Tarnished Beauty (20 page)

Our destination being San Juan de Ortega, we passed through several small woods on the way and found little comfort in the cool shade of the trees, although the day was quite warm. When I laid eyes upon the cliffs that were known to have once been inhabited by hermits, I longed to climb the precipice and crawl into one of their dark holes so that I too might feed my loneliness. Not far from that place, we came upon several pairs of storks nesting high upon the rooftops of the village houses, and I wondered jealously at their lifelong commitment to each other, and at their tender dedication to their young. When we arrived at the
refugio,
our only contentment was to find that we were the first pilgrims of the day. We'd have our choice of spots to lay our bedding and a thorough wash at the well without concern that it should run dry, as it often did toward the end of the day. Nevertheless, we headed directly for the chapel in the central square and knelt down to pray with the dust of the road covering us from head to foot. Tomas's face was streaked with tears, his lips moving with half-formed words. He appeared so fragile and spent, I was afraid he might not be able to endure the journey, let alone the temptation of this woman.

We washed and ate our meal under the spell of the solemn mood with which we'd walked that day, and continued with our plan to sleep, wake early the next morning, and every morning thereafter. With any luck, we'd put days and miles between us and Rosa's group. This we confirmed with half phrases and knowing nods, too exhausted to formulate complete sentences. Our fear spoke for us.

But we were not so lucky. As we made our way across town to our beds, we saw the first of our group entering the square. It was the Basque man, Rodolfo, red faced and exhausted from his trek. He spotted us before we could duck into the
refugio.

He said gruffly while taking my arm, “We could have benefited from the gift of your song today, Antonio.” He turned to Tomas. “The reassuring calm of your presence. The young man died in the night,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

“Renato?” Tomas asked, taking hold of Rodolfo's arm this time.

Rodolfo nodded, his eyes awash with sobering sadness.

“But he was doing so well,” I said.

“He was going to Santiago to pray for his father's redemption,” Tomas said to himself, remembering their early conversations.

“The others should be arriving in an hour or two. I ran ahead to get things ready for the burial. You see,” he said, relieved to be sharing the burden, “we've been carrying the body with us for a proper burial. Will you help me talk to the innkeeper, Antonio? We were told he could help in matters like these if the priest were not available.” This giant man with arms as big as tree trunks implored me with a child's eyes, wide and pleading. Feeling more than my fair share of guilt for having abandoned him and the others at such a time, I instantly agreed to help and informed him, having just come from the church, that the priest wasn't due back for another few days. The innkeeper would have to do.

Several hours later the rest of the pilgrim group arrived carrying the corpse on a makeshift litter between them. After my eyes had taken in the view of the dead, they immediately searched for the living beauty among them. I found her trailing at the end, radiant with the flush of exercise, her mother leaning heavily on her arm.

The next day we stood around the grave, freshly dug by Rodolfo and me, as the grave digger was nowhere to be found. The afternoon sun had succumbed to a fragrant light drizzle as delicate as a child's tears, which wet the old tombs around us, turning them a dark gray. The space of light we shared was shrinking and the shadows were closing in upon us as the day gave way to the night. I stood next to Tomas, head bowed, as was his. I heard the garbled words of the innkeeper and forced myself into prayer. But I knew she was to the right of me, her red shawl wrapped close against the chill. In half a glance I detected an unusual darkness in her eyes, which smoldered. Immediately, I recalled Renato's conversation one day soon after Rosa had joined the party. He was sure he'd never laid eyes on a girl more alluring. He'd laughed about it, wanting to appear robust and ready like the rest, although his lips remained pale and thin. Perhaps his last thoughts before death had also been of her, the curve of her slender throat and that small smile that could light up a ridge of mountains like a hundred suns.

At that moment she glanced up and caught me staring at her, and all at once she was surrounded by a golden light. I looked around to see if perhaps the sun had broken through the clouds, but they had only thickened. She nodded sadly to me, as though to acknowledge our mutual grief, but I could not respond. I was mesmerized by this mysterious light and realized that it emanated not from above or behind, but from inside her. Overwhelmed by the sight, I looked away, and didn't dare turn to look in her direction for the remainder of the service. Tomas had not lifted his gaze from his shoes. He'd stayed truer to his convictions than I.

We returned to the
refugio
after the burial with plans to retire. Tomas was cold as ice, and my concerns for his health were renewed. I covered him with my blanket as well as his own.

I was certain he'd drop off to sleep instantly and that I'd have a moment to collect my thoughts, yet his voice was overcome with emotion when he said, “She was up all night. That's why her eyes look so black with fatigue.”

“What are you talking about, Tomas?”

He appeared even more tormented than the day before. “Rodolfo told me all about it while you were making arrangements for the burial. He told me that Rosa was up all night looking for herbs that might cure Renato's fever. She was by his side the entire night and didn't sleep to make sure that when he asked for water he had it, when he complained of cold she could stoke the fire. It was in her arms that he breathed his last.”

My head began to spin with the realization. “So it wasn't flowers she was picking in the moonlight.”

Tomas sat up, spellbound. “While we were up all night praying for God to protect us from the evil of this woman—”

“She was up all night doing God's work,” I said.

“What are we to do, Antonio? When I close my eyes I see her face, I see those eyes and that hair and—”

“I don't know, but we can't allow our fears to control us. No matter the cost, we must not lose our composure.”

That night we prayed as never before, and neither of us slept.

 

Señor Peregrino turned to Jamilet as he spoke these last words. The quiet of the room seemed to pulsate in the wake of his story. Then, his black eyes opened to appraise her sitting there with one hand covering her mouth, looking as though she might burst. “What is this?” he asked, disbelief creasing his brow. “Are you laughing at me?”

Jamilet squirmed in her seat and pressed her hand more tightly over her mouth, afraid that if she attempted to speak, she'd howl with laughter instead.

His eyes narrowed and his lips tightened with disdain. “Answer me, young lady. What is it that you find so amusing?”

Somehow, she managed to regain her composure and lower her hand, but it was impossible to erase the guilty smile on her face. “I'm sorry, Señor. Please don't think I'm being disrespectful. It's just a…a little funny to think of how scared you and Tomas are of a young girl, even if she is so beautiful.”

He almost spat out his words. “I'm an old man now, but when I was young, men and women were different with each other. There was respect and…and reverence.”

“I understand, Señor.”

“Do you?” He smirked as his eyes swept over her from head to toe. “You live in a world where it's not unusual for a young woman to give herself to any man who offers her a…a six-pack of beer, and a…a ride in his car.”

“Señor,” Jamilet gasped. “I'd never do that.”

He folded his arms across his chest and nodded as though burdened by the weight of too much wisdom. “You'd save yourself quite a bit of heartache if you stayed away from beer
and
boys until you're old enough to know that one should never persuade you in the other.”

“I may be young, and there are many things I don't know, but I'm not like other girls,” she returned with equal disdain. “And, I don't even like beer.”

He met her firm gaze and held it, but eventually his arms unfolded and his palms spread out over his knees. For a moment Jamilet thought she saw regret shadow his expression, but he remained silent.

She stood to collect the laundry and paused. “I've been wondering, Señor, why are you telling me this story?”

He reached for a page on his desk and allowed his eyes to linger there, as if caressing every word. “I, like you, do not know many things. Although I don't have my youth to blame.” His eyes grew misty and he turned to his papers again. The spare light of morning he liked best wouldn't last long.

W
ITH SPRING JUST AROUND THE CORNER
, the window in Señor Peregrino's room stayed open most of the time, and a pleasant breeze, fragrant with flowers and fresh-cut grass, reached the fifth-story window. Jamilet often stood near it looking out and commenting on the pleasant weather, and how nice it would be to stroll the grounds and take a meal under the shade of the biggest tree, where there happened to be a welcoming bench. She couldn't imagine how a person could live in one room for so long and she knew that it would do him a world of good to venture out, but Señor Peregrino rarely responded to this talk. Once he replied that he would leave his room at the appointed hour and no sooner, no matter how much she suggested he do otherwise. When Jamilet asked him what he meant by “the appointed hour,” he said nothing, and turned his attention back to his papers.

“You'll know soon enough,” he muttered when she thought he'd forgotten the question.

It was while clearing the lunch tray one afternoon that Jamilet noticed Señor Peregrino watching her from his desk as he rolled a pencil between his palms. He'd been unusually pensive that day, and had eaten very little of his breakfast or lunch. Jamilet assumed he wasn't feeling well. “Leave that, and come here, Jamilet,” he said.

“The kitchen will close, Señor.”

“Please,” he said with a nod. “The kitchen can wait.”

Jamilet took the seat next to his desk, and Señor Peregrino pushed the papers he usually studied aside, and proceeded to retrieve several blank sheets from his desk drawer. Then, addressing Jamilet in a solemn tone, he said, “I understand the reason for your sadness.”

“I…I'm not sad, Señor. I'm just serious most—”

He raised his finger. “Don't waste your nonsense on me, young lady. Any fool can see how you drag your grief around like a fifty-pound weight.”

Jamilet was stunned by his words, and by the realization that her eyes were swelling with tears. She swiped at them quickly, hoping that Señor Peregrino wouldn't notice. She held her breath and concentrated on holding back the pressure building up behind her eyes, but she couldn't swallow to save her life.

“There's no shame in releasing your sadness, my dear,” he said tenderly. “No shame at all in that.”

Jamilet covered her face with both hands as wave after wave of emotion rolled through her, flooding her soul and pounding against her rib cage, until she could hardly breathe. It seemed that the tears she'd been saving all her life came forth at that moment. She was back again, as a child walking to school, hearing the doctor proclaim that there was no cure for the mark, at her mother's deathbed, and finally, crossing the river alone, with the cold rushing through her as everything she knew of the world, every shred of hope she'd managed to gather up, threatened to wash away.

Jamilet sniffled behind her hands, and Señor Peregrino shuffled to the bathroom and returned with a large wad of toilet paper that he placed on her knee. Without looking up, she wiped her face, feeling as though most of the life had been squeezed out of her. But there was a shimmering sensation coursing throughout her body as well. She felt wonderfully light and free, and when she took a breath it felt deeper and fuller than it ever had before.

“Do you feel better?” he asked.

Jamilet nodded, and looked around for a place to throw out the tissue.

Señor Peregrino took it from her and tossed it in the wastebasket under his desk while saying, “There's no need for anymore tears, because I'm going to help you.” He turned to the blank paper on his desk and arranged it in neat rows, and Jamilet saw that the pages were not entirely blank, but that on each one was written a single letter in the corner. “Starting today, we'll take an hour, maybe two, out of each day for the purpose of my teaching, and most important, your learning how to read and write.”

She stared at him for several seconds, unable to speak.

“Are you agreeable to this plan?”

Jamilet nodded, obviously shaken and moved by all that had just taken place. “You would do this for me?”

“I told you that I'd reward you for your good work, and I am a man of my word.”

They began the first lesson immediately. Señor Peregrino instructed her to repeat the letters of the alphabet after him. Jamilet felt so awkward and eager, and overwhelmed with gratitude, that occasionally she stumbled, but by the end of the first week of lessons she'd memorized the entire alphabet in both English and Spanish, and was beginning to copy the letters next to his examples quite nicely. Although at times impatient, Señor Peregrino took obvious pleasure in his student's progress. Her best work he posted on the wall by his desk, and her worst he crumpled up and threw in the wastebasket in a huff. There were days when the trash was brimming with discards, but most of the time, the silence of their studies was interrupted only by the gentle sounds of paper ruffling on the wall when the breeze found its way through the open window.

Following the lesson, Señor Peregrino often found himself in the mood to continue with his story, just as he did after the first lesson, and Jamilet was grateful for the opportunity to rest her mind, and relax for a while.

His eyes grew soft as they focused on the far corner of the ceiling. “Let's see now, where was I?” he said. “Oh yes, the place where you found the agony of two young men so amusing.”

“I did apologize, Señor.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he said, waving the whole issue away. He was trying his best to remember where he'd left off.

Jamilet moved her chair closer. “Tomas couldn't sleep,” she said. “You told him that whatever the cost, you had to stay in control, and not lose your composure.”

“Ah,” he said, clearly impressed. “The infallible memory of youth.”

 

With each day that passed, Rosa grew lovelier in our eyes. I'd awaken every morning thanking God that he'd given me another day to gaze upon her, perhaps to exchange a glance or a word or two in greeting. When she was near, I felt a pleasant and peaceful sensation within me, but no longer did I believe that there was an invisible quivering string connecting her soul to mine.

Tomas, however, was as tormented as ever. If Rosa should pass by to fill her canteen at the well, he'd almost stop breathing in an effort to resist her. I couldn't help but laugh at those moments. “You have cured me, my friend,” I said as we walked side by side. “You have become the mirror I sorely needed, and I see now that there is no reason for such lovesickness.”

I started singing again, and many walked with us during the long miles in order to hear my musical veneration for all pilgrims, each with a singular purpose for walking the same path worn and hardened by pilgrims for nearly a thousand years. As we approached the midpoint of our journey, we were astounded by the immense flatness of the Castilian Meseta before us, and could see the land dotted by red-tile roofs that grew more numerous as we journeyed closer to the large and prosperous city of Burgos.

“The miles go by quickly when you sing,” Rodolfo said. He was no longer as big as he'd been when he started. The walk had taken at least thirty pounds from him, but his arms were still thick and able and his neck the size of most people's thighs. Rosa lingered nearby as well. I know she liked my singing, but if I noticed her stepping in accord with the cadence of my song, my heart did not beat any stronger because of it. I thanked God for the freedom I felt. I could gaze upon her and, unlike Tomas, still remember my name and the place to which we were headed.

Everywhere we stopped to rest the pilgrim group changed. Some pilgrims lagged behind due to injury or simple exhaustion. Others shortened their rest to join our group, wishing to be part of the joyful atmosphere we exuded. Sometimes young men studied the female pilgrims who passed, for reasons that had little to do with religious piety, and everything to do with their youthful lust, enflamed by the loneliness of the road. Fortunately for us, Rosa dressed modestly. With her red shawl over her head, these opportunists hadn't a clue to the rare jewel in our midst.

But one afternoon the sun beat down so vigorously upon us that she was forced to carry her shawl slung low on her hips. I daresay that even the birds flew more slowly over us as though to appreciate the uncommon perfection of our species. At midday, when the heat of the sun was at its strongest, we arrived at Burgos. Despite our thirst and fatigue, we made our way through the labyrinth of the city toward its famous cathedral, larger and grander than anything we had ever seen. We refreshed ourselves at a nearby fountain intended for pilgrims, as indicated by the relief of scallop shells at its base.

At first, we didn't notice the soldiers idling in the shadows on the cathedral steps, but when we saw them our little band instinctively closed in around Rosa, like a herd protecting its young. but we weren't quick enough. Almost instantly they started to stir, nudging each other, and glancing our way. They were hungry lions, conspiring and evaluating the herd before the attack. It didn't take long for them to strike.

Moments later the sound of heavy boots could be heard pounding across the square. Their gray uniforms were soiled from the road, but the pistols and swords that hung from their belts shone brilliantly. Three of them made their way toward the fountain, their eyes riveted upon the prize, while dismissing the rest of us much like fodder to be kicked aside. Tomas was nearly trembling when the apparent leader, a tall blond man with shoulders as wide as a bull's horns, approached her first. Some of the soldiers stood behind, chuckling, while others retreated to a nearby café, poised and ready to watch the spectacle from their tables.

Rosa was helping her mother wash up at the fountain, and as usual, she was unaware of the commotion she caused. Yet we were all concerned to see that the soldier was obviously planning to speak directly to her, for it was not customary for a man to address a woman unless they'd been properly introduced, especially in a public place. The only women who were addressed so casually were women in the business of being…well, in the business.

His words startled her, and she dropped her red shawl to the ground. The soldier wasted no time in retrieving it. With a click of his heels, he presented it to her, and she accepted it with a nod as her cheeks flushed in a lovely way. Encouraged, he leaned toward her, not knowing which part of her to devour first. He reached out and touched her hair and Tomas groaned. My own stomach bolted, and I was aware of a smoldering deep and quiet within me, untended but ready.

Rosa stepped back, and her hair slipped out of his hand. He seemed amused by her discomfort and took the opportunity to admire her from this new vantage point. At that moment, Rosa's mother took hold of her daughter's arm and pulled her away. But they nearly collided with another soldier who'd been watching and waiting in case his services were needed. Although we were unable to hear their exchange, he had obviously addressed the older woman in a cordial manner, as he bowed his head, and he was successful in engaging Rosa's mother in conversation, a task not difficult to accomplish. With the mother's attention diverted, the blond man stepped forward again. He said that his name was Andrés and then pointed to the table his companions had already secured. He wanted her to join him for a glass of wine, perhaps a little lunch. Rosa declined his invitation with a furtive shake of her head. Her back was turned to us, but I could well imagine her face, luminous and polished as the moon, her eyes a flickering green. She could enchant a hermit monk with a half-smile, or a shrug of her dainty shoulders.

And so it was that the soldier began to melt before our very eyes. His mouth dropped, as though he'd suffered a sudden stroke, and his brow became shiny with perspiration. He trembled in his boots as he listened to her sweet, melodic voice making excuses perhaps, or explaining nervously about needing to remain with her sick mother. Feeling more confident, she maneuvered the red shawl over her shoulders so that her hair became caught in its embrace. Then she lowered her head and walked away. I'd seen her end many a conversation in this manner, and every time the conversant was left pondering his or her recent exchange with an angel. But this young man was not accustomed to having a peasant girl, however beautiful she might be, leave him with his words in his mouth. As she turned he took hold of her shawl and playfully pulled it away. Her eyes flashed as she whirled about.

Tomas, who'd been quivering and muttering his disapproval over the whole scene, stood up. “We must do something, Antonio,” he said.

I looked about the square. Every other soldier and pilgrim in sight was watching the dance that ensued between Rosa and the soldier. She reached for her shawl and he reached for her hand. She tried to retrieve it, he stepped closer. She stepped away, he placed his free hand on her elbow. She protested, he laughed.

Tomas launched himself out into the square, nearly tripping on feet depleted from a twenty-mile hike while he cried out, “That is enough of that!”

The soldier took a moment to appraise Tomas, and a wry smirk cut across his chiseled face as he calculated that he probably outweighed him by fifty pounds. I had no doubt he'd kill Tomas if sufficiently provoked. With one blow of his sword, he'd split his skull in two. Nevertheless, I was overwhelmed with admiration for Tomas's bravery, and moved in to join him.