The Sisterhood (51 page)

No way! Menina raised her head, looked him in the eye and said firmly, “I meant what I said. I’m finished with Theo. And even though you say I mustn’t blame myself for…for…I was carried away by who he was, what my mother and other people thought of him and his family. It blinded me to the fact that he and his family wanted a nice presentable Hispanic wife to get Hispanic votes. One they could control. I think I was just too stupid to see it. No. I wasn’t stupid, I just…hoped everything was the way people said it was.”

She took a deep breath. “If I had married Theo it would have turned bad eventually and been an even bigger mess, probably with children involved. What he did showed me how despicable he is. But when I felt so shattered, what helped most was when you said it wasn’t my fault and that it was good to be angry. And I was so angry at Theo then. Well, you heard me! Then when you asked me to help Almira and told me what happened to trafficked girls, I realized you knew what you were saying about being angry at the right person. And that’s when I started to think
maybe
, like you said, I didn’t bring the rape on myself. It changed the way I looked at things.”

Menina managed a painful smile. “And you know what else helped? The fact that you disliked me, that you thought I was stupid to get my bag stolen, that you called me a prostitute. If you had such a poor opinion and still thought it wasn’t my fault, well, I could trust that.”

“I am sorry. I was a bully, but I was worried about Almira and the whole operation. I couldn’t let anyone jeopardize that. But I did not choose my words well.” Alejandro held out his hand, palm up, and Menina hesitated, then put hers into it and they sat looking at each other, holding the moment, neither saying anything because each of them knew it was important to choose their next words very carefully.

A man cleared his throat and broke the spell. “Alejandro? Excuse my interrupting, but you did ask me to come and meet—Ah, is this the lady?
Encantado, señorita!
You are even more beautiful in the flesh than in the missing-person photo.”

“Ernesto! I told Menina about you.” Alejandro sprang to his feet and embraced a little nondescript gray-haired man with a pipe in his hand and a paper under his arm. They sat and exchanged pleasantries while Alejandro ordered coffee. Alejandro told Menina to start at the beginning. Ernesto lit his pipe and sat back to listen.

“I better start with this.” She put the velvet bag on the table. “Ernesto, Alejandro says he told you about my medal and how I got it.” Then she withdrew the book from its velvet bag along with two notebooks. “I told Alejandro that the nuns in the convent where I was adopted also gave me an old book. See, swallow on the medal, swallow on the book cover, you can just make it out. Beyond taking a quick look inside I never tried to read it, really. It’s an old Chronicle and you know, a sixteen-year-old couldn’t care less. I brought it to give to the Prado since it was old and in Spanish and I hoped they’d help me with research on the medal in exchange. But since I’ve been at the convent with nothing else to read, I dipped into it. And what’s odd is, I think the Chronicle and this medal actually came from Las Golondrinas, a long time ago, and wound up in the place where I was rescued in South America, I think to hide them from the Inquisition. Most of the Chronicle is in Spanish in old-fashioned writing, and I may have gotten some of it wrong, but that’s the gist.

“But it mentions a ‘Gospel’ over and over until I wondered what had happened to the Gospel. But there’s a part of the Chronicle in Latin and while I was stuck in the convent I had a look at it, and I began to think, hey, that
is
the Gospel. And I think the reason the nuns wanted me to have the book is that the Gospel tells the story of where the medal came from.”

Ernesto kissed his hand to her. “
Hermosa e inteligente!
” he exclaimed. Beautiful and intelligent.

“Still the ladies’ man, Ernesto,” murmured Alejandro.

“Listen, you two! There’s more. I get the impression the Gospel dates back to Roman Spain in the early days of Christianity, though the Chronicle says it was recopied, so maybe the Latin’s been simplified. And I kept reading and rereading it because it was such an odd story, and I wanted to translate it right, but it says Jesus had a sister named Salome and that she came to Spain and founded the order that started the convent up there.” She pointed in the direction of Las Golondrinas. “She looked like Jesus, according to eyewitnesses, and she even acted like Jesus. And this medal”—she held it up—“was hers. Jesus gave it to her. And one way of looking at the Gospel, if you put it all together, is that it says women are just as close to God as Jesus was. And I guess it also means that Mary was never the virgin the Catholic Church says, or that she even needed to be.”

Ernesto’s expression had changed to one of horrified alarm. He put his hand on Menina’s protectively. “My dear, you have done an excellent job, but you do not understand the significance of this Gospel you have found. The Catholic Church says the Virgin Mary is the link between man and God, that she is the ever-virgin mother of God…this is doctrine decided by the bishops in a theological conference called by the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century! Council of Nicaea, that was the one. By that time, who knew what the truth was. But by making the matter one of faith it was beyond challenge. If there is evidence Jesus had a sister, the church was wrong, the Virgin Mary was not a virgin forever. I am sure that in the past anyone suggesting such things would have been accused of heresy.”

Ernesto shook his head and continued. “I am an old Republican and a nonbeliever, but this is serious! The couple who were looking
for you, the missing-person poster…Now I know why! They want this book and this medal, and they will do anything to get it so that no one will find out what is in the Gospel. What I do not understand is how they knew Menina had it.”

“I can tell you,” said Menina. “There was a story about me in the paper when I got engaged, and there was a picture of my medal and the Chronicle and a bit about why I had them.”

Both men were plainly worried now. Alarmed, Menina looked at Alejandro. He had risked his life for the Albanian girls and from the grim look in his eye she knew he would do the same for her. “I have my gun,” said Alejandro. “I’ll see what we can do about police protection—”

What have I done?
For a moment the old Menina, the good girl, quailed to think this new mess was her fault—but a new Menina told the old Menina to shut up and think. And the answer came to her. Call Becky.

Menina pushed her chair back and said firmly, “Guns and police won’t be required, gentlemen. I know exactly what to do. The last thing to do is hide the story; better to publicize it as much as possible. Alejandro, please help me make another call. My best friend is…a journalist who would love to get a story this big. And I owe her; she’s the reason I’m in Spain at all. And if Ernesto would contact Professor Lennox.” She pulled Professor Lennox’s card from her pocket. “She’s a specialist in sixteenth-century Spanish art and the organizer of my tour. I didn’t make a good first impression, but I bet you could charm her into coming up here and taking a look at what’s at the convent. She’s very attractive, by the way.” Ernesto picked up the card and said that it would be a pleasure.

“And I’ll keep working at the Gospel translation. What I would really like is a desk and a chair.”

“I can manage that,” said Alejandro.

For the next two days before everyone arrived, Menina walked down the hill to the police station, carrying the Chronicle, her dictionaries, and the notebooks. After huddling on a stone bench and squinting in candlelight, it was luxury having a desk and a decent lamp. She polished and checked her translation and transcribed different versions in longhand while Alejandro completed a long report about the weekend’s operation. Telephone engineers finally came and repaired the telephone connection. Alejandro took calls from Interpol and Ernesto, and Menina spoke to her parents and Becky.

At the end of the second day, Ernesto came to join them for dinner and over coffee Menina read them her day’s work:

The first story of the Gospel of our Foundress Salome, told by Salome to our scribe

On a hot afternoon in Judea, Jesus, the son of Joseph the Carpenter and his wife, Maryam, led his younger sister Salome to join a group of boys laughing and splashing on the banks of a stream. The boys fell silent as Jesus sat Salome on the bank and waded into the stream to join them. No one dared splash or jostle him. In the Temple rabbis called him a strange prodigy, a boy who knew the alphabet without being taught, knew the law, and who boldly lectured the rabbis instead of the other way around. Children sent to fetch water from the well said that when Jesus did so he carried it back to his mother in a cloth instead of a jar. Accidents happened to playfellows that angered him—he had cursed a boy who pushed him and the child’s hand had withered. A child who had taunted him unkindly, as children do, dropped down dead. It was said that when a neighbor accidentally severed his foot from his leg with an ax, Jesus picked up the twitching foot and joined it back onto the leg while the injured man stared at his bloody ax in shock. Some claimed he had restored life to a man who had fallen from a high roof onto his head, although those who had not been present disputed this, insisting the injured man must have merely been
unconscious and not dead. Witnesses insisted the roof had been very high, the man’s head was smashed, and blood had trickled from his ears before Jesus approached, then he had sat up and walked away, shaking himself. When questioned about these things, Jesus only shrugged and said, “It is God’s will these things happened.”

People whispered the boy was an infant sorcerer or a demon, and parents ordered their children to give the prodigy a wide berth. So the boys didn’t ask Jesus to join in their play, and after a minute Jesus shrugged and walked alone down the stream looking for minnows.

Salome kicked off her sandals, too, but the water was deep so she sat and dabbled her dusty toes up and down.

“What are you making?” she asked the boy nearest her. He was slapping wet clay into a high mound.

“Girls belong indoors. Go home!” he muttered.

“A fort,” said another boy, scooping up more muddy clay and shaping it into a wall around the mound. “One that’s too strong for the Romans.” He looked over his shoulder as he said this. “Judas Maccabeus and his army are waiting inside for the enemies of Israel to come close, then they will burst out and kill them to the last man. Their blood will soak the ground.” As he said the word “blood” he slapped on handfuls of mud so violently that Salome was splattered. She wiped her face with her forearm but knew better than to complain.

“Death to the Romans. May they bury their children,” said the boy building the fort loudly, and spat with contempt. Jesus stood up straight and frowned at the speaker. The boys stopped what they were doing and held their breaths until Jesus went back to his minnows.

Two older boys came splashing over to tell their friends building the fort to be quiet. One slipped and fell, knocking down the fort’s walls and provoking angry shouts from the builders. The rest of the boys gathered around, shouting and arguing about who was at fault. Suddenly there was a tussle and the knot of shouting boys slipped and shoved and slid on the muddy bank of the stream, trampling the last vestiges of the fort and knocking Salome into the water. She tried to get out of the way but they knocked her down again and again. Her
head went under the water. Choking and frightened, she struggled for a foothold in the streambed but it was too slippery and she couldn’t stand up. Then a boy’s foot went into her stomach and she felt the boys on top of her no matter how frantically she tried to push them off. Trapped, she tried to call her brother, but muddy water filled her mouth and nose and she couldn’t breathe…The boys’ shouting grew fainter. There was no sound but a gurgling bubble.

When Salome opened her eyes she was lying on the bank, still unable to draw breath. Her chest hurt and Jesus was shaking her. Finally she turned her head and vomited dirty water. The boys stood at a distance terrified, only held back from running away by a greater fear of what might happen to them and their families if they didn’t pacify Jesus first.

“Don’t cry,” said Jesus to Salome, ignoring them. He pulled her to sit upright and patted her back.

“Is Salome alright?” asked one anxiously. “We didn’t see her.”

“We’re sorry!” muttered another sullenly. “Say sorry,” he hissed at the others.

“Sorry, sorry. It was an accident, Salome,” they mumbled, keeping wary eyes on Jesus. “Little girls should stay home with their mothers and sisters,” said the bravest one, though he didn’t say it very loud. “It’s where girls and women belong. Then they wouldn’t fall in the water…”

“Stupid girl!” muttered another.

Jesus ignored them. Salome rubbed her eyes with her fists. She coughed some more to get the mud out of her throat.

“Watch.” Jesus took some wet clay from the bank and rolled it in his hands. “Look, a swallow!” he said. Salome was dubious. It looked like a ball of mud.

Jesus set it on the ground. “Here, we’ll make some more.”

He made a circle of lumps around Salome and gave her one to hold.

“Now watch!” Jesus clapped his hands and Salome felt the cool clay in her hand grow warm and soft and feathery, then it began to chirp and move its wings. She shrieked with surprise and delight. “You made a bird!” she exclaimed.

“No, I only shaped the clay; it is a bird by Jehovah’s will,” said Jesus, and the swallow flew out of Salome’s hands and into the air. Jesus clapped his hands again and the other lumps began to flutter and chirp as well, hopping about on the bank around Salome before flying into the air. “All things that happen, happen by Jehovah’s will, Salome.”

The watching boys were rooted to the spot, terrified first by what they had done. Salome had been lying under the water with her mouth and eyes open when they had finally noticed her under their feet. Dragging her body onto the bank they knew she was dead, and the look on Jesus’s face when he came splashing from his minnows to push them away promised a terrible retribution. Now the drowned girl was alive and laughing and clay swallows were flying around her shoulders. With one accord, the boys scattered, running for home, wailing that the boy Jesus had a sister touched by sorcery, too.