There isn’t much to see, Kate realizes. The canal of Pachacutec is merely a quiet tree-lined stream that irrigates the fields. The sun is directly overhead now, the air hot and still. Cicadas sing, as they do on sunny summer afternoons in St. Louis. Kate turns to Sheila. “Do you ever get homesick?”
“Not much, really. I think my mother is a bit offended by that. How about you?”
“Sometimes. I’ve been here almost a year now, but life in Peru still feels as if I’m in a play or something. I need to learn more. I wish like you, I had studied Latin American history and culture.”
“But doesn’t it help living with the other nuns? I mean, don’t you feel at home with them?” Before Kate can answer, Sheila goes on. “You know, I’ve never known a nun before. I’d never even talked to one before I met you.”
Kate smiles. “So what do you think?”
“I think something’s wrong. I don’t think you’re happy.”
Funny. For many years, during most of the time she had spent in the convent, everyone told her how happy she seemed. “Honey, you look so happy,” her mother would say on visiting day, squeezing her tightly. Later, her sixth graders at Holy Angels called her Sister Smiley and confided their secrets to her. Even in language school, in Cochabamba, she overheard one of her teachers, a small Chilean man, describe her to another teacher as “the tall, smiling nun.” But one could smile and smile and be a villain, she thinks. Or be unhappy.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry,” Sheila says. “It was just an observation.”
Kate has trouble speaking. Tears well up, and she shakes her head and keeps walking, her eyes down on the dry grass of the field.
Suddenly Sheila stops and begins peeling off her shirt. “I’m going skinny-dipping, Kate. You want to come?”
“Here?” Kate looks around. The fields are empty now, the workers gone to lunch. But they are still not far from the house, and the trees along the canal provide only a lacy curtain. Kate shakes her head no. “You go on. I’ll be your bodyguard.”
She turns away as Sheila strips quickly and slips into the clear water of the canal. When Kate turns around she can see Sheila’s long white body flashing in the sunlit stream.
A sleek head bursts from the water. “It’s freezing,” Sheila calls out.
Kate sits on the bank, dangling bare legs in the water. Why doesn’t she go in? She would have as a kid, she knows. Well, maybe not skinny-dipping. She was always shy about her body. Kate looks around. No one is in sight. She stands up and slips out of her skirt and T-shirt, unhooks her bra, and in one quick movement steps out of her underpants.
She leans over the bank, trying to gauge the depth of the water. Sheila has swum off, her dark head barely visible in the distance. Like a child, Kate holds her nose and jumps in feet first. The water is icy, and Kate gasps and dives beneath the clear, still surface, swimming with powerful strokes. She is conscious of water entering her everywhere—her nose, ears, eyes, even between her legs as she spreads them in frog-like strokes. She surfaces after a minute, gasping for breath, and rolls over on her back. Closing her eyes against the sun’s rays, she lets the water cradle her, kicking lightly occasionally to stay afloat. She’s never swum naked in the full light of day. She dives down again; this time her nipples become erect as desire washes through her. If only Tom were here. She sees him swimming toward her, his body covered with dark hair. Now he is beside her. He wraps his legs around her waist and draws her to him. She opens her legs to let him enter her. They sink together, an odd sea creature with four arms and legs entangled. A cry of pleasure rises in her throat.
She surfaces and swims with fast, hard strokes, on and on, until she fights to breathe. Then she rolls over and gazes at the trees along the banks. The sun filters through the branches, warming her face. Her body is weightless, one with the water and sun. She lets herself drift back to the bank where Sheila now sits, drying her long hair. Kate waves.
“You look like a dolphin out there,” Sheila calls.
“It feels wonderful. I never want to get out.” Kate drifts next to the bank, dog paddling gently.
“I wonder if the princess swam here,” says Sheila. As Kate emerges from the canal, Sheila turns away tactfully, reaching behind her for the cigarettes in her shirt pocket. Kate grabs her skirt and wraps it around her like a sarong. Sitting next to Sheila, she glances swiftly at the slender body stretched out on the grass. She tries not to stare at the scar low on Sheila’s belly where her dark pubic hair begins.
Sheila smokes for a while as Kate lies next to her, her arms cushioning her head. When Sheila gets up to pull on her underpants, Kate can’t help glancing at the scar.
“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” says Sheila. “A little souvenir from a botched abortion.”
Kate can feel Sheila watching for her reaction. She tries to keep her face expressionless.
After several moments of silence, Sheila asks, “Are you shocked?”
“A little,” Kate admits.
Sheila gives a short laugh. “Well, things have changed a lot lately, as Dylan says.”
“Dylan?”
“Bob Dylan, a folk singer. Jesus Christ, Kate. Have you been on the moon all these years?”
“I guess so.” Kate waits for Sheila to go on.
“I’m twenty-three, Kate, and I’ve had three lovers. One was serious, and the other two were . . . more like diversions.”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
“Oh, but I want to. Somebody has to get you into the twentieth century. Anyway, I got pregnant by one of the diversions. Went to a doctor in Chelsea who did abortions