Peter’s eyes light up. He looks away from the road for a moment to see if her question was sincere. “In some ways, yes. Under the Incas, Peru had a totally organic society. Religion and work were unified. People worked the land in cooperatives, and no one was hungry. The earth was the mother, Pachamama. Lake Titicaca was female also, and the people made offerings to her.” Peter lights another cigarette, and Kate finds the smell familiar, reassuring.
He squints at the rising sun, the cigarette hanging from his lips as he continues. “Divers have found boxes with gold and silver statues buried in the silt. Some of the Aymara around Juliaca believe that the Lake is the wife of the mountain, Illampu-Ancohuma. They believe that the Lake is the source of the sun as well as of man himself.”
Kate thinks back to the outing on the Lake, the way Raul hurried them into port when the storm came up. Maybe she should have studied anthropology before coming here.
Peter is driving faster now, taking the turns recklessly. “The really interesting thing is how the indigenous people got Christianity mixed in with their own belief system. An old Aymara man told me once, ‘God is very distant. We must deal with his mountains, the intermediaries.’”
Kate nods. “Yes, Father Tom is always saying that this mixture of beliefs is what makes it so hard to work up here. Faith and superstition are all entwined.” She hopes he hasn’t noticed the slight tremor in her voice when she said the name of the priest.
“Ah, superstition, is it?” Peter looks at her with amusement.
She sighs. To him all religion is superstition, she supposes. “I admit, it’s pretty hard to make a sympathetic case for Christianity when you think about what the Spaniards did here. In a way, I think our being here, living among the Aymara people in these desolate towns and villages, is a way of atoning for the past.” She pauses, but Peter is silent, taking a drag on his cigarette. She continues: “You know, I spent a few weeks in Lima before I went to language school. I loved the people there. They were easy and friendly. But up here, the people are different. Much harder to get to know.”
“Why should you be surprised at that? First of all, you don’t speak their language. Some of the people you met in Lima are middle class, more European, more like you. You didn’t encounter the otherness of Peru until you came here.” He glances over at her. “Who is this Father Tom?”
“A priest I work with. He’s from Ireland.” She looks out the window, hoping he won’t ask any more questions about Tom.
He glances at his watch. “We’re almost halfway there. Why don’t we look for a place to stop and eat lunch?”
They have entered a break in the mountains and are passing through a wide grassy valley. A silver thread of river winds through it, bordered by fields of bright green alfalfa. Overhead the sky is the same hard brilliant blue as the mountains. They spot a small shack with a tattered chicha flag flapping smartly above the door. Rusty tables have been set out in the shade of a few trees.
Peter parks the jeep and tells her to wait in the car. After a few minutes inside the shack, he emerges into the sunlight and motions for her to join him. She brings the lunch he had packed that morning, and they sit across from one another at a small table.
A balding, heavy-set man brings out two tall glasses of chicha. He bows slightly. “Buenas tardes, madre,” he murmurs, not looking at her directly. Kate feels her face flush. What does the man think, seeing a nun having lunch with this gringo in blue jeans? She hopes he is simply glad for the customers, and not especially surprised at anything these foreigners do.
The sun is warm on their backs, and Kate can already feel the heavier air of the lower altitude. They don’t speak much, listening mainly to the hum of the insects in the cypress branches above them. Few cars pass on the road, and the air is still.
Peter sits smoking and watches as Kate cuts into an apple and hands a piece to him. “Isn’t there a biblical scene something like this?” he grins, his face boyish despite the lines. Confused, Kate realizes that she likes his teasing. It has a comfortable normalcy after weeks of overheated tension. Nothing has felt real to her lately.
Hours later, when they reach Arequipa the sun is setting. “That’s Misti,” Peter says, pointing out a conical peak covered with snow, gleaming in the last rays of the sun. “Arequipa has the best climate in Peru, an eternal spring.”
She wonders if Peter has someone he’s going to see here, someone special. For the first time today she begins to worry; she can’t expect him to take care of her. Peter glances over at her. “I’m just going to run in here and make a phone call. I think I know a Peace Corps worker you could stay with for a couple of days.” Without waiting for a response from her, he jumps out of the jeep.
As he disappears into the small farmacia, Kate knows what she will do. For a moment she looks hesitantly at the navy blue jacket Peter loaned her that morning; then she snatches it up and climbs down from the jeep. Rapidly, she crosses the street and tries to blend into the throngs of workers headed toward the bus stop at the Plaza de Armas. Aware that her habit makes her conspicuous, she has to find somewhere to hide from Peter. He will probably try to find her.
She crosses the Plaza de Armas, passing a three-tiered fountain that splashes water on her white habit, and turns down a side street into an old colonial section of the city. Sunlight glares on the white streets, blinding her. Suddenly she is in front of an old mansion, its coat of arms carved in the porous volcanic stone. From iron gates, great puma heads stare at her, serpents writhing from their mouths. Beneath the serpents are carved ccantu, the sacred flower of the Incas. The gates are locked.
Finally she comes to a square with benches in the shade of scrub oak trees. A statue of St. Francis opens his arms to the people hurrying past. She sees a church with an intricately carved door. A perfect hiding place.
She pushes open the door and steps over the high wooden portal. The church smells of must and incense. Candles flicker in front of various statues; hundreds more burn in front of a tall Virgin Mary. Her cape is blue velvet; her veil is scarlet. Necklaces and rings cascade from her neck, glittering in the candlelight.
Someone would probably lock the door after dark; she can stay here tonight if no one sees her. Kate sinks to her knees in a side pew, folding the jacket beneath her arms. Feeling a slight bulge in the pocket, she pulls out a note wrapped around a wad of soles.
Sister Mountain Spirit,
Just in case you decide to bolt, this may help you get wherever in hell you are going. Good luck in your flight. I’ll be worried until I know you are safe.
Best,
Peter
So, he had suspected she would run away. “Thank you, forgive me,” she whispers in the darkness of the church. She is asking to be forgiven a lot these days.
Kate gazes up at the altar, so distant in the settling gloom. A candle burns in the sanctuary lamp, signaling the presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. She stares at the altar a long time. I’m not running from You. Only from myself. I just need to figure things out. She slumps against the pew, her face buried in her hands. What is happening to her? First she was a runaway, now a thief. Well, not really a thief, maybe. After all, the Englishman had offered her the jacket. Suddenly she wants to tell Tom about her night in the stranger’s house. They would laugh about it. Tom would tell her not to worry about the jacket; the British had been stealing from the Irish for centuries.
Only two weeks ago she and Tom had been riding together to Juli to look at a new well the people were putting in. Alejandro was driving, and the pastor, Father Jack, sat in front while she and Tom squeezed together in the back. The men joked and laughed as Alejandro taught them some of the more imaginative curses of the Aymara. Kate had looked out the window in a daze, conscious of nothing but Tom’s face so close to hers. Often he would turn and look into her eyes, and Kate had to turn away from what she saw in his. As they drove into town he passed a piece of paper to her, neatly folded into a small square.
Now, in t
he darkening church, Kate reaches into her pocket and pulls out the note she has read so many times. It is a poem, copied in block print.
BE STILL AS YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL
Be still as you are beautiful
Be silent as the rose;
Through miles of starlit countryside
Unspoken worship flows
To reach you in your loveless room
From lonely men whom daylight gave
The blessing of your passing face
Impenetrably grave.
A white owl in the lichened wood
Is circling silently,
More secret and more silent yet
Must be your love to me.
Thus, while about my dreaming head
Your soul in ceaseless vigil goes,
Be still as you are beautiful
Be silent as the rose.
Underneath he had scrawled:
You won’t have heard of this poem. It’s by Patrick Macdonogh, who died a few years ago. I heard him read it in my uncle’s bookstore in Galway. I hoped someday I would meet the woman I could give it to. Tom
That day had passed in a haze. She had trailed after the priests as they met with the village elders, trying to understand the brief exchanges in Aymara. Alejandro stood next to her for a while during the meeting, whispering to her in Spanish what the men were saying. Then the group walked through the dusty streets to the edge of town where the new well was being dug. Now the women and children joined them, and Kate was surrounded by small children tugging at her habit, vying for the chance to hold her hands.
She walked fast, and then would suddenly stop and send the two little ones clinging to her crashing harmlessly into each other. Squealing with excitement, they begged her to do it again. “Otra vez, madrecita, otra vez.” It was a trick her father used to do with her brother and her when they were little. Her heart ached, but she couldn’t tell if it was the altitude or not.
When they got to the newly dug well, Father Jack took out a small plastic bottle of holy water from the pocket of his windbreaker. He blessed the well, and all the people made the sign of the cross. Then he walked among the group, sprinkling them with holy water. The drops glistened in the sun like thousands of sequins.
Then Tom began to speak, slowly and deliberately, so that Alejandro could translate. Tom acknowledged their initiative in getting the prefect of Juliaca to come out and consider their need for a well. When they worked together they had power—power to change their lives, to make a better future for their children. The day of the passive campesino was past. It was time for them to reclaim the ways of their ancestors, a people who did not know hunger and want.
Kate had watched the impassive faces of the people as Tom’s voice rose. Their eyes were fixed on the young Irish priest with his hawk nose and cold blue eyes. When he finished, they clapped politely, and the men came up one by one to shake his hand. In Aymara, he joked and laughed with them, his smile dazzling in the noonday brightness.
Now in the empty chapel, Kate no longer hears the sounds of traffic outside. She spreads the jacket inside-out on the pew and lies down, burying her face in the fur. It smells of Peter’s cigarette smoke and eucalyptus of the Altiplano. But incense hangs in the air, too, and as she drifts off to sleep she is back in St. Roch’s, a little girl trying to stay awake during benediction as the choir sings the Pange Lingua.
Chapter Nine
Kate knew she was supposed to be a nun since she was in eighth grade, but she hid this secret all throughout high school. To be a nun was the dream of many girls in St. Louis in the 1940s and ’50s, but it was not Kate’s dream. She dreamed of being a ballerina.
Once, she remembered, Bishop McCarthy visited their seventh grade classroom to examine them for the sacrament of Confirmation. His long black cassock bordered in scarlet braid, he was a small, almost bald man with wire-rimmed glasses that made his blue eyes look glassy and unnaturally large.
After a brief question and (carefully rehearsed) answer session, the bishop began to speak softly about vocations: “Now you see, boys and girls, the word vocation comes from the Latin word vocare, meaning to call. Some select few of you are being called by God to a very special life, that of a priest or a sister. You must listen very closely for this call. God does not come in the rushing wind, as the prophet Isaiah says, but in a still small voice.” He stopped to let this sink in, and then raised his voice dramatically. “Now how many of you girls think that God might be calling you?”
He looked into each of their eyes, his gaze traveling slowly around the room. Almost every girl’s hand shot up, with no hesitation. Kate noticed that among the girls, only she and Gracie Gilmartin, who was a tomboy and swore a lot, had not raised their hands.
“And what about you, young lady?”
The bishop focused on Kate, and she stood up as Sister had taught them to do when called on by the bishop. “Actually, Bishop, I’ve been thinking about becoming a ballerina.”
The boys behind her snickered.
“And what is your name, my dear?”
She couldn’t tell if the bishop’s tight smile was one of amusement or annoyance. “Mary Katherine O’Neill, your Excellency.”
“Well, Mary Katherine O’Neill, you’ll be just the one to enter, I’ll wager,” he said with a slight smile, nodding his head to Sister Mary Joan sitting on the edge of her seat in the back of the room.
Kate dismissed this—to her—ominous prediction. Although the nuns’ lives were mysterious and thus seductive, she knew she was too vain to become one of them. She spent many hours standing on the marble-topped coffee table in the living room watching herself swirl and curtsy in the red-gold mirror over the sofa. Sometimes she would sit for hours at her mother’s old dressing table with its large central mirror flanked by two swinging mirrors. If she positioned the mirrors just right, she could see an endless series of Kates. Once she read a whole scene from Romeo and Juliet into that mirror, watching her face in the multitude of reflections until it grew too small to see.
Kate couldn’t remember when she began to notice the grace of the nuns’ habits as they glided down the long polished halls of St. Roch’s. The habit of her teachers, the Sisters of St. Joseph, had a medieval elegance that was becoming on even the plainest among them. Their long black wool habits with wide sleeves, when rolled back, revealed silky net sleevelets that covered their pale arms; white wimples framed their faces, and thin, diaphanous black veils fluttered behind them as they rushed to catch up with their uniformed charges scampering to recess.
Many mornings as Kate arrived at St. Roch’s on her bike, Sister Mary Theresa, the convent cook, would smile and wave to her from the porch she was sweeping. A round, saucy woman, she swept briskly with her sleeves rolled back and her long habit pinned up beneath her blue and white checked apron.
They were old friends. One day, when Kate was in second grade, she forgot her lunch. Sister Cornelia, her teacher, sent her over to the convent where Sister Theresa bounced cheerfully around her neat kitchen, fixing her a lunch of the daintiest ham salad sandwich, slices of apple, and homemade oatmeal cookies full of raisins. After Sister went off to look for a holy card to give her, Kate wandered into the back hall and stared up at the narrow staircase that led to the second floor. If she could only go up to see their bedrooms! They were called cells, she knew, which lent a mysterious, penitential air to that part of the convent labeled “cloister,” where only the nuns were allowed to enter.
Sister Helene, the eighth-grade teacher, was Kate’s favorite, and ever since fifth grade Kate had been waiting to have her as a teacher, hoping Sister wouldn’t be transferred. This nun was tall, athletic, and young, with thin, perfectly arched black eyebrows like the wings of a blackbird framing her dark eyes and a heart-stopping smile. When she looked at you it was as if you were the only one in her life. Sister played softball with the girls at recess, lifting up her habit and running hard when she smacked the ball against the back fence, laughing and flushed whe
n she scored a run. All the girls agreed that she had a wonderful figure hidden beneath that habit.
Her past, hinted at in bits and pieces, was exotic. She hadn’t entered the convent right after high school as most girls did, but had gone to St. Louis University and majored in theater. She told the class about the time she directed and starred in Synge’s Riders to the Sea—and when they read the play aloud in class, the throb of emotion in her low voice thrilled them.
One Friday afternoon in the spring of Kate’s eighth-grade year, Sister Helene called Kate aside and asked her if she would have time to go with her downtown on Saturday, since she had a doctor’s appointment and none of the other sisters had time to accompany her. Kate knew that nuns never went out alone, but always in pairs, like sedate penguins. Kate wondered what the nuns thought might happen to them on the quiet, leafy streets of St. Louis, but she was thrilled at the invitation—a whole afternoon by herself with Sister. Maybe she would ask Sister about being a nun, maybe even confess that she, too, was thinking seriously about entering the convent.
Kate dressed carefully, choosing and discarding many combinations until she settled on a freshly ironed white cotton blouse with a Peter Pan collar, her long, gored green-and-black plaid skirt, and her Bass Weejuns with shiny pennies tucked in the flaps. In the bright sun, she walked the few blocks to St. Roch’s, swinging her purse, noticing the lacy shadows the new leaves cast on the sidewalk, tasting the incredible sweetness of life.
Sister had dressed with care, too, for she had on a longer, finer veil than usual, and her black oxford shoes were new and highly polished. She and Kate chattered all the way to the bus stop on Forest Park, and Kate felt proud when they got on the bus together and all eyes swiveled to the young nun and the girl.
During Sister’s doctor appointment, Kate sat in the waiting room, wondering if nuns took off their clothes when they went to the doctor. She leafed through some outdated TIME magazines. She wished there were copies of LIFE or National Geographic with pictures of bare-breasted women in grass skirts, but before long Sister emerged and told Kate they would go over to St. Louis University and have lunch there in the lounge for nuns.
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