After Mass, Tom nodded slightly to her as he left the altar. When she met him on the steps, he frowned at her and said, “If you’re still speaking to me, meet me out in front in about half an hour. We’ll have breakfast together before we drive back.” She tried not to smile, but she felt an idiotic, carefree happiness rising in her.
Kate packed quickly, and on a sudden impulse stuffed the volume of Chekhov stories into her bag. She told herself she was only borrowing it and would send it back next year, or sometime when Jeanne Marie came back for retreat.
She was waiting out in front when Tom emerged from the cloister with Sister Marguerite. The nun beamed up at Kate and embraced her tightly. “Now have a safe trip to La Paz and don’t let this one be showing off for you on those turns. Slow and easy, slow and easy take it. I’ll be praying my rosary for the both of you till I know you are safe.” She thrust a package of jars and bottles at Kate. “These are some of our goodies for you all up in that God-forsaken place where you work. I wouldn’t last a day there, I can tell you that.” She stood at the gate waving goodbye as Tom turned the jeep around the corner.
He looked over at Kate. “Well. I’m glad you’re still talking to me.” He didn’t wait for her answer, but hurried on. “We’re just going next door to a great little restaurant called La Casa. They make wonderful breakfasts there, but I couldn’t tell Sister Marguerite that or she would have been insulted we weren’t having breakfast at the convent.”
He pulled up in front of the restaurant and parked the car. They went in together, and Kate smiled to herself. “A date, we’re having a date,” she’d whispered to him and felt happy when he threw back his head and laughed.
They devoured scrambled eggs and bacon, toast with strawberry jam, and strong coffee made from the local beans. The owners were a German woman and her Bolivian husband. Tom joked with them, and they, in turn, seemed delighted to see him. The couple sat at their table for a while, and the conversation grew serious as they talked about the land reform going on in Peru. Santiago, the husband, said that revolution was always looming for them in Bolivia.
“If things get too bad, we will go back to Germany,” and he looked at his wife.
She shook her head. “Never. I love it here. No revolution is going to spoil what we have here.” She gazed at her husband, and Kate felt a pang of envy.
By nine o’clock, Kate and Tom were on the road heading back to La Paz. The windows were open, and Kate felt dizzy with happiness sitting close beside Tom in the fragrant morning. Her night terrors had evaporated. They spoke very little at first, and Kate watched Tom handle the jeep around the sharp upward curves.
After a while he broke the silence. “I guess it would be an understatement to say that you were mad at me last night?”
Kate shrugged. “That would be putting it mildly.” Then she turned to face him. “It’s just that I felt so lonely all day, shuffled off like that to the guest house. Then I thought you would stay for a little while after you’d been with the nuns all evening—”
“Kate, I was hearing confessions,” he interrupted.
“I know.” She was silent, not knowing what else to say.
“I wanted to come in to you last night in the worst way, and that’s just why I didn’t. I didn’t trust myself. Kate, you do understand what I’m saying, don’t you?” He looked at her helplessly. When she said nothing he went on. “Beneath this disguise, I’m just a man, Kate. I want you. It would be so easy to let myself go, and I know that you feel the same. Hell, it was so obvious last night when you looked at me. But it would be shoddy and wrong. If it ever happens, it’s not going to happen like that.”
Kate felt pity for him then. He, too, was facing the lonely struggle with conscience. “I know, Tom. When I saw you this morning on the altar I felt ashamed.” She looked out the window so he would not see the trembling of her mouth. “It’s been pretty humiliating for me to find out how lightly I regard my vows.”
“Don’t be ashamed. Never be ashamed of love.” He looked fierce, as though he were talking more to himself than to her.
She laughed, “It’s not the love part I’m ashamed of.”
He looked over at her as if trying to judge her ability to take in what he wanted to say. “Kate, I’ve made a mistake in all this before. It happened about six years ago, when I was still fairly new in the Altiplano. She was a Peace Corps worker who came to help set up the school in Juliaca. Her name was Linda.”
Kate felt her stomach lurch. She didn’t want to hear the rest.
Tom lit a cigarette and waited a minute before continuing. “She was a strange girl, cynical and tough. I think I was sort of a challenge for her.” He laughed and the bitterness curled his mouth in an unpleasant way. “I slept with her twice, and I’ve regretted it every day of my life. I
