The Sisterhood

by Helen Bryan

  They all studied Menina with undisguised interest. She guessed they were asking each other where Alejandro had met a girl who looked such a mess after his string of hot girlfriends. Alejandro introduced her as an art student, and said she had been working at the convent, looking for paintings the nuns could sell. There was an approving murmur as this information was passed from table to table. Everyone seemed to know she had been there, and she soon learned that most of the older people had a story about Las Golondrinas and the civil war to tell her. Alejandro pointed out those villagers at the tables nearby who chopped wood for the nuns or took food or bought polvorónes, or who still had relatives among the nuns.

  Several people told Menina that it was a scandal the bishop wanted to close the convent. It was part of the local history, since before the Reconquista. Did Menina know that once this village had been part of a great estate in the valley, owned by a wealthy Moorish family? They pointed out this person and that person as being their descendants. “Even Alejandro, his ancestors lived in the valley once, must be Moorish many years ago.” There was a chorus of agreement.

  “Ah yes, it is true,” said Alejandro nodding. “On my mother’s side.” An elderly man leaned over from the next table. Did Menina the American know what the Reconquista was?

  They talked about the Reconquista like it was yesterday. Just like the way older people in Georgia talked about the American Civil War, or “the Late Unpleasantness,” as some of the older ladies in Laurel Run called it. When Menina nodded and said she did know about the Reconquista, about 1492, wasn’t it? Word of her response seemed to pass from table to table. Again, people nodded approvingly, and the elderly man at the next table stopped eating and shifted his chair closer to tell her that, with all the trouble in the world today between Jews and Muslims and Christians, Menina should know that at one time the Moors and the Christians and the Jews all lived together in peace in Andalusia. Menina said she was reading an old Chronicle of the convent that said the same thing.

  An old lady, one of the grandmothers, said that whatever people said against the Catholic Church, there was something good and holy about the convent.

  That would explain why the church wanted to close it, the old man snapped back. Roars of laughter.

  Menina laughed, too. She was having a good time. More wine, then bread arrived, followed by lamb and artichokes and rice. The shadows lengthened and plates of small pastries appeared. Someone began to play a guitar. Alejandro shifted Menina’s chair so she could see the guitarist. “I think now it is better to eat dessert slowly,” he said with amusement.

  “Yes, I know. I’ve overdone it. But everything was so good!” said Menina. The waistband of her jeans felt tight. A thin cat curled itself around her ankles and she fed it a scrap of lamb. Somehow Alejandro’s chair had moved so they were sitting side by side, watching the musicians, and people singing spirited songs that she couldn’t understand all the words to but were apparently very funny, and this old man or that grandmother leaping from their chairs to perform a little flamenco to general applause.

  It grew dark. Small lights came on in the orange trees. Coffee came and went, along with small glasses of some fierce brandy-like spirit that took Menina’s breath away just smelling it. More plates of small sweets. More coffee. Alejandro’s arm hovered casually on the back of her chair, not quite touching her shoulders. Menina thought she would like to sit like this forever. It felt peaceful and safe. She felt good.

  Someone lit a bonfire. “I am thinking something and I am just going to say it,” said Alejandro, looking straight ahead. “I am glad you missed your bus. Don’t go tomorrow. Stay a little longer. You have another two weeks before your flight. I know you will want to go back to America, but maybe you can stay a little.” Menina drew away. What exactly did he mean? With him?

  Alejandro saw surprise and alarm in her eyes and said quickly, “Sor Teresa says it is good to have a young person in the convent. Especially a well-brought-up girl who is respectful. There you have many chaperones, and here,” he swept a hand at the square of celebrating villagers, “are more. The village is very old-fashioned. Every one of these people will be watching every move you make, just like they watch me, and it will be the main topic of discussion until you leave. So you are very safe here.” He smiled.

  “I can believe that! But…” Only a few days ago she had thought she wanted to leave more than anything in the world. But now she had found the paintings, and the part of the Chronicle she had read had whetted her appetite to read the rest and see if things fit together as she was beginning to think they might. She would really like to be here when Professor Lennox came. But—OK, it was impossible to ignore—Alejandro sounded like he was holding out another reason. Not pushing, asking. Testing the water. She had thought she never wanted to have anything to do with a man again. And she wasn’t sure she did. Yet. But…did she want to go through life wondering if she had been too much of a coward thanks to a bad thing, to miss her chance with a good one?

  It was her decision. Menina decided to dip a toe in the water. “Maybe I should stay a bit longer if you really think Sor Teresa won’t mind?”

  He shook his head. “Believe me, she won’t!”

  Menina hastened to say, “I mean, I should because I never told you about the paintings I found. Or what the Chronicle says. You said something about ‘old stories about the convent,’ and I wondered if maybe they’re actually in the Chronicle, maybe that’s why the nuns gave it to me with the medal…oh, it’s too long to go into tonight. I’m too tired and full and sleepy to make sense and you’re probably too tired to listen. Besides, you haven’t told me about the people from the cofradia or whatever you called it, who were looking for me…look, when I can get my head together we still have to talk about a few things before I go. There’ll be another bus.”

  “Yes, we are not finished talking,” he said.

  “But if I stay I have to call my parents. First thing. OK?”

  “Of course, no problem now. To find a telephone with a good connection we must drive down to the valley. First thing in the morning we will go. And then we can stop for lunch. But now I will take you back to the convent, because you are right, I am tired.” Alejandro pulled her to her feet and they climbed the terraces still hand in hand. Menina didn’t notice that until he let hers go. The gate had been left a little ajar. They both yawned as they said goodnight and went their separate ways.

  The next morning Alejandro drove—very fast—a long way down the twisting mountain road until they reached a roadside café that Alejandro said had a reliable phone. He dealt with the operator, and when the Walkers finally picked up he started to walk away. Menina called him back. “I might need your help here.”

  Later, over coffee, Menina was still red-eyed from an emotional conversation with a frantic Virgil and Sarah-Lynn who said the Spanish police hadn’t been able to tell them much, and they had been told to stay put in case Menina contacted them. Now that they knew where she was, they would take the next flight to Spain. Menina assured them over and over she was perfectly alright but they weren’t going to believe it till they saw her.

  Then when Sarah-Lynn was about to hang up she said they’d let Theo know where she was. He had been more worried than anyone—the papers had got hold of the story that his fiancé had disappeared and reporters were driving the Bonners crazy trying to find out if she had been kidnapped and if the kidnappers were demanding a large ransom.

  Oh hell! Menina thought. She told her parents firmly not to talk to reporters or tell Theo where she was; she never wanted to see him again. From now on, what she did was none of his business. When Sarah-Lynn tearfully urged her to think twice about what she was throwing away, Menina said, “Mama, I’m thinking about what I get back by living my own life. Something really interesting has happened—I found some old paintings, it’s kind of exciting, a really big deal actually. I need to see what happens next with that. If I married Theo I couldn’t do that. I’d live his life
, not mine. I don’t love him, for one thing. No, I don’t think he loves me, not at all. Really, Mama, I don’t care anymore what people will say! They’ll just have to say it and then we’ll all forget about it. I’m sorry to upset you, but I’ve made up my mind about this.” Menina was shaking. Her mother was convinced she ought to marry Theo, and for the first time ever she was standing up for what she wanted. She had never spoken to her mother so assertively. “I told you, Mama, I don’t want a last chance to change my mind!”

  At that point Alejandro held out his hand for the phone and introduced himself as the local police captain. He assured them Menina was fine, and he was looking forward to meeting at the airport in a couple of days. Just let them know what time. He hoped they would have a pleasant flight. Then he hung up. Menina was tearful after her outburst and suddenly a lot less assertive, and wandered off to the restroom to splash cold water on her eyes. Sitting down again she said, “Talking to my parents makes me feel like I’m twelve years old again and messing up.”

  “But you are not twelve—you are a grown woman. Something terrible happened to you, but you still found strength to help other girls to whom bad things were done also, things that were not their fault either. You help the nuns because you have a good heart. But instead of thinking ‘I am a strong person, a good person, a clever person who can do many things’ you let other people decide for you because you want to please them. But in life you must take responsibility for what you do. If you are having second thought about Theo, if you are sorry you say you do not want him…then you should go back to him.”

  No way! Menina raised her head, looked him in the eye and said firmly, “I meant what I said. I’m finished with Theo. And even though you say I mustn’t blame myself for…for…I was carried away by who he was, what my mother and other people thought of him and his family. It blinded me to the fact that he and his family wanted a nice presentable Hispanic wife to get Hispanic votes. One they could control. I think I was just too stupid to see it. No. I wasn’t stupid, I just…hoped everything was the way people said it was.”

  She took a deep breath. “If I had married Theo it would have turned bad eventually and been an even bigger mess, probably with children involved. What he did showed me how despicable he is. But when I felt so shattered, what helped most was when you said it wasn’t my fault and that it was good to be angry. And I was so angry at Theo then. Well, you heard me! Then when you asked me to help Almira and told me what happened to trafficked girls, I realized you knew what you were saying about being angry at the right person. And that’s when I started to think maybe, like you said, I didn’t bring the rape on myself. It changed the way I looked at things.”

  Menina managed a painful smile. “And you know what else helped? The fact that you disliked me, that you thought I was stupid to get my bag stolen, that you called me a prostitute. If you had such a poor opinion and still thought it wasn’t my fault, well, I could trust that.”

  “I am sorry. I was a bully, but I was worried about Almira and the whole operation. I couldn’t let anyone jeopardize that. But I did not choose my words well.” Alejandro held out his hand, palm up, and Menina hesitated, then put hers into it and they sat looking at each other, holding the moment, neither saying anything because each of them knew it was important to choose their next words very carefully.

  A man cleared his throat and broke the spell. “Alejandro? Excuse my interrupting, but you did ask me to come and meet—Ah, is this the lady? Encantado, señorita! You are even more beautiful in the flesh than in the missing-person photo.”

  “Ernesto! I told Menina about you.” Alejandro sprang to his feet and embraced a little nondescript gray-haired man with a pipe in his hand and a paper under his arm. They sat and exchanged pleasantries while Alejandro ordered coffee. Alejandro told Menina to start at the beginning. Ernesto lit his pipe and sat back to listen.

  “I better start with this.” She put the velvet bag on the table. “Ernesto, Alejandro says he told you about my medal and how I got it.” Then she withdrew the book from its velvet bag along with two notebooks. “I told Alejandro that the nuns in the convent where I was adopted also gave me an old book. See, swallow on the medal, swallow on the book cover, you can just make it out. Beyond taking a quick look inside I never tried to read it, really. It’s an old Chronicle and you know, a sixteen-year-old couldn’t care less. I brought it to give to the Prado since it was old and in Spanish and I hoped they’d help me with research on the medal in exchange. But since I’ve been at the convent with nothing else to read, I dipped into it. And what’s odd is, I think the Chronicle and this medal actually came from Las Golondrinas, a long time ago, and wound up in the place where I was rescued in South America, I think to hide them from the Inquisition. Most of the Chronicle is in Spanish in old-fashioned writing, and I may have gotten some of it wrong, but that’s the gist.

  “But it mentions a ‘Gospel’ over and over until I wondered what had happened to the Gospel. But there’s a part of the Chronicle in Latin and while I was stuck in the convent I had a look at it, and I began to think, hey, that is the Gospel. And I think the reason the nuns wanted me to have the book is that the Gospel tells the story of where the medal came from.”

  Ernesto kissed his hand to her. “Hermosa e inteligente!” he exclaimed. Beautiful and intelligent.

  “Still the ladies’ man, Ernesto,” murmured Alejandro.

  “Listen, you two! There’s more. I get the impression the Gospel dates back to Roman Spain in the early days of Christianity, though the Chronicle says it was recopied, so maybe the Latin’s been simplified. And I kept reading and rereading it because it was such an odd story, and I wanted to translate it right, but it says Jesus had a sister named Salome and that she came to Spain and founded the order that started the convent up there.” She pointed in the direction of Las Golondrinas. “She looked like Jesus, according to eyewitnesses, and she even acted like Jesus. And this medal”—she held it up—“was hers. Jesus gave it to her. And one way of looking at the Gospel, if you put it all together, is that it says women are just as close to God as Jesus was. And I guess it also means that Mary was never the virgin the Catholic Church says, or that she even needed to be.”

  Ernesto’s expression had changed to one of horrified alarm. He put his hand on Menina’s protectively. “My dear, you have done an excellent job, but you do not understand the significance of this Gospel you have found. The Catholic Church says the Virgin Mary is the link between man and God, that she is the ever-virgin mother of God…this is doctrine decided by the bishops in a theological conference called by the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century! Council of Nicaea, that was the one. By that time, who knew what the truth was. But by making the matter one of faith it was beyond challenge. If there is evidence Jesus had a sister, the church was wrong, the Virgin Mary was not a virgin forever. I am sure that in the past anyone suggesting such things would have been accused of heresy.”

  Ernesto shook his head and continued. “I am an old Republican and a nonbeliever, but this is serious! The couple who were looking for you, the missing-person poster…Now I know why! They want this book and this medal, and they will do anything to get it so that no one will find out what is in the Gospel. What I do not understand is how they knew Menina had it.”

  “I can tell you,” said Menina. “There was a story about me in the paper when I got engaged, and there was a picture of my medal and the Chronicle and a bit about why I had them.”

  Both men were plainly worried now. Alarmed, Menina looked at Alejandro. He had risked his life for the Albanian girls and from the grim look in his eye she knew he would do the same for her. “I have my gun,” said Alejandro. “I’ll see what we can do about police protection—”

  What have I done? For a moment the old Menina, the good girl, quailed to think this new mess was her fault—but a new Menina told the old Menina to shut up and think. And the answer came to her. Call Becky.

  Menina pushed her chair ba
ck and said firmly, “Guns and police won’t be required, gentlemen. I know exactly what to do. The last thing to do is hide the story; better to publicize it as much as possible. Alejandro, please help me make another call. My best friend is…a journalist who would love to get a story this big. And I owe her; she’s the reason I’m in Spain at all. And if Ernesto would contact Professor Lennox.” She pulled Professor Lennox’s card from her pocket. “She’s a specialist in sixteenth-century Spanish art and the organizer of my tour. I didn’t make a good first impression, but I bet you could charm her into coming up here and taking a look at what’s at the convent. She’s very attractive, by the way.” Ernesto picked up the card and said that it would be a pleasure.

  “And I’ll keep working at the Gospel translation. What I would really like is a desk and a chair.”

  “I can manage that,” said Alejandro.

  For the next two days before everyone arrived, Menina walked down the hill to the police station, carrying the Chronicle, her dictionaries, and the notebooks. After huddling on a stone bench and squinting in candlelight, it was luxury having a desk and a decent lamp. She polished and checked her translation and transcribed different versions in longhand while Alejandro completed a long report about the weekend’s operation. Telephone engineers finally came and repaired the telephone connection. Alejandro took calls from Interpol and Ernesto, and Menina spoke to her parents and Becky.

  At the end of the second day, Ernesto came to join them for dinner and over coffee Menina read them her day’s work:

  The first story of the Gospel of our Foundress Salome, told by Salome to our scribe

  On a hot afternoon in Judea, Jesus, the son of Joseph the Carpenter and his wife, Maryam, led his younger sister Salome to join a group of boys laughing and splashing on the banks of a stream. The boys fell silent as Jesus sat Salome on the bank and waded into the stream to join them. No one dared splash or jostle him. In the Temple rabbis called him a strange prodigy, a boy who knew the alphabet without being taught, knew the law, and who boldly lectured the rabbis instead of the other way around. Children sent to fetch water from the well said that when Jesus did so he carried it back to his mother in a cloth instead of a jar. Accidents happened to playfellows that angered him—he had cursed a boy who pushed him and the child’s hand had withered. A child who had taunted him unkindly, as children do, dropped down dead. It was said that when a neighbor accidentally severed his foot from his leg with an ax, Jesus picked up the twitching foot and joined it back onto the leg while the injured man stared at his bloody ax in shock. Some claimed he had restored life to a man who had fallen from a high roof onto his head, although those who had not been present disputed this, insisting the injured man must have merely been unconscious and not dead. Witnesses insisted the roof had been very high, the man’s head was smashed, and blood had trickled from his ears before Jesus approached, then he had sat up and walked away, shaking himself. When questioned about these things, Jesus only shrugged and said, “It is God’s will these things happened.”