Toward That Which is Beautiful

two priests entered wearing glowing white and gold vestments, the church was packed with people, all dressed in their best feast-day clothes. The men wore red and blue knit caps, and brilliant woven tunics over their best white shirts. The women wore carefully brushed bowler hats, and their braids shone in the candlelight. All was still. No baby cried. In the darkness, a flute begin to play. Then reed pipes and a drum joined in, and a plangent music filled the church—Inca music played on a high plain at the top of a lonely world under the cold clear stars of Christmas.
She listened to Tom’s heavily accented Spanish as he read the gospel of John:
When all things began, the Word already was. The Word dwelt with God, and what God was, the Word was. The Word, then, was with God at the beginning, and through him all things came to be; no single thing was created without him. All that came to be was alive with his life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines on in the dark, and the darkness has never mastered it. . . . So the Word became flesh; he came to dwell among us, and we saw his glory, such glory as befits the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.
Yes, she thought, flesh. God became flesh. That was the great truth. She clung to this God who had once become human, like her. Into the dense midnight of the Andes, the Light was coming. It was coming into Africa and India, China and Japan. All over Europe on this night people were hurrying to lighted churches, lifting their tired hopeful faces to the light. In the cities of America, well-dressed crowds, their stomachs full after the Christmas Eve dinner, were filling pews in warm, well-lit churches, waiting for the good news. Kate saw the world on this night, hushed and expectant, hungry for the light. And here, in a small forgotten speck of the world, the lights of the church came on, one by one, and the silent people there were bathed in light.
After Mass, Kate knelt for a while, watching people line up before the crib. They unwrapped their bundles and put down their offerings—corn and potatoes, wool, necklaces, even bottles of chicha—for the niño Jesus. Then they filed out into the cold Andean night. Marta and Alejandro walked out together, Tito slumped in his father’s arms.
At the door of the church the two priests greeted the parishioners, the vapor of their breath rising and disappearing in the frosty air. Father Jack grabbed Kate in a bear hug and thumped her on the back. “Feliz Navidad, Sister. Happy first Christmas in Juliaca.” His breath was warm, and he was sweating in spite of the cold.
Then she faced Tom. He took both of her icy hands in his. “Merry Christmas, Kate,” he whispered.
She looked into his eyes, unable to speak at hearing her name on his lips. She moved away to let others greet him, hoping he had not seen the trembling of her lips.
Later, as she read Christmas cards from home she had been hoarding for weeks to stave off Christmas-day homesickness, she felt the warmth of Tom’s hands. She was not sad at all. There was no other place she’d rather be on this night.

C
hapter Six
After the beauty of Christmas, January had been a let-down for Kate. It rained much of each day as great storms rolled over the mountains and swept across the plains. Lightning forked down from the mountains, and thunder crashed in rumbling waves. Some days the fog and mist never lifted. But Kate knew that the weather bothered her less than the prospect of Tom’s imminent departure. She had been alarmed by the pang she felt when Jeanne Marie said he would be going down to Lima for R & R.
“R & R?” Kate said. “I didn’t know priests got that.”
“Oh yes,” Jeanne Marie laughed. “Maryknoll owns a house near the beach north of Lima called Casa Mariana. They use it for retreats, but it’s also available for their guys when they need to recuperate from the altitude. It must be nice,” she sighed. “No one ever thinks nuns need to recuperate.”
They were in the clinic where Jeanne Marie was finishing up her paperwork for the day. Kate was folding diapers, and as she looked out the window she noticed that the rain had changed to snow. She ran to the window. “Oh, it’s beautiful. I didn’t know it snowed here in Juliaca.” The flakes were still delicately small, but as she watched they thickened until eventually the courtyard disappeared in a whirl of white.
Jeanne Marie joined her at the window. “Darn it! We have a catechists’ meeting tonight. I’d rather sit by the fire and read a mystery. Would you mind bringing those diapers and bandages over to the house and finishing them tonight? You don’t have to go to the meeting.”
Kate noticed the droop of Jeanne Marie’s shoulders. Kate was tired, too, and looked forward to a quiet evening. Her mother had sent her a few records for Christmas, and she could listen to them while folding clothes.
After supper and Vespers in the living room, Josepha and Jeanne Marie put on their cloaks and gloves; when they opened the front-parlor door, a gust of wind blew snow into the room. Alone now, Kate put on her new Horowitz recording of Liszt’s “Nocturne,” thinking it would be just right for this snowy night. As the first quiet chords filled the room, she finished washing the dishes, her sleeves rolled up and a blue-checked apron covering her white habit. Magdalena had gone up to bed early, complaining of a headache. They were all worried about the novice, for she had seemed sullen and withdrawn lately. Something was wrong. Just as Kate thought that she should go check on her and offer her a cup of tea, she heard a knock on the