The Sands of Time

Chapter Six

Las Navas del Marqués, Spain 1950

She was five years old. Her earliest memories were of a procession of naked strangers climbing in and out of her mother’s bed.

Her mother explained, ‘They are your uncles. You must show them respect.’

The men were gross and crude and lacked affection. They stayed for a night, a week, a month, and then vanished. When they left, Dolores Pinero would immediately look for a new man.

In her youth, Dolores Pinero had been a beauty, and Graciela had inherited her mother’s looks. Even as a child, Graciela was stunning to look at, with high cheekbones, an olive complexion, shiny black hair and thick, long eyelashes. Her young body was nubile with promise. With the passage of years, Dolores Pinero’s body had turned to fat and her wonderfully boned face had become bruised with the bitter blows of time.

Although Dolores Pinero was no longer beautiful, she was accessible, and she had the reputation of being a passionate bed partner. Making love was her one talent, and she employed it to try to please men into bondage, hoping to keep them by buying their love with her body. She made a meagre living as a seamstress because she was an indifferent one, and was hired only by the women of the village who could not afford the better ones.

Graciela’s mother despised her daughter, for she was a constant reminder of the one man whom Dolores Pinero had ever loved. Graciela’s father was a handsome young mechanic who had proposed to the beautiful young Dolores, and she had eagerly let him seduce her. When she had broken the news that she was pregnant, he had disappeared, leaving Dolores with the curse of his seed.

Dolores Pinero had a vicious temper, and she took her vengeance out on the child. Any time Graciela did something to displease her, her mother would hit her and scream, ‘You’re as stupid as your father!’

There was no way for the child to escape the rain of blows or the constant screaming. Graciela would wake up every morning and pray: ‘Please, God, don’t let Mama beat me today.

‘Please, God, make Mama happy today.

‘Please, God, let Mama say she loves me today.’

When she was not attacking Graciela, her mother ignored her. Graciela prepared her own meals and took care of her clothes. She made her lunch to take to school, and she would say to her teacher, ‘My mother made me empanadas today. She knows how much I like empanadas.’

Or: ‘I tore my dress, but my mother sewed it up for me. She loves doing things for me.’

Or: ‘My mother and I are going to the pictures tomorrow.’

And it would break her teacher’s heart. Las Navas del Marqués is a small village an hour from Ávila, and like all villages everywhere, everyone knew everyone else’s business. The lifestyle of Dolores Pinero was a disgrace, and it reflected on Graciela. Mothers refused to let their children play with the little girl, lest their morals be contaminated. Graciela went to the school on Plazoleta del Cristo, but she had no friends and no playmates. She was one of the brightest students in the school, but her exam results were poor. It was difficult for her to concentrate, for she was always tired.

Her teacher would admonish her, ‘You must get to bed earlier, Graciela, so that you are rested enough to do your work properly.’

But her exhaustion had nothing to do with getting to bed late. Graciela and her mother shared a small, two-room casa. The girl slept on a couch in the tiny room, with only a thin, worn curtain separating it from the bedroom. How could Graciela tell her teacher about the obscene sounds in the night that awakened her and kept her awake, as she listened to her mother making love to whichever stranger happened to be in her bed?

When Graciela brought home her report card, her mother would scream, ‘These are the cursed marks I expected you to get, and do you know why you got these terrible marks? Because you’re stupid. Stupid!’

And Graciela would believe it and try hard not to cry.

In the afternoons when school was over, Graciela would wander around by herself, walking through the narrow, winding streets lined with acacia and sycamore trees, past the whitewashed stone houses, where loving fathers lived with their families. Graciela had many playmates, but they were all in her mind. There were beautiful girls and handsome boys, and they invited her to all their parties, where they served wonderful cakes and ice cream. Her imaginary friends were kind and loving, and they all thought she was very smart. When her mother was not around, Graciela would carry on long conversations with them.

Would you help me with my homework, Graciela? I don’t know how to do sums, and you’re so good at them.

What shall we do tonight, Graciela? We could go to the pictures, or walk into town and have a lemonade.

Will your mother let you come to dinner tonight, Graciela? We’re having paella.

No, I’m afraid not. Mother gets lonely if I’m not with her. I’m all she has, you know.

On Sundays, Graciela rose early and dressed quietly, careful not to awaken her mother and whichever uncle was in her bed, and walked to the San Juan Bautista Church, where Father Perez talked of the joys of life after death, a fairytale life with Jesus; and Graciela could not wait to die and meet Jesus.

Father Perez was an attractive priest in his early forties. He had ministered to the rich and the poor, and the sick and the vital, since he had come to Las Navas del Marqués several years earlier, and there were no secrets in the little village to which he was not privy. Father Perez knew Graciela as a regular church-goer, and he, too, was aware of the stories of the constant stream of strangers who shared Dolores Pinero’s bed. It was not a fit home for a young girl, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. It amazed the priest that Graciela had turned out as well as she had. She was kind and gentle and never complained or talked about her home life.

Graciela would appear at church every Sunday morning wearing a clean, neat outfit that he was sure she had washed herself. Father Perez knew she was shunned by the other children in town, and his heart went out to her. He made it a point to spend a few moments with her after mass each Sunday, and when he had time, he would take her to a little café for a treat of helado.

In the winter Graciela’s life was a dreary landscape, monotonous and gloomy. Las Navas del Marqués was in a valley surrounded by the Cruz Verde mountains and, because of that, the winters were six months long. The summers were easier to bear, for then the tourists arrived and filled the town with laughter and dancing and the streets came alive. The tourists would gather at the Plaza de Manuel Delgado Barredo, with its little bandstand built on stone, and listen to the orchestra and watch the natives dance the Sardana, the centuries-old traditional folk dance, barefoot, their hands linked, as they moved gracefully around in a colourful circle. Graciela watched the visitors as they sat at the pavement cafés drinking aperitivos or shopping at the pescadería – the fish market, or the farmacia. At one o’clock in the afternoon the bodega was always filled with tourists drinking chateo and picking at tapas, seafood and olives and chips.

The most exciting thing for Graciela was to watch the paseo each evening. Boys and girls would walk up and down the Plaza Mayor in segregated groups, the boys eyeing the girls, while parents and grandparents and friends watched, hawk-eyed, from sidewalk cafés. It was the traditional mating ritual, observed for centuries. Graciela longed to join in it, but her mother forbade her.

‘Do you want to be a puta?’ she would scream at Graciela. ‘Stay away from boys. They want only one thing from you. I know from experience,’ she added bitterly.

If the days were bearable, the nights were an agony. Through the thin curtain that separated their beds, Graciela could hear the sounds of savage moaning and writhings and heavy breathing, and always the obscenities.

‘Faster … harder!’

‘¡Cógeme!’

‘¡Mámame la verga!’

‘¡Métela en el culo!’

Before she was ten years old, Graciela had heard every obscene word in the Spanish vocabulary. They were whispered and shouted and shuddered and moaned. The cries of passion repelled Graciela, and at the same time awakened strange longings in her.

When Graciela was fourteen years old, the Moor moved in. He was the biggest man Graciela had ever seen. His skin was shiny black, and his head was shaved. He had enormous shoulders, a barrel chest and huge arms. The Moor had arrived in the middle of the night when Graciela was asleep, and she got her first sight of him in the morning when he pushed the curtain aside and walked stark naked past Graciela’s bed to go outside to the outhouse in the yard. Graciela looked at him and almost gasped aloud. He was enormous, in every part. That will kill my mother, Graciela thought.

The Moor was staring at her. ‘Well, well. And who do we have here?’

Dolores Pinero hurried out of her bed and moved to his side. ‘My daughter,’ she said curtly.

A wave of embarrassment swept over Graciela, as she saw her mother’s naked body next to the man.

The Moor smiled, showing beautiful white, even teeth. ‘What’s your name, guapa?’

Graciela was too shamed by his nakedness to speak.

‘Her name’s Graciela. She’s retarded.’

‘She’s beautiful. I’ll bet you looked like that when you were young.’

‘I’m still young,’ Dolores Pinero snapped. She turned to her daughter. ‘Get dressed. You’ll be late for school.’

‘Yes, Mama.’

The Moor stood there, eyeing her.

The older woman took his arm and said cajolingly, ‘Come back to bed, querido. We’re not finished yet.’

‘Later.’ the Moor said. He was still looking at Graciela.

The Moor stayed. Every day when Graciela came home from school she prayed that he would be gone. For reasons she did not understand, he terrified her. He was always polite to her and never made any advances, yet the mere thought of him sent shivers through her body.

His treatment of her mother was something different. The Moor stayed in the small house most of the day, drinking heavily. He took whatever money Dolores Pinero earned. Sometimes at night in the middle of lovemaking, Graciela would hear him beating her mother, and in the morning Dolores Pinero would appear with a blackened eye or split lip.

‘Mama, why do you put up with him?’ Graciela asked.

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ she said sullenly. ‘He’s a real man, not a midget like the others. He knows how to satisfy a woman.’ She ran her hand through her hair coquettishly. ‘Besides, he’s madly in love with me.’

Graciela did not believe it. She knew that the Moor was using her mother, but she did not dare protest again. She was too terrified of her mother’s temper, for when Dolores Pinero was really angry, a kind of insanity took possession of her. She had once chased Graciela with a kitchen knife because she had dared make a pot of tea for one of the ‘uncles’.

Early one Sunday morning Graciela rose to get ready for church. Her mother had left early to deliver some dresses. As Graciela pulled off her nightgown, the curtain was pushed aside and the Moor appeared. He was naked.

‘Where’s your mother, guapa?’

‘Mama went out early. She had some errands to do.’

The Moor was studying Graciela’s nude body. ‘You really are a beauty,’ he said softly.

Graciela felt her face flush. She knew what she should do. She should cover her nakedness, put on her skirt and blouse and leave. Instead, she stood there, unable to move. She watched his manhood begin to swell and grow before her eyes. She could hear the voices ringing in her ears:

‘Faster … Harder!’

She felt faint.

The Moor said huskily, ‘You’re a child. Get your clothes on and get out of here.’

And Graciela found herself moving. Moving towards him. She reached up and slid her arms around his waist and felt his male hardness against her body.

‘No,’ she moaned. ‘I’m not a child.’

The pain that followed was like nothing Graciela had ever known. It was excruciating, unbearable. It was wonderful, exhilarating, beautiful. She held the Moor tightly in her arms, screaming with ecstasy. He brought her to orgasm after orgasm, and Graciela thought: So this is what the mystery is all about. And it was so wonderful to finally know the secret of all creation, to be a part of life at last, to know what joy was for now and for ever.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’

It was Dolores Pinero’s voice screaming, and for an instant everything stopped, frozen in time. Dolores Pinero was standing at the side of the bed, staring down at her daughter and the Moor.

Graciela looked up at her mother, too terrified to speak. Dolores Pinero’s eyes were filled with an insane rage.

‘You bitch!’ she yelled. ‘You rotten bitch.’

‘Mama – please –’

Dolores Pinero picked up a heavy iron ashtray at the bedside and slammed it against her daughter’s head.

That was the last thing Graciela remembered.

She awoke in a large, white hospital ward with two dozen beds in it, all of them occupied. Harried nurses scurried back and forth, trying to attend to the needs of the patients.

Graciela’s head was racked with excruciating pain. Each time she moved, rivers of fire flowed through her. She lay there, listening to the cries and moans of the other patients.

Late in the afternoon, a young doctor stopped by the side of her bed. He was in his early thirties, but he looked old and tired.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘You’re finally awake.’

‘Where am I?’ It hurt her to speak.

‘You’re in the charity ward of the Hospital Provincial in Ávila. You were brought in yesterday. You were in terrible shape. We had to stitch up your forehead.’ The doctor went on: ‘Our chief surgeon decided to sew you up himself. He said you were too beautiful to have scars.’

He’s wrong, Graciela thought. I’ll be scarred for the rest of my life.

On the second day Father Perez came to see Graciela. A nurse moved a chair to the bedside. The priest looked at the beautiful, pale young girl lying there and his heart melted. The terrible thing that had happened to her was the scandal of Las Navas del Marques, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. Dolores Pinero had told the policía that her daughter had injured her head in a fall.

Now, Father Perez asked, ‘Are you feeling better, child?’

Graciela nodded, and the movement made her head pound.

‘The policía have been asking questions. Is there anything you would like me to tell them?’

There was a long silence. Finally she said, ‘It was an accident.’

He could not bear the look in her eyes. ‘I see.’

What he had to say was painful beyond words. ‘Graciela, I/ spoke with your mother …’

And Graciela knew. ‘I – I can’t go home again, can I?’

‘No, I’m afraid not. We’ll talk about it.’ Father Perez took Graciela’s hand. ‘I’ll come back to see you tomorrow.’

‘Thank you, Father.’

When he left, Graciela lay there, and she prayed: Dear God, please let me die. I don’t want to live.

She had nowhere to go and no one to go to. Never again would she see her home. She would never see her school again, or the familiar faces of her teachers. There was nothing in the world left for her.

A nurse stopped at her bedside. ‘You need anything?’

Graciela looked up at her in despair. What was there to say?

The following day the doctor appeared again.

‘I have good news,’ he said awkwardly. ‘You’re well enough to leave now.’ That was a lie, but the rest of his speech was true. ‘We need the bed.’

She was free to go – but go where?

When Father Perez arrived an hour later, he was accompanied by another priest.

‘This is Father Berrendo, an old friend of mine.’

Graciela glanced up at the frail-looking priest. ‘Father.’

He was right, Father Berrendo thought. She is beautiful.

Father Perez had told him the story of what had happened to Graciela. The priest had expected to see some visible signs of the kind of environment the child had lived in, a hardness, a defiance, or self-pity. There were none of those things in the young girl’s face.

‘I’m sorry you’ve had such a bad time,’ Father Berrendo told her. The sentence carried a deeper meaning.

Father Perez said, ‘Graciela, I must return to Las Navas del Marques. I am leaving you in Father Berrendo’s hands.’

Graciela was filled with a sudden sense of panic. She felt as though her last link with home was being cut. ‘Don’t go,’ she pleaded.

Father Perez took her hand in his. ‘I know you feel alone,’ he said warmly, ‘but you’re not. Believe me, child, you’re not.’

A nurse approached the bed carrying a bundle. She handed it to Graciela. ‘Here are your clothes. I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave now.’

An even greater panic seized her. ‘Now?’

The two priests exchanged a look.

‘Why don’t you get dressed and come with me?’ Father Berrendo suggested. ‘We can talk.’

Fifteen minutes later Father Berrendo was helping Graciela out of the hospital door into the warm sunlight. There was a garden in front of the hospital with brightly coloured flowers, but Graciela was too dazed even to notice them.

When they were seated in his office. Father Berrendo said, ‘Father Perez told me that you have no place to go.’

Graciela nodded.

‘No relatives?’

‘Only –’ It was difficult to say it. ‘Only – my mother.’

‘Father Perez said that you were a regular churchgoer in your village.’

A village she would never see again. ‘Yes.’

Graciela thought of those Sunday mornings, and the beauty of the church services and how she had longed to be with Jesus and escape from the pain of the life she lived.

‘Graciela, have you ever thought of entering a convent?’

‘No.’ She was startled by the idea.

There is a convent here in Ávila – the Cistercian convent. They would take care of you there.’

‘I – I don’t know.’ The idea was frightening.

‘It is not for everyone,’ Father Berrendo told her. ‘And I must warn you, it is the strictest order of them all. Once you walk through the gates and take the vows, you have made a promise to God never to leave.’

Graciela sat there, her mind filled with conflicting thoughts, staring out the window. The idea of shutting herself away from the world was terrifying. It would be like going to prison. But on the other hand, what did the world have to offer her? Pain and despair beyond bearing. She had often thought of suicide. This might offer a way out of her misery.

Father Berrendo said, ‘It’s up to you, my child. If you like, I will take you to meet the Reverend Mother Prioress.’

Graciela nodded. ‘All right.’

The Reverend Mother studied the face of the young girl before her. Last night for the first time in many, many years she had heard the voice. A young child will come to you. Protect her. ‘How old are you, my dear?’

‘Fourteen.’

She’s old enough. In the fourth century the Pope decreed that girls could be permitted to become nuns at the age of twelve.

‘I’m afraid,’ Graciela said to the Reverend Mother Betina.

I’m afraid. The words rang in Betina’s mind: I’m afraid … That had been so many long years ago. She was speaking to her priest. ‘I don’t know if I have a calling for this, Father. I’m afraid.’

‘Betina, the first contact with God can be very disturbing, and the decision to dedicate your life to Him is a difficult one.’

How did I find my calling? Betina had wondered.

She had never been even faintly interested in religion. As a young girl she had avoided church and Sunday school. In her teens she was more interested in parties and clothes and boys. If her friends in Madrid had been asked to select possible candidates to become a nun, Betina would have been at the bottom of the list. More accurately, she would not even have been on their list. But when she was nineteen, events started to happen that changed her life.

She was in her bed, asleep, when a voice said, ‘Betina, get up and go outside.’

She opened her eyes and sat up, frightened. She turned on the bedside lamp. She was alone. What a strange dream.

But the voice had been so real. She lay down again, but it was impossible to go back to sleep.

Betina, get up and go outside.

It’s my subconscious, she thought. Why would I want to go outside in the middle of the night?

She turned out the light and a moment later turned it on again. This is crazy.

But she put on a dressing-gown and slippers and went downstairs. The household was asleep.

She opened the kitchen door, and as she did a wave of fear swept over her, because somehow she knew that she was supposed to go out the back into the yard. She looked around in the darkness, and her eye caught a glint of moonlight shining on an old refrigerator that had been abandoned and was used to store tools.

Betina suddenly knew why she was there. She walked over to the refrigerator as though hypnotized, and opened it. Her three-year-old brother was inside, unconscious.

That was the first incident. In time, Betina rationalized it as a perfectly normal experience. I must have heard my brother get up and go out into the yard, and I knew the refrigerator was there, and I was worried about him so I went outside to check.

The next experience was not so easy to explain. It happened a month later.

In her sleep, Betina heard a voice say, ‘You must put out the fire.’

She sat up, wide awake, her pulse racing. Again, it was impossible to go back to sleep. She put on a dressing-gown and slippers and went into the landing. No smoke. No fire. She opened her parents’ bedroom door. Everything was normal there. There was no fire in her brother’s bedroom. She went downstairs and looked through every room. There was no sign of a fire.

I’m an idiot, Betina thought. It was only a dream.

She went back to bed, just as the house was rocked by an explosion. She and her family escaped, and the firemen managed to put out the fire.

‘It started in the basement,’ a fireman explained. ‘And a boiler exploded.’

The next incident happened three weeks later. This time it was no dream.

Betina was on the patio, reading, when she saw a stranger walking across the yard. He looked at her and in that instant she felt a malevolence coming from him that was almost palpable. He turned away and was gone.

Betina was unable to get him out of her mind.

Three days later, she was in an office building, waiting for the lift. The lift door opened, and she was about to step into it when she looked at the lift operator. It was the man she had seen in her garden. Betina backed away, frightened. The lift door closed and the lift went up. Moments later, it crashed, killing everyone in it.

The following Sunday, Betina went to church.

Dear Lord, I don’t know what’s happening to me, and I’m scared. Please guide me and tell me what you want me to do.

The answer came that night as Betina slept. The voice said one word. Devotion.

She thought about it all night, and in the morning she went to talk to the priest.

He listened intently to what she had to say.

‘Ah. You are one of the fortunate ones. You have been chosen.’

‘Chosen for what?’

‘Are you willing to devote your life to God, my child?’

‘I – I don’t know. I’m afraid.’

But in the end, she had joined the convent.

I chose the right path, the Reverend Mother Betina thought, because I have never known so much happiness …

And now there was this battered child saying, ‘I’m afraid.’

The Reverend Mother took Graciela’s hand. ‘Take your time, Graciela. God won’t go away. Think about it and come back and we can discuss it.’

But what was there to think about? I’ve got nowhere else in the world to go, Graciela thought. And the silence would be welcome. I have heard too many terrible sounds. She looked at the Reverend Mother and said, ‘I will welcome the silence.’

That had been seventeen years earlier, and in that time Graciela had found peace for the first time in her life. Her life was dedicated to God. The past no longer belonged to her. She was forgiven the horrors she had grown up with. She was Christ’s bride, and at the end of her life, she would join Him.

As the years passed in deep silence, despite the occasional nightmares, the terrible sounds in her mind gradually faded away.

Sister Graciela was assigned to work in the garden, tending the tiny rainbows of God’s miracle, never tiring of their splendour. The walls of the convent rose high above her on all sides like a stone mountain, but Graciela never felt that they were shutting her in; they were shutting the terrible world out. a world she never wanted to see again.

Life in the convent was serene and peaceful. But now, suddenly her terrible nightmares had turned into a reality. Her world had been invaded by barbarians. They had forced her out of her sanctuary, into the world she had renounced for ever. And her sins came flooding back, filling her with horror. The Moor had returned. She could feel his hot breath on her face. As she fought him, Graciela opened her eyes, and it was the friar on top of her trying to penetrate her. He was saying, ‘Stop fighting me, Sister. You’re going to enjoy this!’

‘Mama,’ Graciela cried aloud. ‘Mama! Help me!’