She slows to a walk. The sky is streaked with red in the west. A few high clouds, thin and fleeting, linger above the setting sun. She stands, hands on her hips, watching the sun grow to an orange ball as it nears the horizon. Then it flattens and spreads for a moment before the dark teeming sea swallows it whole.
The sky glows like pearls. Heading back, retracing her footsteps, she sees on a dune a flock of small terns. Gray and black, they stand in ranks staring out at the sea. Kate laughs out loud. They look like nuns, Dominican nuns, their hands tucked modestly in their sleeves, lined up for chapel. Far out, beyond the sand bar, sleek dark heads of some birds she doesn’t recognize bob in the waves, riding their fury, impervious and serene. Overhead, a lone seagull drops suddenly earthward, skimming close over the waves. Then banking right, he lets the wind lift him into the darkening sky. She watches until he disappears.
Kate strides fast now, and her footprints are clear and deep in the sand. She takes great gulps of air. I’m going to leave the order. I’ll start my life over. She says the words again, testing them aloud against the sounds of the sea. Leaving has nothing to do with Tom, and yet everything. What was it Sister Domitia said? “God made you as you are.”
“You made me this way,” she whispers into the wind. “You are the potter; I am the clay.” Like the Prince in Sleeping Beauty, Tom has awakened her, but she knows for herself now what she is in her deepest core. She strides on. The air is cooling fast and the wind has picked up, but Kate is warm, her heart beating steadily with the waves.
When she comes to the gate of the house, she stands for a minute and watches the waning moon rising in the still glowing sky. Then she picks up her shoes and heads toward the house. Lights are on, spilling over the sand, signaling her way. She smells wood smoke.
When she opens the back door, Carlos steps into the light, startling her. In a low voice he says, “Hermana, there is someone waiting to see you in the sala.”
Kate looks up as she brushes the sand from her feet and struggles to put on the tennis shoes. “Who is it?” She feels let down. She’d thought she had the place to herself.
“I don’t know. He didn’t give me his name. I think he is a priest.”
Carlos follows Kate as she walks toward the living room. She stops in the doorway. Tom is kneeling by the fireplace, poking the logs viciously, sending sparks up the chimney.
She turns to Carlos then, surprised at the steadiness of her voice. “It’s all right. It’s Father Lynch. I work with him in Juliaca.”
Carlos meets her eyes for a moment. Then he disappears down the hall as silently as he had come.
Kate closes the double doors and stands still. Without turning, Tom says, “I watched you walk up the beach for a long time before I recognized you.” Then he rises and turns to her. “You little fool.”
Her smile freezes; she cannot move. She notices a white line around his mouth, his cold eyes.
He stands there looking at her for a moment. “They told me a man stabbed you.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Let me see it.”
She walks toward him and pushes back the sleeve of her sweater. Then she pulls back the bandage gently. The wound gapes, red and livid, but a scar is beginning to form. “It doesn’t hurt much anymore.” She looks up into his face, searching for some flicker of feeling.
He takes her arm and bends to kiss it. She falls against him and lifts her face to his. Now he is kissing her on the mouth over and over, saying her name, “Kate, oh, Kate.”
Everything in her rises to meet him. She feels his mouth on her throat, and then on her breast. She gasps and he kneels before her, thrusting his head into her body like a hurt child, wrapping her in his arms. She bends over him, stroking his hair, and the sight of his dark, shiny head against her sweater fills her with pity.
“Tom, stop it. Stop it. Let me go.” Gently, she pulls herself free. His eyes are dark with tears.
A cold clarity has come over her as he caressed her. If she gave in now to her own desire, if they made love finally in this quiet, perfect place, he would hate her. Like some noble feudal knight, he would feel bound to her, obligated. He would renounce the priesthood and marry her. Then little by little resentment would begin to seep in, poisoning their love. She would never be able to make up for what he had lost.
She leaves him there on the floor like some wounded but still dangerous beast and curls up in a chair by the fireplace, watching him. For a while they say nothing. He hugs his crossed legs to his chest and rocks slightly as he stares into the fire. When he speaks his voice is low and unsteady.
“I looked for you all night the first night. I drove up and down the road from Juliaca to Puno. I called you every curse word I knew.”
She smiles a little, relieved to see his crooked grin as he glances at her. “Tom, I had to get away. I was suffocating there, so close to you. I think—in the last few days—things are becoming clearer—”
“Wait, before you say anything, let me tell you something. I’m going home, back to Ireland.”
Kate sits very still now. He continues, staring into the fire.
“My father is dying. He’s been sick for a long time, but my mother’s last letter sounded really grim. He has lung cancer. He’s been smoking since he was twelve, and he’s loved every damn cigarette he ever had.”
“I’m so sorry, Tom.” She wants to touch him but she is held fast to the chair.
“Anyway, I thought it would be a good time for me to go back. Two days ago I mailed a letter to Monsignor MacDonagh in Galway to tell him I’ll be there to help out for a while.” His words trail off at the end so faintly that Kate isn’t sure she has heard them. Two days ago? So just like that—he was leaving. She tries to breathe.
“Your mother will be glad.”
“Yes.”
The fire crackles in the grate, and the flames dance. Kate can hear the muffled roar of the sea in the distance. She imagines the beach now in the dark, the moonlight trembling on the wild water.
“Tom, I’ve made a decision, too. I’m leaving the convent. I’m not renewing my vows.”
He stifles a small moan, as if someone has kicked him in the stomach. She watches his face. “Oh God, Kate.” He shakes his head as if to ward off her words. “Fuck it!”
She laughs then, she can’t help it. He is scowling like a petulant fifteen-year-old. She goes to sit beside him cross-legged on the floor. Together they stare into the fire.
“Tom, listen to me. Don’t feel guilty. I would have come to this decision someday even if I’d never met you. Knowing you, feeling loved and loving you, it’s been the real thing. When I entered the convent, I was just a girl, not knowing myself. I didn’t understand what I was renouncing. I see myself differently now. Oh, does this make sense?”
He turns to her and smooths her hair back from her face. “No, nothing makes sense right now except how much I love touching you, your hair, your neck.” He kisses her then, and she tastes sadness like copper, bitter and metallic, in his mouth.
She leans her head on his shoulder. “I’m going back to Juliaca to finish out the year.” She’s surprised to hear herself say this. “The community spent so much money to bring me down here, send me to language school. Finishing the year in Juliaca is the least I can do. Then, when it’s time to renew my vows, I’ll go home.”
“What will you do?” He watches her closely, and there is a tentative look in his eyes as if she is someone he’s just met.
Kate shrugs. “I don’t know. Probably teach somewhere.”
After a long silence he takes her hand. “Kate, I can’t say to you what I’m longing to—that I’ll leave the priesthood and marry you.”
She starts to protest and he covers her mouth with his hand.
“Wait, let me finish. There’s nothing I want more than to wake up beside you every morning. But I just can’t do it. Being a priest . . . it’s who I am, damn it.”
“Tom, I know. That last day in Juliaca, I
watched you at Mass. You lifted the Host at the consecration, and I wanted to scream at God. He’s got His hooks in you so deep that you’d tear yourself apart if you tried to get free.”
He shakes his head wearily. “Shit, Kate. Sometimes I don’t know if I even believe in God anymore.”
This shocks her. She doesn’t know what to say. Then he stands up and pulls her to her feet.
“I leave tomorrow.”
She feels the blow right in her center. She looks away. He turns her face to his.
“Am I invited to stay the night?” The tone is light, joking, but she sees the trembling of his mouth.
“No, I don’t think so.”
He looks at her for a long time, holding her face in his hands. “You’re a hard woman, Kate O’Neill. Harder than nails.” His hands drop to his side then, and he turns away from her, searching for his keys. In the dark entrance hall he faces her again. His face is in shadows now and he stands very straight. His voice is a whisper. “I love you, Kate O’Neill. Wherever you go, know that I’m somewhere, loving you.”
She nods, unable to stop trembling as if from a chill. Finally, “I love you, too, Tom. Always.” She pulls his face down to hers and kisses him deeply, inhaling his scent, drinking him in. Then she releases him.
Still he lingers. His eyes are in shadow, but she can see the pain.
“Go,” she whispers.
The door opens and he is gone. She hears the click of the lock and leans her face against the door. Come back, please come back. I didn’t mean it; you can stay. For a minute she hears nothing. Then footsteps, a car starts, and lights flash against the stained glass window in the door. She listens for a long time until the only sound is the ticking of the clock in the empty hall.
Chapter Twenty-One
Friday, July 3, 1964
The colectivo, an old Chevy from the late 1950s, rattles and hisses as they speed south away from Lima along the Pan American Highway. Kate is crowded in the back seat with Señora Molina and her fifteen-year-old daughter. The plump señora is carefully dressed in a red and white polka-dot silk dress, nylons, and shiny patent-leather heels. Her hair is pulled back in a tight chignon, and beads of sweat trickle down her neck into the cleft between her breasts. She sighs often and wipes her face and neck with a lace handkerchief, offering a running commentary on the scenery, her daughter’s willfulness, and the dangers the driver surely hasn’t seen rushing to meet them. From Lima to Nazca she confides in Kate, seeing in the young nun an ally against the folly of youth. She and her husband, who sits stoically with his eyes closed next to the driver, are taking their daughter up to La Paz to study with the Madres de la Presentación in their boarding school.
“This girl is a little fool,” she hisses, as if the girl isn’t sitting next to her, staring at the Saharan-like landscape. “She thinks she has found the great love of her life, a fifteen-year-old delinquent who rides a motorcycle.”
Kate glances at the girl. Her cheek rests on the window, her face hidden by a veil of long black hair. Kate has tried to change the subject several times, but the mother is undeterred. As she tells the story of María Luísa sneaking out of the house, the tricks she played to see the boy, the señora rolls her eyes in the direction of the silent husband in the front seat as if to say how useless he has been in the matter.
Kate pulls out the breviary Sister Domitia has loaned her and excuses herself to pray. Silence settles on the passengers, and she thinks she caught a grateful look from the driver as he nods to her in the rearview mirror. She pages through the book to find the psalms for Sext. It is afternoon, and the sisters in Juliaca will be finishing lunch now. She reads Psalm 8:
O Lord, our sovereign,
how glorious is thy name in all the earth!
Thy majesty is praised high as the heavens. . . .
When I look at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars set in place by thee,
what is man that thou shouldst remember him,
mortal man that thou shouldst care for him?
Yet thou hast made him little less than a god,
crowning him with glory and honor.
Kate looks out the window at fields of cotton. Marigolds are everywhere and their fragrance seeps into the worn car, mingling with the perfume and sweat of Señora Molina. The psalmist had it right. The immensity of the world stretches out before her. She is not the sun. She is only a tiny part of creation. The stars wheel on in spite of her pain. Her heart hurts, a real physical hurt. She tries to sit very still so that she can only feel a dull throb, not the sharp stab of loss. But on top of the pain she is floating free. Her senses sharp, she drinks in the vision of clouds scudding across a blue sky, the waves crashing on the beach, and the mysterious dunes, shifting and scattering in the wind off the sea.
Now they head inland, toward Arequipa. The whole journey to the Altiplano would last almost twenty-four hours, the driver has assured them, and they will stop only to eat or if someone has to go to the bathroom. Kate looks around. The Molinas are asleep. In the front seat the husband snores softly, his mouth open and his head thrown back on the seat. The daughter’s head rests on her mother’s broad shoulder. She is lovely, and Kate feels a rush of pity for her. Even the señora sleeps, her mouth closed firmly, one arm cradling her daughter.
It is dark by the time the colectivo pulls into the Plaza de Armas in Arequipa. Kate thinks of the night she spent on the hard bench of the church. How could she have run away like that? She feels strange to herself and humbled by her good luck. No, not luck; she has been protected, watched over. She pushes back the sleeve of her habit. The scar on her arm is still red. It will fade, she knows, but it will never disappear entirely, a reminder she’ll carry forever.
The driver stops just off the plaza, saying they will take a two-hour break to eat. He’ll get some rest, and by seven o’clock they’ll be on the road to Puno. “It’s better to travel at night,” he says. “Fewer trucks to pass on the steep curves.” He is a small man, slim and weathered, with a husky voice. He’s smoked one cigarette after another, and he coughs now and spits on the sidewalk. He looks tired, and Kate hopes he really will take a nap.
“Madre, would you care to join us for dinner? There is a good restaurant in the Hotel Mercaderes. We would like you to be our guest.” Señor Molina, much to Kate’s surprise for she hasn’t heard him say a word the whole trip, is charming.
“Thank you, I would be honored.” She smiles at the three of them standing before her, and the señora beams and takes her arm. The father walks arm in arm with his daughter, and Kate can hear them talking softly.
It is early for dinner when they enter the restaurant; the waiters are just putting on their white coats and aprons. Their expressions are not friendly, but Señor Molina gestures grandly to one of them, and the young man scurries over to show them a table.
“Oye, chico, we’re in a hurry. We are leaving for Puno in an hour or so. Do you think you can feed some hungry travelers from Lima?” Señor Molina is already tucking his napkin into his shirt collar. The waiter notices María Luísa, and suddenly his indifference disappears.
“Of course, señor. What will you have?”
Now both the husband and wife lecture Kate on the delicacies of Arequipa’s cuisine. Their eyes shine as they describe the subtle flavor of ocopa or rocoto relleno. Kate asks Señor Molina to order for her, and soon they are drinking a red wine Kate recognizes from the winery in Ica. She mentions that she has visited the winery, and that starts the Molinas on a long and careful explanation of the superiority of Peruvian wines over Chilean wines. Kate watches María Luísa, for every time the waiter comes near, she raises her dark eyes to him with a peculiar gleam of conscious power. The waiter stumbles once and drops a basket of bread he was carrying. María Luísa looks at Kate and laughs, and Kate begins to think the parents are right in exiling this girl to a convent boarding school in Bolivia.
Are American girls like this? So sure of their
sexual power? Kate knows she hadn’t been. Her way with boys had come from being around her brother. She would tease and taunt them, but her banter was friendly and not charged with sex. Soon she will be going out into the world again—but as a twenty-six-year-old woman, not a girl. She doesn’t know the rules of the game anymore. This fifteen-year-old is more worldly than she.
By the end of dinner they are all stunned with the food and fatigue. Señor Molina, looking at his watch, suggests a short walk around the plaza. Soon they are out on the street, joining the jostling crowds coming from work, spilling into cafes and bars. Music floats from the open doors of bars, and in the distance the peak of El Misti pierces the darkening sky.
They walk to the corner where the driver told them to meet him, but he is not there. Señor Molina puffs on his cigar and watches with a slight smile the passing stream of office workers, school children, and young lovers walking hand in hand. Kate walks beside him in silence. Ahead of them, María Luísa is walking with her mother, her head high, her eyes never swerving to catch the admiring glances she draws from both men and women. “Your eyes are like the stars,” one older man mutters, but neither the mother nor the daughter acknowledges the piropo.
The four of them wait on the corner for a few minutes before they hear the Chevy backfiring as it comes toward them.
“I’ll bet he’s drunk,” says Señor Molina, trying to get a good look at their silent driver as he waits for them to get in without taking his eyes from the street in front of him.
“Ready?” he calls back to them. Then they are off, the tires squealing as they circle the plaza and head for the road to Puno. This time María Luísa sits in the middle, and Kate can smell her perfume, something delicate, violets.
As they leave the city, no one speaks. It is dark now, but on Kate’s left the moon slips in and out of the clouds. Kate can see they are edging gradually across small hills and then they are crossing wide, flat fields. There is no sudden dramatic ascent into the mountains as she remembers on the road from Coroico to La Paz. Yet she knows they are climbing steadily, for her ears pop. Kate glimpses strange tufts of grass in the plains, like the feather dusters they had used to dust the convent parlor. Herds of llama move across the pampa, ghostly and silent in the moonlight. It is getting colder now, and Kate is grateful for the huddled warmth of the girl next to her.
Toward That Which is Beautiful Page 23
