The Sisterhood (10 page)

Had
Semana Santa
been celebrated this way in Tristan Mendoza’s time? Menina put down the book to think about it and watched a bird of prey circling the sky over the valley. It drifted on the thermals, around and around. Watching it was hypnotic, and Menina drifted off.

An hour later she woke with a start when the bus halted, thinking the stop must be the place where she’d change, but the bus driver looked back and shook his head no. She pushed her window open and leaned out to see they were in a plaza before a whitewashed church. The plaza was full of people, many wearing Andalusian costumes—women with ruffled skirts and high combs in their hair and men in braid-trimmed jackets, some on horseback. There were tourists who looked plain by comparison, holding cameras and moving slowly through a market set up in the center, where swarthy men and women jostled to sell carpets and lace and copper utensils spread out on blankets to the tourists. Somewhere the smell of food cooking, like a barbecue or sausages, filled the air.

Then a slow insistent drumbeat made itself heard over the noise, and the people in the square fell silent as the drumbeat grew louder, moving aside to leave a path through the crowd. A somber chanting sound came with the drums, like someone was on a microphone. Then a procession passed slowly in front of the bus, led by a priest in black robes carrying a tall pole with a crucifix draped in black gauze. A group of boys in robes followed behind him, chanting responses to the microphone.

Then Menina caught her breath. A huge black-draped float bearing a larger-than-life plaster image of the grieving Madonna appeared, swaying above the crowd and dwarfing the grimacing, sweating men who carried it on their shoulders. Beneath an enormous silver-filigree halo, a wimple and black veil framed the Virgin’s white, grief-stricken face. A rosary of outsize black pearls with a silver cross swung from her hands raised in prayer. At her feet lay the tortured, twisted body of the dead Christ, red blood dripping realistically from his wounds. The image dominated everything in the square, and some of the women selling carpets began to sing in a shrill, keening harmony, a primitive lament raw with grief and suffering that sent chills down Menina’s back.

The next part of the procession was even stranger. Behind the swaying Madonna, also walking in slow time to the drumbeat, came figures in purple robes and tall conical hoods that covered their faces completely save for narrow slits for their eyes. They held what looked like whips made from barbed wire. Every few steps and in sync, the hooded figures swung the whips onto their backs, ritually beating themselves. A few had faint red patches on their shoulders. Then with a roll and a final thud, the drumbeat ceased and the procession halted. The singing stopped. In the silence an order rang out and the men carrying the float shifted their weight in unison and lowered it down on the plaza. The float bearers, wearing thick pads where their shoulders took the weight, rubbed their necks and wiped their brows. The hooded men took off their hats and many lit cigarettes. Wine and coffee were produced.

“
Están practicando
,” announced the driver, half turning his head toward the passengers and gesturing with his thumb. Practicing. The driver leaned out his window and exchanged laughing comments with some of the men before slapping the side of the bus and starting the engine. As they pulled away Menina stared back, feeling shaken. In Laurel Run, Easter was lilies at church, colored eggs, and ladies in new hats. What she had just seen was raw and visceral—about death and blood and terror and the iron grasp of religion.

Menina thought they must be getting close to the place where she would change buses. When it didn’t happen she began to wish she had bought some food at the airport. By three, with her stomach grumbling, she stood up to retrieve a Hershey bar from her pack. Just then the bus swung wide round a precipitous hairpin bend, throwing her off balance. Grabbing the baggage rack with both hands, she felt the bus turn again as it wheezed slowly up a narrow street leading into a white village that hung over the valley, then stopped at the edge of a plaza with a large tiled fountain, a
white church with a red tiled roof, orange trees in bloom, and a café with tables outdoors in the sunshine.

The driver stood up and announced they would stop for “
la comida
” for one hour. He pointed at his watch, and said to be back on the bus on time. People should take all their possessions with them; Spanish people were honest but even this high up there were many Africans and other illegal immigrants nowadays who stole things. He winked at Menina, patted his stomach and beckoned. She busied herself with her backpack and handbag and ignored him. After she ate she would have a look inside the church and avoid the driver like the plague.

In the café, a boisterous group of men stood round a bar laden with wineglasses and bottles even though it was only lunchtime. The driver’s gold tooth flashed as he moved over to make room for her beside him. Menina turned quickly and went to sit outside at one of the tables under the orange trees, took her pad of paper out, and began sketching the church, the flowers, and what looked like the ruins of an old castle on the rocks above. She was dying for a cheeseburger or a club sandwich, but the waiter shook his head. He would bring her something. She didn’t understand what, but nodded and wolfed down the dish of small black olives that arrived with her Coca-Cola. Then she ate a large potato omelette with herbs and peppers. After she paid the bill she felt too full to get up and visit the church right away.

The people from the bus were still inside the bar and the plaza was deserted. The only sounds were the swallows flitting overhead, and the fountain in the center of the plaza. Little bursts of sweet scent drifted her way from the orange blossoms, bees buzzed, and the hot sun on her back felt relaxing. Menina laid her head on her pack on the table and closed her eyes for a minute.

A jolt on the back of her chair woke her. Struggling to remember where she was, Menina saw a boy sprinting away down a
narrow gap between the houses. It was late afternoon and the plaza was in shadow now. She shivered and reached for the handbag she had hung on the back of her chair. To her horror it wasn’t there. She sprang to her feet, looked around her and under the table but the handbag with her money, passport, and airline ticket home, as well as her new Visa card, was gone. With a sinking heart she knew the running boy must have stolen it. Surely the driver would still let her back on the bus, he had seen her ticket…but the place where the bus had parked was empty. It had left without her and her suitcase was on it. “No,” she whimpered. “No!” Her stomach knotted in dismay.

And then she was afraid. The square had filled up with the workmen she had seen drinking in the café earlier, now hammering together some large structure at the edge of the plaza. Seeing a young woman by herself, a few came closer. “You are friendly girl, no?” one asked in Spanish, with a furtive smile that revealed bad teeth. His friend whistled softly and raised his eyebrows. The men raked her body with their eyes and exchanged a joke in a guttural language Menina did not understand, but the gist of which was all too clear. One of them rubbed his fingers together in a universal language for money. “A little drink, yes?” said a man. Laughter.

There was menace in the air and only some instinct for preservation made her force herself to behave calmly, not to act like a victim. Across the plaza a sign said
Policia
. Thank God. Pointedly ignoring the men, she forced herself to sling on her backpack in an unhurried fashion and then walk calmly past the leering men across the plaza, feeling their stares on her back. She was seriously in trouble with no money or passport, but the police would help her call the American consulate in Madrid about getting a new passport, and—much as she dreaded the explanations that would be necessary—she could phone her parents to wire her money. But how stupid of her to get into such a mess!

The door to the police station was unlocked. Menina walked in calling, “
Hola?
” She didn’t see anybody at the front desk. She wandered down a corridor to the only room with a light on. Inside was a single policeman at a desk covered with files, absorbed in reading something. He looked up with surprise when Menina knocked at his open door. Menina was relieved to see it wasn’t some teenage rookie. The policeman looked thirty-ish, with a mustache and thick dark hair. The collar of his uniform was unbuttoned.

“
Señora? ¿qué puedo hacer para usted?
” What can I do for you? He stood up at once, buttoning his collar hastily as if embarrassed she had caught him relaxing. He was as tall as Menina, heavy but fit, with an air of authority that was reassuring under the circumstances.

She struggled to explain in Spanish. “Excuse me; I have to report a crime. I fell asleep in the square and my bag with my money and my passport was stolen. My bus left. My suitcase was on it…the men in the square were…pretty unpleasant.” She was hyperventilating and suddenly dizzy. “Could I sit down, please?”

The policeman eyed her narrowly. He introduced himself as Captain Fernández Galán and to Menina’s surprise his polite expression altered to one of disapproval. He pulled a chair to his desk for her and said in English, “Please. You must fill out an
informe del crimen
.”

She shrugged off her backpack and sat. He pushed what he had been reading so intently to one side, and sighed. Looking distracted, he checked several drawers before finding and retrieving a form. He put it and a pen down in front of her. “Can you read it?”

Menina nodded.

“English?”

“
Americana.
”

“Mrs.?”

“No,
señorita
.”

“Please, I speak English,” he said abruptly. “Fill out your name here,” he said, pointing to a box on the form. He frowned as she wrote “Menina Walker.” At least he wasn’t leering at her like the bus driver and men outside. She looked back down at the form, her lips moving as she read and reread the questions in Spanish. Still shaken by the encounter in the plaza, she found her mind had gone suddenly, totally blank. After a minute he pulled the form back impatiently. “Mees Walker, explain to me what happened and I fill it in. Otherwise we are here all night.”

He sat down, clicked his pen, and wrote while Menina told him her age and what was in her bag. Her passport—no, she didn’t have the passport number—about six thousand euros in travelers checks, a thousand or so in cash, her return plane ticket, and a Visa card. She didn’t have the Visa number either. She explained about the tug on the back of her chair in the square and the running boy and then realizing her bus had gone.

He gave her a look that said just how stupid he thought she was, and asked where was she going.

“I was going to Madrid from Malaga, and the lady who sold me the ticket said to take the bus I was on, then change at the stop after Ronda, for the one to Madrid. The bus driver promised to tell me when to get off.”

Nervously, she trailed to a halt midsentence. She could hear the men outside hammering something and shouting to each other. What was she going to do when it was time to leave the police station?

“Place of birth?”

She told him and he looked surprised. “Why did you say that you were American?”

“I am. I was adopted.”

“Occupation? No, don’t tell me, is it ‘model’ or ‘actress’?” he asked. Menina thought he sounded sarcastic.

“I’m in college.”

His heavy brows gave him a stern expression. “
Mees Walker
, in a few days, we have some tourists who come for the
Semana Santa
procession, but not many rich ones. We are just an old village in the mountains. At this time of year some British retired people and the Catholic tourists who want to see our religious festival in a few days come but”—he spread his hands expressively—“nothing is here for
muchachas de la llamada
.”

“The what?”

“Expensive girls—what is the English expression? The polite one, I think it is ‘call girls’—in southern Spain, for the yachts, the rich men. The most expensive ones can pass for convent girls. Like you, for example.”

“
What?
”

He slammed his hand on the desk. “Oh please, Mees Walker! I am a policeman—you cannot fool me. You think you are not obvious? Following the rich Arabs, the drug smugglers, the people who deal in arms, with their parties on the yachts where a beautiful girl is always welcome. But here in the mountains is mostly poor foreign workmen who find work at Easter to build the
Semana Santa
floats, because most men in the villages are away working or getting too old. Or maybe you have problem with the drugs and any men with even a little money will do. Though I admit, you do not look like you have a problem with the drugs. Yet.”

Menina’s mouth dropped open. He had called her a
prostitute
? And a drug addict? She had been in the police station less than twenty minutes—what had she done to make such a terrible impression? “I’m not a…a…call girl,” she stammered. “Or a drug addict. I’ve never even seen a drug that I know of. I just want to go to Madrid to…”

“Madrid? Is
this
the road to Madrid?” he interrupted and swept his hand toward the window and a view of the mountains.

“How would I know? It’s my first time in Spain!”

“I wish, Mees Walker, whatever you are, that you had not come here. Because now someone must take care of you, and I cannot because I am too busy.”

I hate Spain, Menina thought bitterly. It had begun to dawn on her that she might be in more trouble than she thought. No one knew where she was.
She
didn’t know where she was. And if this horrible policeman thought she was a prostitute, then the men in the square must have come to the same conclusion. That would explain the hissing and the comments. She was so worried now that she hardly heard the captain asking her another question.

“I said, why do you go to Madrid?”

“I need to go to the Prado. I have to write about an artist for college…”

“Picasso, I expect?”