The Sisterhood

by Helen Bryan

  The two nuns hobbled off, Sor Teresa airing her grievances loudly as she went. Menina tried to stop dancing and bubbled happily. “Captain, you were right about the convent having a valuable painting, I just found—”

  To her surprise he wasn’t interested. He said, “Mees Walker, some people are looking for you.”

  The day was getting better and better. “Thank heaven! My parents obviously managed to galvanize somebody. I’m so reliev—”

  “Your parents, eh? Though you do not believe me, I would have telephoned them if it had been possible, but I could not. So maybe is not your family who send them,” he said slowly. “And maybe is more important than ever that you stay out of sight.”

  “What? Of course it’s my parents! Who else? I called them from the airport to let them know I wasn’t in Madrid yet, and that I was taking a bus. Obviously they got the police to trace the bus, and the bus driver explained I had been left here and—”

  “No, it is a man and a woman who are following you, and whoever they are, they are not police. In fact they do not want the police to know they are looking for you. And because I do not want them to cause problems for me, I must get to the bottom of this now. You must tell me, who wants to find you?”

  Menina’s mouth suddenly felt dry and her elation evaporated as she remembered. “Oh God, please, not Theo!” she muttered. He had the money and connections to trace her, but surely the Bonners would be trying to put a spin on why the wedding had been canceled.

  “Who is Theo?” the captain demanded.

  “Um, nobody. My parents must have hired a private detective to find me.”

  “No, I do not think so. And I will tell you why I do not think so, and then you will tell me why they look for you, because it does not make sense to me. An old man, a retired policeman friend of my father, is driving from Malaga back to a village in the mountains where he lives with his daughter’s family, and he stops for coffee. While he is drinking his coffee, a couple comes into the bar, a man and a woman, nice clothes, want to put a sign in the bar window, a picture of a girl, very pretty, and it says ‘Menina Walker,’ an American, is missing. Says big reward for information. My friend thinks I should know this…never mind why. But he, too, wants to know why so he listens to everything—old habit. And people do not think an old man in the corner with his pipe and his coffee is listening. He wants to see what this couple do next. He drinks more coffee, reads his newspaper. The couple order food, drinks, spend a lot of money for a small bar, and people at the bar say OK, they can put up their poster, but is better to fill out an official report at the police station. But, the couple say no, they do not bother police.”

  “Seems odd they said that! Why?”

  “Is strange, no? My friend, too, does not like—”

  “Oh for Pete’s sake! What don’t the two of you like? You should be thrilled someone wants to take me off your hands.”

  “You must listen…My friend understands why I cannot leave the village now, so instead of going home he comes to see me. While the people are eating, he goes outside, like he will make pi pi, to look at their car, memorize the number plate. Old habit. And then he is surprised, because he knows something most people, most police even, would not. A little symbol on the license means the car belongs to a Catholic organization, is like a confraternidad—brotherhood. But my friend knows this particular brotherhood is very old in Spain and very, very conservative, some say dates back to the Inquisition, dangerous because…how do you say it? It has fanatics, people who will do anything to protect the church.”

  “How does he know that? It sounds pretty far-fetched.”

  “You must understand something. You are from America, and for Americans yesterday is over, finished. In Spain it is not over. During the civil war in the 1930s terrible things happened that people do not forget today. My friend’s family were Republicans, like my father. In 1939 the Fascists came to this village. They take all the men and boys, children even, and hang them in the square. They wanted to hang my father, too, but he was hunting because was no food, and when they come he hide in the hills, in caves.

  “My mother, his wife, was sixteen, with a baby coming. She run with other women to this convent and the nuns take them in and lock the gate. Fascists very dangerous, but Fascist Catholics, don’t burn convent. And the gate is very strong. My mother and the other women are safe. So later, because of the nuns, I have my parents and my family. My father’s friend was not so lucky. The Fascists came to his village, too, killed his parents and raped many women, killed many people. For that, all his life he has hated the Catholic Church because Fascists are Catholics and the Catholic Church supports the Fascists. He has spent much of his life learning about the church and their secrets, and he knows things most people do not. The right wing of the church is very old-fashioned, everyone forget about them now, think they don’t matter. But like this confraternidad they exist, and are powerful in the Vatican. Powerful in other places. And my friend knows, these people do not waste time looking for girls for no reason. So now you must tell me what that reason is. Do not play games.”

  Games? Menina just wanted to get out of here. “How should I know about Catholic organizations? I’m a Southern Baptist—the Catholic Church can’t be so desperate for converts that they chase tourists around the country!”

  “There must be more you are not telling me if these people want to find you. They get instructions from a high level in the church, some say even the Vatican. And the Vatican has contacts in government, the police, everywhere. The church has great power today. You think religious fanatics are not dangerous? They are the most dangerous people in the world. Look at Northern Ireland, look at the Basques. Look at the Middle East. So I ask you once more, why are you in Spain?”

  “I’ve told you and told you—I just want to go to Madrid!”

  “Mees Walker, start with this Mendoza. Why is he important?”

  Menina was beginning to feel like Alice in Wonderland. She had already explained about Tristan Mendoza, and while he was interesting if you were an art history major with a thesis to write, she didn’t see how that justified this weird interrogation. “Look, I’m studying him because I have this medal, but it can’t mean anything to anybody but me. Here!” She slipped off her medal and passed it through the grille, telling him how she was found with it and how the nuns wanted her to have it when she turned sixteen. “So it’s important to me because it’s all I have that connects me to my birth family. Now see the little bird on one side? The reason I’m interested in Tristan Mendoza is that he signed his paintings with that same bird under his signature. I wanted to research his work at the Prado—the only place with any of his work—to find out if that swallow meant something, what its history was, there would be a…connection to my birth parents. The Walkers are wonderful, and I love them, but if you aren’t adopted you can’t understand this terrible need to know about your birth family. It’s like there’s a hole in the middle of your life. I know the swallows may just be a coincidence, but it’s absolutely all I have to go on.”

  “In Spain family is very important. I understand. The nuns helped my mother, my family. Now I must help Sor Teresa like I promise my father.” He held the medal up and squinted, ran his fingers over the worn figures on both sides and thought for a moment before he handed the medal back.

  Sounding less impatient he said, “In the mountains here, there are some old stories about a Jewish Christian community in this part of Spain, when the Romans were here. The first Christians were Jews, too; I think they do not say Jesus’s mother Mary is a virgin forever, because she has other children besides Jesus. Then hundreds of years later, when Constantine is emperor, the church says yes, Jesus is son of God, so is like God and Mary is a virgin always. By then, who knows what is true about Mary? But Catholic Church is very powerful, and people must not ask what is true, must believe what the church says, and church says Mary is virgin forever, that is why she is powerful with God. And I think the old
stories about the Christian Jews who were here when the Romans are here have swallows in them, but I do not know why. But never mind, you must tell me the rest of your story, so I know what I can believe about you. First, who is Theo? How is he involved?”

  “Um, Theo’s no one.”

  “If he is no one, why did you think he sent people to look for you?”

  Menina felt anxiety rising. “Theo was…OK, we were supposed to get married.”

  “Supposed to? You are engaged to Theo? This is no one?”

  “No, I’m not engaged. Not anymore.”

  “Why?”

  Menina tried to keep her voice from shaking while she told him that they had a fight and called off the wedding. She tried to say calmly that people broke up all the time. But much as she didn’t want to, she saw herself and Theo in the car by the lake and felt Theo’s hand across her mouth and her own helplessness…it all came rushing back, she couldn’t banish it from her mind. Theo’s hand stifling her screams so she couldn’t breathe…it was like he hated her…and then…what’s the big deal…she was hyperventilating. “And I…he…I came to Spain because…” Shut up! Menina told herself.

  “But you will get married when you go home?”

  “NO!”

  “Why?”

  It felt like her skin was slowly being peeled from her flesh. “Leave me alone! I don’t want to talk about it!”

  “It’s better if you tell me.”

  “Look, it’s none of your business, it’s got nothing to do with the people you’re describing or some argument in the church. It’s got nothing to do with anybody but me!” She clutched the locutio and started to cry. “Now leave me alone!”

  “Mees Walker, I am sorry, to break up, not get married like you want to…is painful. But maybe he is not a good man, or maybe not a good man for you. Sometimes we are lucky to find out in time we cannot trust the person we love.”

  Menina lost all her self-control. Fury took its place. She was angrier than she had ever been in her life. She grasped the grille with both hands and wished she could kill the man on the other side. “Trust? He raped me! And said it didn’t matter, that we were getting married, and I think he wanted to get me pregnant, and I don’t even know whether it’s my fault—my mother would say so if she knew, so I can’t tell her. I can’t tell the police because I don’t want to drag my family through a court case with all his fraternity brothers saying I’m…I’m a…I can’t even tell my best friend! I’m trying to handle it and I was and I felt better and today I thought…now you…ruined that…you…you…arrogant bastard!” She heard herself shrieking words she had never used to anyone, until she was crying and choking too hard to go on.

  The captain let her scream and cry until she was gasping for breath. “It is not good to say nothing when such a terrible thing happens to you.” He sounded sympathetic. Reasonable. What a shit, she thought helplessly, hating him. “Is many bad people in the world, but you are not to blame if he is one of them.” That made things worse. Menina didn’t want his sympathy. She didn’t want reasonable. She didn’t want him or anyone to know! That he did was like being raped all over again. Menina kicked the locutio as hard as she could with her Timberland until the bars rattled and her foot hurt. “Damn you! You stupid…Damn you!” she screamed as loud as she could.

  “You are angry,” said the captain “This is good! Be angry at him. He deserves your anger, and to be angry at me because you tell me this, is better than angry at yourself for what is not your fault.”

  “Oh sh-sh-shut up you fuckwit! Just shut up!” Menina screamed again.

  Suddenly Sor Teresa was there, scolding, “Alejandro! What is this? What have you said?” She put her arm around Menina, saying, “We go now.”

  Sobbing and gasping for breath, Menina was pulled away by Sor Teresa. The captain was calling something and then banging on the grille himself, saying it was important. Menina didn’t care. She had almost felt like herself again for a while, but she’d been wrong. Her life was in ruins. The rest of the day was a miserable blur. She forced herself to wash her T-shirt and other set of underwear, rinsing them again and again in icy pump water until her hands were numb. Then she sat in the pilgrims’ garden and tried to make notes about what she had found that morning. She couldn’t remember a single thing. She picked up her guidebook and read the same paragraphs over and over again, then kept putting the book down because she was crying. That night a plate of small almond cakes were on her tray. “Polvorónes,” said Sor Teresa and left.

  Menina had no appetite for them or anything else. She lay down and stared into the dark. She remembered she hadn’t brushed her teeth. She started to get up and do it, then decided that her life was going to hell, her teeth might as well rot.

  CHAPTER 15

  Las Golondrinas Convent, Spain, April 2000

  The next morning Sor Teresa shrilled, “Deo gratias!” and Menina rubbed her swollen eyes, and pushed herself up. She hated the world and everything and everyone in it. Her head ached. Thursday. Three days till Easter. Then she remembered the humiliation of yesterday and nothing mattered.

  Sor Teresa hobbled briskly out the door. Menina drank her coffee without tasting it, cringing at the way she had lost control the day before. She couldn’t afford to do that again. She pulled on her clothes, feeling numb.

  An hour later, she was following Sor Clara toward the sala grande when Sor Clara paused in the kitchen and, grinning broadly, pointed to a startling sight: a large basket of foil-wrapped chocolate fish, wrapped in layers of rainbow-colored cellophane, all topped with a huge bow of multicolored ribbon trailing elaborate ribbon curls. The label said: VALOR.

  “Valor is famous, very nice, very expensive!” said Sor Clara, appreciatively. “Captain Fernández Galán brought it.”

  Menina eyed the rainbow basket. “Why?”

  “Why? Because fish are a Christian symbol! In Spain there are chocolate fish for Easter; people give for presents, in the family, to friends.” Sor Clara cast a sly glance at Menina. “Men give to girls. And a little note is here.” She handed it to Menina and waited.

  Menina unfolded a scrap of paper that said “Polizia” at the top, and read aloud.

  Señorita Walker, Every year my older sister in Zaragoza sends these for Semana Santa, to remind me I am still her little brother. Please accept them for yourself and the sisters with my compliments.

  Alejandro Fernández Galán

  Menina normally loved chocolate. Now she ground her teeth, ripped the note in pieces, and was about to hurl the basket on the floor and stomp it flat with her Timberlands when the frightened look on Sor Clara’s face stopped her. “You must take it,” Sor Clara quavered anxiously, pointing at the basket. “Please, you bring it. Alejandro said he will see you later.”

  Oh hell! “Why?” She picked up the heavy basket.

  Sor Clara shrugged and opened the door of the sala grande. “I don’t know why. Is another of his girlfriends here last night.” Obviously the old-lady grapevine didn’t shut down over Semana Santa. “So many girlfriends. He should get married. He is lonely.”

  “Is he?” It came out a little sharper than Menina intended. Why didn’t he give his girlfriend the damned chocolate, let her get fat! In the sala grande Menina slammed the basket down. Captain Fernández Galán was a pain in the ass! One minute he was rude, the next he was worrying about the nuns, the next prying out her secrets, the next…another red-hot girlfriend. She was sick of the captain.

  In fact, she was thoroughly irritated by everything and everyone, including poor Sor Clara, the walls of dirty, stupid pictures, and the fact that she probably had only four or five hours of good light. She looked at the painting of the crowd and the demons in its tarnished silver frame, and the clean space on the wall where it had hung. So she’d found it. Big deal.

  She looked around to see if any other frames caught her attention. There seemed to be four other paintings of the same size hung at the same height. She stepped up to the closes
t and felt the frame. Black and patterned and heavy. She yanked it down from the wall hard enough to snap the wire. Too bad. Yes, the same silver frame, same design. There seemed to be three more such frames, hung in a line. She pulled them down, too, and set to work on the first, scrubbing roughly with the bread. Right now she couldn’t care less if she found a horde of lost Rembrandts.

  Under the dirt a scene emerged of a group of women watching a boat on the horizon. Some were huddled in groups, some kneeling, stretching out their arms toward the boat. Bundles of spilled possessions were scattered around them. The only woman standing had an arm raised toward the ship; she was a small but central figure, wearing a cloak that billowed powerfully with the same wind filling the ship’s sails. Men on deck had folded arms and were staring in the other direction at the sky. Definitely leaving the women. Theseus abandoning Ariadne on Naxos was the only classical subject that sprang to mind, but then Menina wasn’t sure. The standing woman somehow didn’t look like a Cretan princess. A couple of soldiers in the background looked Roman.

  Menina examined it more closely—was it mold, or a dark cloud on the horizon where the blue sea and blue sky met? One of the sailors in the stern of the boat, a tiny figure, seemed to be pointing toward it. Now she noticed all the sight lines of the people in the painting drew the viewer’s eye to the cloud. Funny, it was hardly noticeable at first, then the longer she looked at it, the seemingly insignificant cloud dominated the picture. And the cloud looked like a lot of tiny dots of paint, but the painting looked older than the nineteenth century when French Impressionists, the Pointillists, had also used tiny dots of paint. Her irritation began to dissipate. Just the tiniest bit.

  The next painting was another group scene. Beneath the murk, women and children were sitting around a table holding cups. There was a wine jug like the wicker-covered one she had seen in the convent kitchen, and men in helmets peering through a window. There were loaves of bread and a large fish on the table, and a pot on a fire. At first she guessed it had been commissioned to show a solid burgher’s womenfolk at dinner, and, yes, the fish was a Christian symbol. The clothes were plain—no jewels or fine robes, wimples, none of the elaborately wound turbans Renaissance women sometimes wore in paintings. Other than the fish and a candle on the table there was nothing to indicate the devotional nature of the painting—no saints, no flowers or other symbols she could associate with the Virgin, no angels or biblical references she could identify. In the eaves above the group around the table it looked as if birds were building nests. Swallows. What was with the swallows?