When she woke up much later that night, the crucifix was beneath her, digging into her left breast. All the next day her breast was sore, and the pain was hidden and sweet.
By May, the rainy season was over and winter was coming on. Travel became a possibility once more. Jeanne Marie surprised Kate one morning at breakfast when she asked her if she felt like taking a little trip. “You’ve been up in the altitude for six months now. You could probably use a little break.” Kate was cutting up a banana, and she looked over at the other nun to see if she was serious. Jeanne continued, “Once a year I go down to the Poor Clare nuns in Coroico for a week’s retreat. Then I usually stay another week and help the nurse who’s there. Father Tom drives me down there and says Mass and hears the nuns’ confessions. They love to be able to go to confession in English once a year, although I can’t imagine what they ever have to confess.”
“Where’s Coroico?” Kate asked, trying to hide her excitement at the news that Tom would be going, too.
“It’s in the Yungas, about three hours out of La Paz. It’s gorgeous, Kate—hot and humid with tropical flowers all over. I lie in the sun in the nuns’ back patio with my spiritual reading and pretend I’m in Hawaii.”
“Aren’t the Poor Clares a cloistered community?” Kate had never even seen a cloistered nun. She thought then of Thomas Merton and her delight in his description of the monastery at Gethsemane. “Will it be all right with Sister Josepha if I go along?”
“Actually, she’s the one who suggested it. She thinks you’ve been looking a little peaked lately, as she would say,” Jeanne was grinning at her and Kate smiled back, trying not to look too eager. As she got up to clear the table, Jeanne added, “Of course you and Father Tom would only stay a day or two. He’ll have to get back for the Masses on Sunday. I’ll take a bus up to La Paz later and then catch a ride with someone coming back here from La Paz. Does that sound okay?”
Kate nodded and helped Jeanne clear the table, afraid to look up and betray just how okay it all sounded to her. She and Tom would have a whole day alone together. And this was all at her superior’s suggestion, so she was merely being obedient. She felt a twinge of guilt at the casuistry involved in her reasoning, but no fine scruples were going to mar this one chance, she resolved.
They left at noon on Sunday, the twenty-first of May. Jeanne Marie and Kate had packed the jeep the night before with medical supplies from the States for the nurse in Coroico. Jeanne explained that even though the nuns were cloistered, they had received special permission from their Motherhouse in Philadelphia to open a clinic in one room of the convent every afternoon because there were no doctors in the town on a regular basis.
“The odd thing is,” Jeanne said as they loaded the heavy boxes, “the nun who’s the nurse, Sister Rachel, is Jewish. She converted to Catholicism in her late twenties, and then entered the Poor Clares. Her family is supposed to be fabulously wealthy, but she’s really down to earth. We stay up late and tell jokes when I come. Sometimes I even smuggle in a few cigarettes for her. Those women are really something, living in a little hilltop village in Bolivia, lost to the big world.” She shook her head. “They’re funny and smart, too.”
Kate watched her short, stubby figure as Sister Jeanne Marie hauled out the last box. “You’re pretty smart and funny yourself,” Kate said, realizing how much she had come to appreciate Jeanne.
“Yeah, but I couldn’t stand being cooped up like that.”
Kate looked around and began to laugh. “Oh sure, you’re really out in the big world here.” She stopped when she saw a puzzled look on Jeanne’s face.
“But this is the big world, Kate. There are hundreds of people who need me here and I like feeling needed. No one else is going to do the job if I don’t. There aren’t any backups here.”
Kate realized she had hurt Jeanne, and she put her hand on her friend’s arm.
“I know that. And I was just trying to say how much I admire you.”
Jeanne grinned and slapped her hand away. “I forgive you. You still have a lot to learn here—and I do mean a lot.”
Kate followed her eyes and saw Tom crossing the courtyard, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder. She gathered her skirts together and jumped into the back seat, crowded with packages, so that Jeanne could sit in front with Tom. They drove off in high spirits, like children playing hooky from school. Kate watched Tom and Jeanne as they talked and gestured in the front seat. The roar of the engine was loud, and she couldn’t hear anything they said, but she was happy just to watch them, knowing that if she stretched out her hand she could touch the back of Tom’s neck.
Kate sat back, letting the jeep carry her along as if in a dream. The winter sky burned blue above them, arching down to the purple snow-covered peaks of the Andes. The fields were golden brown; she saw here and there small patches of white and gray that turned out to be sheep grazing in the distance. When they were an hour outside of Puno, following the curve of the sapphire lake, Kate felt the jeep skid as Tom braked suddenly. She looked out to see a herd of llamas sauntering down the road in front of them. Their graceful heads held high, the beasts were unperturbed by the gathering trucks and cars on either side whose drivers beeped
