her face was crushed against his chest, his ribbons cutting into her cheek. He smelled of pipe smoke. By the time her mother came home she was perched on a big easy chair telling her father, who sat on the floor in front of her, about the trials of kindergarten. His eyes never left her face. Then her mother walked in. They stared at each other in silence. Then they were kissing, and Kate wondered why her mother was crying.

  Kate saw now that her parents had gradually melded until they merged into something new. They came through all the arguments, the struggles with money, and were transformed into a faithful, tested, heart-scalded couple. Love grew like vines between them. They could not be separated without destroying each other.

  Was that the kind of love she felt for Tom? She realizes that she’s never loved anyone like that. As a nun, she was supposed to love everyone. But she never got up in the middle of the night in response to a child’s terrified cry nor sat with a discouraged husband to reassure him that she was perfectly satisfied with his salary. She had only herself to worry about. Will she become a selfish, crabby old nun, whining because her toast was soggy, the room too hot? What could be worse than giving up marriage and children to be free to serve many, only to find herself at life’s end a shriveled, self-centered old woman who loved no one except herself?

  Otto Schneider interrupts Kate’s thoughts, shouting at her from the road. “Here comes your bus! Hurry up or you’ll miss it.”

  Kate runs to catch up with Sheila and Diane as a faded orange bus pulls up at the gates to the hotel. The three of them run down the lane, waving to the bus driver. They climb on, laughing and out of breath, to the obvious amusement of the few housewives and workers inside the bus.

  Crowding into the long seat at the back of the bus, Sheila sits down with an exaggerated sigh. “Whew! That was a close call. I really wasn’t looking forward to spending the day with Otto Schneider. I have a feeling that we’d be lectured on the merits of the good old USA at every turn.”

  “Oh, they aren’t so bad,” says Diane. “They kind of remind me of some of my aunts and uncles back home.” She looks slyly at Kate. “I wonder how they’d react if they knew that Kate here was really an escaped nun.”

  “They’d be horrified, I’m sure.” Kate smiles at the two women, glad that she didn’t have to face the Schneiders’ reaction—at least not yet. She is getting dangerously comfortable with living in the moment. Holding up a mesh bag, Kate says, “You’ll be happy to know, though, that without this escaped nun’s careful planning skills, you two would be starving this afternoon. Pepe told me this morning that people often take a picnic lunch when they tour the winery, so they have something to eat to absorb all the samples they try. He had the cook give us some cheese and fruit and a couple of loaves of bread for our picnic.”

  “You seem to have made a conquest of Pepe.” Sheila peers closely at Kate.

  “He reminds me of the kids in Juliaca. He’s so quiet and smart.”

  The women fall silent and watch the desert landscape as the bus churns up clouds of dust in its wake. Twenty minutes later the bus stops in front of a yellow stone arch with “Bodega Tacama” in stucco letters across the front. As the bus door slaps open, the three women are the only passengers to get out. They start down a long eucalyptus-lined drive; Kate breathes in the tangy scent with a pang of memory. She remembers the trip with Sister Jeanne and Tom into Coroico, where the smell of eucalyptus was everywhere. Smelling it now brings back those few hours she spent riding so close to Tom, watching his hands grip the wheel, his sharp profile alert to the dangerous drivers in the city. The thought of him is a knife, clean and small as a scalpel, and for a moment she can’t breathe. How far away he seems. Does he hate her now, or worse yet, pity her? She has surely become an embarrassment to him by this time, for Sister Josepha would probably have spoken to him, remembering what Kate had told her in confidence. Well, so what? He loves her; he said it over and over. He laughed at her qualms. Now he will see how serious is her love. He underestimated its force.

  As they round a curve in the driveway, Kate sees a green oasis amidst the desert. Off to the left is a yellow stone house, shaded by sycamore trees. On the veranda, geraniums and roses sprout from clay pots, and a wicker shade is half lowered against the late morning sun. Kate sees several empty chairs and a wicker table in one corner, under which three gray cats doze in the shade.

  Trucks enter and leave a courtyard ringed by low stone buildings. All around the compound grape vines stretch green and lush in the hot air of the morning. It is not yet harvest; workers are spraying the vines and walking among them to check for insects, Kate imagines. Sheila points to a sign over the nearest building and motions to the others to follow her to the office.

  It is cool in the dim office where, from behind a counter, a dark-eyed young woman comes to meet them. “Buenos días, señoritas. I am Ana María Castillo, the niece of the owner of the bodega. If you like, I can give you a tour of the winery starting in about ten minutes. We may have a few more visitors, so I’d like to wait, if you don’t mind.” Her perfect white teeth flash in the dim shadows of the office.

  Diane mumbles something about being Peace Corps workers, and Kate sticks out her hand before being introduced. “I’m Kate O’Neill from St. Louis, Missouri.”

  It feels strange to use her old name, but she likes the sound of it.

  By eleven o’clock no one else has arrived, so Ana begins the tour by leading the women across the courtyard and into the first of the low stone buildings. For the next hour and a half they walk through cool labyrinths, oak casks lying in the gloom. In precise English, Ana explains the process of making wine, the great difficulties with the vagaries of the climate, and the even greater difficulty of finding a market outside Ica for their product. “Year after year,” she says, “my uncle plods on, hoping for the miracle that will make the wine of Ica famous in the big world beyond.”

  “Pepe, the waiter at our hotel, recommended your wine.” Kate smiles hopefully.

  “It is a very good wine,” she says, looking at her watch. “I must leave you in the garden in back to do some wine tasting, as I have a luncheon engagement. It has been so good to meet you.” Briskly she leads them to a patio on a slight hill with a shaded picnic tables and benches. She produces three bottles, one a deep red wine, the others white. “You can start with these.” She smiles. “If you’d like to try any more, just ask the man in that office there.”

  She rushes off, and in a few minutes Kate hears the sounds of a car starting and tires spinning in the gravel.

  “Luncheon engagement, my foot,” laughs Diane. “She’s going to meet some dreamy Latin lover. Hey, guys, isn’t it time to imbibe?” Diane eyes the bottles of wine.

  From the edge of the brick patio, Kate gazes at the surrounding fields. “There’s one more thing I’d love to see before lunch. Remember the story Pepe told us the other night about the canal that Pachacutec built for his princess?”

  Sheila stands beside Kate. They both look out at the sloping fields.

  Sheila says, “‘Achirana,’ he called it. ‘That which flows cleanly toward that which is beautiful.’ Is that the canal over there?” She points toward a row of small trees that line the field as far as they can see.

  The two women start walking toward the trees. Behind them Diane is settled at a picnic table, pouring out three glasses of wine, one from each bottle. She waves and shouts, “I’m staying here to do some research. You two go on and see the sights.”

  There isn’t much to see, Kate realizes. The canal of Pachacutec is merely a quiet tree-lined stream that irrigates the fields. The sun is directly overhead now, the air hot and still. Cicadas sing, as they do on sunny summer afternoons in St. Louis. Kate turns to Sheila. “Do you ever get homesick?”

  “Not much, really. I think my mother is a bit offended by that. How about you?”

  “Sometimes. I’
ve been here almost a year now, but life in Peru still feels as if I’m in a play or something. I need to learn more. I wish like you, I had studied Latin American history and culture.”

  “But doesn’t it help living with the other nuns? I mean, don’t you feel at home with them?” Before Kate can answer, Sheila goes on. “You know, I’ve never known a nun before. I’d never even talked to one before I met you.”

  Kate smiles. “So what do you think?”

  “I think something’s wrong. I don’t think you’re happy.”

  Funny. For many years, during most of the time she had spent in the convent, everyone told her how happy she seemed. “Honey, you look so happy,” her mother would say on visiting day, squeezing her tightly. Later, her sixth graders at Holy Angels called her Sister Smiley and confided their secrets to her. Even in language school, in Cochabamba, she overheard one of her teachers, a small Chilean man, describe her to another teacher as “the tall, smiling nun.” But one could smile and smile and be a villain, she thinks. Or be unhappy.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry,” Sheila says. “It was just an observation.”

  Kate has trouble speaking. Tears well up, and she shakes her head and keeps walking, her eyes down on the dry grass of the field.

  Suddenly Sheila stops and begins peeling off her shirt. “I’m going skinny-dipping, Kate. You want to come?”

  “Here?” Kate looks around. The fields are empty now, the workers gone to lunch. But they are still not far from the house, and the trees along the canal provide only a lacy curtain. Kate shakes her head no. “You go on. I’ll be your bodyguard.”

  She turns away as Sheila strips quickly and slips into the clear water of the canal. When Kate turns around she can see Sheila’s long white body flashing in the sunlit stream.

  A sleek head bursts from the water. “It’s freezing,” Sheila calls out.

  Kate sits on the bank, dangling bare legs in the water. Why doesn’t she go in? She would have as a kid, she knows. Well, maybe not skinny-dipping. She was always shy about her body. Kate looks around. No one is in sight. She stands up and slips out of her skirt and T-shirt, unhooks her bra, and in one quick movement steps out of her underpants.

  She leans over the bank, trying to gauge the depth of the water. Sheila has swum off, her dark head barely visible in the distance. Like a child, Kate holds her nose and jumps in feet first. The water is icy, and Kate gasps and dives beneath the clear, still surface, swimming with powerful strokes. She is conscious of water entering her everywhere—her nose, ears, eyes, even between her legs as she spreads them in frog-like strokes. She surfaces after a minute, gasping for breath, and rolls over on her back. Closing her eyes against the sun’s rays, she lets the water cradle her, kicking lightly occasionally to stay afloat. She’s never swum naked in the full light of day. She dives down again; this time her nipples become erect as desire washes through her. If only Tom were here. She sees him swimming toward her, his body covered with dark hair. Now he is beside her. He wraps his legs around her waist and draws her to him. She opens her legs to let him enter her. They sink together, an odd sea creature with four arms and legs entangled. A cry of pleasure rises in her throat.

  She surfaces and swims with fast, hard strokes, on and on, until she fights to breathe. Then she rolls over and gazes at the trees along the banks. The sun filters through the branches, warming her face. Her body is weightless, one with the water and sun. She lets herself drift back to the bank where Sheila now sits, drying her long hair. Kate waves.

  “You look like a dolphin out there,” Sheila calls.

  “It feels wonderful. I never want to get out.” Kate drifts next to the bank, dog paddling gently.

  “I wonder if the princess swam here,” says Sheila. As Kate emerges from the canal, Sheila turns away tactfully, reaching behind her for the cigarettes in her shirt pocket. Kate grabs her skirt and wraps it around her like a sarong. Sitting next to Sheila, she glances swiftly at the slender body stretched out on the grass. She tries not to stare at the scar low on Sheila’s belly where her dark pubic hair begins.

  Sheila smokes for a while as Kate lies next to her, her arms cushioning her head. When Sheila gets up to pull on her underpants, Kate can’t help glancing at the scar.

  “Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” says Sheila. “A little souvenir from a botched abortion.”

  Kate can feel Sheila watching for her reaction. She tries to keep her face expressionless.

  After several moments of silence, Sheila asks, “Are you shocked?”

  “A little,” Kate admits.

  Sheila gives a short laugh. “Well, things have changed a lot lately, as Dylan says.”

  “Dylan?”

  “Bob Dylan, a folk singer. Jesus Christ, Kate. Have you been on the moon all these years?”

  “I guess so.” Kate waits for Sheila to go on.

  “I’m twenty-three, Kate, and I’ve had three lovers. One was serious, and the other two were . . . more like diversions.”

  “You don’t have to explain anything to me.”

  “Oh, but I want to. Somebody has to get you into the twentieth century. Anyway, I got pregnant by one of the diversions. Went to a doctor in Chelsea who did abortions for a hefty fee. My parents knew nothing about this, so I went to my boyfriend’s father and asked him for the money.”

  Kate notices the bitter set of Sheila’s mouth.

  Sheila continues, “Anyway, the guy wrote out the check there and then and I never saw his son again. The doctor made a mistake—had to go back in and clean it up. Thus the scar.”

  “I’m sorry.” It is all Kate can think to say.

  “So am I, believe me.” By this time Sheila is dressed and raking her fingers through her long tangled hair. Her face brightens. “Say, does this count for confession?”

  “I’m no priest, Sheila, but I’m glad you told me the story.” She wishes she could tell Sheila her story. It lies inside her like a stone.

  They walk back along the canal and catch Diane sleeping, stretched out on her back on a bench next to a picnic table. Flies buzz around the empty wineglasses on the table. Diane sits up. “Where were you guys? I thought I’d have to finish all this wine by myself.”

  “We went to Achirana. We went to see that which flows cleanly to that which is beautiful,” says Kate, relieved that the somber mood has lifted.

  “Well, what flows cleanly is this wine—so help yourselves, girls, and let’s eat.” While Diane begins unpacking the picnic bag, Kate grabs some cheese and bites into it, suddenly ravenous.

  The afternoon stretches on, hot and shimmering. Kate lies back on the grass, feels the wine melting her arms and legs, and is soon asleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Later that same night, lying sleepless on a cot in the corner of the hotel room, Kate stares at a patch of moonlight across the foot of her bed. She hears the deep breathing of the two women. She kicks the sheet away from her body, plumps her pillow and stares, wide-eyed, into the darkness. She has lingered long enough in this playground. Her money is running out, and she has just enough to get a bus to Lima. Then what? She has been gone from Santa Catalina for—is it four or five days now? She’s losing track of time. And worse, she is no closer to figuring out her problem than before. Would it have helped if she could have poured out her story to Sheila? There is a quiet intelligence in the young woman that Kate trusts. But she would probably think the whole struggle was silly.

  She has found it impossible to love Tom and not desire him. In the moonlit room, she feels again the waters of Achirana swirling around her body, Tom caressing her. What had Christ said? If one part of the body offends God, cut it off. What could she cut off? Her body loves him.

  Loving someone like this was new to her. She had been shy, tentative with Tom. She thinks back to those weeks after the exchange of their letters. She’d waited for Tom to return to Juliaca from Lima, not knowing whether it was dread or longing that gnawed at her stomach.

  After the tri
p to Copacabana in February, the rains came. Still she waited for Tom’s answer to her letter. Kate knew this was really summer in South America, but it felt more like late autumn at home. She couldn’t get used to the idea that the seasons were exactly opposite in the southern hemisphere. In the Altiplano, distinct seasons didn’t exist. The cold was relentless year round. The only difference was between the sunny days with their brilliant light and the gloomy days when the storms rushed down from the mountains and swirled into the town with drenching wind and rain. Every morning she pulled on her long cotton underwear, grateful for its warmth next to her skin. Her room was not heated, and by the time she went down to stand in front of the gas heater in the living room, her hands were blue. Josepha and Jeanne Marie laughed at her as she stood huddled by the heater, for they had become accustomed to cold, or as Josepha put it, their hardy peasant stock made them more able to bear it.

  Kate thought of her father who always claimed they were descendants of the kings and queens of Ireland. Could their castles have been as cold as this? As she put on her woolen cloak, wrapped a heavy black shawl around her head, and pulled on the rubber galoshes to protect her shoes, she thought she must look more like an Irish peasant woman than a queen. Then she followed the two sisters to church for morning prayer, meditation, and Mass.

  Kate’s prayers were fervent, even fevered, these days. She prayed for strength to live her vocation, asking God to guide her through the new land she was in, a land with no maps and no stars. Another hemisphere, for sure. She prayed for Tom whose face floated before her, always slightly out of focus. It was better, she knew, that he was away. It was easier to love him from afar.

  With the rains, she had fewer students each day in school. But she enjoyed the smaller groups, in which the children formed a circle on the floor around her while she sat in one of the little chairs. She read to them, and they told her stories of the old ways of their people. They loved music, and she had them sing songs in Aymara, trying to pronounce the strange words with them, making them laugh. They taught her to say, “Chaskiñawa,” pointing at her and laughing. It meant the one with stars in her eyes.