Undercover (15 page)

“Ariana Gregory.”

“Let me show you to a room, and you can stay with us for as long as you like.” Ariana nodded like a child who had found her mother who was going to save her from all the terrible things that had happened to her, or tell her it was just a bad dream and she was safe. “When you settle in, we can go for a walk in the garden.” She smiled broadly then. “The sisters will be so happy to have you. We're preparing the beds now to plant our summer vegetables next month. Do you like to garden?”

“I don't know how,” Ariana admitted sheepishly. To her, like so many others, vegetables just appeared magically on her table, and she had no real idea how they grew.

“Well, we'll teach you. There's nothing more exciting than when carrots come up, or tomatoes…we grow some wonderful basil. Sister Luisa makes delicious pesto. Her family is Italian.” She chatted easily as she walked Ariana up a flight of stone stairs, down a hall, and to a small room. They were rooms they kept for people on retreat, or other guests who just came to rest and pray. The room was small and bare. It was far from everything she knew and looked like a haven from all the terrifying and confusing memories she now carried with her. “Did you bring anything with you?” She nodded, thinking of her small bag in the car, with the aviator's box in it. She felt as though Jorge had given her a sacred mission, and she couldn't let him down, so she was keeping the box with her, like the Holy Grail.

“Why don't you put your things away, and change into comfortable shoes, and I'll tell Mother you're here.” They went back down the stairs together, so Ariana could get her bag out of the car, and the nun drifted off and disappeared through a door, to find the mother superior peeling potatoes in the kitchen. They shared the chores equally, and it was Mother Elizabeth's turn to peel potatoes. She always said it was a wonderful opportunity to pray, and her eyes lit up as soon as she saw Sister Mary approaching across the big kitchen. Mother Elizabeth had a look of joy and laughter in her eyes, and always seemed as though something wonderful had just happened.

“We have a visitor,” Sister Mary said with a serious expression, still shaken by all she had just heard, although she hadn't shown it. “She's the daughter of the ambassador to Argentina, the one who was kidnapped in Argentina a few months ago. They rescued her ten days ago but her father died and now she's here. She sounds frightened and confused. I gave her a room, and she said she'd like to stay with us.”

“Can she peel potatoes?” the mother superior asked with a grin, and Sister Mary smiled in answer.

“She doesn't look it.”

“We'll teach her. I'm glad she's here. It will do her good, and us as well,” the old nun said, unimpressed by what the younger nun had told her. The superior was a small wizened old woman with just a hint of an Irish accent. She had come from the old country at sixteen, and the following year had come to the monastery, and had been there ever since. She was well into her seventies and, despite being cloistered, was unusually wise to the ways of the world. “This is a good place to be while she recovers. Does she have a mother?”

Sister Mary shook her head. “It sounds like she has no one.”

“Well, she has us for now. Take her out to the garden. I'll come and see her when I finish these.” There was a mountain of peeled potatoes in the huge pot next to her. And the choir singing had stopped. Sister Mary knew that most of the nuns would be working in the garden for the rest of the afternoon. It would be a good place for Ariana to meet them.

In her room, Ariana unpacked her suitcase and put the aviator's box under the bed. She put on running shoes for her visit to the garden and went downstairs and found Sister Mary waiting for her. They went through a back door into an enormous walled garden that looked like the Garden of Eden. It was full of neat planting beds where they would plant tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, squash, lettuce, and peas later on. And Sister Mary told her that they grew herbs all year long. Half a dozen nuns were quietly working, and they turned to smile at Ariana when she and Sister Mary approached. They had been silent and used their gardening as a time of contemplation and prayer, but with a visitor in their midst they began speaking, as soon as Sister Mary explained that she had come to stay with them.

“That is good news!” a young nun said with a broad grin. She looked about Ariana's age, and wore a different habit from the others. Sister Mary said she was a postulant, and had been with them for almost a year. She was due to become a novice when she'd been there for a full year. The others were in their thirties and forties. And one of them looked to be about sixty. She was heavy-set and looked jolly. “I can use some serious help with the tomatoes when we plant them,” the young nun said, and rolled her eyes as the others laughed.

“Sister Paul is still trying to learn about the garden,” Sister Mary explained.

“No, I'm not,” she corrected. “I'm just trying not to kill it!” And as she said it, the mother superior came up behind them with a warm look and smiled at Ariana.

“Sister Paul is our prayerful challenge. We have to pray her vegetables back to life.” They all laughed as she said it, and Ariana did too. They seemed to have a peaceful community, doing simple things, and enjoyed the life they led and one another.

The women chatted for a while and went back to work, preparing the soil with nutrients, and Ariana volunteered to help Sister Paul. The two young women liked talking to each other as they worked, and Mother Elizabeth signaled to Sister Mary to leave them together. By dinnertime, Ariana was exhausted, her hands were filthy from the earth, and she washed them for the first time all day, which was a change from her frantic guilty hand-washing in the days before she came. And Sister Marianne in the kitchen, a daunting old nun with a serious face, asked her to help shell the peas for their dinner that night. It was a first for Ariana, and she felt victorious with every pea that fell out of the pod into a bowl.

“Watch out, she's scary,” Sister Paul had whispered to Ariana when she left her, but Ariana rapidly discovered that Sister Marianne only looked that way, and was full of praise if you did what you were told. Then Ariana helped set the table for the eighteen nuns who lived there, and sat down to dinner with them shortly after. Conversation was lively at the table because she was among them and she was the center of attention, although no one asked what had brought her to the convent, they knew better. They were just happy to have her with them. The priest came to hear confessions and serve mass after dinner, and he spoke to her for a little while, and offered to hear her confession. She told him in the darkness of the confessional that she was responsible for the deaths of many men, if you included her driver and the men in Jorge's camp who had died because of her, and a baby. She estimated that she had killed ten men, including her father and lover, and their unborn child. And she was stunned when the priest gave her only one Hail Mary as penance. Mother Elizabeth had already told him about her and who she was.

“That's all?” Ariana said about the meager penance, which seemed far too light to her. Although her parents were, she hadn't been a regular churchgoer in several years, especially during college, but had started attending mass more regularly in Argentina, because her friends did, and she liked going to church with them. It was part of the culture, tradition, and social life there.

“That's all,” the young priest confirmed when he came out of the confessional. “Just one Hail Mary, for
you.
I want you to forgive yourself, Ariana, and the pain you are putting yourself through now. You did not kill any of those people. They all died as a result of their own actions, not yours, except for your father. But he was not a young man, and it must have been his time, sad as that is for you. What you need to do is forgive yourself for these men who died, for what happened to you, which was not your fault but theirs, and even the baby you lost, whom God knows was never meant to be, conceived in and because of your captivity. The
only
person you need to pray for and forgive is you. You did nothing wrong.” He said it in a strong, clear voice that startled her.

“Are you sure, Father?” she whispered, convinced that he was mistaken and being too forgiving.

“Absolutely, totally sure,” he said firmly. “Use your time here, and try to forget about all these things. The nuns at St. Gertrude's are wonderful people, and they're happy to have you.”

It made her confess one more thing to him, which didn't surprise him either. It was all of a piece with the rest, and a result of the kidnapping and the months she had spent as a prisoner of a very disturbed man, who had twisted her mind with his own insane ideas.

“I've been thinking that maybe I should stay here. Maybe this is how I could dedicate my life to the poor.” She was groping for some way to pay penance for what she considered her sins and he didn't.

“Join the order, you mean?”

“Yes. Maybe that's why I came here.”

“Do you think you have a vocation?”

“I don't know. Maybe I do.” She still thought Jorge was right and she needed to sacrifice her life to the poor, despite the fact that he had tried to extort twenty million dollars from her father, killed her driver, and kidnapped her, none of which were acts of virtue, which she still didn't see.

“Only you can know that,” he said quietly, “and if you truly have a vocation, it will emerge. But I believe that God wants you to live your life as you were meant to, marry, have children, be in the world you grew up in, not give up your life to atone for crimes you didn't commit. You have much to give the world, Ariana, and at the right time, you will. In the meantime, spend your days here with the sisters, and try to find peace. That is your only mission for now.” He was a wise man, despite his youth. He was only about ten years older than Ariana, but had grown up in a tough neighborhood in Boston. Still, what she had been through was beyond his realm of experience. It was hard to imagine, and it made the young priest angry just thinking about what Jorge had done to her. Ariana thought about what he'd said when she went back to her room. And after all her work in the garden, helping in the kitchen, spending time with the sisters, and talking to the priest, she slept like a baby, as she hadn't since before she'd been kidnapped.

Ariana spent the summer at St. Gertrude's in an atmosphere of peace and healing. She had planned to leave the convent in September, but when the time came, she didn't feel ready. It would be like leaving the womb. She still questioned herself about having a vocation, but Mother Elizabeth said the same thing as the young priest. As much as she would have enjoyed having Ariana among them, she felt that her place was still in the world for now, to do good where she could, not living a cloistered life. She had the strong feeling, even after praying about it, that Ariana was meant to go back to her own life and not stay with them. Mother Elizabeth had the sense that she wanted to join the order to punish herself, or to hide from the world, which was the wrong reason. She had committed no sins, and had been gravely injured by others. She just hoped that Ariana would recover from it one day. But she seemed to be healing at St. Gertrude's, and she stayed and spent Thanksgiving and planned to have Christmas with them, and put off leaving the convent until after New Year's.

She had dropped Sam Adams a note and let him know where she was, and he came to visit her there when he had business in New England in December. She looked healthy and well, and she was obviously happy living at the convent, but he could still see the pain in her eyes from everything she'd been through.

“How long are you planning to stay here?” he asked cautiously. He'd been beginning to wonder if she was planning to join the order, when he got a Christmas card from her, still at the same address at St. Gertrude's convent.

“I don't know,” she said softly, looking hesitant. “I thought I'd leave in January, but I have nothing to go home to,” she said sadly. The aviator's box was still under her bed. She still read Jorge's love letters but never his journals, which were too rambling and dogmatic for her. She had tried once or twice, but they were of no interest to her. His love letters still were. She was twenty-four years old, and the man who had kidnapped her for ransom and held her hostage for three months was the only man who had ever loved her. She had nothing to compare it to, to try and assess if it was real, which everyone else said it wasn't. Ariana still wasn't sure, and believed he had loved her deeply, whatever he had done to get her there. She expressed her belief again to Sam. It was obvious to him that eight months after her dramatic rescue, she was still heavily influenced by Jorge, in love with him, and defending what he'd done.

“I have an idea for you,” Sam suggested. He had mentioned it months before, but she hadn't been open to it, and he hoped she'd be ready now. Sam could sense that she needed more professional help than the nuns. “There's a deprogrammer in Paris, who is one of the best in the world. There are a few others in the States, but he's so good, the CIA has quietly used him for years, with outstanding results.”

“Do you think I need a deprogrammer?” she asked, looking shocked. She felt saner and more like herself than she had eight months before. She wasn't aware of how severely Jorge had manipulated her mind. And his beliefs were still firmly in her head. “I feel a lot better, and I'm happy here.” She still thought about Jorge and everything he'd said, but no longer every moment of the day. But Sam could still see the confusion in her eyes.

“You're living like a nun,” Sam said gently. “You're a twenty-four-year-old girl, paying penance for other people's sins. Wouldn't you like to be free?” She nodded and knew that what he said was true. She felt that as long as she was living in the convent, she was making up for what she had done, which was becoming less and less clear with time. She felt she was guilty, but she was less sure now of what.