by Helen Bryan
Then the mountain rumbled and shook beneath our feet, and a terrifying sound like the roar of God threw us and the soldiers to the ground. The rock behind Salome split open. As boulders rained down from the mountain Salome ducked her head and slipped inside the crevasse. The earth shook again and the fissure closed behind her. Those soldiers still alive cried out in terror that the place was the preserve of some goddess and fled, dragging the wounded.
Trembling and weeping we climbed down to see the place where Salome had disappeared. The ground was covered with blood and the bodies of men and swallows, and among them something glittered. I picked it up. Salome’s medal. I slipped it over my head. “We will not go back” I vowed. “Salome is here…Here we will stay.” The swallows flew off the next day. And where Salome had entered the mountain, a spring appeared in the rock.
The yawning café owner had gone home to bed. It was after midnight and he left the keys and an open bottle of wine on the table. Alejandro muttered his thanks, saying he would lock up and drop the keys in the café owner’s letter slot.
“There’s a painting of the third Gospel, too,” said Menina. “Put the six Tristan Mendozas together and you have a religious cycle. Really, it’s so extraordinary I keep thinking I must be mistaken about everything—I’ll be relieved when someone else has a look at it.”
“But if you go back to the beginning of the Chronicle, this was what the nuns hoped would happen, that someone would bring the medal and the Chronicle back to the convent and put it all together. Only I think—though I can’t be sure—that Tristan Mendoza must have painted the cycle after the four girls left the convent. Because between the time he arrived at the convent and the time the four girls left, he painted a group portrait of the five that were here. So maybe that’s still in the convent somewhere.”
There was silence in the café. Ernesto took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Beyond a doubt you have made the discovery of a lifetime in this Chronicle. The paintings, the key to their meaning, the history of the convent…”
“And maybe a little of my own family history. Reading the Chronicle I think this medal might have been in my birth family for a long time, maybe even been connected to another miracle. And I have this weird feeling, like maybe on account of that connection I was meant to find all this and put it together.”
“You are…I cannot find the words to tell you what you are,” said Alejandro. “No words to say what you have done.” This time he did take her hand across the table, not caring if Ernesto saw.
“I have a feeling this is just getting started,” said Menina. She smiled at him. “I think…like the poet said, ‘the best is yet to be.’”
CHAPTER 36
Las Golondrinas Convent, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Tristan Mendoza Foundation and Museum, Directors Menina Walker de Fernández and Alejandro Fernández Galán, June 2013
Becky had been the first person to grasp that things were indeed “just getting started.” What Menina had found was a huge project waiting to get off the ground. When she arrived in response to Menina’s phone call saying she had to drop everything and come to Spain and get the story of a lifetime, Sor Teresa allowed her to stay in the convent where she was given a pilgrim’s cell next to Menina’s. Sor Teresa reluctantly agreed to unlock the gate so Becky and Menina could come and go to the café for their meals. “But no mens,” she said as sternly to Becky as she had to Menina. Becky followed Menina around the convent, beside herself with delight at having an exclusive news scoop. She foresaw a series of newspaper features, then maybe a book. “Oh Child of Light! If any male reporters get wind of this, it’s just too bad! They won’t be allowed in the convent!” she exclaimed gleefully, and within a day had sold a series to the New York Times.
“Things are just getting started, probably. I mean, look at this place! I started off trying to help the nuns a little,” said Menina. “Now I’m wondering how to make everything come together—it keeps nagging at me.”
“The place is a mess. Interesting, but a mess. That bathroom is evil,” said Becky. “Good thing Alejandro asked your parents to stay with him—his place is fabulous. You can tell it’s an old house, but he’s had a lot of work done so it’s comfortable. He’s got good taste for a man. Anyway, he said we can come over and take showers whenever we want.” She had looked sideways at Menina, trying to gauge her friend’s take on the handsome police captain. Becky’s take on him was that he was macho but good news. He gave Menina space. Becky was definitely getting signals that something had been started between them.
When Serafina Lennox came to the convent the first time and saw what Menina had discovered she was speechless, and hyperventilated until she had to sit down, while Menina brought her some water and assured her they were just getting started.
For Menina and Alejandro the phrase “things are just getting started” became a mantra. Over the years it preceded statements like, “maybe this is a crazy idea, but what if we could turn the convent into a museum” to “how can we ever raise that much money?” to “let’s try it” to “Dear God, what were we thinking!”
Menina and Alejandro said it when experts arrived to look at the Chronicle and medal. They said it when Menina wondered aloud if it would be possible to keep and display the Mendoza cycle alongside the Chronicle and the medal, to have a gallery in the convent and a shop selling copies of the medal and Chronicle and reproductions of the paintings. They said it hopefully to teams of architects and conservationists and heritage bodies who trooped around the convent, shaking their heads at the impossible job of restoring and repairing a building that ancient, historic, and huge. They had said it to insurers and museums and charitable trusts. They said it, talking themselves hoarse, giving speeches and networking and chasing official bodies for funds. And when they told Sor Teresa that the very first work to be done was new quarters for the nuns and a live-in care team of lay sisters. This provoked exclamations and warnings and a flood of advice from Sor Teresa, so Menina left it to Alejandro to explain to his aunt that in fact they were “just getting started.”
They said it when the first tentative fund-raising efforts bore fruit, and then to describe the state of perpetual upheaval—fund-raising, dignitary-visiting, building work, repairs, renovations. Alejandro said it when he asked Menina to marry him. Only when Menina, who seemed to be immune to every method of birth control, announced she was expecting their fifth child did they look at each other and say, simultaneously, “Don’t, whatever you do, say we’re just getting started!” And when his wife was tearing her hair out over yet another crisis, Alejandro would put his arms around her and remind her the best was yet to be.
And when it was suggested that Alejandro, a local hero for his part in breaking up the smuggling ring and rescuing women from the traffickers, should run for election to the Spanish parliament, the Cortes Generales, they had sat up late into the night, discussing it. Menina could see her husband was interested. “I guess just getting started—again,” she said. “It’ll be interesting! But you’re a good man for the job.” And then she told him she had some news as well, they were expecting baby number six.
Today was one of the rare occasions when Menina had time to think about anything that had happened longer than five minutes ago, and she thought about that conversation and smiled. They must have been insane thinking they could let life get any fuller, but somehow it was working. Menina had become quite good at living calmly amid chaos, just dealing with the most essential things. She had had plenty of practice. And the one thing you could say for being pregnant was that you got to sit down occasionally.
Today Menina, dressed in a pink maternity sundress, big pearls, and espadrilles, sipped orange juice as she sat in the shade of a huge umbrella out of the scorching midday sun and took stock of her life. She watched her parents enjoying a game of ring-around-the-roses with four of her daughters—Pia, Esperanza, Marisol, and Luz—in the old walled pilgrims’ garden. One-year-old Sanchia was taking her prelunch nap in h
er stroller.
Today she had a full house of the people she loved best, and the remaining one, her husband, was driving back in time for what promised to be a lively Spanish family lunch. The table was set in the arbor, she had postponed two urgent meetings until the next day, her parents had the children, and her assistant, Almira, was dealing with the lunch. This left her time to concentrate on the most essential and pressing matter of the moment—Becky, whom she hadn’t seen for years.
When Becky had walked through the door the previous evening Menina had to mask her shock at Becky’s appearance. Sarah-Lynn had been less reticent. “What on earth happened to that child?” she had whispered to Menina almost as soon as Becky left the room. From a distance, Menina thought Becky looked her old self. Up close, Becky’s face had fine wrinkles from a hot Iraqi sun. There were dark shadows under her eyes, her cheekbones were sharp, her nails chewed to the quick. Becky tended to hit things angrily with her crutches. Menina wanted to hug Becky and cry, which Menina knew would be a terrible mistake. So while trying to smile and chat like everything was fine, Menina was racking her brain trying to think how to help her troubled friend. Years ago the convent had helped her deal with the aftermath of rape. Maybe it would somehow help Becky just to be here. Menina should remain calm and patient and give Becky time. If Becky didn’t explode first.
Becky had written a series of brilliant pieces about the convent, the paintings, and the proposed gallery, paving the way for Menina and Alejandro’s efforts to get the huge project they envisaged off the ground. But still determined to follow the lure of adventure, she had literally been through the wars. After graduating from journalism school she had somehow finagled press credentials that took her to Afghanistan then Iraq. She had reported from one hellhole after another, getting addicted to the adrenaline rush of danger, and the crazy living-on-the-verge-of-death high that lent an intensity to everything, from relationships to a cold beer.
When Menina had tried to ask how she was, Becky had snapped that the counseling her paper had insisted on hadn’t worked and she didn’t want to talk about it. OK?
Sitting on a deck chair across from Menina, Becky was halfway through a bottle of wine and her right foot was jiggling. Immobilized in a caliper, her left leg lay heavily on the chair and her crutches were in reach. “So peaceful,” muttered Becky, then jumped like a scalded cat when from somewhere in the depths of the convent there was a loud clash of scaffolding poles, and the rattle of pulleys, then workmen shouting over a blaring radio.
Menina bit her tongue so she wouldn’t blurt out what she was thinking, that thank goodness the paper had enough sense to refuse to send Becky back. Becky had wanted to go. Iraqi women with horrifying stories to tell, things they would only tell a woman reporter, were her speciality. That was what she had been doing when the bomb detonated and blew up the café full of widows and children she was interviewing. Becky was struggling with the fact she was alive.
Menina kept her tone light, as she tried to decide whether to tell Becky that Hendrik was joining them for lunch, instead of springing it as a surprise as planned. No surprises, she decided. “Remember the UNESCO architect, Hendrik? Swedish, glasses, tall, looks like an owl? Sweet guy, you kind of liked him.”
Becky nodded and made a noise that sounded like “mmmf” or like “the married one,” depending on how closely anyone listened.
“He’s having lunch with us, and I wanted to tell you that he’s div—”
“Whatever’s cooking for lunch smells fabulous. I’m starved.” Having changed the subject, Becky ate the last of the olives and started on a dish of baby artichokes.
“Almira cooked it—it takes about twelve hours. Lamb stuffed with herbs.”
“It’s been too long since I’ve seen you.” Becky’s foot jiggled and tapped like it had a life of its own. “I miss us meeting up in Paris or Venice for a week like we used to when you first got married.”
“So do I, but as you know I’ve been the size of an elephant and unable to fly for most of the past nine years.” Menina patted her stomach. “Nice of Muhammad to come to the mountain this time. By the way, how’s your mother?” It seemed like a neutral question so Menina changed the subject and asked it.
Becky took a deep breath and tried to grin. “She says teaching kindergarten would have been so much more ladylike—well, you can imagine. She was ecstatic when I told her this assignment was a story on you and the foundation. She still thinks you’re the good influence in my life.”
“Not that we’re not glad to see you, but I didn’t get the whole story on the phone about this interview when you called two days ago. The phone connections aren’t wonderful and I’ve got diaper brain.”
“It’s ostensibly one of those ‘how does a modern woman cope with her partner’s political career, her own career, and a family’ things. I know, I know—gag! Finger down throat. But I had to pitch it that way so the paper would agree. What I really want to write about—to tie it in with religious divisions since 9/11—is the interfaith conferences here. I know you want to keep politics out of it, but Child of Light, if there’s one thing I learned covering wars, it’s that you can’t keep politics out of religion. So I kept nagging about doing a story on you and the foundation because I’ve written about war. And it occurred to me I need to write about someone trying to start a peace.”
“Any excuse to stay sitting down with my feet up.”
“OK if we do a little work now, then?” Becky reached down and fiddled with her recording equipment and swore, then angrily banged it with her fist, swearing. Menina flinched.
A little red light came on. Becky snapped “testing” into the microphone, and when she played it back it repeated “testing.”
“Finally! Now just start with what made you think about having interfaith conferences. We’ll edit later.” She pressed a switch and put the microphone between them, and Menina said what she had said many times before.
“Well, by 9/11 people from different religious groups had been meeting on what they saw as common ground here, because of the special history of this place. But it was after 9/11 we had another idea. There’s so much unused space, and if we could get the funding, we thought, why not use the cycle as the focus of an interfaith center. It made sense when you think about the parallels—religious intolerance today, and religious intolerance in the sixteenth century. People are still as anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, and anti-Christian, anti-Catholic, and anti-Protestant as ever. UNESCO finally declared it a World Heritage Site and we held the first interfaith conference about the time you went to Iraq. Word spread and more and more groups are connecting with us, and our conference center is a neutral meeting ground for everyone.
“I really like your phrase ‘starting a peace’—it’s exactly what we’d like to do and we need more funding to do it. A lot of basic work ate up the first grants—supporting walls, plumbing and electricity, and new quarters for the nuns. Things still collapse, and some new artifact turns up from time to time—there was a Roman lady’s comb the other day, for example. They finally got the special room to display the medal—it would take a nuclear bomb to open that display case—and magnified and mirrored so you can really see it. Same for the Chronicle. We need security like the Pentagon and it’s expensive. The shop sells translations of the Chronicle and the Gospel in different languages and copies of the medal and reproductions of the paintings by the thousands, so that provides income to take care of the nuns that are left. We have nurses and a resident doctor who are all nuns, willing to respect their wishes not to leave the convent, even for medical care.”
Becky shifted and switched off her machine.
“And Sor Teresa?”
“She looks frail but she’s indestructible. She still insists on getting up at dawn to make polvorónes for the café. She refused cataract surgery—believes it’s God’s will she can’t see and in return God seems to have given her a second wind. The children think she has magic powers because she told them she see
s with her ears. Grumpy as she is, they adore her so I take them to visit for a few minutes most days.” Menina sighed. “She has a lot of advice about raising children.”
“I bet she does! I’ll go say hello later,” said Becky. “Now I’m going to have to write a few words about adorable you.” She switched her machine back on. “People are interested in how busy politicians’ wives with jobs and families manage, with all the extra demands on them, to look good, stay informed, and be supportive. You run this enterprise as your full-time job, Menina—how do you get everything done?”
Menina groaned. “I have no idea because I have never yet gotten everything done for just one day. I prioritize chaos. There are always workmen and architects arguing, wanting me to look at plans or arbitrate or making a huge mess just as an important delegation is due and we need to make a good impression. I visit the nuns every day, see if they need anything. Leaving aside the fact that I have five children and another due any minute, there’s correspondence and putting people in touch and speakers to organize for conferences. If we didn’t stop for lunch and a siesta I’d collapse. But if it weren’t for Almira being my assistant I would give up. She’s the efficient one.”
