Toward That Which is Beautiful

She lies back among the reeds—so tired, tired of fighting herself, of trying to live the life she had vowed, of trying not to love. Trying not to love.
Lying on her back, she sees a condor circling the lake in a wide leisurely arc. His white throat gleams in the dusk. He is a good omen, Kate thinks as she closes her eyes. He will watch over me.

C
hapter Two
Kate wakes, feeling the damp ground beneath her. Now it is night. How long has she slept? Her face and hands are freezing, and her feet in the cotton stockings are numb. She pulls on her shoes. She has to get up, to move. This is crazy, she knows, this panicked flight. Suddenly she thinks of Jane Eyre fleeing from Rochester. She finds the road again.
In the black sky, the stars shine icily remote and unfamiliar. She meant to study these constellations of the Southern Hemisphere ever since she came to South America, finding it so strange at night not to see the Big Dipper and Orion in their familiar spots. Tonight there is no wind, and above the distant peaks of the Andes, the moon is rising. She holds up her watch—eight thirty. It will get much colder, she knows, a twinge of panic tightening in her throat. Somewhere along this road is an old colonial Spanish house that the local manager of the train station refurbished. But the family moved out last year, and Kate doesn’t know if anyone lives there now.
Finally, off to the right, she sees a light flickering through some scrubby bushes. She follows the wooden fence up to the gate and reaches through to unlatch the iron bar within. She pauses for a moment, waiting for a dog’s bark, then makes her way quietly up the flagstone path that leads to a wide veranda. As she knocks on the door she thinks she can hear music. The door opens and the outline of a man is framed in lamplight.
“Bloody hell!”
Kate, surprised to hear a British accent, sticks out her hand.
“Sister Mary Katherine, from the Dominican Sisters at Santa Catalina,” she says in what she hopes is a firm voice.
The man steps aside to let her in; now she can see his dark hair, graying along the temples, the angular face. His eyes are shadowed in the dim hall. As Kate shakes his hand, his wool sweater scratches her arm.
“Come in, come in. I’m sorry this place is such a mess.” Confused, he looks around the room. Her glance follows his. On a table with two kerosene lamps burning are several notebooks piled neatly next to a typewriter. A fire flickers in the great stone fireplace across the room. Now the music is clearer—Mozart, Kate realizes as she notices the short-wave radio on a table in the corner. It is the familiar music that does her in, hearing it in this desolate foreign night. Her voice trembles.
“I’m sorry, it’s just that I’m so tired and cold. I fell asleep on the ground. My habit is damp . . .” She tries to keep her voice steady.
Her host, looking closely at her, seems to relax at the sight of her tears. “Okay, mysterious sister of the night, come in. I’m going to get you warm clothes. While you change, I’ll reheat some lovely soup that I have left from my supper. A hot toddy might be in order, too.”
The man leads her down the hall to a back bedroom, unused it seems, except for an open suitcase that lies, neatly packed, on a love seat. When he leaves the room, she walks over to the peeling gilt mirror above the dresser. It is a Peruvian mirror in the colonial style, made of mahogany, and framed by tiny irregular pieces of mirror inlaid in the dark wood. The pieces glitter in the lamplight and reflect her image in a thousand broken fragments. She stares, her face pale beneath the black veil, and the white scapular that hangs straight from her shoulders to the hem of her long skirt is smeared with dirt.
“These should do all right.” His voice is brisk, and he does not meet her eyes as he thrusts a pair of soft, faded flannel pajamas, a red checked bathrobe, and a pair of cotton socks into her arms. “Freshen up now. There’s a sink and a toilet in the courtyard off this room. I’ll have something hot ready in a moment.”
Kate walks back to the mirror. She unpins the black veil from the white cap covering her hair, folds it neatly in a square, and places it on a chair. Then she pulls off the tight cap and runs her fingers through short, curly brown hair. She takes off the wimple covering her neck, the scapular, and finally her skirt and blouse. The image staring back at her is almost boyish, a tall slim body in a white cotton T-shirt.
She grabs the towel he has left and pushes open the door to the courtyard. The thin crystalline air stings her as she hurries through her wash at the sink. She returns gratefully to the bedroom, which, although chilly, is well lit and comforting with its maple single bed, so much like her old bed at home in St. Louis. Tucking her hair behind her ears, she cinches the bathrobe tightly around her waist and pads back to the living room in the Englishman’s warm socks.
He is stooped over the stove, stirring the soup. “I forgot to introduce myself,” he says, not looking at her. “I’m Peter Grinnell, on loan from Cambridge University to study Andean history and culture. Actually, I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m off for a month or two of vacation in Surrey. Summer’s quite green and pleasant there.”
She is grateful for the easy way he chatters on. Somehow he’s sensed her deep embarrassment at appearing before him without her habit and veil.
He hands her a glass of amber liquid. “It’s whiskey and honey. There should