Toward That Which is Beautiful

our latest addition, I hope. Sister Magdalena doesn’t quite know what to make of life up here.”
Kate was puzzled by this, but in the confusion of unloading the jeep there was no time to ask questions. She turned to thank the two priests for bringing her to the mission, but all she saw were the jeep’s red tail lights receding in the distance.
Now in this stranger’s house, Kate tries to remember if even then she noticed that her world seemed flatter and less luminous after Tom Lynch left them that night. She does remember being surprised by the warmth and good taste of the convent.
The house she entered that first night in Juliaca was one she never would have expected to find in the Altiplano. In the States, it would be regarded as a modest brick bungalow, one in which a blue-collar family might be comfortable. But in this country, where the people they passed lived in mud-and-grass huts, it was a palace. She thought with confusion of her vow of poverty. To the people of the Altiplano, the foreign nuns and priests must seem rich, privileged like the landlords they worked for.
The small front parlor was austere enough, a few stiff wooden chairs and a large crucifix on one wall. But then beyond the translucent glass door, where few were admitted, Kate entered a rectangular room lined with bookshelves on one side and dark red plaid curtains on the other. At the far end of the room was a fireplace, with an old sofa and two easy chairs arranged around it; Kate saw a basket of red knitting on one of the chairs. The wide planks of the wooden floor gleamed.
“What a lovely room,” Kate said uncertainly.
“Yes, we’ve tried to make it comfortable,” said Sister Josepha, looking around proudly as if she were an industrious housewife. “But you can see everything else tomorrow. You’ll have your first day off to get used to the altitude. Then we’ll put you to work. Oh, the bell will ring at five thirty. Lauds and meditation are at six in the church. Sister Magdalena will show you to your room.” She looks carefully at Kate. “Will you be all right? You look a little pale.”
“I’m so tired, but thanks, Sister. Thanks for bringing me here.”
Sister Magdalena looked shyly at Kate and picked up her suitcase. Kate followed the novice down a hall past several closed doors on either side. She pushed open the door to Kate’s room, smiled up at her, and whispered, “Bienvenida a Perú, Hermanita Catalina. Nos vemos mañana.” She closed the door of Kate’s room quietly.
Glad to be alone at last, Kate sat on the thin mattress. Her room was spare, just a bed, a small nightstand, and a desk with an iron reading lamp. On the desk, someone had put a few dried branches of eucalyptus in a clay ceramic vase. She walked over to the desk and inspected the vase. She saw that it was a woman’s body, squat and powerful with full breasts and a swollen belly. The two handles on either side were arms. What an odd decoration for a nun’s room. She wondered who had put it there.
During the night she awakened and sat up several times, gasping for air, her heart hammering beneath her ribs. When she lay back, she could feel blood surging through her veins. Her dreams that night were of riding, riding along a twisting road, where the mountains slipped in and out of high clouds so that she could not tell where she was going.
After breakfast the next morning, Sister Josepha clinked her spoon against her glass. “Benedicamos Domino,” she said, indicating the end of the Grand Silence of the night before.
“Deo Gratias,” the three intoned, and everyone looked at Kate.
“Did you sleep all right? I listened at your door a couple of times, but I didn’t hear anything,” said Sister Jeanne Marie. She looked fresh and efficient in spite of the interrupted night.
“Not really,” Kate said. “I felt like I was drowning several times.”
Jeanne Marie stood up to clear her place. “That’s the altitude. I’ve got pills if you need them. Marta can make you a cup of mate de coca after a while, too. That’s the remedy the people here swear by.”
“Mate de coca?” Kate had been told how the people of the highlands chewed coca leaves to deaden the hunger and cold of their days. Their teeth were often stained and dark from the leaves. Did the nuns use it, too?
Jeanne laughed at the expression on Kate’s face. “Don’t worry. It’s pretty harmless when taken in tea. I don’t think you’ll get addicted.”
Kate noticed that Sister Josepha had a hint of a frown playing around her blond eyebrows. The older nun spoke softly. “Try to get through the day without medicine. Just don’t exert yourself too much. I thought you might like to go with Marta to market this morning. I think I hear her in the kitchen.”
When Sister Josepha pulled back the plaid curtains, Kate saw that one wall of the living room and dining room was a series of French doors opening to a patio. Although there was no grass in the courtyard, neat gravel paths had been raked and bordered with clumps of pansies, splashes of purple and yellow in the dusty courtyard. A single eucalyptus tree shaded a corner where two wooden chairs faced each other.
“Wow! How did you get these flowers to bloom?” asked Kate. “I read that the soil was so poor up here.”
Sister Josepha smiled. “You know, I’m just a farm girl from Cottleville. Every time I go back to the States, I look for seeds of plants that I think can make it here.”
“It’s that Madre Josepha has the touch, as the people here say,” Sister Magdalena said, stirring her coffee briskly. In the morning light she looked more sturdy and confident then she had the night before.
With a crash the swinging door to the kitchen bounced open