The Sisterhood

by Helen Bryan

  The Abbess consulted her council of older nuns, then came to me in the scriptorium, looking grave. “We have come to a decision in the council, Sor Beatriz, but you must make a decision, too. The mission must have a scribe…”

  “You wish me to go to Gran Canaria?” I was astonished. My leg now troubles me so that I am often unable to walk, and my writing hand is sometimes so stiff and swollen I cannot write at all.

  The Abbess shook her head. Suddenly I knew what she was going to say next. The earth began to sink beneath my seat, my heart gave way in my breast, and I clutched the sides of the lectern for support.

  “Salome is the most able and intelligent of the novices, and you have taught her a scribe’s duties. Young as she is, she is best qualified to be scribe to the new house, and I need not tell you how the written word has helped to bind the order in sisterhood for centuries. Now it will continue to bind us across the sea. I will not send her without your agreement, but you will have seen her expression when we speak of the mission.”

  I had. Now the room around me dimmed and something tightened in my chest so I could not breathe. The suddenness with which life can change! I struggled to consider wisely, without thinking of myself. I knew Salome was not just ready to obey the Abbess but eager to go, though she tried to hide it from me. The Abbess waited quietly, not urging or pressing me, but my duty was clear. The order had given me and my child sanctuary and peace when I had thought there was none in the world, and now it was my turn to give the order something in return, as well as allowing my daughter the only chance she might have to experience life beyond the convent’s walls. She is nearly eighteen and should take her final vows next year. I felt a premonition that I should never see her in her nun’s habit.

  I summoned my courage and consented. Salome came running in soon after, breathless with excitement. “Oh Mother! The Abbess says you have given your permission! I so long to go, but then, my heart breaks at the thought of leaving you!”

  I promised God would watch between us and unite us in our prayers, and repeated the Abbess’s words about the records Salome would keep. She threw her arms around my neck and promised breathlessly to write a full account of all she saw and experienced. “I can scarcely believe I am to be the scribe, Mother! And the Abbess has promised you will come with the next party of nuns as soon as it is safe for them to come, that my profession will not take place until you are there. We shall not be separated for long. Only until we have made our new convent comfortable for aged nuns and cleared a pathway for their litters, poor old dears!” Salome added impishly. “But I will perform my new duties faithfully and make you proud. And ships come and go to Gran Canaria, so I will send letters with a full account of our doings back to the convent, and they will entertain you so well you will wish I had gone sooner!” Then she was in tears at the thought of leaving me, and for the next few days was in a state of agitation, alternating between anticipation and grief.

  So was the whole convent, from the servants to the oldest nuns. But, regardless, lists were made, instructions dictated, trunks were packed and repacked.

  Too soon, all was ready, and the night before they were to set off the Abbess heard the confessions of the twelve who were going. The next morning, after a sleepless night, a special Mass was said and a quick breakfast eaten, or mostly not eaten. Our nerves were stretched to the limit.

  The priest, who had fallen asleep after saying Mass, was shaken awake to read out a letter of approval from the bishop, blessing our undertaking to bring the word of God to the heathens of Gran Canaria and prevent the Muslim infidels spreading the poison of their faith. As dawn broke across the mountains, the carriages rolled away to Seville. Salome lifted the leather curtain to wave until they disappeared from sight.

  The convent and my heart feel empty, but Salome will write when they arrive, and we all look forward to her letters and news of our mission.

  I clung to that thought throughout the months that followed.

  July 1524

  No word has come from Gran Canaria, but the Abbess has had an unwelcome missive from the Holy Office. This letter was ominously different from their usual exhortation to guard against lust and gluttony and sloth and to adhere strictly to the requirement of enclosure to ensure we remain untainted by the world and its vices—. This one stated they have information that our convent harbors a Morisco’s bastard like a worm in an apple. They will send an investigator to determine her identity and punish those responsible for her presence. The Abbess is ordered to begin inquiries to identify possible suspects for the investigators to question at length.

  I said that my father must have found an informer among the convent servants, though possibly not a very clever one. “How thankful we should be that Salome is no longer here. And she is gone with the special blessing of the bishop! I can truthfully say there are no Moriscos’ children here,” said the Abbess.

  When she left I thanked the Almighty for Salome’s deliverance from the scrutiny of the Inquisition and repent of my missing her. God is great.

  September 1524

  Deo gratias, the investigators have not come. We had heard terrible stories of their remorseless search for heretics in other convents, and knew that some of our order were bound to be taken to join the nuns in Inquisition cells. Our reprieve was due to an outbreak of a terrible illness, with coughing and fever, aching joints, and a burning rash. It has spread through our infirmary and then the orphanage, taking the oldest patients and the youngest children. Lately many of the nursing sisters have been ill as well, while two of the older nuns who caught it died. The Abbess had me write a letter warning the Holy Office that many men in the pilgrims’ hostel had contracted it. It caused the men to suffer horribly in their private parts, and while the disease had caused blindness in some, it delivered others from carnal temptation, as they no longer had any hope of indulging their lustful urges.

  We received the reply that God had surely visited this scourge upon the convent for our sins, but that the Investigator would postpone his visit for the time being.

  With so much illness, we have neglected our gardens and the harvest has been poor. We fear for the winter. The good Abenzucars have made us a gift of olives, dried figs, and dates, together with oil from their harvest, which will mark the difference between life and death for many this winter. Little twin girls have arrived, beautiful children of two as finely dressed in silks and jewels as any courtesan. Their double dowry will be useful to purchase ingredients for our polvorónes in the spring, but oh, their mother! To part with one child must be agony. To part with two, must be like death itself.

  A celebration to mark the profession of two of our older orphan girls took place in the sala grande, while another orphan seized the opportunity of the celebration to run away with a young man from the village, causing great scandal. We cannot discover how the young people were able to meet or form such a plan, as the girls are not allowed out of the convent. Yet my heart wishes them well.

  There is no word from Gran Canaria. I pray daily, hourly, for our mission and for Salome.

  May 1526

  Now the weather is very warm and our flocks of goats and sheep have increased hugely this year. Their bells make a pleasant sound as they graze, and the swallows sing in the eaves once more. But the Chronicle—indeed all my work—is neglected. Since Salome left, an inflammation flares up repeatedly in my bad leg, preventing my sitting at my desk for long, and my hands trouble me so that sometimes I cannot write at all. If only I could find a suitable apprentice or assistant among the novices! But it is exacting work, and those who have the patience for it lack a good clear hand, while those who write beautifully have little patience.

  August 1527

  Though it has been four years, whenever the bell at the gate rings we pause in our work or prayer, hoping that at last it is a messenger bringing a letter from our mission. Instead the bell has rung because the summer has brought a great number of pilgrims and sick people. They say the plague ha
s returned in the cities and we have many penitent pilgrims who fear the illness is God’s punishment for their wickedness. Both the men’s and women’s hostels are overflowing and we pray most will recover before the roads are no longer passable and we have many more mouths to feed for the winter. It is the harvest season and all are hard at work from sunrise. The Abbess works as hard as any of the younger nuns. In addition to nursing in the infirmary, yesterday she was busy gathering onions and garlic to lay in straw in the cellars, and preserving our last under-ripe peaches in honey. But she grew breathless and was persuaded at last to leave this work to others.

  June 1530

  Hope for our mission is extinguished altogether. Each spring the Abbess has sent village men to inquire among the ships’ captains in the harbor in Seville for what they know of Gran Canaria and a convent there of the Order of the Holy Sisters of Jesus. But though many sailors know Gran Canaria, none have anything to tell our messengers and say that our party have certainly been taken by pirates or drowned in a shipwreck. The whole convent mourns their loss.

  October 1538

  Yesterday a pilgrim came who claims to be an artist and swears to recompense us for his keep with a painting. This, we know from experience, means that he intends to stay a long time, as these paintings take months. The Abbess groaned that the number of penitent artists donating their work to the convent was truly marvelous—they must all lead very wicked lives. And as the paintings are usually terrible, the penance is usually ours. The Abbess says that most of it would send Salome into fits of laughter. Yet she feels we must hang it all somewhere. A few find their way to the walls of the sala grande, but most are hung in the darkest and oldest corridors. The Abbess insists only portraits may hang in the locution parlor and as there are few of these she is spared the worst.

  March 1539

  The sweet smell of polvorónes fills the convent night and day. The court has ordered a great many for Semana Santa, and wealthy families follow suit. All the sisters and beatas are taking it in turns to cook them, and the kitchen maids keep busy stoking the oven round the clock. I help in the kitchen as much as I am able. At least it is warm by the ovens, though standing makes my back ache.

  September 1539

  The swallows have flown away for the winter. My hands grow stiff and I often find it difficult to hold the pen. I think often on my sins, and notice the grayness of everything—the clouds, the weather, the dying light of autumn.

  Spring 1540

  Easter approaches again, the long dark days of the Lenten fast draw to an end, snow melts, and though it is very cold, in the cloister the sun warms the bones of elderly nuns like me while the convent waits for the warm wind to bring the swallows back from Africa. The Abbess has not been well this winter, and spends most of her time propped in a chair in front of her locutio. I divide my time between the scriptorium in the morning and assisting her in the afternoons with the day-to-day business of the convent. The Abbess’s younger sister, recently widowed, has come to live at the convent as a lay sister. This beata, Sor Emmanuela, has made over all the wealth she inherited from her husband to us, and I have been cataloging her fortune and property.

  I am often short of breath and I do not believe it will be long before I join the nuns laid to rest in a cave behind the convent, like the early Christians in the catacombs of Rome. And one of the orphan girls will fill my shoes. I long for a competent assistant.

  CHAPTER 10

  Las Golondrinas Convent, Spain, Spring 2000

  “Girls! So many girls in the convent at once! Girls better then!” Grumbling about modern girls and hobbling surprisingly fast, Sor Teresa led the way back through the convent’s shadowy passages toward Menina’s room where lunch was waiting.

  Menina made her offer of help. “Really, Sor Teresa, you can’t keep bringing meals to my room. Let me eat with the nuns. I can help cook and wash dishes. At home I—”

  “No!” Sor Teresa shook her head stubbornly, reverting to her combination of English and Spanish. “Pilgrims stay, we must take care of them. Nuns’ custom, we eat always by ourselves, and hear a sister read from a holy book. If we talk, is about convent business, is not for outsiders. In the old days, when pilgrims came, there was a room for the men pilgrims to eat and another for the women, and men and women listened to the holy books at meals, just like the nuns. Now no pilgrims, we put broken furniture in those rooms. Water is coming in, roof will fall down soon.” Sor Teresa shrugged despondently. “But we feed you, don’t worry.”

  Menina exclaimed “Men? You allowed men in the convent?”

  “Oh, poor men, sick men, dying men, men with penances, pilgrims, yes. They are separated from the women, separate refectory, separate door into the chapel, separate infirmary even, with a big gate. Gate is locked. Same thing in the chapel. So they can worship, pray, hear Mass, not see the women who the nuns nurse in women’s infirmary. Lay sisters, the beatas, nurse the men. If they want to talk to the nuns they do it at the locutio, the one you see. Only if priest or friar, the Abbess saw him face-to-face.”

  “Sounds kind of crazy…I mean, like a lot of trouble, keeping men and women apart,” said Menina. Though she had to admit, however crazy it sounded, separation of the sexes suited her fine just now.

  “Is no men pilgrims now. Bah!” Sor Teresa shook her head emphatically. “Men not so good today as before. Not so good then either, is why so many have to come here and repent. But they repent. These days people very bad, don’t repent. Don’t worry about sins. Don’t think about God, they think God is not watching them. They forget their religion. They forget their duty. Their families. Get big ideas. Then who knows what they do.”

  Ahead of Menina, Sor Teresa suddenly stopped in the middle of her diatribe, supporting herself with a frail hand on the wall as if she needed to catch her breath, or something hurt.

  “Even Alejandro forget. He was altar boy, carried the images at Semana Santa. His father was old Republican, policeman here, had many children, hated the church, would not speak to the priest. But his wife, Alejandro’s mother, she insist the children are baptized, confirmed. She is a good girl even if she marry a man who hates the church. Then children grow up, one, then another, come to the convent to say good-bye to Tia, say is too old-fashioned here, no good jobs. They go to Madrid, to Zaragosa, three go in Salamanca, one girl go to London for university and then is meeting a man, gets married.”

  “And Alej…the captain, why didn’t he go?”

  “Alejandro, the baby, is the last. He is born when his mother thinks there will be no more children. Ha! She is surprised. But she die when he is five years old, and when he is eighteen his father comes to me to ask, what to do with Alejandro. He is very clever in school, learn English, he find there is a way he can go to United States to school for one year, live with American policeman family. Then come home. I think this is not good idea but his father does not listen. And when Alejandro goes there is girl in the family, he like her very much. And after one year he tell his father, he will not come home yet, he will study in United States, is scholarship he can get for police college. Alejandro’s father is very proud, says is big chance to study in America. He sit at locutio and tell me he will give permission, but I warn him no, do not give last child permission, he will stay in America. But Alejandro’s father does not listen again, and he is sorry.”

  Menina thought anyone who refused to listen to Sor Teresa might well be sorry. She wouldn’t waste time telling them why.

  “Alejandro is there for five years. He is only coming home two times. Every year, his father thinks, now, he will come home and stay. But when Alejandro finishes the studies, his father is sad. Alejandro will stay in America. He can be policeman there, can marry his American wife. And then his father is dying. Alejandro comes home then and he is ashamed now, that he has left his father for so long. He promise his father he will stay. But when he does this, something is different…Alejandro is policeman, yes, but not policeman like his father. I think maybe,
he learned bad things in America.”

  “Oh?” Menina ventured. “What kind of things?”

  “Yes, I think he has too much money for a policeman. His father had big family, never had so much money, but no one has much money here, they manage. Alejandro live in his father’s house, is lonely, parents dead, no wife, no children, no sister to cook, keep the house clean. He spend a lot of money on his father’s house, says he makes it ready for his American novia who will come soon—no water from the well, must have it inside, must have bathroom, three bathrooms, have electricity, have new kitchen, make the house bigger, he is talking of swimming pool! Trucks come with many boxes, of tiles and pipes and even re…refrigerator, I think is called. Men work for months until the house is a palace for his novia. Village all wait to see her, she must be a princess, but even though house is finished, no novia. Alejandro go back to America, only for a little while, come back here. No novia. No wife. Is very unhappy, I think.”

  Hmm, thought Menina, maybe that was why the captain had disliked her on sight—because she was American, too.

  “He buy fast car, have loud music, is even cooking his food himself in his new kitchen! Then he eats alone! Is very lonely. No longer speaks of novia.” Sor Teresa shook her head. “These things are not good! But worst is girlfriends! Pah! Now he has many girlfriends! Very bad girls in the high heels, skirts that are too little, showing all their legs. Their stomachs! Girls today have no shame. They smoke the cigarettes. Paint their faces. Show everything to everyone. Don’t want to stay home, raise the children, look after the family. I think, such bad girls, Alejandro has become playboy!” There was sadness and despair in Sor Teresa’s voice.