The Sands of Time (4 page)

A few days earlier, Sister Lucia had been sent by the Reverend Mother to the office to retrieve a paper, and while there she had taken the opportunity to start looking through the files. Unfortunately, she had been caught in the act of snooping.

“You will do penance by using the Discipline,” the Mother Prioress Betina signaled her.

Sister Lucia bowed her head meekly and signaled, “Yes, Holy Mother.”

Lucia returned to her cell, and minutes later the nuns walking through the corridor heard the awful sound of the whip as it whistled through the air and fell again and again. What they could not know was that Sister Lucia was whipping the bed.

These fruitcakes may be into S and M, but not yours truly.

They were seated in the refectory, forty nuns at two long tables. The Cistercian diet was strictly vegetarian. Because the body craved meat, it was forbidden. Long before dawn, a cup of tea or coffee and a few ounces of dry bread were served. The principal meal was taken at eleven
A.M.
, and consisted of a thin soup, a few vegetables, and occasionally a piece of fruit.

The Reverend Mother had instructed Lucia, “We are not here to please our bodies, but to please God.”

I wouldn’t feed this breakfast to my cat,
Sister Lucia thought.
I’ve been here two months, and I’ll bet I’ve lost ten pounds. It’s God’s version of a fat farm.

When breakfast was over, two nuns brought dishpans to each end of the table and set them down. The sisters seated about the table sent their plates to the sister who had the dishpan. She washed each plate, dried it on a towel, and returned it to its owner. The water got darker and greasier.

And they’re going to live like this for the rest of their lives,
Sister Lucia thought disgustedly.
Oh, well I can’t complain. This sure as hell beats a life sentence in prison.

She would have given her immortal soul for a cigarette.

Five hundred yards down the road, Colonel Ramón Acoca and two dozen carefully selected men from the GOE, the Grupa de Operaciones Especiales, were preparing to attack the convent.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

C
olonel Ramón Acoca had the instincts of a hunter. He loved the chase, but it was the kill that gave him a deep, visceral satisfaction. He had once confided to a friend, “I have an orgasm when I kill. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a deer or a rabbit or a man—there’s something about taking a life that makes you feel like God.”

Acoca had been in military intelligence, and he had quickly achieved a reputation for being brilliant. He was fearless, ruthless, and intelligent, and the combination brought him to the attention of one of General Franco’s aides.

Acoca had joined Franco’s staff as a lieutenant, and in less than three years had risen to the rank of colonel, an almost unheard-of feat. He was put in charge of the Falangists, the special group used to terrorize those who opposed Franco.

It was during the war that Acoca had been sent for by a member of the OPUS MUNDO.

“I want you to understand that we’re speaking to you with the permission of General Franco.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ve been watching you, Colonel. We are pleased with
what we
see.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“From time to time we have certain assignments that are—shall we say—very confidential. And very dangerous.”

“I understand, sir.”

“We have many enemies. People who don’t understand the importance of the work we’re doing.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sometimes they interfere with us. We can’t permit that to happen.”

“No, sir.”

“I believe we could use a man like you, Colonel. I think we understand each other.”

“Yes, sir. I’d be honored to be of service.”

“We would like you to remain in the army. That will be valuable to us. But from time to time, we will have you assigned to these special projects.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You are never to speak of this.”

“No, sir.”

The man behind the desk had made Acoca nervous. There was something overpoweringly frightening about him.

In time, Colonel Acoca was called upon to handle half a dozen assignments for the OPUS MUNDO. As he had been told, they were
all
dangerous. And very confidential.

On one of the missions Acoca had met a lovely young girl from a fine family. Until then, all of his women had been whores or camp followers, and Acoca had treated them with savage contempt. Some of them had genuinely fallen in love with him, attracted by his strength, and he had reserved the worst treatment for them.

But Susana Cerredilla had belonged to a different world. Her father was a professor at Madrid University, and her mother was a lawyer. When Susana was seventeen years old, she had the body of a woman and the angelic face of a Madonna. Ramón Acoca had never met anyone like this woman-child. Her gentle vulnerability inspired in him a tenderness of which he had not known he was capable. He fell madly in love with her, and, for reasons which neither her parents nor Acoca understood, she fell in love with him.

On their honeymoon, it was as though Acoca had never known another woman. He had known lust, but the combination of love and passion was something he had never previously experienced.

Three months after they were married, Susana informed him that she was pregnant. Acoca was wildly excited. To add to their joy, he was assigned to the beautiful little village of Castilblanco, in Basque country. It was in the fall of 1936, when the fighting between the Republicans and Nationalists was at its fiercest.

On a peaceful Sunday morning, Ramón Acoca and his bride were having coffee in the village plaza when the square suddenly filled with Basque demonstrators.

“I want you to go home,” Acoca said. “There’s going to be trouble.”

“But you—?”

“Please. I’ll be all right.”

The demonstrators were beginning to get out of hand.

With relief, Ramón Acoca watched his bride walk away from the crowd toward a convent at the far end of the square. But as she reached it, the door suddenly swung open and armed Basques who had been hiding inside swarmed out with blazing guns. Acoca watched helplessly as his wife went down in a hail of bullets. It was on that day that he had sworn vengeance on the Basques and the Church.

And now he was in Ávila, outside another convent.
This time they’ll die.

Inside the convent, in the dark before dawn, Sister Teresa held the Discipline tightly in her right hand and whipped it hard across her body, feeling the knotted tails slashing into her as she silently recited the miserere. She almost screamed aloud, but noise was not permitted, so she kept the screams inside her.
Forgive me, Jesus, for my sins. Bear witness that I punish myself, as You were punished, and I inflict wounds upon myself, as wounds were inflicted upon You. Let me suffer, as You suffered.

She was nearly fainting from the pain. Three more times she flagellated herself, and then sank, agonized, upon her cot. She had not drawn blood. That was forbidden. Wincing against the agony that each movement brought, Sister Teresa returned the whip to its black case and rested it in a corner. It was always there, a constant reminder that the slightest sin had to be paid for with pain.

Sister Teresa’s transgression had happened that morning as she rounded the corner of a corridor, eyes down, and bumped into Sister Graciela. Startled, Sister Teresa had looked into Sister Graciela’s face. She then immediately reported her own infraction, to which the Reverend Mother Betina frowned disapprovingly and made the sign of discipline, moving her right hand three times from shoulder to shoulder, her hand closed as though holding a whip, the tip of her thumb held against the inside of her forefinger.

Lying on her cot, Sister Teresa was unable to get out of her mind the extraordinarily beautiful face of the young girl she had gazed at. She knew that as long as she lived she would never speak to her and would never even look at her again, for the slightest sign of intimacy between nuns was severely punished. In an atmosphere of rigid moral and physical austerity, no relationships of any kind were allowed to develop. If two sisters worked side by side and seemed to enjoy each other’s silent company, the Reverend Mother would immediately have them separated. Nor were the sisters permitted to sit next to the same person at the table twice in a row. The Church delicately called the attraction of one nun to another “a particular friendship,” and the penalty was swift and severe. Sister Teresa had served her punishment for breaking the rule.

Now the tolling bell came to Sister Teresa as though from a great distance. It was the voice of God, reproving her.

In the next cell, the sound of the bell rang through the corridors of Sister Graciela’s dreams, and the pealing was mingled with the lubricious creak of bedsprings. The Moor was moving toward her, naked, his manhood tumescent, his hands reaching out to grab her. Sister Graciela opened her eyes, instantly awake, her heart pounding frantically. She looked around, terrified, but she was alone in her tiny cell and the only sound was the reassuring tolling of the bell.

Sister Graciela knelt at the side of her cot.
Jesus, thank You for delivering me from the past. Thank You for the joy I have in being here in Your light. Let me glory only in the happiness of Your being. Help me, my Beloved, to be true to the call You have given me. Help me to ease the sorrow of Your sacred heart.

She rose and carefully made her bed, then joined the procession of her sisters as they moved silently toward the chapel for Matins.
She
could smell the familiar scent of burning candles and feel the worn stones beneath her sandled feet.

In the beginning, when Sister Graciela had first entered the convent, she had not understood it when the Mother Prioress had told her that a nun was a woman who gave up everything in order to possess everything. Sister Graciela had been fourteen years old then. Now, seventeen years later, it was clear to her. In contemplation she possessed everything, for contemplation was the mind replying to the soul. Her days were filled with a wonderful peace.

Thank You for letting me forget, Father. Thank You for standing beside me. I couldn’t face my terrible past without You…Thank You…Thank You…

When the Matins were over, the nuns returned to their cells to sleep until Lauds, the rising of the sun.

Outside, Colonel Ramón Acoca and his men moved swiftly in the darkness. When they reached the convent, Acoca said, “Jaime Miró and his men will be armed. Take no chances.”

He looked at the front of the convent, and for an instant he saw that other convent with Basque partisans rushing out of it, and Susana going down in a hail of bullets.

“Don’t bother taking Miró alive,” he said.

Sister Megan was awakened by the silence. It was a different silence, a moving silence, a hurried rush of air, a whisper of bodies. There were sounds she had never heard in her fifteen years in the convent. She was suddenly filled with a premonition that something was terribly wrong.

She rose quietly in the darkness and opened the door to her cell. Unbelievably, the long stone corridor was filled with men. A giant with a scarred face was coming out of the Reverend Mother’s cell, pulling her by the arm. Megan stared in shock.
I’m having a nightmare,
she thought.
These men can’t be here.

“Where are you hiding him?” Colonel Acoca demanded.

The Reverend Mother Betina had a look of stunned horror on her face. “Shh! This is God’s temple. You are desecrating it.’ Her voice was trembling. “You must leave at once.”

The colonel’s grip tightened on her arm and he shook her. “I want Miró, Sister.”

The nightmare was real.

Other cell doors were beginning to open, and nuns were appearing, with looks of total confusion on their faces. There had never been anything in their experience to prepare them for this extraordinary happening.

Colonel Acoca pushed the Reverend Mother away and turned to Patricio Arrieta, one of his key aides. “Search the place. Top to bottom.”

Acoca’s men began to spread out, invading the chapel, the refectory, and the cells, waking those nuns who were still asleep and forcing them roughly to their feet through the corridors and into the chapel. The nuns obeyed wordlessly, keeping even now their vows of silence. The scene was like a motion picture with the sound turned off.

Acoca’s men were filled with a sense of vengeance. They were all Falangists, and they remembered only too well how the Church had turned against them during the Civil War and supported the Loyalists against their beloved leader, Generalissimo Franco. This was their chance to get back some of their own. The nuns’ strength and silence made the men more furious than ever.

As Acoca passed one of the cells, a scream echoed from it. He looked in and saw one of his men ripping the habit from a nun. He moved on.

Sister Lucia was awakened by the sounds of men’s voices yelling. She sat up in a panic.
The police have found me,
was her first thought.
I’ve got to get the hell out of here.
There was no way out of the convent except through the front door.

She hurriedly rose and peered out into the corridor. The sight that met her eyes was astonishing. The corridor was filled not with policemen but with men in civilian clothes carrying weapons, smashing lamps and tables. There was confusion everywhere as they raced around.

The Reverend Mother Betina was standing in the center of the chaos, praying silently, watching them desecrate her beloved convent. Sister Megan moved to her side, and Lucia joined them.

“What the h—what’s happening? Who are they?” Lucia asked. They were the first words she had spoken aloud since entering the convent.

The Reverend Mother put her right hand under her left armpit three times, the sign for
hide.

Lucia stared at her unbelievingly. “You can talk now. Let’s get out of here, for Christ’s sake. And I mean for Christ’s sake.”

Patricio Arrieta hurried up to Acoca. “We’ve searched everywhere, Colonel. There’s no sign of Jaime Miró or his men.”

“Search again,” Acoca said stubbornly.

It was then that the Reverend Mother remembered the one treasure the convent had. She hurried over to Sister Teresa and whispered, “I have a task for you. Get the gold cross from the refectory and take it to the convent at Mendavia. You must get it away from here. Hurry!”

Sister Teresa was shaking so hard that her wimple fluttered in waves. She stared at the Reverend Mother, paralyzed. Sister Teresa had spent the last thirty years of her life in the convent. The thought of leaving it was beyond her imagination. She raised her hand and signed,
I can’t.

The Reverend Mother was frantic. “The cross must not fall into the hands of these men of Satan. Now, do this for Jesus.”

A light came into Sister Teresa’s eyes. She stood very tall. She signed,
For Jesus,
then turned and hurried toward the refectory.

Sister Graciela approached the group, staring in wonder at the wild confusion around her.

The men were getting more and more violent, smashing everything in sight. Colonel Acoca watched them approvingly.

Lucia turned to Megan and Graciela. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m getting the hell out of here. Are you coming?”

They stared at her, too dazed to respond.

Sister Teresa was hurrying toward them, carrying something wrapped in a piece of canvas. Some of the men were herding more nuns into the refectory.

“Come on,” Lucia said.

Sisters Teresa, Megan, and Graciela hesitated for a moment, then followed Lucia toward the huge front door. As they turned at the end of the long corridor, they could see that it had been smashed in.

A man suddenly appeared in front of them. “Going somewhere, ladies? Get back. My friends have plans for you.”

Lucia said, “We have a gift for you.” She picked up one of the heavy metal candlesticks that lined the hallway tables and smiled.