Valley of Bones (37 page)

By the spring of 1937, Mother General Roland, now aged eighty-five, understood that she was gravely ill and might not survive the year. She consequently did two things: first she went to Rome and met with Cardinal Ratti to seek his advice. At that period, most politically aware people understood that another European war was drawing near. Roland feared that, unlike the last one, it would be largely unsympathetic to nuns roaming the battlefields and caring for civilians, while it was likely, on the evidence of the Spanish Civil War then in progress, that there would be far more civilian casualties than ever before. The cardinal promised to consult his brother Pope Pius XI on the diplomatic aspects of this problem. Privately, he began to make available to the Society’s leadership relevant pieces of intelligence gathered from the excellent Vatican diplomatic service.

Her second action was to call a convocation of all the Sisterhood. On May 17, 1938, over seven hundred sisters—all who could be spared from the work—gathered at the Mother House in Nemours outside of Paris. Most of them were young women to whom Marie-Ange de Berville was a legend, and the ancient woman, their general, who now addressed them, was hardly less so. The speech she gave was never published, but so impressive was her delivery and so prescient were her remarks that many there would be able to reconstruct it later on. The present writer had the privilege of attending and recalls it well, although in the interests of perfect honesty, it must be said that a speech that purports to foretell the future is subject to modification in accordance with how events actually turn out. She predicted the European war, and the war came. She predicted that the women there assembled would find themselves belonging to nations at war with one another, and so it turned out. She predicted that civilians would bear the brunt of the fighting at a level not seen in Europe since the Thirty Years War, and this happened, too, although to an extent not even the pessimistic Mother General could have imagined. She spoke of the propensity of modern states to make war on civilians as a matter of policy, nor did she blanch at naming the culprits. She said that the Spanish and Italian and German Sisters might have to defy their
governments in order to fulfill their vows of protection, and might have to discard their habits and work in secret. She closed the speech with an admission that she was dying and that it fell to them to elect her successor.

The following day they did, choosing Elisabeth Maria Sapenfeld as the third Mother General of the Society. Three days later, Otilie Roland departed this life after a stay on earth as remarkable as a fairy tale. Born in a Parisian cellar, a thief and prostitute by the age of twelve, a communard and atheist at sixteen, she remains a testament to the possibility of regeneration through love, and a testament also of the charisma and perspicacity of the Foundress, who saw in her what no one else ever had and through her example and the grace of God saved her for a life of glory and service. When some churchmen complained of Otilie’s unsavory antecedents, and the zeal with which the Society recruited from girls of the streets, the Foundress replied, with typical acerbity, “I can teach piety, I can teach skills, but courage is of God; we must have courage, and the
grisettes
have it.”

—FROM
FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH: THE STORY OF THE NURSING SISTERS OF THE BLOOD OF CHRIST,
BY SR. BENEDICTA COOLEY, SBC, ROSARIAN PRESS, BOSTON, 1947.

T
HEY WERE BOTH
naked in Lorna’s bed, but neither of them could recall getting there. Lorna threw a thigh over him. She wanted more. She regretted waking up, she wanted that blotting out, she was counting each fuck as her last, who knew when the disease would render her disgusting or incapable?

He said, “Look, we have a problem.”

“You don’t vant me anymore?”

“No I vant you a lot. But we have to spring Emmylou. They’re going to come for her and she’ll disappear.”

“They can’t do that.”

“They can. They can call her a terrorist because of that drugs and guns thing she was in. Plus, she had some kind of connection with that Sudanese, and Sudan is a terrorist center, and they can make up any story they want. This is the new USA, and fuck habeas corpus. So we have to get her out.”

“Jimmy, that’s crazy.”

“Is it? Wait here.”

He slid out of bed and left the room. In a few minutes, he was back, dressed in his trousers and a T-shirt, barefoot. He had a manila envelope in his hand.

“Oh, God!” she cried when she saw them.

“Yeah. This is not good. This is a message that they can whack us anytime, and what I can’t figure—”

“I saw the man who took those. At the beach. You were sleeping and I saw a man with a telephoto lens on a boat.”

“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

“Maybe…probably…he had red hair. Oh, God, Jimmy! What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to find these guys, find out what this whole deal is about, why they killed the Arab and Wilson, and why they want the confessions of Emmylou Dideroff so bad. And if possible, pull them in. You’re going to come with me.”

“Come with you? Where?”

“Grand Cayman for starters. We need to find out what happened in that hotel room when the Arab went out the window. I guess we should check out her native land, too, Caluga County.”

“They won’t have anything to add that’s germane, and besides who cares? The key to what makes Emmylou tick is her religious life and she got that in St. Catherine’s.” To his inquiring look, she added, “It’s a priory in the Virginia panhandle. Where she converted. Or so she told me.”

“Okay, we’ll tour the Blue Ridge, too. But first we have to get her out. Is there any way she can get off the locked ward? Special treatments or whatever?”

“She’s scheduled for an MRI. It’s in another building. I could go over there and say it was today.”

“Perfect,” said Paz, and together they worked out a plan, after which Lorna said, “You know, if someone had told me a month ago that I would be conspiring to kidnap a ward of the court from medical custody, I would have told them they were crazy.”

“They would have been. You’ve changed.”

“Yes. Your bad influence.” She looked him in the eye. “How did you sleep?”

“Like a baby.”

“The power of the voodoo mama.”

“No,” he said. “The voodoo mama says it’s mainly you.”

LORNA FINDS SHE
is a natural conspirator and she knows why. She has been thinking about her mother a lot since the events of the previous evening and she understands that much of her up-bringing has involved training herself to keep some personal space free from the didactic intrusions of her father and the demands of her big brother. Silences, false agreement, blandishments, and naked lies had been the essence of their family life. She thinks more kindly of Emmylou—sisters beneath the skin actually. Thus she has no trouble faking an appointment at the MRI center, or obtaining a set of pink scrubs, a pair of Nikes, a clipboard, cheap steel-frame reading glasses and a blond wig. She also contributes an expired Jackson ID card to wear on a chain. Emmylou is instantly with the plan. She asks where she will be staying, and Lorna has to tell her she doesn’t know. Paz has not contributed that part yet.

Darryla accompanies the two women for the short van ride across the Jackson campus to Building 403, where the magnetic resonance imager lives. They arrive at the suite. Darryla argues with the receptionist that yes they do have an appointment. Emmylou asks to visit the bathroom and Lorna volunteers to accompany her and stand outside the door. She passes her large handbag to Emmylou as she goes in. A few minutes later this obvious hospital employee, a blond woman with glasses and pink scrubs, walks out of the ladies’ room, moving swiftly as such people do, consulting the papers on her clipboard. Darryla doesn’t give her a second glance. She is on the phone with the scheduler for ten minutes, then slams the phone down, curses mildly under her breath, and goes into the ladies’, where she finds Emmylou’s hospital clothes in a heap. The alarm is given but Emmylou Dideroff has left the building.

PAZ WAS BEHIND
the wheel of the rented white Taurus, driving fast and north up the center of the state. Lorna for some
reason had climbed into the backseat, leaving the shotgun seat for Emmylou, who was wearing sunglasses, a Marlins ball cap, T-shirt, and shorts. Paz occasionally glanced her way and thought she looked like she had dropped ten years. She had one of her notebooks on her lap and occasionally scratched in it, otherwise she stared out the window with a contented smile on her face. Paz felt a certain discomfort. He liked a well-ordered life and, like many young men reared hardscrabble, was ordinarily a friend of discipline. He was conscious of going off the map now, not to mention all that wacko business at the
bembé
. He was doing his usual thing, replaying the memory tape in his mind and reinterpreting all the things he had seen and felt in terms more suitable to what he imagined was real life. He also occasionally glanced in the rearview at Lorna, another problem child. Paz was no enemy of hot sex in quantities, but he thought Lorna was a little strange in that department too. Something not right there, a fear there, she was using sex to drown something. He wondered when, if ever, she would tell him what it was. In fact, he now thought, really who gave a shit? He hardly knew the woman, and here he was dragging her over half the country to try to find out why this maniac next to him was a maniac. Was that what he was trying to do? He tried to recall why he had just torpedoed his entire career and set himself up for a stiff prison term…what was he
thinking
?

The road stretched out a dark two-lane ribbing through utterly flat greenness, tedious to get through, like his life, he thought, stupid and tedious, like this car ride to nowhere with a Jesus fruitcake in front and a fat, neurotic nympho in the back. A little roadside shrine whipped by, a white cross and some plastic flowers, and he thought there was someone with the right idea, he wished he had something to drink, rum or even vodka, but really he didn’t need it, all it would take was a little flick of the wheel and why not, what was the fucking point anyway? A big semi appeared out of the heat shimmer, rushing closer, all it would take was a little twitch to the left, was a little…

An air horn, loud, and Emmylou’s scream in his ear and then she had the wheel and they were rattling and jumping over the right-hand shoulder.

Paz brought the car to a stop, shaking and sweat-faced. “Holy shit, I must’ve gone to sleep. Christ…”

“No, you didn’t,” said Emmylou. “You were wide awake and in control. I was watching you. You steered us right at that truck.”

“Oh, for crying out loud! I did not! Why the hell would I do a thing like that?”

“What were you just thinking about?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said, “just, you know, driving, the time, scenery…” Her eyes stopped the easy fabrication well before he could convince himself that he hadn’t really tried to crash the car.

“You’re not crazy,” she said. “It’s him doing it, and I don’t know why. You had this kind of thing before, yes? Dreams, seeing things that weren’t there, thoughts coming that weren’t really you?”

Paz hesitated, then nodded and said, “That first time, in the interview room…your face changed. I mean I
saw
it.”

“Yes, that’s what’s strange,” said Emmylou, nodding. “Somebody said that the devil’s greatest trick was convincing everybody he don’t exist, and here he is popping up like a jackrabbit. She seen it, too”—looking back to where Lorna sat pale and twitching—“but she’ll never say.” Paz turned and searched Lorna’s face, but she wouldn’t meet his eye. He said, “So, Emmylou, we got any angels in there, any heavy hitters, or are we on our own?”

“Yes, everyone thinks it’s a battle between good and evil, but the fact is there never
was
a battle. That’s what omnipotence
means
. The devil is an employee.”

“So what’s going on, Emmylou?”

“I don’t have an idea in the world,” she replied blithely. “We’re being used to some purpose and afflicted for some purpose, but we can’t know what it is. It’s like where the crust of the earth is weak and volcanoes shoot out? For some divine reason the stuff of nature is being penetrated by spirit around the three of us and God knows
where it will lead. The main thing we’re told is not to worry and have faith.”

“Uh-huh. And that means we’re going to be okay, right?” Paz was talking slowly and carefully, as to a child or someone with a lot of hostages and a big bomb.

“Oh, heavens, yes! All will be well and all manner of thing will be well.”

Paz started the car. “You’re sure about that? The three of us, we’re cool as far as, you know, this crazy stuff, demonic, whatever…”

“Us? Oh, I didn’t mean us as individuals. I meant the human race. The three of us are
doomed
for all I know.” And she gave him one of those face-lighting smiles.

NO BODY SAID MUCH
during the remainder of the ride. Twice Lorna asked him to pull off so she could be sick. Carsick, she said, although he had not noticed that as a problem the last time they had been this way. His cell phone sang several times, and twice he made calls. There were a number of arrangements to be made, and by the time he pulled into Cletis Barlow’s driveway all of these had been handled. That was something at least.

He turned Emmylou over to Edna Barlow, declined an offer of lunch, and got back on the road, driving west across the state and then north on 75. By late afternoon Paz and Lorna were at Tampa International. They turned in the car, checked into the airport Ramada. He paid for the room with a credit card belonging to Cesar Somoza, the chef at the restaurant. Meal in the room and several drinks beforehand. He heard her crying in the bathroom. When she came out, dressed in the hotel’s robe, he asked her what was wrong. She said, Nothing, just thinking about my mom. Really? No, she said, those were tears of sexual frustration. It’s been hours. And dropped the robe.

The next morning they were on the early US Airways flight from Tampa to Georgetown, Grand Cayman, arriving just past noon on the vacation and corruption paradise. A huge black man in a safari
suit met them and drove them to a substantial peach-painted villa, with grounds protected by high walls topped with glass shards sparkling in the bright sun. Their driver took them through a cool and shuttered house to the rear patio. There, seated in a wicker chair under an umbrella, was a bulky man in his midsixties, with a face a scant shade lighter than Paz’s, a large fleshy nose shaped like an immature papaya, and curly pepper-and-salt hair combed straight back. The man stood. He was wearing a gleaming white guayabera shirt, fawn slacks, and woven leather sandals. He appeared to be a typical Cuban businessman, Paz thought, until you looked into his eyes. These were yellowish, bloodshot, pouched, and gave you a pretty good idea about what untypical kind of business he was in.

But Paz and Lorna were greeted cordially, seated, offered drinks and Cuban hors d’oeuvres. They admired the view. Ignacio Hoffmann kept his eyes on Paz; Lorna might not have existed.

“So, little Jimmy Paz. I remember you when you were busing tables at your mother’s place, not the new one, the old joint, the hole in the wall on Flagler. Your head, you could barely see your head above the table, you know?”

“Long time, Ignacio.”

“Yeah, and now you’re a cop.”

“Miami PD.”

“Yeah. You know your mother and I go back a long way. We floated in about the same time.”

“So I heard.”

“I owe her my life. Did you hear that?”

“That I didn’t hear.”

“No. And you won’t hear about it from me. Has to do with the
brujería
.” Here Hoffmann made an odd gesture with his hand and a toss of his head. “Anyway, that’s why I agreed to see you. Not that I don’t always want to see an old friend, except, you know, I’m trying to keep a low profile here.”

“Well, I appreciate that, Ignacio, and I’ll try not to take up too much of your time. I’m interested in Jack Wilson and Dodo Cortez
and why they whacked a Sudanese guy named Jabir Akran al-Muwalid.”

“Hey, you get right to the point,” said Hoffmann with a big gold-flecked smile. “Okay, first of all, this was Jack Wilson’s deal, not mine. Totally. He came over here, what was it, maybe three months ago, and says he’s got a business opportunity. He wants me to lend him some of my boys. I’m retired, you know? But I still got people want to do me favors. What’s this for, I say, and why should I be interested? He says this is the feds, they want to do a black bag job, and if I go with it, I might get the heat off me a little, maybe even get this bullshit indictment they got on me lifted. So I’m interested, but I’m not going to make a move on the say-so of Jack Wilson. I mean, a nice guy, but he fixes boats. He’d
like
to be a player, but basically he’s a mechanic. So I say, I’ll talk to somebody and if I like the deal, we could make something happen.”