She was even more surprised when, after the service, he approached her outside the sacristy as she was about to pick up Lucy, and beckoned to her. He seemed nervous and distraught; curiously, these emotions seemed to give life to what Marlene had always considered an utterly unmemorable, middle-aged face.
“I wanted … my, this is difficult! I wanted to let you know that Isabella is safe and well. As is Hector.”
Astounded, Marlene blurted out, “Whaaat! How the f-I mean, Father, how do you know? Do you know the kids?”
“Yes. Hector I know quite well. In fact, he often stays here at the church. A very sad child. Much abused and, you know, not quite right in his mind. I’ve only seen his sister once. A beautiful child, and devout. The one time she was here-”
Marlene interrupted, “Please, Father, where are they now?”
The priest hesitated, clearing his throat several times, an irritating sound. “Well, I saw Hector just last evening. Isabella is … in good hands. She’s away from the City, in fact, which I think is a good thing.”
“She’s in danger, isn’t she?”
“Hector certainly thinks so. He calls them soldiers, but we believe they are agents from … the regime, in her original country.”
“Guatemala,” said Marlene.
The priest looked surprised. “She spoke to you?”
“No, but we figured it out. As far as I know, she only spoke at any length to one person, my daughter, Lucy. And her brother, of course.” She gave him a close look. “Is he here now?”
A significant pause. “I really couldn’t say,” answered the priest uncomfortably. “He often comes into the rectory in the evenings.”
Marlene changed the subject. “Do you know anything about their parents?”
“Not a thing. Hector is remarkably tight-lipped about it. Fear of authority, and no wonder! I haven’t notified the juvenile people about him for that reason. I think if I did he’d run completely, and live a … depraved life, on the streets. You know, the Church used to care for strays like him all the time, informally. Maybe there’s something to be said for it, the personal or spiritual approach, rather than everything being bureaucratic.”
Marlene gave him a smile so bright that he blinked. She couldn’t have agreed more.
In the car, Marlene asked Lucy, “What did you learn about today?”
“The forgiveness of God,” said the child shortly.
“And do you forgive me?”
“I guess,” said Lucy without enthusiasm. “I miss Isabella.”
“So do I. Father Raymond says he knows where she is and that she’s safe.”
Lucy’s face lit with interest. “Where is she?”
“He wouldn’t say. I think he promised that he wouldn’t.”
“Are you going to find her? Please, Mommy!”
“You know, I think I will. I think that if she’s being chased by the kind of people I think she’s being chased by, they’re not going to be slowed down much by a bunch of nuns. And I’d like to see if she has any relations in town. It would help a lot if I knew her last name. You don’t happen to know, do you, Luce?”
“No,” said Lucy. Aha! thought her mom.
Later, having served a mighty breakfast of French toast, and his lordship having gone out to shoot hoops in the Village, Marlene was washing up and handing the dishes to her daughter for drying when she remarked, “You know, I was thinking: it’s pretty easy to decide between doing bad and doing good, but it’s a lot harder to decide between two kinds of good. Like, I broke my promise to you, but I really helped Daddy, and like, it’s wrong to tell a lie, but sometimes we tell lies to avoid hurting people’s feelings.”
“White lies,” said Lucy.
“Yes. Look, put down that plate and look at me. You’re seven, which is supposed to be the age you become capable of making moral choices. Let me ask you to make a moral choice. I think Isabella told you her full name, and you promised not to tell anyone else. I think that some very bad men from her old country are chasing her, and that’s why she ran away. Now, I think that if I had her full name, I could find some relative who might know what the danger was, or where Isabella was, so I could help protect her. Now, maybe nothing will happen. But maybe you keeping your promise prevents me from finding her before the bad guys do. You have to choose, and you have to bear the moral responsibility for whatever happens.”
“But she’ll hate me if I tell.”
“Yes, she might. In which case you have to decide whether you want Isabella safe and hating you, or loving you and hurt or dead.”
Marlene’s heart broke as she watched her daughter’s eyes fill with tears, but she held her tongue and resisted the urge to sweep the child into her arms and roll back the implacable years. Suddenly, Lucy sniffed loudly and turned away and ran clattering out of the kitchen. She was back in a moment holding out at full arm’s length a piece of folded notebook paper. Marlene took it and spread it out.
Around the outside of the page was a garland of lush flowers, heavily outlined, executed in colored pencil. Birds in yellow and green, beautifully rendered in the same bold style, were set among the blossoms. In the center was written, in a smooth, antique, schoolroom hand: Lucy, Yo Te Amo, Su Amiga, Isabella Conception Chajul y Machado.
Marlene swallowed a lump and said, “Good call, Luce. Now, do you happen to know her mommy’s first name?”
“Corazon,” said the child, and then collapsed, wailing, in her mother’s arms.
“That sounds like a Maya name, that Chajul,” said Ariadne Stupenagel over the phone. “You say they’re Guatemalans?”
“We think so,” said Marlene. She had called Stupenagel for help with finding out where a Church-connected underground would stash a kid from Guatemala. Stupenagel was one of two people she could think of to call, and the other one, Mattie Duran, was unlikely to have any Church contacts.
“Where from in Guatemala?”
“We don’t know that either. Lucy was babbling something about San Francisco, but apparently there are dozens of-”
“Could it have been San Francisco Nenton?” Stupenagel asked carefully.
“Possibly. Why?”
“Jesus!” A shriek.
Marlene had to take the phone from her ear. “What?”
“Marlene, in November of the year before last, a special unit of the Guatemalan Army, trained by the U.S. government, entered the village of San Francisco Nenton and massacred the entire population, 434 men, women, and children. Or so we thought. God, I’ve got the trembles, Champ! If this fucking kid is an eyewitness to the Nenton massacre … my God, the junta would go crazy if they knew she was wandering around in the States. And you say she’s got a brother to confirm it? Christ, Marlene, you got to find her. And let me have first crack at her, of course.”
“Of course,” lied Marlene. “But look, what about my original question?”
“Oh, who they’d shunt her to for cover? God, I couldn’t begin to figure …”
“What about those nuns you mentioned that time-the Sisters of Perpetual Dysentery? Are they in the States?”
“Damn! You’re right, I must be getting senile. I’ve been so focused on this cab driver thing. They’re the Sisters of Perpetual Help.”
“I never heard of them,” said Marlene.
“No, they’re small, and they only turn up where nobody else’ll go. A daughter house of the Poor Clares, I think. They’re all R.N.’s or nurse practitioners, plus they’re all cross-trained in mucky stuff-agronomy, sanitation. They jump out of airplanes too. A far cry from the penguins. They have a rest house someplace in Jersey. Just a sec, I’ll get it for you.” Clunk and rustlings. “Yo. It’s in Chester, Pee Ay.” She read off the address. “By the way, speaking of the cabbies …”