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The small Carmelite convent, white-washed walls almost hidden by the tall trees that surrounded it, stood like a miniature oasis on the dusty, arid road to Toledo. Like the royal estate at Aranjuez, which lay nearby, it was watered by a thin artery of a stream that branched off the Rio Tajo.
Sometimes, when one of the more adventurous young females left in the care of the good sisters was daring enough to climb atop the thick stone walls, she would see around her, shimmering endlessly under the sun, the arid brown and ochre plains of the Spanish province of Castile. How hot and desolate the countryside looked! And especially from the convent walls, where one had only to turn one’s head to see everything green—the shade trees, the fruit trees, and the carefully tended vegetable gardens. A peaceful place, cut off from the world where so many unpleasant things took place. And it was quiet here, too, except for the times the nuns would raise their voices in songs of praise during the mass, or when the muted bells tolled. At this time in the afternoon, it was quiet enough to hear the droning sound of the bees as they gathered honey from the profusion of flowers that grew almost wild here, in the reverend mother’s own private garden. Walls within walls….
The young woman who sat on a stone bench beneath the shadiest tree in the garden wore the sober garb of a postulant. Her head was bowed, and she seemed to study her clasped hands, lying in her lap. From a distance, she presented a perfect image of piety and humility, but the reverend mother herself, turning back from her window with a sigh, knew better. She had sent Marisa outdoors into her own private garden to meditate and pray for guidance, but she knew the child too well to be misled by the outward meekness of that bent head. No doubt the girl was dreaming of something else—new ways to show her rebellion, perhaps. Marisa had never learned true humility; and if she accepted discipline, it was only up to a certain point, and because she chose to for her own reasons. However, the letter that Mother Angelina had forced herself to read aloud that same morning must naturally have come as a shock. The child needed time to adjust herself to the thought that she was not to become a nun after all. Her father, it seemed, had other ideas.
“She’s so young yet,” mused Mother Angelina, “she will adjust. Perhaps it will be better for her this way. I was never really certain if she had a vocation or if she chose the cloister as a form of escape from all the ugly memories…. It is not right that a child, gently brought up and protected for all of her young life, should have been exposed to such horror….”
As the older woman’s thoughts turned back, so did those of the young girl in the garden. Far from being clasped together in meek submission, her fingers twisted against each other with a passion of rage she was unable to control; and her enormous, tawny-gold eyes were stormy.
She had tried to pray, as Mother Angelina had instructed her, she had tried to cleanse her mind of rebellious thoughts. But it was no use. Perhaps, after all, the discipline of the convent had never really left its mark on her recalcitrant nature. Humility, resignation, obedience, she could feel none of these.
Unwillingly, her thoughts flashed back to the morning, the usual routine being unexpectedly broken when she was summoned to the mother superior’s study.
She had hurried along the long, cold corridor in the wake of Sor Teresa, whose brown habit seemed to rustle with sour disapproval; Marisa cast back frantically in her mind for some small misdemeanor, some infraction of the strict rules.
But everything had faded away when she saw Mother Angelina’s kind, concerned face and the pinched lines around her lips.
“Sit down, my child.” Papers rustled on the small wooden desk. “I have just received a letter from your father. A special messenger brought it all the way from Madrid.”
“He—my uncle the monsignor has talked to him then? He’s consented?”
As usual, her eagerness had carried her too far forward, and she subsided into her chair, sitting very straight as she had been taught, trying to control her excitement under the shadow of the reverend mother’s frown.
The frown she was used to, but the sigh that suddenly escaped Mother Angelina’s lips made her wary.
“I’m afraid—you have to understand that God tests us in many ways. Your father—”
Marisa had not been able to prevent herself from interrupting.
“But I do not understand! Surely my father can have no objection to my becoming a nun? Why should he? If my uncle has talked to him—”
Oh, but it had been such a shocking, unpleasant interview! Mother Angelina, as upset in her own way as Marisa was, had taken refuge in unusual sternness, reminding her of the vows of obedience she had been willing to take.
Nothing could mitigate the shock of the contents of her father’s letter. For some time, Marisa could not bring herself to believe that she had heard correctly.
“Married? He—he has arranged a marriage for me with some man I have not even seen? Oh no. It cannot be true! I don’t wish to be married. I will not be married! I only want to become a nun, just like you. I don’t—”
Her defiant outburst had only brought what she thought of as “the sad look” to the reverend mother’s face; and after several stern admonishments Marisa had been sent out here, to her favorite place, to consider her “duty.”
Duty! It was too much to ask of her. To be married. Why couldn’t she have been allowed to find peace in a convent?
The thought of marriage and everything it entailed brought all the nightmares back. That night in Paris, during the height of the “Terror” as people were beginning to call it. Fleeing through the darkness, being only half-awake and trying to make believe that it was all an unpleasant dream—and then, suddenly, the flaring torchlights and the shouts and ribald laughter.
“Well, well! And what’s all this? Some more Aristos trying to escape Madame Guillotine? Who are you, eh?”
One man, saner than the rest, or perhaps, only a little less drunk, had laughed contemptuously.
“Have done, citizens! Can’t you see they’re only a scared band of gypsies? Hey, you—why don’t you show us some of your juggling tricks? Perhaps you’ll tell our fortunes—”
“Fortunes, pah! There’s a likely-looking wench there, with golden skin. Perhaps we should tell her fortune. What do you say, citizens?”
And she remembered Delphine, the woman who had taken care of her since she was a baby, thrusting herself forward, pushing Marisa away from her as she did. “You want your fortune told, handsome gentlemen? My mother is too old and sick in her head, you understand? And you have frightened my little brother with your shouting. But me, I’ll tell all your fortunes for a few sous. We are poor, hungry people. No one has any money these days, and that is why we’re on our way back to Spain….”
After that—no, she did not want to think of what had happened after that! At the time she had not understood. She knew only that the laughter and ribald talk of the men had turned into something else, and suddenly Delphine was screaming, screaming for them to go, to run away, even while they were ripping at her clothes, pushing her down onto the dirty cobblestones. Screaming—and suddenly, there was blood everywhere, and the men, caught up by their own animal instincts, were all clustered around the prostrate form of the woman they were using so callously, like the beasts they were. And Sor Angelina, as she had been then, dressed like a gypsy herself, had forcibly pulled Marisa away, making her run, run very fast, not stopping even when she stumbled and almost fell.
“Delphine sacrificed herself for you, child. For all of us. Would you have wanted her sacrifice to be for nothing?”
Told that over and over, she had tried to accept it. Dressed as a boy for her own safety during the long months that followed, she had tried to feel herself as nothing more than a ragged gypsy urchin. No, she did not want to be a woman—never, never to be used and torn to pieces that way. Perhaps maman was better off going to the guillotine with her other gay, brave friends, dying quickly and cleanly under the knife.