“That’s exactly what they said,” said the old nun. She spoke abruptly, in snatches.
“He took one look at us three old women and obviously thought we’d be gullible enough to believe him,” said the nun with green eyes, laughing. She too was feeling relieved. “Anyway, it wasn’t so much what he said, as the way he said it. It was quite clear that they weren’t going to let us near you. Luckily, you didn’t need us.”
“Saved by cigarettes,” she joked.
“Cigarettes are very bad for you,” said the large woman.
“What have you got in that suitcase?” said the old nun sharply. She was suspicious.
“Sister, please,” chided her companion.
“No, it doesn’t matter. I’d be happy to show you,” she said, opening the suitcase on her knees and taking out the books. Scarlet and Black by Stendhal, Quousque tandem by Oteiza, the poems of Emily Dickinson, the anthology of Chinese poetry and the memoirs of Zavattini appeared on the table.
“You don’t have to take out anything else. Sister Martina is convinced,” said the nun with green eyes, picking up the memoirs of Zavattini.
“I didn’t need convincing,” said the old lady.
“Of course you didn’t, sister.”
The hostess came over with the coffee and had to make room for the tray. At that moment, however, the bus was going down a very bendy bit of the road and didn’t allow for such balancing acts, and so she picked up the cup of coffee and indicated to the hostess that she should take the rest away.
She looked out of the window. Beneath the copper-coloured sky of Bilbao, the mountains were black, but it was a very sweet blackness.
“Just look what I’ve found here,” the nun with green eyes exclaimed suddenly, as if startled. “Amazing!”
They all looked at her, including the hostess and the policeman with the red tie.
“Listen to this!” she said. She began reading a section from Zavattini’s memoirs.
While her daughter was ironing, Leroy’s wife gave us a cup of coffee, all the time talking about Van Gogh as if he were one of the family. The wing of the building where Vincent used to live is almost in ruins; only a few madwomen live there now. The nuns …
The nun with green eyes stopped reading and looked around to make sure that they were all listening. Then, emphasizing each word, she read the sentence that had so startled her:
The nuns referred to Vincent’s paintings as “swallow-shit”.
“Swallow-shit!” the nun exclaimed, opening her eyes very wide. “I can’t believe it! Van Gogh’s paintings swallow-shit!”
Irene took a sip of coffee. She didn’t know what to think. The nun was probably trying to cheer her up, to entertain her by talking about things other than bombs and policemen.
“You modern nuns have so much more heart,” said the large woman, emerging from the thoughts in which she had seemed to be immersed.
“That isn’t why I read it out,” said the nun. “I was just shocked to find those words the moment I opened the book. But of course, the age we live in has a lot to do with it, we are all children of our time. That’s how it was for the nuns who were working in the insane asylum where Van Gogh was staying. And we would react the same about certain things. Many of our mistakes are not properly speaking ours, they are the errors of the age we live in. But, forgive me, there I go sermonizing again.”
“That’s all right,” she said, flicking her ash into the plastic cup. She had finished the coffee.
“What I meant was that we’re not totally responsible for many of the things that we do, that the age we live in also plays its part.”
“Thank you for that.”
“I don’t know why you were in prison, but I’m absolutely sure that it all belongs firmly in the past, and that you have no reason to return there. Those people,” with a lift of her chin she indicated the area near the coffee machine, “have no right to pester you.”
“That’s what I think too. But they clearly don’t agree.”
She turned her head and looked behind her. The policeman who looked like a boxer and the one with the red tie were standing at the bottom of the stairs, talking. The hostess was doing her accounts.
“Look, I don’t want to meddle in your affairs, but I’ll just say one thing,” said the nun, leaning towards her and lowering her voice. “I’m sure you’ve got a family and friends to rely on, but if you want to come to our house, you’d be more than welcome. No one will bother you and you might feel safe there. There’s no shortage of work to do. Nobody gets bored.”
“That’s what I meant,” said the large woman. “Nuns nowadays do a lot of good, they have more heart than they used to. Do you know what they do?”
She gave a knowing smile.
“No, I don’t.”
“I’ll give you a clue. They could easily be wearing something that you yourself have on. And they would have more right than anyone to do so.”
“Do get to the point!” said the old lady, looking bored.
“The red ribbon,” said the large woman, ignoring the comment. “They look after people with AIDS. They share their lives with young AIDS patients. Admirable. Nobody wants to be bothered with sick people, whether it’s AIDS they’ve got or something else. That’s what society’s like nowadays, it’s awful. I myself …”
“You have no reason to complain,” the nun with green eyes said, interrupting her and smiling. “You’ve told us all about your own illness and we know that now you’re as right as rain.”
“Where is the hospice?” she asked.
“About fifteen miles from the city, by the sea. It’s a very beautiful place.”
“But damp, very damp.”
“On the one hand, I’ve no reason to complain, but on the other, I do,” insisted the large woman, and before anyone could interrupt her, she launched into a litany of all the mistakes her doctors had made.
The window was covered with drops of rain. They were like diamonds: diamonds the size of a chickpea or a pea or a grain of rice or as tiny as the diamonds used by watchmakers.
She sat there looking at the drops, and the third dream of the journey began to take shape in her mind. But this time she was daydreaming, with only her imagination to help her.
Third Dream
SHE SAW A beach, and on one side was a white house with blue windows, a villa built in the early part of the century in which — she learned this when her imagination allowed her to step inside — lived nine patients, five very young women and four very young men, all looking extremely depressed, and to help them there were four people, the nun with green eyes, the old nun, a male nurse and herself.
But what was she doing at the villa, apart from working as a nurse that is? At first, she couldn’t understand what her mission was, but at last, after going into a room, the floor of which was scattered with cushions, she understood that she must be doing what Margarita had done in prison: consoling people, but consoling them with the marvellous words to be found in books, not with ordinary, off-the-cuff clichés. Then, so that the dream could progress, she imagined the room full of people, and she saw herself sitting amongst the patients, reading to them from a book. But what was she reading to them?
She searched her memory for some beautiful fragment, and she remembered a few lines that she had copied out in one of her notebooks. It was the end of the first poem that Margarita had taught them:
Fight, my soul, for the hours and the moments;
Each hour, each moment, can give you all;
As when a captain rallies to the fight
His scattered legions, and beats ruin back
He, on the field, encamps, well pleased in mind.
Yet surely him shall fortune overtake,