Bay of Secrets (17 page)

The doctor made a strange noise in his throat. He lifted his hand and for an awful moment Sister Julia imagined he might strike Ramira. But, no. Of course he would not do such a thing. ‘What sort of future do you imagine you can offer him?’ he growled instead. And as he spoke, the doctor pulled away from the woman in the bed and again seemed to
grow in stature as he stood over her.
A woman like you
, he might have added – but did not.

Ramira breathed more easily as the contraction faded. ‘I am his mother,’ she said.

‘And do you think only of yourself?’ the doctor demanded. ‘A woman in labour with her child and she thinks only of herself.’ His voice rose.

Sister Julia suppressed a sigh. She rinsed out the flannel in the bowl of water by her side. Perhaps Ramira was being selfish. But could she blame her for desiring to keep the child she had nurtured in her own belly, the child who was a reminder perhaps of a love she had lost? For Sister Julia still remembered some of the patients at the hospital who were wives – women who had not fallen into sin at all. So many Republicans had either fled from the city in fear for their life or been imprisoned or executed for their political beliefs. She was not sure whether or not Ramira Baez was one of those women. But this unborn child might be all that was left behind.

‘It is my right to keep my own child,’ Ramira muttered.

Seldom had Sister Julia witnessed a woman strong enough to stand up to Dr Lopez. She almost wanted to applaud her, but of course that would be wrong. Most of these women were vulnerable and soon had their confidence and their wills crushed by the unquestioning authority of Dr Lopez, by his unshakeable belief that what he was doing was the Right Thing. What else could they do, they might ask themselves, in their situation? Even Sister Julia’s presence added to
the credibility of his argument – she knew that. Many women were grateful to the doctor and the clinic. To many, Dr Lopez performed what was seen as almost an heroic rescue.

‘You cannot be helped,’ Dr Lopez said to her in a tone of disdain. ‘You will not be helped.’ He turned away, intoning from the Bible as he so often did. ‘“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates and judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”’

Ramira’s eyes were bright with tears. But her mouth was clenched tight as another contraction came. Sister Julia supported her upper back and tried to rearrange her pillows to make her more comfortable. She was hardly in a position to assert herself. But she had.

‘I pity you,’ Dr Lopez said. ‘I pity you for being unable to see.’

The woman gasped with the pain. Sister Julia swept her dark hair from her sweating brow and laid the damp flannel back on to it.

‘I will be back.’ The doctor strode away and out of the door.

The midwife, who had been attending to another woman, hurried across to take over.

Sister Julia squeezed Ramira’s hand and Ramira looked up at her. A moment of understanding seemed to pass between them. And then Sister Julia saw on Ramira’s face that the pain had returned. And the moment was gone.

But Sister Julia looked down the length of the medical room, the walls of which were dingy and brown, the chipped tiles, the hard, uncomfortable beds, the trolleys of cold metal instruments, the sharp smell – of bleach and surgical spirit. She pitied these women too. She pitied them all.

*

Dr Lopez’s consulting room was on the ground floor at the far end to the front door – through which women in varying stages of pregnancy would enter and take their places in the waiting room to the immediate left; a dark, rather dismal room with hard wooden chairs and what Sister Julia could only describe as an air of grief about it. Although birth should symbolise hope and new beginnings and happiness, should it not? In an ideal world.

After lunch, Dr Lopez took afternoon appointments with the women before returning to the labour ward or delivery room for his final round of the day. At other times he would be attending births and examining the newborns. There were experienced nurses working in the clinic and two midwives who worked separate shifts, but Dr Lopez was very much in charge – even more in charge than he had been at the hospital. This was his domain.

It was one of Sister Julia’s duties to fetch the women when their appointment time came and to accompany each one down the long hallway that led to Dr Lopez’s sanctuary. This could be a daunting journey and Sister Julia hoped that her presence might put the women at ease.

The last patient that afternoon was Agnese Jurado – a girl
of about twenty in the early stages of pregnancy. Her eyes were large and dark in her heart-shaped face and her black hair was thick and lustrous and hung loosely down her slender back. She was very pretty. But she had such a look of sadness about her too. She reminded Sister Julia of her sister Paloma. Dear Paloma … How she missed her inconsequential chatter. How different it all was from the life she had now.

Dr Lopez sat behind his large wooden desk next to a glass-fronted bookcase full of medical journals and religious tomes.

‘Please sit.’ He indicated the low seat opposite his own somewhat higher, leather swivel chair.

Agnese sat, shoulders hunched, head bowed.

Dr Lopez nodded. He liked to see that women were remorseful and ashamed. Sister Julia waited. Sometimes the doctor requested her to stay, sometimes to leave. Today he indicated that she should remain.

He filled in Agnese Jurado’s personal details, writing laboriously and muttering every now and then to himself.

‘And who is the father of your child?’ he suddenly demanded.

The girl flinched. The lighting in the room was dim but the lamp on the desk seemed to be directed at poor Agnese as she stammered and stuttered her responses.

‘I do not know, doctor,’ she said, blushing furiously.

‘You do not know?’ His voice seemed to vibrate around the room.

Sister Julia watched the doctor pick up his heavy wooden crucifix from the desk. She knew what would come next. And it did. ‘“For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God”,’ he said sadly. ‘Romans. If you repent, my child, you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’

Agnese looked up at him, wide-eyed and terrified.

His voice rose, his colour heightened. ‘“The wages of sin is death.”’ He thrust the crucifix towards her.

Sister Julia began to pray too, silently.

‘I was raped, doctor.’ Agnese spoke so quietly that Sister Julia had to lean forward to hear her words.

Raped. Sister Julia held her breath. The poor girl. She waited for Dr Lopez to question her further.
When did this happen? Who was the man? Had she reported the incident to anyone?
There were many questions, were there not? And so many horrors in the city that even Sister Julia had not seen.

But he asked none of these questions. Instead he eyed the girl gravely. ‘You wish the child to be adopted,’ he said, in a manner that was not a question, in a manner that brooked no argument.

Sister Julia had to bite her lip to make herself remain silent.

The girl bowed her head. ‘I have no choice, doctor,’ she said.

‘Indeed, that is so.’ The doctor became almost brisk.

And Sister Julia could see that this was true; that clearly this was the best pathway for both Agnese and her unborn child. But it seemed so speedy, so unconsidered. The girl had been through so much.

‘Take her behind the screen,’ Dr Lopez told Sister Julia. ‘I will do the initial examination now.’

‘Yes, doctor.’ Gently, Sister Julia took Agnese over to the narrow bed on the far side of the consulting room where there was also a trolley with the doctor’s surgical gloves and instruments, a bin for soiled dressings and a washbasin. ‘Please undress,’ she said, drawing the curtain, trying to convey her sympathy with her eyes. She could do no more. It was not her place. But her heart went out to the girl.

Dr Lopez’s manner became almost jovial as he carried out the examination. Was he simply trying to make Agnese feel more comfortable? She hoped so. He placed her feet in the stirrups and for a moment seemed to loom over the poor girl, who lay there with her frightened eyes wide open and her legs spread apart.

As if she is being raped again
 … Sister Julia thought this before she could stop herself. It was nonsense, of course. The girl had to be examined and Dr Lopez was not rough. Even so. Sister Julia stood to one side in case she should be needed. And once again she said a silent prayer.

‘You are approximately five months pregnant,’ Dr Lopez told Agnese. ‘Which confirms the date you provided.’

The date that she was raped, Sister Julia thought. How did a girl such as this one – so pretty and so innocent – recover from the trauma of becoming pregnant with her rapist’s child? And again she thought of Paloma. She too was pretty and innocent. It was a cruel world indeed that her God resided over.

After the girl had dressed, Sister Julia showed her out and arranged the next appointment for her. Her habit was to speak as little as needed, for this was what she had been told to do, but now she rested her hand on Agnese’s thin shoulder. ‘Please do not worry,’ she said. ‘You will be well looked after here.’ And she vowed to make sure that this was true.

‘Thank you, Sister,’ said Agnese.

Sister Julia shut the door behind her and returned to the doctor’s consulting room.

‘Two more visitors will be here shortly, Sister Julia,’ he said, rearranging his papers on the desk and looking at her over the half-moon glasses he had recently begun to wear. They did not, however, diminish the power of those eyes. On the contrary. ‘Please show them through when they arrive. And then you may go.’

The couple arrived five minutes later and she let them in. They were well-dressed – he in a smart suit and tie and she in a navy skirt and jacket and white blouse and wearing a lot of gold jewellery, her dark hair well cut to just above her shoulders. Sister Julia guessed they were about forty years old. They were the kind of couple that they saw a lot of at the clinic; the kind of couple who had money and a certain position in society. And who desired to adopt a child.

Dr Lopez greeted them effusively and waved Sister Julia away. ‘Your duties are done for today,’ he said, and closed the consulting room door firmly behind them.

Sister Julia lingered. She shouldn’t – but she was curious. There had been quite a few occasions when Dr Lopez had
made it clear he did not want her to know what went on behind his consulting-room door.

‘Good news and bad news, my friends,’ she heard the doctor say. ‘Which would you like to hear first, eh?’

‘The good news, doctor,’ said the woman. She sounded less cool and self-assured now. In fact, she sounded almost desperate. ‘Please tell us the good news.’

Sister Julia could imagine the doctor leaning towards them over his desk. He would tap his pen on the desk top and rearrange his papers into a still neater pile.

‘I have seen a girl,’ he said. ‘A good girl. And the father of the child she will have … ’ His voice dropped. ‘There is no replacement for the proper Nationalist values,’ he said. ‘You will not be disappointed with this child. I guarantee it.’

Sister Julia hurried off. She wanted to hear no more. She had been hoping to check up on Ramira’s progress, but now she simply had to get away. She collected her things and left the clinic, the door shutting behind her with a thud of the brass knocker. She looked back at it – a palm with ringed wedding finger holding a ball. It was ironic, she thought, considering the business of the clinic. Even the nameplate of the place was small and indistinct, as if it wanted to keep itself secret.

She followed the familiar streets which wound their way through the Raval quarter of the city, where the clinic was situated, close to the Calle Arco del Teatro. An unseasonal mist seemed to hang in the air. She was so confused about what she had overheard. What did it mean? Certainly the
couple had visited the clinic in connection with an adoption – this was not unusual. But had the doctor already arranged the adoption in question? Had he been forced to disappoint the couple in some way? And could he have been talking about Agnese Jurado’s baby? Could the father with the proper Nationalist values be the same man who had raped her? It seemed impossibly heartless for a man of the stature of Dr Lopez. Sister Julia hurried back towards Santa Ana. Of course the doctor cared for the welfare of the children – but shouldn’t he also show some compassion to the mothers? Especially girls like Agnese who had been treated so abominably during the aftermath of the Civil War.

Sister Julia looked around. It seemed to her that she could still feel the sorrow clinging like moss to the very city walls. The people in the streets had their sadnesses too; she could see it in the way they walked, the way they stood smoking in shop doorways, watching the world go by and maybe wondering what it was all for. She saw the shadowy forms of beggars and smelt the undertow of the city streets – the rotting vegetables, the stale urine, the city’s rubbish mingling with exhaust fumes and tobacco. And death, she thought. The sorrow lay in the shadows of the city. It was winter and soon darkness would fall. Still … Darkness was a veil, but it could not cover what this city had lived through; what Sister Julia had seen.

Men had been imprisoned and tortured because of what they believed. Women had been left to bring up their children alone – or to give them up in the hope that they would
have a better life. And girls like Agnese were raped and impoverished and then made to pay over again for the crime of having a sweet face and a body that men wished to possess.

It could not be right.

Sister Julia walked down the cobblestones towards Las Ramblas, past the milk bar and the empty market stalls. She thought of her family – of Mama and Papa and her two sisters. She saw them so rarely now; they only visited when there was family news to impart – once a year, if that. They all lived in the same city, yes, but now they lived so far apart. And her father never came …

The last time it had been her mother and two sisters who sat awkwardly in the foyer of Santa Ana waiting for her.