Tom was waiting for them by the jeep and looked up in surprise as the two nuns broke into a run and raced each other to the jeep. Kate’s heart hammered in her chest. She had forgotten about the altitude, but her sudden gasps for breath reminded her that she was still in a different world.
They ate their meal inside the cramped jeep away from the wind, devouring the chicken sandwiches and candy bars and apples. Then the three of them sat quietly for a while. Tom handed a soda to Kate, letting his hand linger for an instant against hers. The look he gave her filled her with a rush of joy.
“Did I ever tell you I was in a gang?” Tom was stretched out in the front seat, smoking. When they laughed, he looked injured. “Sure and I was,” he protested, “You know, when I was born in ’32, the Troubles hadn’t been over that long. So when we were about ten or so, then the middle of the War, some of the lads and I formed the Michael Collins Gang, with secret meetings and rituals. We spent many a night sneaking out of our houses to gather on the quays of Galway, looking for the enemy.” He laughed, “The trouble was we weren’t too sure who the hell the enemy was—the Germans or the British.” He flicked his cigarette out the window, and asked Kate to drive for a while.
Jeanne curled up in the back seat and soon dozed off. Kate was nervous with Tom’s eyes on her. Now in the dark, Kate felt as if the two of them were hurtling through a vast lunar landscape where no one else existed. They did not speak much, but once in a while Tom would point out a strange rock formation near the road or the way the moonlight was falling on the lake. After a while he put his head back and slept. Kate could look her fill, and seeing his unguarded profile, his head thrown back, his mouth slack, filled her with a strangely maternal tenderness.
When they had gone through the immigration control in Desaguadero, Jeanne took her turn at the wheel, and Kate climbed into the back seat again over Tom’s protests.
“I’ll sit in back,” he said. “You two can pray your office together or something.”
“Your legs are too long,” laughed Kate. “You’d die of lack of circulation before we got to La Paz.” Kate wrapped herself in a blanket and dozed fitfully through the night. Every time she woke up, Tom’s face was the first thing she would look for. She felt warm and safe, safer than she had ever been before.
They spent the night in La Paz, Jeanne and Kate staying again with the Precious Blood Sisters while Tom went to the Maryknoll house. He was at the front door by nine o’clock the next morning, smiling and cheerful in light khaki pants and a short-sleeved red shirt. Kate had never seen him in anything but dark colors. He was usually bundled up against the unforgiving cold of the plains. Now she noticed that his arms were covered with fine black hair, and she had to stop herself from stroking it.
Jeanne laughed when she saw him. “You look more like a tourist going to Hawaii than a priest on his way to say Mass for some cloistered nuns,” she teased.
“Yes, and you two are going to suffocate in those medieval robes when we hit the Yungas.”
Kate knew that Tom thought their habits were ridiculous. He was always telling them about the many communities of nuns in the States that were beginning to discard the old-fashioned habit. Soon nuns would dress like anyone else, he predicted. Sister Josepha argued with him, saying the habit was a witness to the world of the consecrated life. Tom said their lives ought to be the witness, not what they wore.
Kate didn’t know what to think. She hated the fact that she could always see both sides of a question. Since she was a girl she had loved the elegance and grace of the habit. But sometimes, she knew, the habit was a disguise or a costume, for it could cover up women who were selfish and catty, hard to live with. Lately she had felt the weight of its falseness on her. To the world, her habit spoke of her virginal dedication, but inside was this rebellious, anarchic love for Tom. Nothing mattered except him, and she was never more conscious of this split between appearance and reality than every morning when she put on each piece of the habit and prayed for chastity.
The jeep climbed slowly up the curved highway that led out of the city, and soon La Paz lay like an inverted bowl beneath them. Tom leaned back and shouted over the engine, “This is one of the worst roads in the world. It curves through the Cordillera, and we’ll drop about 9,000 feet in fifty kilometers.” He turned back to watch the road, but his eyes sought hers in the rear view mirror. “If you feel sick, just shout, and I’ll try to pull over when I can.”
Soon Kate saw what he meant. The road was narrow, trailing off into dirt and rocks at the edge where there were no guard rails. Now they gazed down sheer cliffs studded with scrubby trees and boulders. Trucks packed with workers hurtled by them, not slowing as they raced around the hairpin turns. Often as they climbed they had to pull over to let the traffic coming downhill have the right of way. Several times traffic backed up where a bus had gotten stuck in a narrow curve. A few men would jump out and guide the driver with shouts and frantic motions as he tried to avoid the precipice that yawned below. Kate wondered at the carnival atmosphere. Everyone on the road seemed unfazed by the situation, while at each mile she felt terror gripping her stomach. She fought against the nausea.
Focused on the road, Tom drove steadily, not fast, and a few times she heard muttered curse words. No one spoke. Jeanne looked back at her several times, and Kate smiled reassuringly, not wanting to be the first one to get sick. After a while they were descending, and now Kate felt the air grow heavy and sweet. She rolled up her sleeves, and pinned her veil back to catch the warm breeze through the open window of the jeep. She smelled flowers and saw cascades of blue and orange and red bougainvillea spilling from the rocks. There hills were terraced, with coffee and sugar-cane fields. In only two hours they had entered a different universe. Yet still in the distance the snow-covered peaks of the Andes mocked this temperate new world.
They passed several waterfalls, with steam rising from rocks overhead. She heard a sweet, piercing bird call and realized how much she had missed the songs of birds during her months in the high plains. White crosses dotted the road, and Kate knew they were placed there in memory of people who’d died on this road.
After three hours Tom pointed to white and red roofs in the distance. There, nestled between steep jagged hills, lay the town of Coroico. The scent of orange blossoms and lemons filled the air. How could this tropical world exist so close to the barren, cold world they had just left? Her back was sweaty now from the heat.
It was noon when they arrived, and the town’s streets were quiet. Pots of begonia and roses bloomed in doorways and from small second-story balconies. They drove through the main plaza and headed down a shady side street to the Convent of the Poor Clares. There twelve nuns lived in a low, sprawling stucco building. On one side was a small room open to the public where the lay sister sold the peanut butter, biscuits, and wine the nuns made to support themselves. Tom beeped the horn lightly as they drove up, and Sister Marguerite, the one nun who was allowed to mingle with the public, came out wiping her hands on her apron.
“Ah there you are,” she cried. “And wasn’t I praying the whole morning for your safe arrival?”
Tom jumped out and hugged the little old nun, whose glasses fell down in the tumult. Her eyes shone up at her fellow Irishman; Kate could see the bond between them. His charm worked all over the countryside, she thought, yet he’d seemed so cold and distant to her at first and could be that way suddenly, without warning. She had seen him freeze up at a meeting when the discussion went on too long. He was still a mystery to her. Just then Tom turned and led the gray-and-black-clad nun over to the jeep.
“You know Sister Jeanne Marie, of course, and this is Sister Mary Katherine, the newest one in Juliaca.”
He helped Kate step down from the back seat, and Sister Marguerite gazed up at her.
“Welcome to Coroico, my dear. We’ve got your room in the guest house all ready. You must be exhausted after that terrible road.”
Puzzled, Kate turned to Jeanne, w
ho smiled up at her and winked. “Poor thing,” said Jeanne. “You have to stay in the guest house. Because I’m on retreat I get to stay in cloister. Well, I guess this is where I say goodbye. I’ll see you when I get back.” Jeanne followed the little nun up the path to the main entrance.
Kate looked at Tom. “Where do you stay?” she asked, trying to keep a creeping note of exasperation out of her voice.
“I’ll be over at the priests’ house in the village. Men aren’t allowed to stay in the Convent.” He grinned at her, and Kate felt like smacking him. Had she come all this way to be dumped off like baggage and locked up alone in the guest house?
Sister Marguerite picked up Kate’s bag and grasped her arm. “I’ll show you to your room now. You must be finished entirely by the ride down here.”
She led Kate up a path on the side of the main convent to a low stucco building with a screened porch. As they stepped inside, the cottage smelled musty, yet every surface shone with polish. They passed through a sitting room to a hall with two bedrooms on either side. Sister pointed out the bathroom, and then took Kate to the last room, which looked out over the convent patio and garden. She put Kate’s bag down on a wooden chair next to the bed, and stood in the doorway for a minute. “You’ll hear the bell ring for Vespers at six o’clock. The chapel has an outside door that will not be locked. After Vespers, I’ll bring you dinner over here. Have a nice rest, my dear.”
Before Kate could think of anything to say, Sister had closed the door firmly behind her, and in a minute Kate heard the front door close and the silence of the place settled down upon her.
Kate unpacked her bag and laid out her few things on the wooden chest near the bed. Then she went to the window, standing for a long time to watch three sparrows splash in the stone birdbath in the center of the garden. They bobbed and dunked and shook their feathers in the shade of a small mimosa tree. Then she lay on the bed and closed her eyes, seeing again the winding road of the mountains and feeling the pull of the curves until she drifted off to sleep.
The clanging of the bell woke her, and Kate opened her eyes to a dark room. For a moment she thought she was back in the novitiate. Then she jumped out of bed and went over to the mirror to straighten her veil for Vespers. Her face was pale and her eyes seemed enormous in the gloom.
She followed the path to the small chapel on the other side of the convent. As she swung open the heavy door, she heard a single voice intone the opening of Vespers: “Deus in adjutorium meum intende.” “O God come to my assistance,” Kate prayed. Then a chorus of young women’s voices answered the cantor, and the ebb and flow of the nuns’ chanting began, soaring into the corners of the chapel. The voices came from behind a wooden grille carved with birds and leafy vines, but the nuns were invisible. She stood alone in front of the altar trying to sing along, but her voice sounded thin and reedy. Now she was angry. Why was she out here alone instead of being with the others as Jeanne was? Even Tom got to see the cloistered nuns face to face and could laugh and joke with them. She felt like a leper.
When the singing stopped, she listened as the nuns rustled and coughed on their way out. Then Kate knelt, closing her eyes tightly, trying to be calm. Dear God, please help me. She bent over the pew, resting her face on her arms. Sister Marguerite had to pluck her sleeve several times before Kate looked up into the fat, flushed face of the little nun.
“I’ll be bringing your tray over to you in a little, my dear.”
“Oh, can’t you have dinner with me and keep me company?” Kate tried to keep the plaintive note out of her voice.
“I’m sorry, dear. I have to eat in the refectory with the others. But I’ll stay and visit a little with you when I bring over your tray.” With that Sister shuffled down the center aisle, and Kate followed her outside and then headed back to the guest house.
She turned on the two table lamps in the sitting room and opened the single window that looked out to the convent garden. The scent of jasmine rose in the heavy night air, and Kate heard the sleepy last murmurings of the birds as they bedded down for the night. A few tree frogs croaked, and Kate thought she could smell the rain coming. She looked up to the sky, but the moon was hidden behind low clouds.
Restless, she turned back to the room and noticed a glass-fronted bookcase like one her parents had at home. She pushed aside the biographies of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare, and flipped through the History of the Poor Clares. Then she picked up a small maroon volume of the collected stories of Chekhov. She settled herself in the faded easy chair by the lamp, and opened the book to a story she had never read, “Lady with Lapdog.” Her eyes fell on a passage:
Anna Sergeyevna, this lady with the lapdog, apparently regarded what had happened in a peculiar sort of way, very seriously, as though she had become a fallen woman—so it seemed to him. . . . [S]he sank into thought in a despondent pose, like a woman taken in adultery in an old painting.
Kate could picture the woman so clearly, and she felt the callousness of the lover. She was almost sorry when she heard the key in the lock and looked up to see the little nun enter balancing a tray on one hip as she maneuvered past the half-shut door of the sitting room.
“I’m so sorry I took so long, but Reverend Mother gave us recreation at supper in honor of your Sister Jeanne Marie’s arrival. Tomorrow she’ll be in the silence with the rest of us.”
She perched on the edge of the other chair and watched approvingly as Kate tasted the steaming soup. Kate found she was famished, and she ate steadily, glad that they had sent two of the hard crusty rolls and not one.
“Try your wine,” urged the nun. “It’s made here from our own vineyards.”
Kate sipped the white wine. It was cool and dry and tasted faintly of earth. “Wonderful,” she said, and Sister Marguerite beamed at her. Kate finished every bite of the chocolate cake, and poured a cup of tea from a blue and white pot. Then she asked the little nun questions about herself and the other American nuns here she would never see. Sister chattered on happily, and Kate wondered whatever had made Marguerite decide to join a cloistered order. She seemed made to gossip.
Finally, Kate sat back and thanked her for the delicious supper; the nun rose and picked up her tray. “Sleep well, my dear. The nuns are all going to confession now to the darlin’ father. He’ll be working late tonight,” she said with a wheezy laugh. “You’ll hear the bell for Lauds and meditation at 5:15. Mass will be at 6:00.”
Kate walked her to the door and peered out into the night for a moment as she watched the nun cross the dark yard.
Maybe Tom would stop by to see her on his way back to the priests’ house. She realized that she had been hoping for this all day. What would happen? They would be alone in the tropical night, not a soul around. She stopped herself there, unwilling to admit what she was thinking. Once again she picked up the Chekhov. He would help her to pass the slow-moving time.
Finally she heard the crunch of footsteps on the twigs and branches outside her window. Then a pounding on the door, followed by Tom’s voice. “Good night, Kate. I’ll see you in the morning.”
When she flung open the door he was already heading down the path toward the gate. “Tom,” she whispered.
He turned and said nothing, just stood there looking at her in the doorway.
Flushing, she asked in a low voice, “Won’t you come in for a little while?”
He came into the light then, and she could see his face. It was somber as he spoke quietly, “I don’t think that would be a good idea now, do you, Kate?”
She flinched a little but recovered enough to say, “I never thought of you as a timid man, Father Lynch.” She knew she was being childish, but by now she felt as though she were watching a play in which someone else was playing her role.
He stared at her for a long moment. When he spoke at last his voice was patient as though he were speaking to a child. “Kate, I’m going over to the priests’ house now to turn in. I’m dead. I’ll see you in the morning after
Mass and we’ll have time to do a little sightseeing before we head back. Okay?”
She nodded, not trusting her voice to remain steady. Then she slammed the door. She listened until she heard his footsteps on the path and the creak of the gate as he swung it open to leave the convent grounds. From somewhere in the nuns’ garden, she heard the full, deep throb of a mourning dove’s call and the sound echoed in the hollow place inside her.
She was furious with him. At the same time she was ashamed of herself, her pleading. She undressed quickly, her cheeks burning. She slipped the long white nightgown over her head, and threw herself down on the bed.
In the darkness she trembled. If he were here now, he would lie down beside her in this narrow bed. His hands would move up under her gown, and she would feel his body, strange and unfamiliar, stretched out beside her. Yes, oh yes, she would give herself to him. She kissed the pillow, pretending it was Tom.
Where were all those high resolutions now? They had been fooling themselves, or she had at least. She hated him for his virtuous distance.
Kate was sleeping soundly the next morning when the deep gong signaling the beginning of morning prayer wakened her. It was too late now; she had missed Lauds. She dressed slowly and walked outside for a few moments into the garden, still drenched with dew. The sky was gray and rose, and a low mist hung over the mountains in the distance. Her long habit brushed against the grass and she could feel its dampness in her shoes. Someone had planted a small rose garden with six thriving bushes, and she bent to smell a golden rose tipped with scarlet, a few drops of water in its center. Everywhere insects were busy. Lines of ants wound around piles of dirt and beetles scurried in the grass. She smelled the dark rich earth, and the scent took her back to her mother years ago, tall and slim in her old jeans, digging up the dirt for a vegetable garden. She and her brother and sister had been shorter than the hoes they carried, and she remembered their shock at all the worms they kept digging up. Dan had run inside for a jar, claiming that they would be good bait for fishing, and for days Kate watched the jar on the porch until all the worms had died.
Toward That Which is Beautiful Page 18
