Three Marys

by Glenn Cooper

  ‘Was it during the day? The night?’

  ‘It was dark.’

  ‘What were you doing when you saw it?’

  ‘I was going to Lulu’s.’

  ‘Did you see anyone on the street?’

  ‘No, just the light. It hurt my eyes.’

  ‘Did you hear anything? Any sound? A voice?’

  ‘No. Not then.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know. Later, I guess.’

  ‘A sound?’

  ‘A voice.’

  Cal swallowed and looked at Father Santos, who said quickly, ‘She never told us this.’

  ‘Was it a man’s voice or a woman’s?’ Cal asked.

  ‘A man.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  She said something but Santos didn’t translate right away.

  ‘What did she say?’ Cal asked him.

  ‘She say, “You have been chosen.”’

  Cal asked her to repeat that and she did.

  ‘And were you on the street when the voice said this?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Where else could you have been?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember.’

  ‘Was the light still in your face when you heard the voice?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK, let’s go back to when you saw the light. What did you do?’

  ‘Do? I didn’t do anything.’

  ‘I mean what happened next?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Did the light go away?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Did you keep walking to Lulu’s house?’

  Her fidgeting turned to irritation and she shouted at him. ‘I said I don’t remember!’

  Cal stood again and took a calculated pause to allow the girl to settle down. He sensed that Father Santos was going to berate her so he told the priest that it was OK.

  He smiled at Maria and said, ‘I’m sorry for all these questions. I came a very long way to see you. I have a few more to ask but when I’m done I have a gift for you from Pope Celestine.’

  ‘What is it?’ she asked eagerly.

  ‘I’ll show you soon. Can I ask more questions now?’

  She nodded.

  ‘OK, do you often go to Lulu’s house at night?’

  ‘I used to but not now. Mama won’t let me out.’

  Her mother said, ‘Too many people. Everyone wants to touch her. The crowds are dangerous.’

  ‘Where did you sleep that night, Maria?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Lulu’s.’

  ‘You remember arriving there?’

  A nod.

  ‘Do you remember what you did when you got to your friend’s house?’

  ‘We looked at a magazine and then we went to sleep.’

  ‘Did you tell Lulu about the light?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The voice?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did the experience frighten you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you have any pain?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Any pain down there, below your waist?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you remember what you did when you woke up the next morning?’

  ‘We played. There was no school.’

  ‘And did you tell your mother about the light or the voice?’

  ‘She didn’t tell me,’ her mother said.

  ‘Maria, since that night, did you see the light again?’

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘Did you hear the voice again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And have you seen anything else that was strange or scary?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thank you, Maria. Mrs Aquino, do you remember the night Maria is talking about?’

  ‘Not really. She used to go to Lulu’s house a lot. It’s bigger than ours and she has more toys. Lulu’s father has a good job. My husband, may he rest in peace, got killed.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Do you think the Church would let us use the money people are sending to move to a bigger house?’

  ‘I expect that’s up to you, not the Church,’ Cal said.

  Father Santos concurred.

  ‘Could we go back to that night?’ Cal said.

  Her mother thought and said, ‘It must have been a Friday because she said there was no school the next day.’

  ‘Do you always let her walk there on her own?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s no problem around here. They usually leave the kids alone.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The gangsters.’

  ‘When she goes, what time does she usually leave your house?’

  ‘After supper, maybe seven.’

  Santos answered Cal’s next question before he asked it. ‘Seven months ago it would have been dark around then,’ the priest said.

  ‘Maria, is there anything else you can remember or would like to say about that night?’

  ‘No, can I have my present now?’

  It was a small jewelry box covered in red leather with an embossed, white papal seal. She quickly opened it, took out the gold crucifix and chain, and held it up for her mother to see.

  ‘The pope blessed it himself,’ Cal said.

  ‘May God bless him,’ her mother cried. ‘Maria, you must never take it off.’

  When they were done at Maria’s house, Father Santos led Cal through the narrow streets of Paradise Village to the home of her friend, Lulu Ruiz. The girls were schoolmates. While it was impractical for Maria to keep attending school, Lulu was still a student and they had to wait for her to arrive home. Cal used the time to question the girl’s mother and aunt about the night in question. They actually remembered it quite well because Maria had arrived for her sleepover later than usual and seemed in a bit of a daze.

  ‘Her eyes looked funny,’ her aunt said.

  ‘Did she say something about what happened to her?’ Cal asked.

  ‘She didn’t say anything.’

  ‘She didn’t mention a bright light?’

  Apparently, she hadn’t. Because it was late the girls had played for a while then gone to bed and that was that. The women didn’t know anything more. When Lulu returned home wearing the uniform of her Catholic school, pleated skirt, white shirt and black shoes, she was even less helpful. She didn’t remember a single thing about that night and she and Maria had never talked about it since.

  ‘Maria used to come over a lot,’ she said sadly. ‘She doesn’t come any more. I miss her.’

  Later, waiting for a taxi near the entrance to Paradise Village, Father Santos passed along some of Maria’s clinic records he’d obtained. He smoked a cigarette and asked Cal if he’d gotten anything of use from his visit.

  ‘Obviously, not a lot,’ he said.

  ‘What will you tell the Vatican?’

  ‘I suppose I’ll tell them that I don’t know what the hell is going on.’

  ‘And where will you go next?’

  ‘Halfway around the world to see another girl named Maria.’

  FIVE

  Cal awoke in the dark, momentarily unsure where he was. The time zone changes of the last few days had spun his head like a roulette wheel. It was the sound of a street-music trio playing in the square for late-night tourists – a high-pitched ocarina, a charango, and a thumping cajón – that set him straight. He was in Lima.

  He swore at the glowing digits of the bedside clock; it was too early to get up, too late to drink more vodka. He was stuck. He hated the little beggars but he popped an Ambien and waited for the chemical coma.

  Predictably, he slept through his iPhone alarm – a poorly chosen one, the soothing bars of Brahms. It would take the blast of the room telephone to do the trick.

  ‘Señor Donovan, your visitor is in the lobby.’

  He squinted at the light-filled room and replied fuzzily, ‘Which visitor?’

  The front-desk clerk whisp
ered, ‘The archbishop, Señor.’

  ‘Shit. Can you tell him to get a coffee? I’ll be ten minutes.’

  Cal flew through his ablutions and hustled down to the lobby restaurant where he found the cardinal sipping coffee and reading a newspaper.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ Cal said on his approach. ‘I broke down and took a sleeping pill last night.’

  Cardinal Jaime Miranda rose to take his hand and give it a firm shake. He had been quite the athlete when he was young and, had he not blown out a knee, he might have become a professional footballer. ‘God had other plans for me,’ he was fond of saying. He was young for a cardinal, only sixty-two, and he was still lanky and muscular. He had been elevated by the previous pope who really had no choice but to give the popular bishop from Lima a red hat upon the death of Archbishop Aquirre. However, Miranda had little in the way of political kinship with the conservative pope and he had spent the bare minimum amount of time in Rome. That had changed with the new pontificate. Pope Celestine, the progressive lion and persistent reformer, wished to surround himself with a like-minded council of advisors, and Miranda was asked to join his Council of Eight, his kitchen cabinet grafted on to the Vatican hierarchy to become Celestine’s prow of his ship of state.

  ‘Having a few minutes on my own to read the paper was a treat, Professor. Don’t apologize.’

  They had met a few times before at the Vatican and were on friendly enough terms. Miranda knew with granularity the services Cal had rendered the Vatican over the years and the admiration that Celestine held for him.

  Cal ordered a coffee and Miranda asked for a refill.

  ‘You chose a good hotel in a good area,’ Miranda said. ‘Miraflores is highly desirable.’

  ‘Sister Elisabetta chose it for me. I don’t have my bearings yet,’ Cal said. ‘It’s my first time to Peru.’

  ‘Really? When your business is done I’ll have one of the monsignors take you around. Our Catedral de Lima is quite impressive – it is not very far from here – and the city holds many wonders. If you have several days you must go to Machu Picchu, of course, but there are many other famous attractions.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve got to get back to Cambridge but I’ll make plans for a proper visit before too long.’

  ‘You’ve just come from the Philippines, I understand. A long journey.’

  ‘Very long.’

  ‘And our Maria Mollo, she is your second or third Maria?’

  ‘Second. A colleague of mine is investigating the third girl in Ireland. He should be there now.’

  ‘This is a very strange phenomenon,’ the cardinal said. ‘It is hard to know what to think about it. On one hand, it is tempting not to over-analyze and simply accept the miracle into one’s heart, but we must first make the proper investigations and exclude all ordinary explanations. That is why I am glad that the Holy Father has chosen you for the inquiry. You are his great and trusted friend.’

  ‘I’m happy to help.’

  ‘What was your impression about Maria Aquino?’

  ‘Well, she’s a sweet girl who seemed rather young for her age. I’m not an expert in teenage girls but in America at least, sixteen-year-olds are sixteen going on twenty. She was more like sixteen going on twelve.’

  ‘She is from a poor family?’

  ‘Very poor. She lives in a crowded and rather primitive slum incongruously called Paradise Village.’

  Miranda leaned back and smiled. ‘Paradise can be a state of mind. And what of her story?’

  Cal recounted it, the cleric nodding at each beat.

  ‘The similarities to our Maria are great, are they not? They even heard the same voice say to them, “You have been chosen.”’

  Cal perked up.

  ‘Whatever are we dealing with, Professor?’

  ‘I don’t have answers yet.’

  ‘Well, the diocese will assist you in any way we can. We have a cult of sorts forming around our virgin Maria. I consider it unhealthy and disruptive. At this point she is only a girl with a curious medical condition. She is a very long way from sainthood. The Church has but one Virgin Mary and any claims to the contrary are blasphemy. Tell me what you need.’

  ‘Someone to take me to see her. Someone to translate.’

  ‘My personal secretary, Monsignor Valdez, will do both. Can you be ready in fifteen minutes?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll just run upstairs and get my things.’

  ‘Don’t rush. Give me time to finish my coffee and newspaper.’

  When Cal returned he saw Miranda in deep discussion with a priest whom he assumed was Valdez. The cardinal’s demeanor had changed. He was frowning and making sharp gestures with his hands.

  Cal joined the men and asked, ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘This is Monsignor Valdez,’ the cardinal said. ‘Please tell Professor Donovan what you have told me.’

  The sweat was beading on Valdez’s forehead. He was breathing heavily, giving the impression he had been running.

  ‘I received a call from the parish priest of the family of Maria Mollo not five minutes ago. The girl has disappeared.’

  When the fog thinned out the mountain suddenly appeared. From a distance it looked pretty or at least festive. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of tiny houses studded the side of a steep slope, their pastel colors blending together, creating an impressionist canvas. At the peak, a large wooden cross pointed toward the shrouded sky. Below it, a huge red and white Peruvian flag was tattooed into the earth.

  ‘That is where we are going,’ Valdez told Cal. ‘The San Cristobel shanty town. You see? God and country.’

  The car climbed until Cal’s ears popped and the pavement gave way to a narrow dirt road that rose steeply at first then more gently when the switchbacks began. The colorful houses that were dug into the mountain didn’t look quite as cheerful up close. The walls were made of cobbled-together sheets of plywood and the roofs were overlapping pieces of rusting, corrugated metal. The pastels, so fetching from the valley, were peeling in the baking sun. Windows were simple cut outs covered by screens or makeshift shutters. Doors were ill-fitting.

  Barefoot kids in scruffy clothes played in the dirt. When their way got blocked, Valdez leaned on his horn, waved his hand in backhanded swats, and accelerated until the kids dispersed. He did this far too aggressively and dangerously for Cal’s liking but he held his tongue; after all, this was the cardinal’s man.

  ‘These peasants have too many children,’ Valdez complained. ‘They can’t afford them. It perpetuates poverty. You know the night that Maria Mollo saw the light? Her mother has so many young ones she didn’t even know her daughter was missing.’

  Maybe the Church should re-think its position on birth control, Cal thought, but he kept that to himself.

  A third of the way up the mountain the switchbacks ended. Valdez stopped the car and turned off the engine.

  ‘Now we walk. Do not leave anything of any value in the car. These are very poor people.’

  A steep dirt stairway cut into the mountain rose above them. The fog had rolled in again and the stairs disappeared halfway up.

  ‘How far?’ Cal asked, dodging some roaming pigs.

  ‘Unfortunately, quite near the top. But it has not kept the crowds away. In the morning there is a steady stream of people who try to catch a glimpse of Maria. At night, they go back down. Today, with what has happened, I do not know what we will find.’

  Cal wrinkled his nose at the fetid smells. The monsignor noticed and explained that toilets were merely holes dug into the ground. There were no sewers, no running water, no electricity. People had to lug their own jugs up the mountain or pay twice the going rate for bottled water from one of the little stores scattered around the slum. Maria Mollo had been heading to one of these stores the night she had been overtaken by the mysterious light.

  Climbing higher, the crowds the monsignor spoke of materialized out of the fog, blocking their way.

  ‘Move to the side, move to the s
ide,’ Valdez scolded. ‘We are the representatives of Cardinal Miranda.’

  The peasants tried to oblige, moving a few inches to their right on the narrow stairway, just enough room for Cal and the monsignor to advance. At the next plateau the crowd was fanned out at the next cascade of stairs and they had to fight their way through.

  Nearing the end of the next run of earthen steps Valdez assured Cal they were getting close. On the plateau, the crowd was even more packed in and it took several minutes to squeeze through the throng of men, women and children, many clutching rosary beads. By the time they emerged at the entrance of the pale-blue shanty of the Mollo family, the monsignor’s face was beet-red from shouting. Valdez knocked on the flimsy door with his knuckles and announced his presence.

  In Spanish, an old woman told him that the virgin was not there.

  ‘I know that,’ Valdez spat back, knocking harder. ‘I am Father Valdez, the representative of Cardinal Miranda.’

  ‘Do you know where she has gone, Father?’

  ‘I have no idea. Perhaps that is why I am here.’

  The door opened a crack and a round-faced woman with black, stringy hair squinted at Valdez’s face. She was cradling a baby.

  ‘Is Father Díaz here?’ Valdez asked.

  ‘He left to go back to the church.’

  ‘We need to speak to Maria’s mother and father.’

  ‘They are sleeping. They were up all night.’

  ‘And who are you?’

  ‘I am Maria’s aunt.’

  ‘Well, señora, wake them and tell them the cardinal’s men wish to speak to them about Maria’s disappearance.’

  The woman shut the door in the priest’s face and that clearly made him furious. He unleashed a torrent of grumbling. Cal’s Spanish wasn’t great but it was good enough; he didn’t have to ask Valdez to clarify the situation. Instead he waited patiently in the sweltering heat and humidity, feeling claustrophobic from the crush of humanity to his rear.

  The door finally opened and the aunt, still clutching an infant, invited them inside. The windows were covered from the inside with tacked-up towels so the room was as dark as a cave. When Cal’s eyes acclimatized he was shocked at how impoverished it was. The sink was a plastic tub. The stove, a double ring attached to a can of cooking fuel. The furniture just a few sticks of salvage. Two girls and three younger, squirming boys sat on a small green rug covering a dirt floor. Cal would learn that the kids and the infant were Maria’s younger siblings. All of them lived with their parents in this three-room shanty that almost made Maria Aquino’s house in Manila seem affluent.