The Sisterhood

by Helen Bryan

  Dona Luisa has found a wet nurse for the babies. We sit by Marisol’s side and feed her broth, alarmed at her lethargy and pallor, though she is recovering, we hope. I heard Tomas’s younger sisters whispering that they were glad they were going to be nuns and avoid the torments of childbirth.

  A month after the birth Marisol can finally leave her bed and sit on the veranda. The twins are large lusty babies and thrive on their wet nurse’s milk. Sanchia, Pia, Rita, and I take it in turns to walk them up and down, while Dona Luisa complains that we will spoil them. Don Miguel has paid us a visit to see his new godchildren and brought each a small golden cup. He and Tomas rode out for the day and went hunting, which did Tomas good. Marisol is well enough to argue with Dona Luisa about the babies’ feeding schedule and contradict Dona Luisa’s orders about what the cook was to prepare for dinner.

  It is time to return to the convent.

  CHAPTER 27

  From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, by the pen of Esperanza, the Mission Convent of Las Golondrinas de Los Andes, October 1553

  They said the smallpox had abated. But when we entered the gate, a funeral procession was gathered around a bier in the courtyard. The last victim, said the portress, one of the ladies waiting for her divorce.

  “Which lady?” faltered Pia.

  “A young one,” said the portress. “The epidemic had slowed. There had been no new cases, then suddenly she contracted the disease and it pleased God to take her from the hands of men. Now neither her brother nor her husband nor her would-be husband may have her.”

  “No! Not Zarita!” Pia stifled a scream and before we could stop her, jumped down from the carriage and ran toward the bier. Like a madwoman she pushed the startled priest and sisters around it away and tore off the shrouds, crying “Who is it? Who?” Then a great scream echoed around the courtyard. “Zarita! Zarita! No, no, no! I was not here…I did not know…come back! Do not leave me! Live again, Zarita! Oh, Zarita!”

  Sanchia and I caught hold of a frenzied Pia to drag her away, but could not help seeing the horrible dead thing on the bier. Poor Zarita, so beautiful in life, was hideously swollen and disfigured in death and, most grotesquely, was beginning to putrefy.

  It took all our strength together with two strong beatas to pull Pia away and get her to our chamber, where she collapsed in hysterics. Sanchia and I sat and tried to comfort her all night, but Pia sobbed and moaned and shrieked “Zarita!” like one possessed. Sometime in the night Sanchia and then I fell asleep, worn out from the journey, sorrow for Zarita, and for poor Pia.

  The next morning Sanchia and I woke to the sound of scissors. We rubbed the sleep from our eyes to see Pia standing naked, her silvery hair covering her feet. She had cut it as close to the scalp as she could and her head was bloody in places. Her eyes had sunk into their sockets and blazed with a strange light. “All flesh decays, all beauty, even Zarita. Only the spirit remains and things of the spirit. God has opened my eyes and my vocation has been revealed to me. I must go to Mother at once and tell her.”

  Sanchia and I exchanged frightened glances. “Yes, we should go to Mother at once,” agreed Sanchia, thrusting her feet into her shoes while I quickly hid the scissors. “But please, put on your shift first.”

  Mother insisted we leave Pia alone with her. We hovered outside the door, listening to Mother’s measured tones and Pia’s keening response, an unearthly sound that grew louder and louder, then turned to deranged shrieking. Sanchia rushed to summon help and four strong beatas came running from the infirmary. Mother called them to enter, and between them they held a struggling, kicking, snarling Pia and took her away. Pia’s high-pitched screams of anguish followed us until we put our hands over our ears and ran, in tears, for our room.

  Afterward we learned that Pia somehow managed to snatch the golondrina medal from Mother. No one can find it. Sanchia and I visit her each day. She presses her face against the grille and whispers hoarsely that she is an anchorite and will pray for us all. The infirmary sisters say Pia stays on her knees and will take no food, only a little water. In this convent the nuns never wear the cilice—it is discouraged as excessive, but she has somehow procured one and wears it around her waist under her shift, which is now spotted with blood. Pia insists that when she wears it she is visited by angels who look like Zarita. Other times she says demons enter her cell and torment her. She screams her prayers and has bitten the sisters who nurse her.

  In our distress over Pia I had forgotten Salome. A servant arrived with a note inviting Sanchia and me to visit her. Don Miguel’s doing, no doubt. I was reluctant to accept but Mother said we must go, that Salome is a great benefactress of the convent and having sought the invitation it would be ungracious not to accept. I confess it will be a relief to be away. The convent is a sad place, in mourning for all who died in the epidemic, while those who caught the smallpox and survived are badly scarred—a constant reminder, Mother says, to guard against vanity.

  A carriage pulled by beautiful white mules and emblazoned with the Aguilar arms came for us, with a coachman, two footmen, a maid, an armed guard and a Spanish captain’s widow to act as chaperone. Sanchia and I again packed our dresses, though our hearts were too heavy to take any pleasure in our finery.

  CHAPTER 28

  From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, by the pen of Esperanza, the Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon, January 1554

  Salome’s home, the Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon, lies three days away. Like Salome and her Inca husband, it is a house of two worlds, Spanish and native. It stands on the ruins of an Inca palace, and Salome tells me that it was one of many palaces belonging to her husband’s family. After it was destroyed by a great earthquake the stones were used to rebuild it in a kind of Spanish style, around a courtyard with a fountain. She is not at all a fine Spanish lady like the colonial wives, but a handsome, reflective woman at one with the house, with the place.

  Beside the gate there is a family chapel with a stone altar and a dazzling gold-and-silver altar screen and wooden statues of the saints with native faces. The house itself is very large and low, filled with the tapestry-like hangings of wool dyed beautiful colors that caught my eye in the convent, earthenware pots and other fine native artifacts, as well as silver candlesticks and the heavy carved furniture that is common here. Her house is tranquil, comfortable, and well ordered. Her slaves and servants go quietly about their work, with less of the excitable ways I have seen elsewhere. Inside the rooms lead one into another around a tiled courtyard with a fountain and many flowers. When we admired it, Salome said there was once a garden made of gold and silver, with jeweled flowers. But, she said with a smile, she prefers living things and oversees the garden herself.

  There is nothing of the fashionable colonial lady about her. Salome wears a kind of native tunic of fine wool over a longer, plainer dress of cotton, which suits her very well. Her hair is nearly gray now, and her sad eyes are beautiful and deep. She is very like Sor Beatriz in looks and manner. When she speaks, it is in a considered and intelligent way, like Sor Beatriz.

  One of the rooms is a small library with a splendid view of the mountains in the distance. She spends much of the day here, reading, praying, and writing to her daughter, Beatris, and son Fr. Matteo all the news of the hacienda, births and deaths and marriages of the servants and natives and slaves on the estate, the crops and animals, her garden. The library was made especially for her by her husband. She bears her widowhood stoically and does not speak of her grief, but she does not need to. It hovers about her.

  She welcomed Sanchia and me very kindly. The morning after our arrival, Sanchia went off to watch the excitement in the garden where the gardeners were trying to catch a large poisonous snake. In what would become the pattern of our days there, Salome saw to her housekeeping and gave orders for meals, then drew me into her study to talk until dinnertime, as Sanchia rode or explored outdoors. We spoke easily of many things.

  I told her it had come as
a shock to learn Sor Beatriz had a daughter, and gave her all the news of her mother and the convent. I told her how kind Sor Beatriz had been to me, how she had trained me as her assistant. “It sounds like you took my place,” said Salome. “I am glad. And the Inquisition? We hear a little. Is it really as bad now as they say?”

  I said it was, and she was alarmed to learn that a tribunal had come to Las Golondrinas just at the time we left, although I did not explain why the Abbess did not want it to find us.

  It took a long time to tell Salome all the convent news. It had not been possible for her to send or receive letters from Spain until the conquistadors had come, and after that she had written many times to the convent but never received a reply. I assured her that no letter from her had come, and that it wasn’t until Sor Serafina repeated her brothers’ tales of the colony that the order realized the missionaries had not drowned or been taken by pirates. Once Salome asked, “I don’t suppose my mother ever spoke to you of my father? No? She would never speak of him to me either. I believe she had her reasons for keeping that secret.”

  She looked so pensive and sad that I changed the subject, telling her about Don Tomas Beltran and how he had abducted our friend. This made Salome laugh. She said it was very like Tomas to do such a thing, that as an only son he had been dreadfully spoiled until he believed he must have his own way in everything. Don Miguel had become his godfather when Don Miguel was only sixteen. Since then he had gotten Tomas out of many scrapes, placated many an infuriated husband and father, and he now hoped that Tomas would be content with one woman for the time being. Salome patted my hand reassuringly and said that Marisol sounded as if she had a mind of her own, and she understood Dona Luisa took the birth of Marisol’s twins as a personal compliment—twins ran on her side of the family. Poor Rita, who had finally been married, was now expected to produce twins, too.

  Another day I told Salome about Pia.

  I woke each day hoping it might bring Don Miguel to the hacienda, but there was no sign of him. Salome said that he lived in his own wing of the house, but family business often obliged him to be gone for long periods of time. She was clearly uncomfortable speaking of his absence. I understood what she did not wish to say. Don Miguel lives with a mistress, probably with their children as well, as is the way here. I said nothing more about Don Miguel. It was her turn to tell me her story. There was so much I longed to know. It took the better part of a week for her to tell me, and I recorded it as she did.

  I left Spain over thirty years ago on what I believed was an adventure to build a mission in Gran Canaria. The Abbess had obtained permission from the church to send missionaries to establish a convent and a school for native women and girls there. I believe the church authorities agreed because Muslim traders in Gran Canaria had begun building mosques and the church and Spain wanted to forestall the Muslim presence there.

  I was longing to go, and my prayers were answered when the Abbess chose me. My mother and I wept when we parted, but we expected she would come with a second party of nuns when the new mission was established. I can still remember how exciting the trip to Seville seemed. The world beyond the convent walls was vast! Mountains and valleys, farms, villages and peasants, castles, the rivers and plains—then Seville itself! Sor Maria Manuela, who was in charge of the party, was continually telling us to lower our veils.

  The ship and the sea seemed wonderful at first. It was agreeable flying over the water with a salt breeze on our faces, though the sailors pointed to the horizon and told us that was the Sea of Fog and Darkness, where sea djinnis dwell and prey on ships blown their way. They reassured us that Gran Canaria was less than ten days away and there was nothing to fear. But next morning the sky had turned dark, and suddenly there was a terrible storm with lightning and howling winds, and we were locked into the hold as waves crashed across the deck.

  I can still remember that terrifying ordeal. It was dark in the hold and we lost track of whether it was day or night as the ship shuddered with the pounding of the waves. We were violently ill, seawater had soaked into our cabin and everything around us was foul and cold. Worst of all, we knew we had been blown into the awful Sea of Fog and Darkness whose perils the sailors had described to us. As the miserable hours, then days passed, I thought of my mother and prayed she not blame herself for giving permission. We realized that we would never reach Gran Canaria, and tried to encourage each other to meet death bravely. Then as suddenly as it had come, the storm died, and the captain threw open the hatch and shouted, “Sisters! The storm has passed and Gran Canaria lies ahead!”

  It seemed a miracle when air and sunshine poured into our hold. We crawled up onto the deck and saw land ahead and the sailors prostrated in prayer in the Muslim way, abandoning all pretense of Christianity after deliverance from such an ordeal. We knelt, too, and gave thanks. When we finished we saw that the closer we drew to land the more puzzled the captain looked. It was certainly not the busy harbor the sailors had described. After we anchored in a deserted cove he tried to work out where we might be from his charts. The sailors set about assessing the damage to the ship and found freshwater on land. That night we feasted on fish roasted over the fire and strange fruits growing on the edge of the forest. In a few days we had all regained strength and the captain and a few of the older sailors sat awake late into the night trying to determine where we were by the stars.

  Then one afternoon painted men appeared out of the forest, and attacked us with bows and arrows, wounding the captain badly. We hurried back onto the ship and sailed on along the coast, as close as the sailors dared, our party now taking turns to watch for reefs under the water.

  Having avoided death at sea, it began to seem we would perish near land, though no one knew what land this might be. Some thought India and some thought China. Different tribes along the way met us with hostility each time we tried to pull in to shore, and the captain’s wound festered. He grew feverish and drifted in and out of consciousness in his cabin. We had our medicines and treated him as best we could, but the poor captain finally died in great agony. After they dropped his body overboard next day, a row blew up between those who believed we should go forward and those who were determined to turn back. The argument was decided as we saw we were approaching a narrow isthmus and the plan in favor of turning back was agreed, when, just as the ship came about, we saw a great mass of water swirling around itself on the way we had just come. The lookout shouted the alarm and an order to come about again at once—it was a trap of the devil to suck ships and men straight down to hell. Sailors rushed to the ropes and pulled with all their might to change the sails. Just in time, our ship changed course and swung back toward the isthmus at such a speed that there was no choice except to sail through.

  We went slowly along another coast until we were woken at dawn when the ship ran aground on a submerged rock and water poured in through a hole in the keel. We all bailed as best we could, and waited most of the day before going ashore to see if our presence had attracted any natives. It had been many days since we had eaten more than a few bites of fish; we were in need of freshwater and we were exhausted from bailing.

  We found a stream beneath the trees at the end of the beach. The trees were hung with vines and the air was full of shadows and silence, the calls of strange birds and the sounds of animals or reptiles moving in the undergrowth. Though we saw no one, we felt some presence near the stream so we drank quickly, filled our skins with water, and hastened back. The sailors were busy building a fire and catching fish, discussing how best to mend tears in the sails and patch the hole in the gunnel. The damage was worse than they had thought and they said unhappily that repairs would take days. They unloaded our bundles and chests and we spread their mildewing contents to dry and air in the sun. Beyond the shore, there were snow-covered mountains one behind the other against a bright-blue sky. Had we not been frightened, lost, and hungry it would have been a magnificent sight, but by this time our spirits were very low.


  The sun began to sink, and we women hurried to collect firewood from the edge of the forest. We did not notice the warriors approaching. By the time we looked up they had surrounded us.

  They were well made, tall and muscular men, with dark hair and deep-brown skin, beardless. They wore a sort of uniform or livery, identical tunics with lengths of cloth wrapped about their heads, much like the Muslims wear. Their commander was the tallest of the group. He had strong, handsome features, and a helmet fashioned like an animal’s head, its mouth bared in a snarl. The light of our fire flickered on their bronze skin, their shields and spears with gold tips, and the great gold discs like the sun that hung from the commander’s ears. They were a frightening sight, but they simply stared, making no move to attack or harm us. Instead they pointed at the ship and conversed among themselves, yet when the commander looked at us huddled together I sensed restraint and courtesy. His eyes were dark and deep, and his chest very broad. Sor Maria Manuela finally nudged me and snapped, “Do not stare so, Salome! Close your mouth!”

  The commander and his men gathered around the terrified sailors, who with signs and pointing, attempted to explain where we had come from. The commander pointed at us, and the sailors shook their heads and gestured violently to explain that we were not their women. One of them pointed to us and then to the sky, over and over. “Kneel and say prayers; show them,” one of the sailors called out. So we did, making a great show of folding our hands and bowing our heads. There was more pointing at the heavens.