Toward That Which is Beautiful

by Marian O'Shea Wernicke

  Just as she raises her hand to knock on the kitchen door, it opens and she is staring into the eyes of Sister Domitia herself. The older nun gasps in surprise, then her eyes crinkle in a welcoming grin. She grabs Kate and hugs her, and Kate fights back the tears that always seem near. Then Sister pushes her back a few inches to study her. She stares at the stains on her white habit.

  “Why, Sister Mary Katherine, what a surprise.” She looks behind Kate. “Did you come down all by yourself?”

  The question hangs in the air. Then Kate nods, and Sister Domitia looks worried.

  “Come in. Why are we standing out here?” She pulls Kate into the kitchen. “Teresita has gone to the market, and I had a free period before my class, so I stayed home this morning to catch up on my correspondence. Is everything all right?” She falters now as she looks at Kate.

  Suddenly Kate cannot find any words. She sits down abruptly in a dining room chair. Sister Domitia sits across from her, and folds her small plump hands neatly on the table in front of her. “Something has happened. You look terrible. What is it?”

  Kate watches her face and struggles to begin. “Sister, I need to get a message to Juliaca. They don’t know where I am. I need to tell them I’m all right.”

  She watches as Sister Domitia’s reassuring nods stop. “What do you mean they don’t know where you are? Isn’t one of the sisters here in Lima with you?”

  “No, I came alone. I left—it was about a week ago. I just walked out.” Now she puts her head down on the table and begins to cry. The sobs are quiet, but they go on and on in the empty room. Finally she hears Sister Domitia get up and go to the phone at the other end of the nuns’ living room.

  “Henry? This is Domitia. Listen, I’ve got a problem here. I need to get a message up to the Dominican nuns in Juliaca.” There is a brief silence. Then her voice lowers, “The youngest one, Sister Mary Katherine, just showed up at our door. She’s distraught, and I haven’t gotten the whole story, but—” The voice ceases. Then, “Yeah, that’s right. She says they don’t know where she is. We need to get a message up there immediately.” Sister is quiet for a few minutes. “No, I don’t think you need to come over just yet. Let her relax, sleep, maybe eat a little. She looks done for. I’ll call you later. Okay, thanks, thanks a lot. Tell them she’s fine. Bye.”

  Kate lifts her head now, watching the nun hurry back across the room. She feels heavy. She follows the nun up the stairs to an empty bedroom and sinks onto the bed. She hears the door click as Sister Domitia pulls it shut.

  When she awakes she is confused. Where is she? She looks out the single window, but gray mist shrouds the courtyard below, making it hard to tell what time of day it is. She switches on the light. Someone has put a small stack of clean clothes on the chair by her bed. She gathers them up and the towel next to them and makes her way to the bathroom. From downstairs she can hear laughing and talking and the clinking of silverware on plates. It must be suppertime. She has slept all day.

  When she comes downstairs in the gray skirt and blouse and the small token veil that the Precious Blood Sisters wear, the other nuns rise to greet her. She is immediately surrounded by their warmth, and someone passes a plate to her with a generous portion of chicken and rice. No one asks her questions, and the nuns carry on with their chatter of the day as if it is the most normal thing in the world to have a runaway in their midst. Kate is grateful for their tact.

  After dinner she joins the nuns for Vespers in the living room. As they sing the psalms, Kate glances around at the group. Three of the sisters are over fifty, and the one young one among them must be about thirty. Their plain scrubbed faces are serene if a bit tired. They settle comfortably in their chairs, their feet stretched out in front of them, and Kate watches the easy way they handle their prayer books, caressing them unconsciously like familiar pets. Why can’t she live like this? Why is she so restless, always wanting more? The words of the final hymn to Mary soar in the small room: “Salve Regina, mater misericordia.” Had it been to Mary she cried out in the night when the man attacked her, or was it a call to her own mother, tall and slim and so far from her these days? She feels a fierce ache to see her mother, to sit across from her and feel the love she had always taken for granted. After Vespers, Sister Domitia tells the nuns about the attack Kate has suffered. They were shocked at the sight of the ugly gash on her arm. She feels embarrassed by their pity, their unspoken questions.

  After recreation the nuns go upstairs one by one until only Kate and Sister Domitia sit by the fire. Kate pulls her chair close, for the cold here, damp and penetrating, is different from that of the Altiplano. It feels strange too to be in a short skirt, without the long folds of her habit. The sisters had taken her habit to the laundry, and Sister Mary Agnes, the oldest of the group, had spent some time soaking the stains in a special mixture of bleach. She can hardly bear all their kindness.

  Sister Domitia speaks gently to her, as if afraid at any moment Kate will take off. “Father Henry radioed Juliaca and talked to the pastor up there. He said they hadn’t heard from you since Tuesday when the police radioed them from a station near Arequipa.”

  She looks at Kate now as if she is a stranger, and Kate cannot bear to lose the confidence of this kind woman who has taken her in with no questions. So Kate begins, haltingly, to tell her of the troubling of her soul, the long (or so it seems to her) struggle with her feelings for Tom; her desperate, unplanned flight, and of the luck in finding people who had helped her along the way. It wasn’t until Lima that she’d run into serious trouble. “But I know I’ve been foolish. People have been worried about me. I’ve been selfish.” She stops.

  Sister is gazing into the fire, her sweater pulled around her shoulders. She looks at Kate now and her eyes are grave. “Yes, you’ve been very selfish. I can only imagine how Josepha must have felt all week worrying about you.” She is quiet again, and Kate waits, not knowing what to say. Sister looks at her. “You are at a crisis in your vocation. Only you can decide the right way for you. Are you in final vows?”

  “No. I’m supposed to make final vows this summer.” Kate can see the logic of the question, and it shocks her. She has been floating in a dream of love, removed from all the practical questions. How can she go on being a nun? She stares into the fire.

  Sister Domitia breaks the silence that has fallen between them. “Father Henry had a good suggestion. He said why don’t you go out to the Maryknoll retreat house on the beach and spend a few days in the sun? You were due for an altitude break anyway after almost six months up there. The altitude does strange things to people who aren’t used to it. Then you can decide what to do. What do you think?”

  Kate gazes at the nun. They all think she is unbalanced. She is, in a way. That’s exactly how she feels, thrown off balance. Somehow the center of gravity has shifted. Living at the high edge of the world was enough of a shock, but then she had to go and fall in love. Fall—the perfect word in her case.

  Kate whispers, “That sounds wonderful if you’re sure it won’t be any trouble.”

  “Rubbish. What trouble could it be? The priests leave that great big house empty out there for weeks at a time. The thought of it scandalizes me sometimes, but I guess they need the rest. We’ll drive out there tomorrow.” She pats Kate’s hand and gets to her feet with a little moan. “Oh, I’m half tempted myself to use the vacation house one of these days. These old bones give me trouble more and more. Good night, dear. God be with you.”

  Kate sits by the fire watching it die. She tries not to think of Tom. She has him tucked away inside somewhere, like a picture put in a locket and worn next to her skin.

  With a sudden clarity she sees the truth. There is no good outcome to their love. Yes, she could leave the convent and hope that he would leave the priesthood and marry her. But does she want that? She would feel guilty forever of taking him away from what he dedicated his life to. He would come to resent her when things got hard. A spoiled priest—that’s what the Iris
h called them. She thinks of what her mother and father’s reaction to the news that she’s fallen in love with a priest would be, much less the idea that she would leave the convent and marry him. Maybe after a few years they would recover and be cordial to him. But always underneath would be the thought of what he had been. They would secretly blame him for seducing her, she is sure. A spoiled priest and a spoiled nun.

  She could go back to the community in the States and try to forget about him. She would never see him again, never write to him. That would be best for him. But for her? The thought leaves her frozen inside. She pictures herself in some parish in St. Louis, teaching her students, playing softball with them, turning into her old heroine, Sister Helene.

  The one option that is out is going back to Juliaca to work with him. She can’t stand it. They have tried to love each other and still be faithful to their vows. Suddenly it makes her furious to think that Tom seems content with the arrangement. She’s the one who has crumbled. Doesn’t he desire her? She’d thought men were supposed to be the passionate ones. He had succumbed to the other girl, the volunteer. It humiliates her to think that now—with her—he is so much in control of his feelings. Especially when she is not.

  The fire dies. A wisp of dark smoke lingers in the hearth, but the embers are dark. Kate turns off the lamp, tired of her thoughts.

  Chapter Twenty

  Thursday, July 2, 1964

  Sister Domitia’s round face is the first thing Kate sees the next morning as the nun opens the door of her room. She has a sheaf of papers in her arms. She smiles at Kate, “I didn’t wake you for Mass. I thought you needed the rest.”

  “Thanks, Sister. What time is it?”

  “It’s almost eight. I’ll be back for lunch and then we’ll drive out to Ancón.”

  “Is there anything I can do this morning? I need to pay for my room and board.”

  “Ask Teresita. There might be some vegetables to cut up. Oh, you could always do some ironing. These skirts and blouses are supposed to be wash and wear, but we don’t like to wear them without ironing them. I’ll see you later.” A minute later Sister pokes her head in again. “I forgot to tell you that Pilar is bringing over a bag of clothes that some of the better-off ladies of the parish have donated to the clinic. Pick out a couple of things to wear at the beach. There might even be a bathing suit in there. I can’t imagine swimming at this time of year, but you may be tempted to go in.”

  She disappears again, and Kate stretches and settles back down under the covers. This feels wonderful—she might stay in bed all morning. She dozes off and awakes to the scent of garlic and onions frying in olive oil. She dresses quickly and hurries down to the kitchen to greet Teresa, the Chinese woman who has been the sisters’ cook since they came to Peru.

  When Teresa sees Kate dressed in the simple skirt and blouse and small veil of the nuns, her eyebrows go up only a fraction. She says, “I didn’t know when you would be coming down, so I just left everything out for you except the milk.” Her voice is clipped and she keeps her back to Kate as she speaks.

  “Corn flakes—I haven’t had any corn flakes in a year.” Kate knows her cheer is forced, but she chatters on to Teresa as if there is nothing strange about her unexpected appearance in the house. The cereal tastes wonderful, crunchy and fresh, and Kate thinks of home, the kitchen on Waterman Avenue with the plants hanging in the window and her father’s motto over the sink: “Work is the curse of the drinking class.” He still thinks it is funny and points it out to her every time she comes home.

  When Pilar, the Peruvian social worker, comes over later in the morning, Kate is struck by her beauty. She is tall, with skin the color of cinnamon. Her features are Aymara, her straight dark hair coiled high on her head. Her dark, heavily rimmed eyes slant upwards. In a low, sweet voice she says, “I understand someone over here needs some clothes for the beach.”

  She is teasing her, and Kate finds that she doesn’t mind it at all. They pick through the clothes together, laughing as Kate holds a tweed suit up to her body, and then a long, slinky red dress.

  “I guess this would do if I went out in the evening,” Kate says.

  Pilar lights a cigarette and crosses her legs. “I think I had better go with you as a chaperone, Sister. You would be dangerous in that dress.”

  Kate laughs and tosses the dress back in the box. She chooses a pair of faded jeans and a navy blue sweater, along with a couple of men’s shirts. “What I really need is a pair of sandals.” She rummages through the clothes. “Aha, a nice pair of tennis shoes.” She tries them on and admires her foot in the red canvas shoe. “They’re Keds. I haven’t had a pair of these since I went to the convent.”

  Squashing out her cigarette in a brass plate nearby, Pilar gets up and smooths her skirt down to mid-thigh. “Sister, I adore all the nuns. But I have never in my life understood what in the world would make a woman want to live like this.”

  “Like what?” Kate sees her looking around the living room.

  “In a house with a bunch of women.” Pilar pauses and grins up at Kate. “Without men,” she whispers.

  Kate hands the bag back to Pilar and watches as she makes her way down the steps of the convent, her hips swaying. Watching her, Kate feels awkward, boyish. No one would ever mistake Pilar for a boy. Now Kate realizes how in the convent, sexiness has been trained out of her. Day after day in the convent she had learned to move and to walk like a lady—“like Queen Elizabeth,” the novice mistress would say. As new novices, they were trained to cross their ankles only, never their knees, and to walk with a glide. They were to practice custody of the eyes, keeping them lowered instead of staring about hungrily at the world. As Kate takes the clothes upstairs, she practices swinging her hips. Then she laughs to herself and feels lighter than she has since she’d come to Lima. Maybe the fog is lifting.

  That afternoon as Sister Domitia drives to Ancón, a few miles north of Lima, the sun comes out and heat beats down on the van. They pass an area of one-story villas, partially hidden behind white stone walls. The waves boom steadily against tall rocks, a blue-green swirling mass. When Sister turns the van into a long driveway lined with olive trees, Kate is surprised. “How did the Maryknoll priests ever get a place like this?”

  “Oh, I think it was a donation from an American couple who had lived here a long time. It’s used quite a lot, I think. We’ve never stayed here, of course. It’s supposed to be for people like you who are fatigued by the altitude in the Altiplano. Well, let’s go in and get you settled. I want to get back before it gets dark. I don’t like driving alone.”

  “Thanks for bringing me. I’m grateful to you, Sister.” She’s been a lot of trouble for everybody lately.

  They are met at the front door by Carlos and Rene, the caretakers. Carlos takes the small canvas bag with the few clothes Kate has brought. Rene leads them into a long narrow living room, and Kate sees a wide expanse of white walls and windows that reveal the blue sea in the distance. The furniture is modern, spare and expensive looking. The bookshelves are crammed, and the coffee table is stacked neatly with old copies of TIME, LIFE, and a few New Yorkers.

  “Is anyone else staying here now?” Kate has sensed the stillness of the house from the beginning.

  “No, you have the place to yourself, at least until the weekend when a group from La Paz will be here.” Carlos looks at her curiously. “How long will you be with us, Hermana?”

  Kate glances at Sister Domitia, who gives a small shrug and says, “Not very long, Carlos. Perhaps just a day or two, if that would be all right.”

  “Está en su casa.” He bows to Kate and opens the slatted wooden door to the bedroom that would be hers. Its two windows look out over the garden to the ocean in the distance. She opens the window and the smell of the sea fills the room. The pounding waves roar on the beach. Now Kate can’t wait to be alone.

  “You’re sure you’ll be all right here by yourself? I know Carlos and Rene are in a wing right off the kitchen,
but it seems a little lonely here to me.” Sister Domitia joins her at the window. The sun is setting, the light playing at an angle on the water, glinting gold and red shards in the sea.

  “I think it’s just what the doctor ordered,” says Kate.

  “You look better already. Your eyes have lost that haunted look they had yesterday when you came.” The older nun takes her hand. “I’ll be praying for you. Remember, Sister, God made you the way you are. Everything He made is good. Don’t be afraid. He loves you as you are.” She sighs then, and turns to go down the stairs.

  Kate stands in the doorway until the car swings around and disappears down the drive, scattering yellow leaves. When she goes back into the house she feels a surge of delight. This is a holiday. She can do whatever she wants. She has a place to stay, everyone knows where she is, and for the first time in a week, she doesn’t feel guilty.

  She takes the stairs two at a time and realizes that she isn’t even out of breath as she would have been in Juliaca. She tosses the fussy little veil she has been wearing on the bed and peels off the borrowed skirt and blouse. The jeans she had salvaged from the charity box fit snugly, and she pulls the navy blue sweater on and laces up the Keds.

  Kate hurries through the garden toward the iron gate that opens onto the beach. The air is velvet against her skin. In the lengthening shadows a white hibiscus glows. Now she is walking on the beach, and the wind lifts her hair. She shakes her head and breaks into a run, gulping in the salty air, the sand firm and wet beneath her feet.

  The sea is new to her. Growing up in the Midwest, she had played in woods with deep ravines and gullies buried in piles of leaves. She had waded in cold streams in the Ozarks, watching the minnows dart between her skinny legs. But the sea is foreign, strange in its eternal pounding, its inexorable tides pulling everything out, far out from the shore into its glittering but dangerous depths. She runs for a while, darting in and out of the foam on the beach.