The Sisterhood

by Helen Bryan

  The Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon, April 1561

  Isabelita was born after Christmas, much sooner than expected. It was a long and difficult birth. Isabelita is not well, not thriving as our other children did. She is listless and weak and rarely cries, looking at me with large suffering eyes. I love her all the more, so little and so sweet, but my love does nothing to help her. I hold her constantly, and try to get her to feed a little. It breaks my heart to hear her sad little wail, see her small hands curl and uncurl as if all her energy is concentrated in tiny fingers, clutching at life. I hold her close to my heart, as if its beating will keep her alive. Don Miguel has aged and his hair is white. Salome says he looks more and more like his father. Salome herself is ill, gaunt, and in pain though she tries to hide it. I do what I can for her, but she can scarcely eat or drink or leave her bed.

  As long as I do not allow tears to come, Isabelita and Salome will live.

  And now, on top of everything, I must leave the hacienda. I received a message from the convent that Pia is dying and has asked for me, begs me to come. They write that she has a disease eating at her from inside, that she has suffered terribly without complaining. Salome insists that I go. I fear the journey will kill Isabelita, but I dare not leave her behind with a nurse. What if I never saw her again?

  CHAPTER 32

  From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, by the pen of Dona Esperanza Aguilar, the Mission Convent of Las Golondrinas de Los Andes, April 1560

  There has been a miracle. I could write the words over and over. A miracle.

  When we reached the convent a novice led me to Pia’s cell. I carried Isabelita with me—I hold her tightly always so that Death cannot wrest her from my arms. I had forgotten how small and dark Pia’s cell is, with only one narrow barred window. It was morning but a candle burned on either side of her narrow bed. Pia’s face was as white as the sheet that covered her and her rosary was wound in her fingers. For a second I thought she was already dead, but then she gestured to the nuns praying on either side of the bed to leave us. I could tell from her eyes that she knew it was me.

  I bent down to kiss her and she looked at Isabelita who lay in my arms, listless as usual. “Oh Pia,” I said. I could not stop the tears now.

  Pia reached up and touched my wet cheek. Then she laboriously unwound the rosary from the thin fingers of her right hand. Twined with it was a gold chain, and at the end of the chain, the Abbess’s medal!

  “You took it from Mother the day that you…Zarita…Oh Pia, have you had it all this time?”

  “Mother wishes me to be buried wearing it,” Pia whispered. “But this is a better use for it.” The ghost of her old serene, otherworldly smile crossed her face. She slipped the chain over Isabelita’s head with frail fingers and said, “A gift for you, little one.”

  The baby’s eyes fluttered open and she turned her head and looked at Pia curiously. Pia smiled at Isabelita and they held each other’s eyes for a long moment. And then…my baby did a terrifying thing. She arched her back and kicked vigorously with her little feet. She waved her arms, threw back her head and began to howl. Such a sound from a tiny bundle of bones! Terrified she was having a fit, I rocked and shushed her. Her pale little cheeks grew pink, then her whole face turned red from crying. If it had been one of my other children I would have said this meant she was indignant at not being fed quickly enough.

  “Feed her,” whispered Pia, “feed her at once. All will be well now.” She closed her eyes, the smile still on her face. “Farewell. The demons are gone. I have vanquished them. Feed her.”

  I put the baby to my breast, and to my astonishment and joy, Isabelita suckled greedily, smiled at me and fell asleep, milk dribbling out of her little pink mouth. When I looked up again, Pia was dead.

  That night wonder and grief denied me even the terrified half-sleep that was all the rest I had known since Isabelita’s birth. That and the baby herself. Isabelita woke often, demanding to be fed. At the requiem funeral Mass three days later, Isabelita was quiet but alert, holding her head up from my shoulder and looking around her with interest. I held her up to see Pia’s coffin, and the incense made her sneeze and kick and wave her arms, squawking in protest. Then she suckled again until I was dry, and that night she and I slept soundly for the first time since her birth.

  So soundly, in fact, that when I woke I was terrified to hear none of the wheezing sound her breathing makes when she is asleep, or the sad little fretting noise she makes when awake. Had I had been mistaken about her recovery? Had she died in the night? But instead she lay beside me sucking her thumb contentedly, medal still around her neck. She looked at me, her thumb slipped from her grinning mouth, and she gurgled and waved her arms and kicked.

  At home again she feeds constantly and smiles and crows with delight at her sister and brother. She chews anything she can grasp, laughs when someone catches her eye, and has become a plump, naughty monkey. When Don Miguel looks at Isabelita and smiles, I see how deep the lines on his face are, like crevasses in a rock.

  The Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon, September 1563

  Isabelita comforts us. Salome has died. The Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon feels empty. I can write no more.

  CHAPTER 33

  From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, by the Pen of Dona Isabelita Beltran de Aguilar, the Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon, 1597 AD

  I hope that my dear mother, Esperanza, would feel it is fitting and proper that the final entry in this Chronicle is being made by the same Isabelita whose life was saved by Pia’s medal so long ago. My mother had not written in the Chronicle since that event but now that the Chronicle is to leave the Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon, I will take it up to explain where it is going and why.

  I will begin with the letter my mother received from La Flor six months ago. Of course everyone has heard of La Flor, the legendary temptress who famously danced and sang her way across New Spain for many years, leaving a trail of broken hearts. Her career ended in a blaze of scandal in Mexico City, when two prominent admirers dueled over her one night outside the opera house where she was performing, and crippled each other. But until my mother received her letter from Mexico, I had no idea that La Flor was one and the same person my mother always spoke fondly of as Sanchia. Sanchia/La Flor wrote that she owed my parents many apologies, that she hoped they could meet once more in this world so she could deliver them in person, and if they would permit her, she intended to pay us a visit.

  Her letter asked if my mother still kept this Chronicle. If so, she would like to see it to refresh her memory before traveling “home.” My mother said Sanchia/La Flor had always been restless. By “home” Sanchia meant Spain, where she intends to go on one of her husband’s ships.

  To avoid being thrown into prison for loose morals, La Flor married one of her admirers, a widower and wealthy merchant named Vaez Sobremonte, who died a few years later. He was one of the suspect “New Christians”—a Jew, in other words. They say that beyond Mexico City there are whole settlements of these New Christians who practice their religion secretly, and this is where the Sobremontes made their home. My mother replied to Sanchia that we would welcome her with great pleasure, that she had not opened this Chronicle in many years, and how good it would be to look over it together.

  Saying that she must show me the Chronicle Sanchia’s letter referred to, my mother went to a leather chest in her room, bound in silver. I had never seen her open it but she did now, and lifted out the only contents, a silk bag inside a rougher woolen one, holding this book and a medal on a long chain, wrapped in a beautifully embroidered handkerchief that looked very old. She unwrapped the chain and held the handkerchief against her cheek, whispering “dear Luz.” Then she held up the medal and slipped it over my head.

  “Isabelita, you were Pia’s miracle,” she said to me. “And when Salome died, I lost track of many things. I had been so busy nursing her and caring for all you children, helping the convent…so m
uch was happening that at one time I feared the medal had been lost. After a frantic search I found it again and put it away with the Chronicle for safekeeping.”

  That was not surprising. All sorts of objects in this house would disappear, resurface, and disappear again. My mother, Esperanza, had nine children who lived, and the house was always overflowing with babies, cousins, nurses, animals, servants, endless visitors and their children. My mother was strict about our education and refused to entrust it to tutors, preferring to teach us herself. It left her little time to oversee the housekeeping and I can well understand her safely putting away anything she wished to keep.

  My mother tapped the medal and said, “This was meant to belong to the convent, and I gave it to Mother Superior not long after we arrived from Spain. But then Pia took it and gave it to you and said you were meant to keep it. Who knows, perhaps it will save another child.” Then we sat in the old schoolroom and she read the family stories again; that of my great-grandmother in Spain, the scribe who began this record; my mother’s account of her voyage to Spanish America; the story of my grandmother Salome.

  As my mother turned the pages she grew pensive. “Alas, I have neglected my duty. I never honored a promise I made to the Abbess of the convent in Spain. I must do so before it is too late.” She handed this Chronicle to me, and made me promise to see that Sanchia delivered it to the Mother Superior at Las Golondrinas de Los Andes. I protested that she should tell Sanchia herself, but she shook her head.

  I believe she had a premonition. A month before Sanchia came, my mother died in her sleep. Sanchia spent the first hours of her visit at my mother’s grave. She returned with red eyes and had me read the parts of the Chronicle about the four girls, and then insisted I write this last chapter before she delivers it to the convent, as my mother had wished.

  My mother’s old friend has proved a consoling distraction for my husband, Teo Jesus Beltran, and my grieving father. There is nothing of the temptress about Sanchia now, just an old woman who talks incessantly of past times, about her husband’s grandchildren, the charities she patronizes, and what she will find in Spain.

  Vaez Sobremonte’s widow has very fine diamonds to enliven her mourning clothes, elegant gowns of silk trimmed with black Belgian lace. She arrived in a well-sprung, cushioned carriage, with a coat of arms on the door followed by a great many wagons loaded with things she is taking back to Spain. A large ship will be necessary to hold everything. In addition to her personal baggage there are several paintings she commissioned at great expense, and one of Marisol, that Marisol’s husband, Don Tomas, had painted to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the school for girls which Marisol established on the Beltran hacienda. Poor Don Tomas has not been the same since Marisol’s death, but still, Teo Jesus cannot understand how Sanchia managed to persuade him to part with it. Sanchia also has with her a portrait of her husband Sobremonte, a strong-featured, intelligent-looking man in a skullcap and a kind of fringed shawl. She takes it with her everywhere she goes on her travels.

  Sanchia spoke of her intention to pay her respects at the cell where Pia lived and interceded for my life. That cell has remained empty since Pia’s death and they say the nuns hear voices coming from it in the night, that it is visited by spirits—a lady in a dark cloak, and two beautiful young women, one with silver hair and one with dark. The bishop does not know what line to take about this, but fears to upset the local people who believe Pia is a saint.

  Sanchia wished to know about us. I told her that we are all married and have families of our own. My eldest sister Maria Caterina is married to one of our cacique cousins. I am married to Marisol’s son, Teo Jesus, and our brothers have also chosen cacique wives, educated at Las Golondrinas. My other sisters married Spanish husbands and two of them died in childbirth. Between us we have many children and a few grandchildren. My father views our increase with great satisfaction, saying that it comforts him to know that through his children Inca will remain on the land until the earth joins the sun.

  Sanchia leaves tomorrow at dawn, and I decided to add one more item to her consignment for the Spanish convent. Tonight, Teo Jesus helped me take down a portrait from the sala wall. It is of our youngest child Maria Salome, who entered Las Golondrinas de Los Andes as a novice by her own choice—her demand, I should say—the instant she turned sixteen. She is a strong-willed girl, who in temperament resembles her fearsome grandmother Dona Luisa Beltran. It is a fine portrait, I think. Maria Salome is dressed in a handsome new tunic woven specially on our hacienda, and insisted on wearing all her jewelry, and some of mine and her sisters’. Her expression says it all. She is a formidable nun, young as she is. We intended to give the portrait to the convent here as is the custom, but since Sanchia does not mind how much baggage she travels with, Teo Jesus and I would like to send it back to Spain to hang in the convent where our mothers found shelter.

  I am about to close this Chronicle forever. It will finally go to Las Golondrinas de Los Andes where it belongs. I dedicate this last entry to the memory of my mother, Esperanza, and her parents with a prayer I heard continuously on her lips, “God is great.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Las Golondrinas Convent, Spain, April 2000

  After letting Almira in, Menina managed to pull her boots off before collapsing on her bed, but despite being more tired than she had ever been in her life, she slept badly, waking every few minutes imagining that the men looking for Almira were climbing over the walls. As the first light of dawn came through the window she got up quickly and went to check. But Almira was still snoring, curled in a ball.

  Too nervous to go back to sleep, Menina was on edge listening for gunshots, but except for the swallows it was quiet. She brushed her teeth, then went to intercept Sor Teresa, who was just then hurrying to open the gate to the chapel. Menina delivered Alejandro’s warning to keep the gate locked. Sor Teresa was predictably outraged. She went off into a tirade in Spanish. Did Menina not realize it was Good Friday?

  “It’s not my idea,” Menina tried to interrupt over and over. “Alejandro says it is necessary. We must trust him…There’s a police operation going on. It’s very dangerous. Dangerous for him and for many people if we do not do as he says. There are very bad men involved. Please.”

  Finally Sor Teresa calmed down enough to focus on what Menina was saying. “Dangerous for Alejandro?”

  “Yes, for many other people, too. There are criminals, probably with guns. Alejandro has a gun, and there will be other police with guns…”

  In distress Sor Teresa cried, “No! Guns evil! People had guns in the civil war, very bad!”

  “Alejandro needs you to help him, by not opening the gate for any reason. He wants the gate to the convent to be kept closed and bolted.” Menina tried another tactic. “If the gate is locked and he doesn’t have to worry about you and the other nuns, he will be safer. You don’t want him to get shot, do you, while he is worrying about the nuns and not paying attention to his job?”

  “Is for the police what he is doing? Not for anything else, not because these criminals are paying him money?”

  So Sor Teresa had been worried he was on the take!

  “No, it’s not like that, not at all. He will tell you about it later. It is a long story and Alejandro is very brave. But first he needs to catch the criminals.”

  “When we can open the gate again?”

  “He will tell us when it’s safe.”

  “Alejandro is a good man. He take care of people, he help us in the convent, he help you, that is why I do not like to think of him and his too much money, his prostitutes. Or dead from the men with guns.”

  Menina sighed. “I never thought I would agree but I do now.”

  “Alejandro like you.”

  “I’m not so sure but that doesn’t make any diff—”

  “Yes, I tell you I see with my ears, hear what people think when they talk. I hear Alejandro when he say he want to talk with you, he is nervous, like a boy. I think he i
s combing his hair and straighten his uniform.”

  “I don’t think he…”

  “He is lonely. So many girlfriends but is lonely. He was in love with American girl. In California. She was novia. But she did not come here. So he does not get married and he waste his life on bad girls.”

  Menina couldn’t enlighten Sor Teresa just now about the girlfriends. “Really that’s none of my concern.”

  “He should get married. Settle down. Have children.”

  “No doubt you’ve told him so many times. I’m sure he will when he meets the right woman, but it’s none of my business.”

  “You are not married!”

  “No—”

  “Why not?”

  “Sor Teresa, that’s—”

  “Something bad make you unhappy. Two days ago you were crying.”

  “I am not unhappy!” Menina was appalled to hear herself snapping at a nun. She just managed to stop herself saying that it was none of Sor Teresa’s business.

  Sor Teresa shrugged and changed the subject. “Alright, I do not open the gate today. I will tell the others. Sor Clara she has a cold and a little fever. Is windy in the sala grande, she get a chill there.” Menina was guilt stricken by this parting shot. If Sor Clara was ill it was Menina’s fault. What if it turned into pneumonia? A doctor ought to see her, maybe she needed antibiotics…So now the nuns were her responsibility? Menina slumped against the wall and rubbed her temples where a headache was starting.