Analog SFF, March 2012 (12 page)

After exchanging a few words with the friar, who remained at the house, we headed off. I turned to Ernesto. “So what do you think?"

"I think she's telling the truth,” Ernesto said. “Or at least as much as she understands. In any case, I know her doctor. Maybe I'll see him today. It's probably nothing, but you never know."

At the hotel, we parted ways. I spent the rest of the day writing up my dispatch, then cabled it to my paper. That night, when I went out for dinner at the Gran Via, the restaurant was already packed. Looking for a place to sit, I saw Ernesto at a table in the corner. He seemed tired, but signaled for me to come over.

"I can't make head or tail of the damned thing,” Ernesto said. “The doctor confirmed it. Not only is this woman's story true, but he's seen three spontaneous remissions in the past six months, all patients with terminal cancer. They don't always say where they've been, but it's clear that they've all gone to Segovia."

I picked at my plate of horsemeat with rice. “And he's sure that the cancer is gone?"

Ernesto poured himself another glass of wine. “As sure as anyone can be. He's got his hands full with the wounded, so he can't track each patient's progress. Except for this most recent case, he can't testify to the stigmata. But he showed me the records himself. These are all patients who were given only a few months to live. Now they're in the best of health."

Pushing the plate aside, I reached for my wineglass. “So what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to Segovia. The
padre
needs a ride back anyway, so I'm driving up there tomorrow.” Raising his glass, he fixed me with those penetrating eyes. “I was hoping you might join me."

I didn't reply at once. Over the past year, I had taken my share of risks, but it was one thing to wind up in danger by accident, and quite another to drive on purpose into Fascist territory.

I had already opened my mouth to decline when the bomb exploded. The sound began as a whine, like a plucked guitar string, then deepened into the roar of an approaching train. When the shell went off, it was very close by, and the entire restaurant trembled. The conversation died out for a second, then returned to its customary din. But we were all a little shaken.

It struck me then that one might die as easily in Madrid as anywhere else, and at least the front offered the prospect of movement and fresh air. “All right,” I said at last. “I'll come."

"Good,” Ernesto said, draining his glass with a gulp. “We'll make an adventure of it."

The next morning, before dawn, I found Ernesto waiting for me outside our hotel. Behind the wheel of his car sat Hipolito, the latest and most reliable of his drivers. After making a detour to pick up the friar, who slid beside me into the back seat, we headed out of the city.

It was a cold morning on the
meseta,
the wind bearing wave after wave of dust from the mountains. As the sun rose to our right, it gradually illuminated the landscape outside Madrid. Raw military roads had been cut across the plain, and at the edges of the paths, I saw abandoned equipment and holes from recent bombardments. In the distance, I could make out a line of troops, their cars and tanks covered with freshly cut branches, the soldiers like ants in their steel helmets.

Ahead of us ran a line of mountains, the foothills clad with pine forest. The higher we climbed, the closer the sound of artillery became. To ease the tension, Ernesto handed back a wineskin, its contents resinous but welcome. Warmed by the wine, the friar began to speak of the saint whose shrine we were going to see: “When St. John tried to reform the Carmelites, his superiors threw him into prison, in a room barely large enough for his body. He was taken out only to be lashed once a week, but one day, no one knows how, he miraculously escaped—"

Ernesto laughed. “Not much of a miracle. He arranged to remove the hinges from the door of his cell. Now that's the kind of saint I can admire.” He looked out at the trees. “If John deserves sainthood, it's because he understood the dark night of the soul. You can look for God all your life and find nothing in the end. And for a true believer, that nothingness is enough.
Nada y nada y nada."

We rounded a hairpin turn, bringing us into view of the northern plain. As we began our winding descent, the town of Segovia appeared in the distance, a few dark specks in a sea of orange. Overhead, we heard the sound of aircraft, and saw three monoplanes flying in a Nationalist patrol. We watched, uneasy, until the planes had gone, then continued on our way.

As we approached Segovia, my first impression was that of a long tongue of crumbling stone. It was an ancient village girded by a vast aqueduct, with gray fortifications surrounding the town itself. Instead of driving under the main arch, which would have brought us into the plaza, we skirted the walls to the monastery, which lay to the northwest.

We parked beneath a clump of trees a hundred yards from the entrance. Climbing out, Ernesto told Hipolito to stay with the car, then followed the friar up the road, which led past a stone wall. A footpath lined with pines brought us to the monastery. Leading us through the heavy doors, the friar pointed us toward the church, saying that he would join us in a moment.

He disappeared down the corridor. Taking off our hats, Ernesto and I passed into the church, moving along the aisle toward the altar. A door to the left led to the chapel, which we entered.

Inside, it was darker than I had expected, the windows piled high with sandbags, the only light coming from a few guttering candles. The atmosphere was warm and damp, with an odor of moist stone.

Beyond the altar rails stood the tomb of St. John of the Cross, a massive reliquary of marble and bronze. On the floor before the altar lay what appeared, at first, to be two heaps of rags. A second later, one of the heaps moved, and I realized that they were a pair of visitants lying in front of the tomb. Looking more closely, I saw that they were a man and woman, their ages unclear. Something in their silent prostration gave me the feeling that they had been here for hours, if not days.

Glancing over at Ernesto, I saw that he was looking around the chapel with the same intent air that I had observed before. When I followed his eyes, I noticed fresh cracks in the floor and walls, and recalled that this area had been bombed by the Loyalists in the early days of the war.

We stood there in silence, looking around the chapel's dim interior. After a moment, the friar rejoined us. “We have a number of guests with us,” the friar said in a whisper, indicating the prone figures at the altar. “Another is staying upstairs. I have arranged for you to see him."

Ernesto turned back to the reliquary. “What can you tell me about the tomb?"

"St. John of the Cross died in Ubeda, and his body was brought here soon afterward,” the friar said. “At first, he was interred below the floor. The tomb that you see here was installed ten years ago."

Ernesto ran his gaze across the marble monument. “And how did St. John die?"

"A disease of the legs, I believe.” The friar headed for the door. “Come. I'll bring you to our other guest."

We followed him out of the chapel. Leaving the church, we ascended a flight of stone steps to a corridor lined with cells. The friar knocked softly at the nearest door, then pushed it open. Inside, a man was seated at the edge of a pallet, a rosary in his hands. As we entered, the visitant looked up, and I thought I saw something like holy fever in his eyes.

"God be with you, my son,” the friar said politely. “And how are you feeling?"

"Better,” the man said. As he looked between us with a mild, peering expression, the friar explained that the visitant had recently arrived from Burgos, having been diagnosed some time before with an incurable carcinoma.

In response to our request, the visitant extended his scrawny arms for us to examine. On the palms of his hands, which were trembling slightly, I observed the same markings that I had seen on the woman in Madrid.

Without being asked, the visitant raised the hem of his robe, allowing us to look at his feet. Here, too, were marks that might have been those of stigmata, although they seemed larger than the wounds that nails would have made. On his legs, I saw what looked like a number of welts or bruises. “The marks of the flail,” the friar said helpfully, “where Our Lord was beaten by the soldiers."

"Of course,” Ernesto said. From his jacket pocket, he took a few sunflower seeds, which the visitant accepted gladly. As we filed out of the room, I saw that he had already turned back to his rosary.

Going downstairs, we left the monastery, heading back to where we had left the car. When we arrived, Hipolito was leaning against the hood, his arms folded. As we drew close enough to see him in the shade, the driver gestured with a nod of his head. “Watch out. We have a guest."

I turned. Fifty yards away, leaning against the wall that encircled the monastery, there stood a slender figure in a beret and overcoat. He was watching us. Ernesto frowned, then spoke to the friar. “You know this man?"

"Yes,” the friar said, the color draining from his face. “He is one of the Falangists."

"I was afraid of that.” Ernesto signaled to Hipolito. “Come on. Let's leave this Fascist bastard behind."

As I got into the car, I glanced back at the figure by the wall, who had begun to watch us more openly. Ernesto climbed into the front seat, then glanced at the friar. “You'll be all right on your own?"

"Yes, I'll take care of it,” the friar said. “But you should go now. God be with you."

"And also with you,
padre
,” Ernesto said. As we drove away from the monastery, a cloud of dust rose behind the car. Looking over my shoulder, I saw the friar approaching the man in the beret, who was tracking us with his eyes. Then we rounded the corner and lost sight of them both.

The drive back to the city was a long one. On our approach to Madrid, we passed within sight of a formation of reserve troops, perhaps the same ones we had seen on our way to Segovia. At some point in the past few hours, they had been bombarded. Bodies lay on the ground, no more than lumps in the dirt, with medical crews and burial squads moving among the fallen.

When we returned to the city, Hipolito dropped us off at the hotel. As we approached the entrance, the granite dust caking on our boots, Ernesto spoke at last. “The
padre
was braver than he looked. The Fascists won't be pleased that he met with us, even if it turns out to have been for nothing."

We entered the hotel, passing between the two guards at the door. “So you still don't believe in miracles?"

"I'm not sure,” Ernesto said, heading for the concierge's desk. “Give me a few days."

As it turned out, I didn't talk to him again for the better part of a week. From time to time, I would see him in the lobby, a few books under one arm, or speaking to the medical officer of the Eleventh International Brigade, a German national with the eyes of a monk.

One evening, however, as I was returning to the hotel, I found a note from Ernesto waiting for me at the front desk, asking if I would be kind enough to meet him at Chicote's. When I pushed through the revolving door that night, the bar was fairly quiet. Ernesto was seated at his favorite table, under a window piled with sandbags, drinking a gin and tonic.

Next to his glass, instead of the usual newspapers or political tracts, there was a stack of leatherbound books. Pulling up a chair, I saw that two were medical textbooks, one was a life of St. John of the Cross, and the last, unexpectedly, was an edition of the letters of Anton Chekhov.

"Don't be so surprised,” Ernesto said, clearing a space for me to sit. “My father was a doctor, you know. I even drove an ambulance during the war. So I know a few things about how the body works."

I ordered a whiskey. “But I assume your current interest was inspired by our trip."

"I suppose you might say that,” Ernesto said. “In fact, I have solved the mystery."

My incredulity must have shown on my face, for Ernesto laughed and assured me that he was perfectly serious. “First off, I hope you'll agree to exclude the possibility of miracles. My own feelings aside, the supernatural should be invoked only after all other possibilities have been excluded."

"Agreed,” I said, taking a sip of the whiskey. “So how do you propose to begin?"

"With the facts. Take away the stigmata and the air of the supernatural, and what do we have? A case of spontaneous remission. So I consulted the literature on the subject. These recoveries do happen, if rarely. According to one source, they occur in fewer than one in a hundred thousand cases."

Ernesto picked up a volume from the pile. “This is an account of the work of William Coley, a surgeon who made the first systematic study of spontaneous remission. As a young man, he was asked to consult on the case of a girl of seventeen, who complained of pain and swelling in her right hand. The biopsy revealed that she was suffering from a severe sarcoma. They amputated her arm below the elbow, but it was too late. A few months later, she died."

He opened the book, gently turning over the leaves. “Another man might have moved on, but Coley was a gifted surgeon and still very young. He became obsessed with investigating cases of sarcoma, trying to discover how to treat such a terrible disease. During his research, he uncovered many instances of spontaneous remission. And he found that most of these cases had one thing in common."

I sensed that he was intentionally milking the drama, but I was willing to play along. “What did he find?"

"He found cases, some dating back a century or more, of cancer patients who experienced spontaneous remission after surviving a serious infection. When the immune system rallies to fend off a bacterial invasion, it seems, it can eliminate cancer as well. The body has wonderful defenses, but it doesn't always recognize cancer as a threat. An infection serves to mobilize the body against one enemy, while also taking care of a more insidious foe. Chekhov mentions this. He was a doctor, you know, and in one of his letters, he notes that when a patient develops erysipelas, a severe skin infection caused by streptococcus, the growth of tumors is also checked. So these observations go back a long time."