Without knowing what I was doing, I obeyed. Then I closed my eyes.
I awoke in the convent, and a woman was tending me.
'You almost died,' she said. 'If it weren't for the watchman, you wouldn't be here.'
I stood up dizzily. Parts of the previous day came back to me, and I wished that the watchman had never passed my way.
But apparently this was not the time for me to die. I was to go on living.
The woman led me to the kitchen and prepared some coffee, biscuits, and bread for me. She asked me no questions, and I explained nothing. When I had finished eating, she gave me my bag.
'See if everything's still there,' she said.
'I'm sure it is. I didn't really have anything much.'
'You have your life, my child. A long life. Take better care of it.'
'There's a city near here where there's a church,' I said, wanting to cry. 'Yesterday, before I came here, I went into that church with…'
I couldn't explain.
'… with a friend from my childhood. I had already had enough of the churches around here, but the bells were ringing, and he said it was a sign—that we should go in.'
The woman refilled my cup, poured some coffee for herself, and sat down to hear my story.
'We entered the church,' I continued. 'There was no one there, and it was dark. I tried to look for the sign, but I saw only the same old altars and the same old saints. Suddenly, we heard a movement above, where the organ was.
'It was a group of boys with guitars, who began to tune their instruments. We decided to sit and listen to the music for a while before continuing our trip. Shortly a man came in and sat down next to us. He was happy and shouted to the boys to play a
'Bullfight music?' the woman said. 'I hope they didn't do that!'
'They didn't. But they laughed and played a flamenco melody instead. My friend and I felt as if heaven had descended on us; the church, the surrounding darkness, the sound of the guitars, and the man's delight—it was all a miracle.
'Little by little, the church began to fill. The boys continued to play the flamenco, and everyone who came in smiled, infected by the joy of the musicians.
'My friend asked if I wanted to attend the mass that was about to begin. I said no—we had a long ride ahead of us. So we decided to leave—but before we did, we thanked God for yet another beautiful moment in our lives.
'As we arrived at the gate, we saw that many people—perhaps the entire population of the town—were walking to the church. I thought it must have been the last completely Catholic town in Spain—maybe because the crowds seemed to be having so much fun.
'As we got into the car, we saw a funeral procession approaching. Someone had died; it was a mass for the dead. As soon as the cortege reached the gates of the church, the musicians stopped the flamenco music and began to play a dirge.'
'May God have mercy on that soul,' said the woman, crossing herself.
'May He have mercy,' I said, repeating her gesture. 'But our having gone into that church really had been a sign—that every story has a sad ending.'
The woman said nothing. Then she left the room and returned immediately with a pen and paper.
'Let's go outside,' she said.
We went out together, and the sun was rising.
'Take a deep breath,' she said. 'Let this new morning enter your lungs and course through your veins. From what I can see, your loss yesterday was not an accident.'
I didn't answer.
'You also didn't really understand the story you told me, about the sign in the church,' she went on. 'You saw only the sadness of the procession at the end. You forgot the happy moments you spent inside. You forgot the feeling that heaven had descended on you and how good it was to be experiencing all of that with your…'
She stopped and smiled.
'… childhood friend,' she said, winking. 'Jesus said, 'Let the dead bury the dead' because he knew that there is no such thing as death. Life existed before we were born and will continue to exist after we leave this world.'
My eyes filled with tears.
'It's the same with love,' she went on. 'It existed before and will go on forever.'
'You seem to know everything about my life,' I said.
'All love stories have much in common. I went through the same thing at one point in my life. But that's not what I remember. What I remember is that love returned in the form of another man, new hopes, and new dreams.'
She held out the pen and paper to me.
'Write down everything you're feeling. Take it out of your soul, put it on the paper, and then throw it away. Legend says that the River Piedra is so cold that anything that falls into it—leaves, insects, the feathers of birds—is turned to stone. Maybe it would be a good idea to toss your suffering into its waters.'
I took the pages. She kissed me, and said I could come back for lunch if I wanted to.
'Don't forget!' she shouted as she walked away. 'Love perseveres. It's men who change.'
I smiled, and she waved good-bye.
I looked out at the river for some time. And I cried until there were no more tears.
Then I began to write.
Epilogue
I wrote for an entire day, and then another, and another. Every morning, I went to the bank of the River Piedra. Every afternoon, the woman came, took me by the arm, and led me back to the old convent.
She washed my clothes, made me dinner, chatted about trivial things, and sent me to bed.
One morning, when I had almost finished the manuscript, I heard the sound of a car. My heart leaped, but I didn't want to believe it. I felt free again, ready to return to the world and be a part of it once again.
The worst had passed, although the sadness remained.
But my heart was right. Even without raising my eyes from my work, I felt his presence and heard his footsteps.
'Pilar,' he said, sitting down next to me.
I went on writing, without answering. I couldn't pull my thoughts together. My heart was jumping, trying to free itself from my breast and run to him. But I wouldn't allow it.
He sat there looking at the river, while I went on writing. The entire morning passed that way—without a word—and I recalled the silence of a night near a well when I'd suddenly realized that I loved him.
When my hand could write no longer, I stopped. Then he spoke.
'It was dark when I came up out of the cavern. I couldn't find you, so I went to Zaragoza. I even went to Soria. I looked everywhere for you. Then I decided to return to the monastery at Piedra to see if there was any sign of you, and I met a woman. She showed me where you were, and she said you had been waiting for me.'
My eyes filled with tears.
'I am going to sit here with you by the river. If you go home to sleep, I will sleep in front of your house. And if you go away, I will follow you—until you tell me to go away. Then I'll leave. But I have to love you for the rest of my life.'
I could no longer hold back the tears, and he began to weep as well.
'I want to tell you something…' he started to say.
'Don't say a thing. Read this.' I handed him the pages.
