The Sands of Time

‘Yes, Mama.’

The Moor stood there, eyeing her.

The older woman took his arm and said cajolingly, ‘Come back to bed, querido. We’re not finished yet.’

‘Later.’ the Moor said. He was still looking at Graciela.

The Moor stayed. Every day when Graciela came home from school she prayed that he would be gone. For reasons she did not understand, he terrified her. He was always polite to her and never made any advances, yet the mere thought of him sent shivers through her body.

His treatment of her mother was something different. The Moor stayed in the small house most of the day, drinking heavily. He took whatever money Dolores Pinero earned. Sometimes at night in the middle of lovemaking, Graciela would hear him beating her mother, and in the morning Dolores Pinero would appear with a blackened eye or split lip.

‘Mama, why do you put up with him?’ Graciela asked.

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ she said sullenly. ‘He’s a real man, not a midget like the others. He knows how to satisfy a woman.’ She ran her hand through her hair coquettishly. ‘Besides, he’s madly in love with me.’

Graciela did not believe it. She knew that the Moor was using her mother, but she did not dare protest again. She was too terrified of her mother’s temper, for when Dolores Pinero was really angry, a kind of insanity took possession of her. She had once chased Graciela with a kitchen knife because she had dared make a pot of tea for one of the ‘uncles’.

Early one Sunday morning Graciela rose to get ready for church. Her mother had left early to deliver some dresses. As Graciela pulled off her nightgown, the curtain was pushed aside and the Moor appeared. He was naked.

‘Where’s your mother, guapa?’

‘Mama went out early. She had some errands to do.’

The Moor was studying Graciela’s nude body. ‘You really are a beauty,’ he said softly.

Graciela felt her face flush. She knew what she should do. She should cover her nakedness, put on her skirt and blouse and leave. Instead, she stood there, unable to move. She watched his manhood begin to swell and grow before her eyes. She could hear the voices ringing in her ears:

‘Faster … Harder!’

She felt faint.

The Moor said huskily, ‘You’re a child. Get your clothes on and get out of here.’

And Graciela found herself moving. Moving towards him. She reached up and slid her arms around his waist and felt his male hardness against her body.

‘No,’ she moaned. ‘I’m not a child.’

The pain that followed was like nothing Graciela had ever known. It was excruciating, unbearable. It was wonderful, exhilarating, beautiful. She held the Moor tightly in her arms, screaming with ecstasy. He brought her to orgasm after orgasm, and Graciela thought: So this is what the mystery is all about. And it was so wonderful to finally know the secret of all creation, to be a part of life at last, to know what joy was for now and for ever.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’

It was Dolores Pinero’s voice screaming, and for an instant everything stopped, frozen in time. Dolores Pinero was standing at the side of the bed, staring down at her daughter and the Moor.

Graciela looked up at her mother, too terrified to speak. Dolores Pinero’s eyes were filled with an insane rage.

‘You bitch!’ she yelled. ‘You rotten bitch.’

‘Mama – please –’

Dolores Pinero picked up a heavy iron ashtray at the bedside and slammed it against her daughter’s head.

That was the last thing Graciela remembered.

She awoke in a large, white hospital ward with two dozen beds in it, all of them occupied. Harried nurses scurried back and forth, trying to attend to the needs of the patients.

Graciela’s head was racked with excruciating pain. Each time she moved, rivers of fire flowed through her. She lay there, listening to the cries and moans of the other patients.

Late in the afternoon, a young doctor stopped by the side of her bed. He was in his early thirties, but he looked old and tired.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘You’re finally awake.’

‘Where am I?’ It hurt her to speak.

‘You’re in the charity ward of the Hospital Provincial in Ávila. You were brought in yesterday. You were in terrible shape. We had to stitch up your forehead.’ The doctor went on: ‘Our chief surgeon decided to sew you up himself. He said you were too beautiful to have scars.’

He’s wrong, Graciela thought. I’ll be scarred for the rest of my life.

On the second day Father Perez came to see Graciela. A nurse moved a chair to the bedside. The priest looked at the beautiful, pale young girl lying there and his heart melted. The terrible thing that had happened to her was the scandal of Las Navas del Marques, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. Dolores Pinero had told the policía that her daughter had injured her head in a fall.

Now, Father Perez asked, ‘Are you feeling better, child?’

Graciela nodded, and the movement made her head pound.

‘The policía have been asking questions. Is there anything you would like me to tell them?’

There was a long silence. Finally she said, ‘It was an accident.’

He could not bear the look in her eyes. ‘I see.’

What he had to say was painful beyond words. ‘Graciela, I/ spoke with your mother …’

And Graciela knew. ‘I – I can’t go home again, can I?’

‘No, I’m afraid not. We’ll talk about it.’ Father Perez took Graciela’s hand. ‘I’ll come back to see you tomorrow.’

‘Thank you, Father.’

When he left, Graciela lay there, and she prayed: Dear God, please let me die. I don’t want to live.

She had nowhere to go and no one to go to. Never again would she see her home. She would never see her school again, or the familiar faces of her teachers. There was nothing in the world left for her.

A nurse stopped at her bedside. ‘You need anything?’

Graciela looked up at her in despair. What was there to say?

The following day the doctor appeared again.

‘I have good news,’ he said awkwardly. ‘You’re well enough to leave now.’ That was a lie, but the rest of his speech was true. ‘We need the bed.’

She was free to go – but go where?

When Father Perez arrived an hour later, he was accompanied by another priest.

‘This is Father Berrendo, an old friend of mine.’

Graciela glanced up at the frail-looking priest. ‘Father.’

He was right, Father Berrendo thought. She is beautiful.

Father Perez had told him the story of what had happened to Graciela. The priest had expected to see some visible signs of the kind of environment the child had lived in, a hardness, a defiance, or self-pity. There were none of those things in the young girl’s face.

‘I’m sorry you’ve had such a bad time,’ Father Berrendo told her. The sentence carried a deeper meaning.

Father Perez said, ‘Graciela, I must return to Las Navas del Marques. I am leaving you in Father Berrendo’s hands.’

Graciela was filled with a sudden sense of panic. She felt as though her last link with home was being cut. ‘Don’t go,’ she pleaded.

Father Perez took her hand in his. ‘I know you feel alone,’ he said warmly, ‘but you’re not. Believe me, child, you’re not.’

A nurse approached the bed carrying a bundle. She handed it to Graciela. ‘Here are your clothes. I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave now.’

An even greater panic seized her. ‘Now?’

The two priests exchanged a look.

‘Why don’t you get dressed and come with me?’ Father Berrendo suggested. ‘We can talk.’

Fifteen minutes later Father Berrendo was helping Graciela out of the hospital door into the warm sunlight. There was a garden in front of the hospital with brightly coloured flowers, but Graciela was too dazed even to notice them.

When they were seated in his office. Father Berrendo said, ‘Father Perez told me that you have no place to go.’

Graciela nodded.

‘No relatives?’

‘Only –’ It was difficult to say it. ‘Only – my mother.’

‘Father Perez said that you were a regular churchgoer in your village.’

A village she would never see again. ‘Yes.’

Graciela thought of those Sunday mornings, and the beauty of the church services and how she had longed to be with Jesus and escape from the pain of the life she lived.

‘Graciela, have you ever thought of entering a convent?’

‘No.’ She was startled by the idea.

There is a convent here in Ávila – the Cistercian convent. They would take care of you there.’

‘I – I don’t know.’ The idea was frightening.

‘It is not for everyone,’ Father Berrendo told her. ‘And I must warn you, it is the strictest order of them all. Once you walk through the gates and take the vows, you have made a promise to God never to leave.’

Graciela sat there, her mind filled with conflicting thoughts, staring out the window. The idea of shutting herself away from the world was terrifying. It would be like going to prison. But on the other hand, what did the world have to offer her? Pain and despair beyond bearing. She had often thought of suicide. This might offer a way out of her misery.

Father Berrendo said, ‘It’s up to you, my child. If you like, I will take you to meet the Reverend Mother Prioress.’

Graciela nodded. ‘All right.’

The Reverend Mother studied the face of the young girl before her. Last night for the first time in many, many years she had heard the voice. A young child will come to you. Protect her. ‘How old are you, my dear?’

‘Fourteen.’

She’s old enough. In the fourth century the Pope decreed that girls could be permitted to become nuns at the age of twelve.

‘I’m afraid,’ Graciela said to the Reverend Mother Betina.

I’m afraid. The words rang in Betina’s mind: I’m afraid … That had been so many long years ago. She was speaking to her priest. ‘I don’t know if I have a calling for this, Father. I’m afraid.’

‘Betina, the first contact with God can be very disturbing, and the decision to dedicate your life to Him is a difficult one.’

How did I find my calling? Betina had wondered.

She had never been even faintly interested in religion. As a young girl she had avoided church and Sunday school. In her teens she was more interested in parties and clothes and boys. If her friends in Madrid had been asked to select possible candidates to become a nun, Betina would have been at the bottom of the list. More accurately, she would not even have been on their list. But when she was nineteen, events started to happen that changed her life.

She was in her bed, asleep, when a voice said, ‘Betina, get up and go outside.’

She opened her eyes and sat up, frightened. She turned on the bedside lamp. She was alone. What a strange dream.

But the voice had been so real. She lay down again, but it was impossible to go back to sleep.

Betina, get up and go outside.

It’s my subconscious, she thought. Why would I want to go outside in the middle of the night?

She turned out the light and a moment later turned it on again. This is crazy.

But she put on a dressing-gown and slippers and went downstairs. The household was asleep.

She opened the kitchen door, and as she did a wave of fear swept over her, because somehow she knew that she was supposed to go out the back into the yard. She looked around in the darkness, and her eye caught a glint of moonlight shining on an old refrigerator that had been abandoned and was used to store tools.

Betina suddenly knew why she was there. She walked over to the refrigerator as though hypnotized, and opened it. Her three-year-old brother was inside, unconscious.

That was the first incident. In time, Betina rationalized it as a perfectly normal experience. I must have heard my brother get up and go out into the yard, and I knew the refrigerator was there, and I was worried about him so I went outside to check.

The next experience was not so easy to explain. It happened a month later.

In her sleep, Betina heard a voice say, ‘You must put out the fire.’

She sat up, wide awake, her pulse racing. Again, it was impossible to go back to sleep. She put on a dressing-gown and slippers and went into the landing. No smoke. No fire. She opened her parents’ bedroom door. Everything was normal there. There was no fire in her brother’s bedroom. She went downstairs and looked through every room. There was no sign of a fire.

I’m an idiot, Betina thought. It was only a dream.

She went back to bed, just as the house was rocked by an explosion. She and her family escaped, and the firemen managed to put out the fire.

‘It started in the basement,’ a fireman explained. ‘And a boiler exploded.’

The next incident happened three weeks later. This time it was no dream.

Betina was on the patio, reading, when she saw a stranger walking across the yard. He looked at her and in that instant she felt a malevolence coming from him that was almost palpable. He turned away and was gone.

Betina was unable to get him out of her mind.

Three days later, she was in an office building, waiting for the lift. The lift door opened, and she was about to step into it when she looked at the lift operator. It was the man she had seen in her garden. Betina backed away, frightened. The lift door closed and the lift went up. Moments later, it crashed, killing everyone in it.

The following Sunday, Betina went to church.

Dear Lord, I don’t know what’s happening to me, and I’m scared. Please guide me and tell me what you want me to do.

The answer came that night as Betina slept. The voice said one word. Devotion.

She thought about it all night, and in the morning she went to talk to the priest.

He listened intently to what she had to say.

‘Ah. You are one of the fortunate ones. You have been chosen.’

‘Chosen for what?’

‘Are you willing to devote your life to God, my child?’

‘I – I don’t know. I’m afraid.’

But in the end, she had joined the convent.

I chose the right path, the Reverend Mother Betina thought, because I have never known so much happiness …

And now there was this battered child saying, ‘I’m afraid.’

The Reverend Mother took Graciela’s hand. ‘Take your time, Graciela. God won’t go away. Think about it and come back and we can discuss it.’

But what was there to think about? I’ve got nowhere else in the world to go, Graciela thought. And the silence would be welcome. I have heard too many terrible sounds. She looked at the Reverend Mother and said, ‘I will welcome the silence.’

That had been seventeen years earlier, and in that time Graciela had found peace for the first time in her life. Her life was dedicated to God. The past no longer belonged to her. She was forgiven the horrors she had grown up with. She was Christ’s bride, and at the end of her life, she would join Him.

As the years passed in deep silence, despite the occasional nightmares, the terrible sounds in her mind gradually faded away.

Sister Graciela was assigned to work in the garden, tending the tiny rainbows of God’s miracle, never tiring of their splendour. The walls of the convent rose high above her on all sides like a stone mountain, but Graciela never felt that they were shutting her in; they were shutting the terrible world out. a world she never wanted to see again.

Life in the convent was serene and peaceful. But now, suddenly her terrible nightmares had turned into a reality. Her world had been invaded by barbarians. They had forced her out of her sanctuary, into the world she had renounced for ever. And her sins came flooding back, filling her with horror. The Moor had returned. She could feel his hot breath on her face. As she fought him, Graciela opened her eyes, and it was the friar on top of her trying to penetrate her. He was saying, ‘Stop fighting me, Sister. You’re going to enjoy this!’

‘Mama,’ Graciela cried aloud. ‘Mama! Help me!’

Chapter Seven

Lucia Carmine felt wonderful as she walked down the street with Megan and Teresa. It was marvellous to wear feminine clothes again and hear the whisper of silk against her skin. She glanced at the others. They were walking nervously, unaccustomed to their new clothes, looking self-conscious and embarrassed in their skirts and stockings. They look as though they’ve been dropped from another planet. They certainly don’t belong on this one, Lucia thought. They might as well be wearing signs that say: ‘Catch Me.’

Sister Teresa was the most uncomfortable of the women. Thirty years in the convent had deeply ingrained a sense of modesty in her, and it was being violated by the events that had been thrust upon her. This world to which she had once belonged now seemed unreal. It was the convent that was real, and she longed to hurry back to the sanctuary of its protective walls.

Megan was aware that men were eyeing her as she walked down the street, and she blushed. She had lived in a world of women for so long that she had forgotten what it was like to see a man, let alone have one smile at her. It was embarrassing, indecent … exciting. The men aroused feelings in Megan that had been long since buried. For the first time in years, she was conscious of her femaleness.

They were passing the bar they had gone by before and the music was blaring out into the street. What had Friar Carrillo called it? Rock and roll. Very popular with the young. Something bothered her. And suddenly Megan realized what it was. When they had passed the cinema, the friar had said:

It’s disgraceful what the cinema is permitted to show these days. That film is pure pornography. The most personal and private acts are there for everyone to see.

Megan’s heart began to beat faster. If Friar Carrillo had been locked up in a monastery for the past twenty years, how could he possibly have known about rock music or what was in the film? Something was terribly wrong.

She turned to Lucia and Teresa and said urgently, ‘We’ve got to return to the shop.’

They watched as Megan turned and ran back, and they quickly began to follow her.

Graciela was on the floor, desperately fighting to get free, scratching and clawing at Carrillo.

‘God damn you! Hold still!’ He was getting winded.

He heard a sound and glanced up. He saw the heel of a shoe swinging towards his head, and that was the last thing he remembered.

Megan picked up the trembling Graciela and held her in her arms. ‘Shh. It’s all right. He won’t bother you any more.’

It was several minutes before Graciela could speak. ‘He – he – it wasn’t my fault this time,’ she said pleadingly.

Lucia and Teresa had come into the shop. Lucia sized up the situation at a glance.

‘The bastard!’

She looked down at the unconscious, half-naked figure on the floor. As the others watched, Lucia grabbed some belts from a counter and tied Miguel Carrillo’s hands tightly behind his back. ‘Tie his feet,’ she told Megan.

Megan went to work.

Finally, Lucia stood up, satisfied. ‘There. When they open up the shop this afternoon, he can explain to them what he was doing here.’ She looked at Graciela closely. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I – I – yes.’ She tried to smile.

‘We’d better get out of here,’ Megan said. ‘Get dressed. Quickly.’

When they were ready to leave, Lucia said, ‘Wait a minute.”

She went over to the cash register and pressed a key. There were a few hundred peseta notes inside. She scooped them up, picked up a purse from a counter and put the money inside. She saw the disapproving expression on Teresa’s face.

Lucia said, ‘Look at it this way, Sister. If God didn’t want us to have this money, He wouldn’t have put it there for us.’

They were seated in the cafe, having a conference. Sister Teresa was speaking. ‘We must get the cross to the convent at Mendavia as quickly as possible. There will be safety there for all of us.’

Not for me, Lucia thought. My safety is that Swiss bank. But first things first. I’ve got to get hold of that cross.

‘The convent at Mendavia is north of here, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘The men will be looking for us in every town. So we’ll sleep in the hills tonight.’

Nobody will hear her even if she does scream.

A waitress brought menus to the table and handed them out. The sisters examined them, their expressions confused. Suddenly Lucia understood. It had been so many years since they had been given choices of any kind. At the convent they had automatically eaten the simple food placed before them. Now they were confronted with a cornucopia of unfamiliar delicacies.

Sister Teresa was the first to speak. ‘I – I will have some coffee and bread, please.’

Sister Graciela said, ‘I, too.’

Megan said, ‘We have a long, hard journey ahead of us. I suggest that we order something more nourishing, like eggs.’

Lucia looked at her with new eyes. She’s the one to keep an eye on, Lucia thought. Aloud she said, ‘Sister Megan is right. Let me order for you, Sisters.’

She ordered sliced oranges, tortillas de patatas, bacon, hot rolls, jam and coffee.

‘We’re in a hurry,’ she told the waitress.

Siesta ended at 4.30, and the town would be waking up. She wanted to be out of there before that happened, before they discovered Miguel Carrillo in the dress shop.

When the food arrived, the sisters sat there staring at it.

‘Help yourselves,’ Lucia urged them.

They began to eat, hesitatingly at first, and then with gusto, overcoming their feelings of guilt.

Sister Teresa was the only one having a problem. She took one bite of food and said, ‘I – I can’t. It’s – it’s surrendering.’

Megan said, ‘Sister, you want to get to the convent, don’t you? Then you must eat to keep up your strength.’

Sister Teresa said primly, ‘Very well. I’ll eat. But I promise you, I won’t enjoy it.’

It was all Lucia could do to keep a straight face. ‘Good, Sister. Eat.’

When they had finished, Lucia paid the bill with some of the money she had taken from the cash register and they walked out into the hot sunshine. The streets were beginning to come alive, and the shops were starting to open. By now they have probably caught Miguel Carrillo, Lucia thought.

Lucia and Teresa were impatient to get out of town, but Graciela and Megan were walking slowly, fascinated by the sights and sounds and the smells of the town.

Not until they had reached the outskirts and headed towards the mountains did Lucia begin to relax. They moved steadily north, climbing upwards, making slow progress in the hilly terrain. Lucia was tempted to ask Sister Teresa if she would like her to carry the package, but she did not want to say anything that might make the older woman suspicious.

When they reached a small glade in the highland, surrounded by trees, Lucia said, ‘We can spend the night here. In the morning we’ll head for the convent at Mendavia.’

The others nodded, believing her.

The sun moved slowly across the blue sky, and the glade was silent, except for the soothing sounds of summer. Finally, night fell.

One by one the women stretched out on the green grass.

Lucia lay there, breathing lightly, listening for a deeper silence, waiting for them to fall asleep so that she could make her move.

Sister Teresa was finding it difficult to sleep. It was a strange experience sleeping out under the stars, surrounded by her sisters. They had names now, and faces and voices, and she was afraid that God was going to punish her for this forbidden knowledge. She felt terribly lost.