Bay of Secrets (42 page)

Her grip was surprisingly strong. ‘Yes, yes I do.’ Ruby almost felt that she was agreeing to something more. But whatever it was, she was willing. She trusted this woman. She wanted to help.

Sister Julia seemed satisfied. ‘When you have gone to Los Lagos,’ she said. ‘When you have gone as far as you can on your journey – for now – will you return here to the convent to see me?’

‘Of course I will.’ She would come and tell her what had happened, what she had discovered, whether or not she had found Laura.

‘Because there is a story I must tell you,’ she said.

‘Oh?’

‘An important story.’ She nodded. ‘It is the reason you have been sent here to me, my child.’

After the young woman had left, Sister Julia retreated to her simple whitewashed room on the first floor of Nuestra Señora del Carmen. She sat on the wooden chair, leant on the desk and bent her head into the cradle of her own arms. ‘Dear God, dear God,’ she murmured. ‘She has come.’ She had waited so long. She closed her eyes and felt a sense of peace such as she had never known before begin to drift over her. But it was not yet complete. There was still more that she must do.

After a few moments, she raised her head and got to her feet. Sometimes, it was hard even for a woman of the cloth to stay serene. For so many years she had done what she could to help those poor unfortunate women in their times of trouble. She had listened to their stories and she had given them what small comfort she could. She had spoken out to those in authority when she had felt able to do so and she had prayed to God – oh, how she had prayed to God to show her what to do. And then of course she had started writing her book of names … It all seemed so long ago now. But, she had made her record of the women, of the adoptive couples, of the children. It had been a risk but she had felt it was all she
could do. Wasn’t she simply a poor and powerless nun? Wasn’t she too at their mercy?

Perhaps. And yet … She stood by the arched window and looked out on to their small circular courtyard with the fig tree and the fountain. She had stood by. She had allowed it to happen. She had been complicit in it all.

Sister Julia sighed. It was a heavy burden to bear. When she had first come here to Nuestra Señora del Carmen, she had indeed tried to help the villagers, tried to atone for whatever wrongs she had done. If she could give spiritual guidance and comfort to others, she had thought, if she could spend her days in meditation and prayer, then would not God give her a sign? Would He not show her what she must do? Would He not forgive her and allow her to rest in peace? But for years she had struggled with the knowledge in her heart. And it had seemed sometimes that the struggle would go on until the day that she died.

Reading the story – her story, she reminded herself, the story of the
Niños Robados
 – in the newspaper had brought it all back. The pain, the suffering, the tears … But it had also brought back the memory of the deception, the corruption. And she had come to the conclusion that she must bear witness.

Outside in the courtyard, Sister Josefina and Sister Maria walked, not talking, but in silent companionship. Sister Julia watched them. Not for her, the calmness of spiritual retreat, the contentment of silence, reflection and prayer. Inside her there had been a battle always raging, a need to unburden,
and the uncertainty of not knowing how. Enrique Marin had been right that day on the cliff top. For if there had been anyone she could have told of her part in the story of the stolen children, she would have done so. But it seemed there was no one. And so still she hesitated. She wanted to bring forth her book of names, she wanted the records to be available for those who needed them, those who had been involved. A mother, perhaps, who had never believed her child had died and who now wanted to trace him. A son or daughter who now knew of their adoption and who desperately wanted to seek out their birth mothers. She could help those people. But she did not know how to do it. She was a nun, alone in the world and living in retreat. She spoke to so few people. How could she bring this about? She had needed something sent from God to help her. She had needed a sign. And now this.

Sister Julia moved again to her desk and opened the drawer. She took out the delicate white tablecloth made of lace. The things Enrique Marin had told her that day … First, as they sat there on the dark overhanging rock, overheard only by the ocean, he had told her of his life as a struggling artist. The dilemma he had felt about giving everything to his art when he had a wife to care for at home, the resentment at having to tend to the goats and the small-holding when he could have been painting. And then the overwhelming joy when his work began to be recognised, when people paid good money for his paintings, when people stopped him on the street.

‘It went to my head, Sister,’ he said. ‘I make no apology. It went to my head.’

Sister Julia had seen more than enough of life to understand how fame could damage a person. How a person might lose his perspective and abuse his power. Hadn’t she witnessed a similar scenario with Dr Lopez in Barcelona? He hadn’t been famous, of course, but he had been highly respected and looked up to as a figure of authority who always knew what was best. His head must have been turned. And he had hidden behind the words of God to satisfy his greed and his cruelty. Sister Julia’s motivation had never been primarily to see him punished – God would forgive or punish him as He saw fit when the doctor’s time came; if it had not come already. It was not Sister Julia’s job to judge another. And neither would she judge the man here before her now.

‘And what did you do, my son?’ she asked him. Though she knew. She knew as soon as he began his story that this was the husband of the woman in the village who had come to see her many years ago. Who had given her this delicate white tablecloth of lace. Sister Julia could still see the look in the woman’s dark eyes as she had told her story, could still feel her despair. Sister Julia had often prayed for her. She had been hurt, disillusioned, disappointed. Such was the way of the world.

‘I am not proud of all these things,’ Enrique Marin had told her, his eyes still fierce as he stared out at the ocean. ‘But there is more.’

And Sister Julia remembered what she had always felt about that woman’s story – that there was more.

Now, Sister Julia sat down on the chair once again. She was weary. These days, she was so often weary. But at last she had been sent a sign. She clasped her hands together. ‘Thank you, God.’ This young woman – Ruby – had come from who knew where. A young woman looking for her mother. A journalist. No sign could be clearer. Now, she could tell her story. She could tell her story to Ruby. And Ruby would tell it to the world. Justice would be done. She would give to Ruby the book of names and then at last she would be free.

On the desk was a bottle of water and a glass and Sister Julia poured herself some with a shaky hand. But would there be enough time? Her own time was near. Would the young woman come back as she had promised? Sister Julia sipped the water. She must trust that this would be so.

Enrique Marin had talked of his son and Sister Julia had listened. Fathers, sons … Mothers, daughters … It seemed that she was destined to be involved in such matters.

‘He left home many years ago,’ Enrique had said. ‘And in his position, I would have done the same.’

Sister Julia bent her head. Enrique Marin had gained self-knowledge. And this was something that many men in an entire lifetime never found.

‘I was a bitter, jealous man.’ Enrique Marin paused as the wind blew and the tide rolled into shore, the water cascading on to the black rocks, spraying a fountain of spume. ‘I blamed him for something over which he had no control.’

And after he had told her the whole story, Sister Julia had let out a long sigh. Her own troubles still hung so heavily in her heart.

But, ‘You can tell me, Sister,’ Enrique Marin had said. ‘I am here. I am no one. Just a man. This is just a deserted cliff top. You can tell me.’

And Sister Julia had looked into his dark flinty eyes and she had told him her story. As the gulls shrieked above them and the waves crashed below, she told him the story of what had happened in Barcelona. Everything that she had seen, everything that she had witnessed, everything that she had done.

‘Please God that those names will not be lost,’ she said, when she was finished. Perhaps, as she had told the young woman, Ruby, it was the compelling nature of the man – the look in those dark eyes – that had made her tell her story. Perhaps she needed the release for her own peace of mind. Or perhaps she told him simply because she believed that he should know. Perhaps indeed everyone should know.

Sister Julia opened the drawer in the writing desk once again and put aside the tablecloth, lovingly stitched by Reyna Marin. She held for a moment her own mother’s worn gold wedding ring and the embroidered sampler she had made as a girl. She picked up the old sepia photograph of herself and her two sisters, Matilde and Paloma. All gone now. Her family was gone and Sister Julia was alone. But hadn’t she been alone for such a long time?

And she took out her book of names.

Could she have done anything differently? Perhaps. But she was weak, and like Enrique Marin, she was human. And she was indeed as guilty as he.

But if only she could help the children … That was what she had always wanted. For they were the innocent, the helpless. They had done nothing. And it was every child’s birthright to know the truth of how they came into this world. Some might not want to know. But for the others … Most records had been destroyed. But Sister Julia had worked at the Canales Clinic for a long time. And this book could help so many of them. Sister Julia touched the plain cover. It gave no clue as to what was inside.

Sister Julia thought once more of the young woman – Ruby. She had so much passion. She had loved the parents who had brought her up, but how desperately she still needed to know the truth. The truth. This was important to Sister Julia too. She had done wrong, they had all done wrong. But she could do this one thing. She could tell the truth.

Sister Julia opened the book and read the list of names on the first page. Now there could be some atonement for those sins. And perhaps Sister Julia could find complete peace – at last.

Andrés was unprepared for the feelings of nostalgia that swept over him as the plane began its descent. He caught glimpses of the
campo
as they moved through pockets of cloud. The desert landscape of his childhood seemed unchanged at first. As desolate as ever, it stretched out beneath him in ochre, sand and grey rock tracked with paths and ancient walkways as the plane came in from the north, following the coast line; mountains almost as old as time, their peaks obscured by wisps of cloud. From the east coast, the plane banked out to sea, the fierce blue of the ocean shifting from lacy turquoise at the shoreline to deepest navy, the wing dipping as the plane turned, almost to the south of the island now, so that it could land into the wind.

As they descended, the cloud cleared as if they had emerged from a mist, and now Andrés could see the changes. The stark artificial green of the golf course (using God only knows how much of their precious desalinated water) the chemical blue of the swimming pools, the orange complexes of tourist villas. But it would not be like that in Ricoroque. He sat back and watched the gentle sway of the ocean as the plane prepared to land.

The warmth enveloped him as soon as he emerged from the plane, while inside the terminal it was the smells – Spanish cigarettes, bitter coffee and olive oil; smoked ham and sun cream. It had been a long time but it was beginning to feel like yesterday.

Andrés collected his hire car from the airport car park and set off, heading north. He had pulled out all the stops to get this last-minute flight. And he hadn’t told any of them he was coming – not even Ruby. Why not? He supposed he didn’t want them to prepare themselves; he wanted to return with as much spontaneity as he had left with. And as for Ruby … First, he had to find out the truth. He gripped the steering wheel more forcefully. Only then could he think of Ruby.

He took the bypass around the capital and almost immediately the landscape altered – away from the urbanisation of Rosario. This rural area, these small, scattered villages were much as he remembered. In seventeen years they had hardly changed. Small, squat stone houses and white churches. Smallholdings. Ruins. A bar and a grocery store. Andrés resisted the impulse to stop for a beer. As he drove, he was conscious of the smoothness of the road surface – a contrast to the rugged rocks and eroded mountains which cast deep shadows on the villages below.

Some things were very different, yes. And some were the same.

Andrés opened the window rather than turning on the car’s air-con. The warm air seemed pure and fresh – he wanted to breathe it in great lungfuls; it tasted so different from
the air in England. He had missed it, he realised; grown used to pollution and not being able to see the stars in a clear night sky.

Andrés thought of the summer exhibition. He’d put everything he had into it, but now it hardly seemed important. Anyway, the work was all done and one of his colleagues, Susie – who did ceramics and rented the studio next to his – had agreed to cover for the periods on the welcome desk which should, according to the rota, be his responsibility. Just before he left Andrés had put the finishing touches to his own section of the exhibition space and placed a red sticker on his central piece – the painting of the cliffs at Chesil Beach. It wasn’t for sale. He knew where that was going.

It was late afternoon and already the light was changing. The soft beam of the sun on the pink and brown mountainsides was sharpening into the bitter yellow light he remembered so well – the light he had loved to paint in, to capture; the light that sent shafts of green on to the white houses and the golden sand. It was an other-wordly light that transformed this bleak scenery into an almost lunar landscape; a unique light that made him catch his breath, that Andrés had not seen since he had been gone.