The Sisterhood

by Helen Bryan

  “Then a few weeks ago on the road, I saw great flocks of migrating swallows flying into the mountains, and the mountain people said they were returning to their home at the convent of Las Golondrinas. I felt hope for the first time; perhaps they had come to lead the way.” He stopped for breath and his head sank into his chest. “I am the wretch Tristan Mendoza.”

  “And the child you seek?”

  He whispered, “Maria Isabella Vilar D’Ascencion.”

  What the man said tallied with Marisol’s account. “Yes,” said the Abbess cautiously after a moment. “Yes, she is here. But I do not know if you may see her.” The Abbess and I consulted—should Marisol be told? She is not so fierce as she seems. But it was for her to grant forgiveness if she could, and the poor man should not be denied the right to ask it. The Abbess decided to send for her.

  Marisol flounced in, expecting a lecture for breaking convent rules, and emitted a startled “Oh!” when she saw a man behind the grille.

  The Abbess told her to be seated and said bluntly, “Marisol, this man claims to be the painter Tristan Mendoza, who painted your mother’s wedding portrait.”

  “If he is, beware,” Marisol said rudely. “Josefa always warned that the painter was not to be trusted and women should look to their virtue in his presence.”

  Even Marisol squirmed at the Abbess’s stern frown, though she subsided with a little exhale of breath meant to show us how little she cared. The man fell to his knees and cried, “A miracle!”

  “What’s this?” Marisol demanded suspiciously.

  “My prayers are answered. I have come to confess my guilt and seek your mercy and forgiveness for the evil I brought upon you and those you loved. I am the murderer of your entire family. I have their blood on my hands, on my soul.”

  Marisol muttered, “This beggar is a madman. Allow me to go, Abbess.”

  “Be still!” the Abbess commanded.

  The man clutched the locutio and repeated his story.

  For once Marisol had nothing to say. She crumpled in her chair, looking small and vulnerable. She clenched her jaw and looked wildly at me, her spirited defiance gone. Tears welled in her eyes as she battled to recover the anger that is her shield against the world. “I did not know why I was taken away from her and Josefa, and I did not know she had died. I have hated them and hated them. And now, you tell me…I hate you, too, with all my heart and every breath in my body.”

  Marisol’s hand reached out for mine. There was silence for a long time.

  “Marisol, we are taught that when our forgiveness is sought we should grant it as we hope for God’s forgiveness of our sins…” prompted the Abbess, kindly but firmly. “It is to the benefit of our own souls as well as for the glory of God.”

  Marisol nodded, while her hands twisted and twisted her handkerchief. “Poor Consuela,” she whispered.

  Tristan Mendoza said humbly, “I have vowed to use my gift only in God’s service. Let me do so now. I wronged her mother with a licentious portrait—may I paint a spiritual portrait of Maria Isabella in her novice’s gown to mark her transition into the life of a nun? Such portraits are often commissioned by the family of a girl taking the veil.”

  Indeed, just such a portrait of Sor Serafina had accompanied her when she arrived as a novice. “Premature!” the Abbess had grumbled.

  Marisol raised her head. A little fire returned to her eyes. The Abbess said quickly, “That will be impossible. Marisol has no vocation.”

  Tristan Mendoza surprised us then. He stared at Marisol silently for a few moments, then said, “I can see there is perhaps no vocation, but her mother’s goodness in her heart will do great things. She will act selflessly, though it will cause her pain, and be a strong force for good. She will be greatly loved by one and by many.”

  Marisol’s eyes flickered up. “Really? Am I pretty, like my mother?”

  The Abbess shook her head. “Marisol! Beware of vanity!”

  “Oh please,” begged Marisol. “There are no mirrors in the convent, and Josefa said I resembled my father. Even my mother took care with her appearance. And these novices’ gowns we are forced to wear are so very ugly!”

  The Abbess sighed. “Thank you, sir, for your offer. May I suggest that as your act of contrition, you paint Marisol and her inner…goodness together with some of our other girls? You will work from that side of the locutio of course and Sor Beatriz will act as chaperone.”

  “Gladly, Abbess.”

  “Thank you!” exclaimed Marisol.

  The Abbess then sent Tristan Mendoza to the men’s hostel and Marisol back to her work. I wondered aloud why the Abbess was willing to allow a man of such confessed carnality to paint five young girls.

  “There are several reasons. It will take the girls’ minds off this horrible Inquisition visit, and the man longs to make reparation. This is the only means in his power. If there is the slightest hint of anything improper, if he suggests one of the girls meets him elsewhere in the convent, he will be sent away at once. I do not think he wishes that.

  “And I wish to see his work. He may have had the morals of a male cat, but he has the reputation of a master. The convent is unlikely to see many masters, and I have another idea which I will share when we see how the portrait goes.”

  Tristan Mendoza began the next day, rising early for Mass before turning to the task of grinding and mixing his paints. Though his face was horribly gaunt, almost a death mask, a little life returned to it as he mixed colors while the girls peered through the locutio and asked questions. When he was ready, he took some time instructing them to group this way and that on their side of the locutio. Marisol pinched her cheeks to give them color and fluffed her hair. Luz held her favorite doll, dressed as if for a consecration in a veil and flower crown, and would sit nowhere but at Esperanza’s feet. Esperanza had brought a book and read while she waited. Sanchia fidgeted, and Pia combed out her hair to make a silvery waterfall down her back. Tristan Mendoza stifled a gasp at the sight. I gave him a sharp reprimand.

  He was no longer the sniveling penitent. A note of authority had returned to his voice, and he told the girls they must keep still; he must work quickly because there was little time. He set to work on a canvas he had prepared the night before, while I worked at a table nearby.

  A week passed. Then Tristan Mendoza turned the unfinished canvas to face the locutio so the Abbess and I might see it. The Abbess gazed through the grille and said, “It really is quite good! Unfinished, but I am amazed…look at Luz, with her doll. He has caught the sweetness of her soul exactly, just as he has captured Esperanza’s intelligence, Marisol’s impatience, Sanchia’s demons, and Pia’s detachment from the world, as if nothing can touch her! Now consider this. I have often prayed that God would send us an artist capable of painting our Gospel, perhaps as an allegorical cycle. Until now no artist here has been sufficiently gifted or could be trusted with our secrets. But I think Mendoza’s gift has been tempered, not destroyed, by suffering and repentance. He may understand base human nature, but is capable of looking beyond it for divine grace, and I am more and more convinced the Gospel should be preserved here in painting even though we hope to find a means to send the Chronicle away.”

  Tristan Mendoza no longer looks quite so ill, and he talks of painting a work for the chapel once he is finished with the girls. He has asked the Abbess if there is any saint we wish to honor. The Abbess said that she had a plan she would discuss with him. But his premonition there was little time proved correct, though not in the way we expected, with his death. Before the portrait was finished, the bell at the gate rang loudly in the dead of night. Soon afterward a sleepy beata came to my cell saying the Abbess had received a messenger at the locutio, and that I was wanted at once. I dressed quickly and hurried along to the Abbess’s apartments.

  The Abbess held up the official letter. “The tribunal will arrive next week. All present in the convent are to be questioned—nuns, novices, beatas, servants, and now children over
the age of four. Fr. Ramon Jimenez…they say he can smell a heretic, and gives his investigators great leeway in the manner in which they obtain information.” Her voice shook a little.

  The walls of the parlor suddenly closed around us. The convent, our refuge, had become our prison, a trap, a grave. A ringing in my ears drowned out the Abbess’s next words.

  “I said ‘brides,’ Sor Beatriz.” The Abbess spoke sharply, exasperated at having to repeat herself. “Now I understand what the Foundress meant. Esperanza, Marisol, Pia, and Sanchia must go to find husbands in the New World! And take the Chronicle and the medal with them. I will make the necessary arrangements for them to leave as soon as possible. Write your last in the Chronicle, then give it to Esperanza. She can be trusted to continue it and seek out this convent in the Andes.”

  “Esperanza will read the Gospel!”

  “Of course she will, Sor Beatriz! That is my intention! When she does she will understand why she must decide if Las Golondrinas in the colonies is our mission before she gives the Gospel to their care. But go, I know you wish to write a farewell…”

  From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, Las Golondrinas Convent, Andalusia, June 1552

  It is midnight, but only the orphanage children sleep, unaware that last night a messenger came up from the valley to warn the Abbess. Like wolves slinking toward the sheepfold, the Inquisition tribunal draws nearer each day and will soon be upon us…

  CHAPTER 20

  From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, by the pen of Esperanza, July 1552

  At Sea

  Impossible though it seems even after the weeks of traveling to Seville, Marisol, Pia, Sanchia, and I have left the convent with Sor Emmanuela. We are on the open sea, bound for Spanish America and the convent known as Las Golondrinas de Los Andes. I am charged with discovering whether it was founded by a mission party of nuns of Las Sors Santas de Jesus many years ago. Sor Beatriz and the Abbess gave me a list of questions, the names of the mission party, and so on, and I must be satisfied by the answers before I part with the Chronicle and Sor Emmanuela parts with the medal. It is a great responsibility.

  Sor Beatriz has told me about her daughter, Salome, who will either be a nun there or they will know of her death. Sor Beatriz believes this will be the test to confirm it is indeed the right place. But finding the convent is only part of our task. The other is to find husbands. I do not know which is the harder.

  The Abbess and Sor Beatriz also wish me to keep a record of our journey. It began this way:

  Late one night Sor Emmanuela came to the cell where Marisol, Pia, and I were sleeping and said we must come to the Abbess at once. We dressed quickly and hurried to her parlor as Sor Emmanuela went to fetch Sanchia from the children’s dormitory. The Abbess, Sor Beatriz, and several other nuns stood by the fire, examining papers on the table bearing the Inquisition stamp. Pia gasped and silently gripped my hand. “They are coming!” cried Marisol.

  “So,” I whispered, “we are trapped! They will question us horribly and when they discover who we are the nuns will suffer for hiding us!”

  “No, you girls will leave the convent at once,” said the Abbess, “before they find you.”

  “Leave?” asked Pia faintly. “If you send us away, we will be hunted down. We may as well throw ourselves from the cliffs tonight!”

  The Abbess said briskly, “Fortunately, Pia, we have made a better plan. You will leave tonight for Seville, and from there sail for Spanish America. One of the village men has gone ahead to arrange your passage on the first available ship, and two more are waiting to take you to Seville. You must be gone as soon as you are ready, and Sor Emmanuela will go as your chaperone. A convent in Spanish America was founded by missionaries from our order years ago. Las Golondrinas de Los Andes will give you shelter until you marry and I am sure will help find you husbands. The colonists are in great need of Spanish wives, and therefore less likely to look deeply into your families than men in Spain. We are providing dowries for each of you.”

  “But what of you, what of Sor Beatriz? And all the others?”

  “That will be as God wills. I am not without hope that someone at court can influence the Inquisition inquiry, even at this late date. We have just sent the queen an urgent message begging her to help, hoping that Luz’s beautiful gift will prove a reminder. But we are bound by our vows and will do our duty, whatever happens. And you must prepare to go.”

  “Sanchia is only ten—surely she cannot be married.”

  “Help each other as much as you can. The first to marry must take her into your home as a sister and find a husband for her when the time comes. Now make haste to pack…ah, here is Sanchia.”

  Sanchia came in rubbing her eyes, her curly hair unbrushed and her dress unfastened. Normally she bounced and bobbed restlessly, but in the middle of the night even she was too sleepy. “Child, wake up and pay attention. You are going on a journey with Marisol and Esperanza and Pia.” Sanchia’s eyes grew wide with fear. “Are there soldiers?” she quavered. “Will they tie us up?”

  “No, my dear. There will be a ship with sails like a bird’s wings, and the great sea and you will have an adventure.”

  We were all stunned at the sudden news, and I was overcome with sadness to think I must leave dear Sor Beatriz and the sanctuary of the convent. I loved our calm days in the scriptorium, with new books to discover, correspondence to be copied, or best of all, finding information required by the infirmary sisters. I had often regretted promising my father to marry, thinking how pleasant, how useful and fulfilling, it would be to stay and embrace a nun’s life here. Had my mother felt the same when she entered Regina Coeli?

  But there was little time for such reflections, and the Abbess sent us off to dress for the journey and gather our belongings. Sor Beatriz drew me away to the scriptorium where this Chronicle lay open on her desk. She told me that I was to take the Chronicle with us and aside from keeping an account of the journey I must read it all, including the order’s Gospel in Latin, in the middle pages. Then I would understand why I must guard it with my life and be sure that it was delivered safely into the right hands. I swore to do so, then she told me to go and pack; she wished to make a farewell entry.

  I saw Sor Beatriz one last time in the scriptorium when she laid the parcel with this Chronicle in my arms with as much sorrow and tenderness as if I had been her child. By then the convent had been alerted to the fact the tribunal had arrived suddenly in the darkness. With their horses and mules and carriages and wagons and servants causing an uproar, the bell rang incessantly, frightened beatas and novices and servants ran about, and all was suddenly noise and confusion.

  The Abbess said the artist Tristan Mendoza had been dosed with powerful medicine and was in a deathlike sleep, bandaged from head to toe for good measure and hidden beneath the lepers’ cell in the infirmary together with his painting materials. Still wet, the unfinished portrait of the five of us had been hung on a dark wall in the oldest wing. Perhaps in leaving the portrait, we leave a little of ourselves—that is a comfort.

  I hope the Inquisition does not find it.

  Having gathered the four of us girls in her parlor once more, the Abbess took the medal of her office from her neck and put it around the neck of Sor Emmanuela. The Abbess clearly expects the worst or she would not part with it. The sisters embraced, and then the Abbess hastily kissed each of us and gave us her blessing before opening a small door hidden behind a tapestry.

  A narrow dark passageway, steep and all but invisible, led from the privy there down to the cellars where the wine casks are kept, then below them to the sewers. We stepped carefully down the stairs of the narrow passage, until we finally squeezed through a small window at the base of the convent, donned heavy cloaks, and hurried to a wagon that was waiting. Darkness was our friend. The village men had already loaded our trunks and muffled the wagon’s wheels. They helped us in and we pulled silently away.

  My heart ached for Luz. I had
no time to say good-bye. What will she do without us? Without me? And the Abbess is pinning all her hopes of a reprieve from the tribunal on Luz’s gift to the queen. I cannot bear to think of what will happen to them all! Huddled in the wagon we all wept, sniffling under our cloaks until the sky turned pink with the dawn and we slept.

  We woke with a jolt as the wagon stopped and we feared the worst, but the drivers said we must get down and walk. A full wagon is hard going for the mules. Their orders were to shun the main road, and I could see we were on a faint track marked with white stones at intervals leading into the forest.

  Our escorts took care to avoid villages, and if they spotted shepherds they would veer off to keep out of their sight. We slept in the open wrapped in our cloaks, surviving on dried fruit and mutton, almonds, and cheese, drinking from the mountain springs. Finally drawing close to Seville we were glad to be able to ride again, and to buy bread and oil and a little wine. Marisol looked eagerly at everything, saying how interesting the world was beyond the convent.

  I was uneasy. To me, the familiar streets and cathedral towers of Seville meant only danger. Remembering how Maria and I had escaped, giddy with relief and daring, I wondered whether my guardian had appropriated all my fortune to himself or whether the Inquisition had clawed it from him. Every day I thought of Don Jaime with love and gratitude for engineering my escape, and said a prayer for his safety.

  The city overwhelmed us with its noise and bustle. The convent sounds were bells and prayers and birdsong, the murmur of the schoolroom, the hush of the library by day and the mountain wind by night. At the docks, sailors shouted and swore and called orders, soldiers and priests and friars hurried in twos and threes, mules brayed, whips cracked, cargoes were loaded, sails snapped in the breeze, men drank and sang, and prostitutes called shrilly from the shadows. The other girls and even Sor Emmanuela exclaimed with excitement at the sight of so many great-masted ships towering into the sky.