Blood Flowers - Softcover

Mary Judith Ress, Judith Ress

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1440194580 ISBN 13: 9781440194580

Publisher: iUniverse, 2010

Synopsis

In 1969, Sister Meg Carney is fresh out of the Novitiate and sent as a missionary to Chile-just in time to witness the overthrow of the socialist government of Salvador Allende. In the aftermath of the brutal military coup, the priest she works with is murdered and she herself is the target of surveillance. Burned out, grieving over the loss of her compañero, Alfredo, and no longer the young nun who had set out so enthusiastically to bring God's word to the Chilean people six years earlier, Meg accepts an invitation from her Mother Superior to work in El Salvador where she will join Theo, her best pal from Novitiate days, and her former Novice Mistress "Queen Mum." Smugly feeling she is now a savvy missionary, Meg is soon set straight by Theo who tells her an entirely different revolution is taking place in El Salvador. Fed by Biblical refl ection rather than by Marxist analysis, Meg is soon caught up in events that bring revolutionary forces to a head. As Meg-a woman burdened by her vow of chastity-struggles with her religious vocation to serve the poor, she somehow manages to fi nd love and peace in the rawness of life.

About this title

About the Author

Mary Judith Ress is a journalist and editor who has been living and working in Latin America since 1970. Her non-fiction work Ecofeminism in Latin America won second place in "Best Gender Issues" at the Catholic Press Association in 2007. She has two grown sons and lives in Santiago, Chile.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Blood Flowers

By Mary Judith Ress

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Mary Judith Ress
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4401-9458-0

Chapter One

October 1, 1975

Meg glanced at her watch, then settled wearily back in her seat and lit a cigarette. 2:15 p.m. Another hour before the plane landed.

On the tray table, her leather notebook with the letter she'd started glared back at her.

Dear Aunt Kay, Once again, thanks for your generous contribution for buying yet another "pagan baby" and saving it from the jaws of hell.

Dear Kay, her fat, exotic Japanese aunt from New York. Meg must have written dozens of these bread-and-butter letters from Chile during the last five years to thank her for the checks she sent to "save the pagan babies."

When had that joke about the pagan babies started? Oh yes, Meg remembered, taking a long drag on her cigarette. It was the summer she and Theo traveled to New York for a last fling before the two nuns left for Latin America-Meg to Chile and Theo to El Salvador. Meg had done her mother's bidding and paid what was to be a perfunctory visit to this black sheep relative.

It was coming back now: the surreal apartment with its profuse assortment of antiques and erotic nudes jumping off the walls, Sumio quietly floating in and out to fill the sake cups. Meg never figured out if he was Kay's servant, her spiritual son, or her lover. Kay herself in a bright orange pants suit, bejeweled to the nines, layers of fat rippling all over her body. Not sexy, yet somehow sensuous.

Meg had been about five when her Uncle Joe moved his Japanese war bride and their little son, Chuckie, from her grandparents' farm outside Pittsburgh to out-of-visiting-range Syracuse. She suspected he made the move because the family never accepted Kay's "foreign ways." Joe died ten years later and Kay moved to New York and set up a boutique-no one was quite sure what it was she sold, but family gossip had it that her aunt was doing more than just getting by.

Meg squirmed in her seat recalling that visit. She had dragged Theo along and was slightly annoyed that her friend seemed nonplused by what Meg felt were her aunt's exhibitionist ways. Yet Kay had drawn them both out-and how she probed! Why had they decided to become nuns? How did one endure being celibate when the union of male and female was ordained by God himself? Why did they want to be missionaries in Latin America? Meg had been caught off guard by the frank questions, by Kay's black pin-point eyes gazing knowingly into her soul.

"I'll write you," Kay promised as she hugged her niece goodbye. "And every once in a while I'll include some money so you can save a pagan baby or a pagan adult from the jaws of hell."

I gave your last check to a young mother of four whose husband had been picked up by Chile's secret police several months ago and has not been seen since. He was a factory worker and I guess the dictatorship thought he was a subversive.

Mario. Factory worker, fantastic guitarist, community organizer. One of the latest in a string of friends who had disappeared under the Pinochet regime.

Meg crushed out her cigarette in the ashtray on the arm of her seat and snapped shut the metal top. That's the last one, she promised herself. No smoking in El Salvador.

With six years of experience in Chile under her belt, she was now heading for another country under military rule. From what she'd read, El Salvador had been headed by one general or another for the last hundred years. Even so, it can't be as bad as Chile, she thought. Meg glanced at her dull, scuffed reflection in the plane's window. She could make out some gray in her sandy blond hair, some lines around the eyes-they seemed a darker blue then the last time she looked in a mirror. How long ago was that? She couldn't remember. She tried out the old winning smile she knew was her best asset. It still worked if she tried hard enough, she thought, sighing with relief. Just a bit out of practice. Funny how her mouth felt as if it had tightened over the years. Well, no one, not even Alfredo, ever praised her for her voluptuous mouth.

Meg appraised the rest of her and decided she was still relatively attractive. Five feet four and 120 pounds with the map of Ireland printed on her face, as her Da used to say. Back in the Novitiate, Molly had convinced her that she was Aphrodite incarnate. "You prove all my relatives wrong, Meggins," Molly was fond of telling her. "My Uncle Micky thinks the convent is a stomping ground for the world's plainest women. Uncle Charlie bets that most nuns have been jilted by their fiances. And my cousin Bridie believes we're all closet lesbians."

Because she was beginning a new mission, Meg had donned her lightweight gray rayon suit, complete with the mission cross on her lapel, and her sensible black pumps, the prescribed dress for a Sister of Charity. But she felt like a cutout that no longer fit. She wondered if she could go back to her hippy nun look of jeans and a sweat shirt once she'd rolled up her sleeves and got to work in El Salvador.

She leaned back and closed her eyes. Meg had to admit that she was burnt out. She was certainly no longer the young nun who'd set out so enthusiastically in 1969 to bring God's word to the Chilean people. Mother Ursula was probably right to reassign her. Besides, she knew that every move she made was closely watched by the secret police. She didn't mind them stalking her, but she didn't want to endanger Madre Rosa and Molly and her friends back in La Bandera, the shantytown on Santiago's south side where she had worked these past six years.

She reached for another cigarette, then remembered her resolution and restlessly folded her hands in her lap. Here she was, a thirty-four-year-old nun, a supposed expert in bringing Christ's love to Latin America's poor. That's what being a Catholic missionary was all about, wasn't it? God knows that message had no edge these days.

Good Lord, was she actually praying? Meg opened her eyes and sat up. How long had it been since she'd really prayed? How long since she'd felt God's presence, felt him breathing down her back? She fleetingly remembered a line from her Novitiate journal: "I want to act on a Big Stage, be part of a mythic epic where good conquers evil. I want to slay dragons, battle demons, and forge common pale flesh into sainthood. I want to get inside God!"

She absently twirled the silver ring on her left hand, a symbol of the religious consecration she made so solemnly on that July day in 1969. Who in the hell was she wedded to now? God? The Sisters of Charity? The Chilean people? The memory of her martyred Alfredo?

Meg glanced down at her weather-beaten notebook with the breastplate of St. Patrick engraved on the cover. A gift from her mother on Profession Day. She pulled out the photos she kept tucked inside the jacket. Despite her melancholy mood, she smiled as she cupped the first one in her hands for a moment, as if to warm it. The Three Musketeers! There they were-two versions of them-encased in a yellowing plastic badge embroidered with Theo's fine needlework. On one side, a photo of the three of them together on their Mission Sending Day. The date scrawled underneath was August 15, 1969. In dark suits, white blouses, and their newly placed mission crosses around their necks, they stared into the camera wide eyed, apprehensive about where their adventures in Latin America might take them. Although it was a black-and-white mug shot, Molly's hair was still a wild mass of unmanageable curls, her freckles black upon what should have been her always blushing face. Meg in the middle, a younger, happier likeness of the plane window's reflection. And Theo, the darkest of the three-and the most serious-her hair parted severely down the middle and tucked behind her ears. From behind her rimless glasses, Theo looked back at the viewer with her own peculiar mixture of curiosity and kindness.

Meg turned the badge over. There they were again, on the day they were clothed in the habit, three pairs of sparkling eyes squared off by newly starched coifs, grinning back at the camera as they held up their long gray skirts to reveal their handmade garters embroidered with "Jesus loves me." Meg chuckled softly as she remembered how, during the seven-day retreat leading up to their Clothing Day, she and Molly had crocheted the garters. Molly made one for Theo as well, who put it on laughingly as they slid into their new habits. When all three of them had gathered with their families in the Motherhouse courtyard after the ceremony and everyone began taking snapshots of the new novices, the Three Musketeers had gone public with their garters by hoisting up their skirts and striking an "oo-la-la" pose. Afterward, Sister Bernadette, their novice mistress, had royally chastised them for their show of exhibitionism and "scandalous behavior" on that most solemn of days in the congregation's life. They were duly reprimanded by having to scrub the refectory floor on their hands and knees for weeks. But the photo was salvaged and treasured.

The three of them had pledged to carry this badge of their friendship wherever they went. Meg's was crocheted in purple, her favorite color. Molly's in red, to match her hair. Theo's in olive green.

Meg sighed as she slid the badge back into the notebook's jacket. How long ago those happy-go-lucky days at the Motherhouse now seemed, when all they had to do was meditate on the meaning of the vows, learn to sing Gregorian chant without a "Blowin' in the Wind" beat, and debate keeping or ditching the traditional habit and veil of the Sisters of Charity.

Next she pulled out the only other photo-a snapshot of her team in La Bandera before the military coup. How thin and solemn they all looked. But then, they were all determined church workers set upon making Chile into a socialist state where the kingdom of God could get a good start ahead of most of the world. She and Molly now wore jeans and ponchos. Alfredo, with his black-as-coal beard and his pipe, looked for all the world like Che Guevara. Jos, also bearded, was a carbon copy Alfredo, only younger. Madre Rosa was a tiny, frail figure in her gray veil and green sweater. All except Rosa had their fists raised and their mouths in an open smile, because they were shouting presente for the photographer, who had come down from Newsweek to write about the election of their new socialist president, Salvador Allende.

The seatbelt sign flashed on as the pilot announced their final approach to the Ilopango airport in San Salvador. She put this last photo away and hurriedly finished her letter to Kay. I've been reassigned to El Salvador. I guess the community thinks I need a change. But it's so hard to leave after everything that's happened. I'm weary unto death of all the killings and the violence. Must close now. The plane's about to land. Will write more later. Whether they are the Buddhist or Catholic variety, just keep the candles burning in earnest for me and for my dear Chile. Love, Meg

Meg pushed her tray table into the seat in front of her and buckled up. The solution for it all this, of course, was to pitch her tent in another country, to lock horns with another repressive government.

At least she'd be with Theo again, her best pal from Novitiate days, her other self. Theo was a much better nun than Meg would ever be-or ever wanted to be. She was genuinely holy, the result of her bottomless acceptance of people. It was probably because she grew up dirt poor, even though she didn't realize it until she went to nursing school in Columbus. After all, she had two dresses-one with yellow daisies and the other with red tulips-both lovingly sewn from scratch by her mother. And she had a fine pair of sturdy brown oxfords, which she polished every night. All she needed.

To hear Theo tell it, she was raised as a free spirit in the Appalachia foothills of southern Ohio and allowed to roam the hollers to her heart's content with her dog Shadow, then one or another of Shadow's offspring. Theo said they were "farming folk" for as long as anyone could remember. She was the oldest of twelve kids. The whole family worked on their long-suffering piece of land outside Steubenville.

Her dad never did any other kind of work except farming, hunting, and fishing, and they only saw cash when he sold some rabbit skins or helped a neighbor seed his field. Only once did he get roaring mad, Theo said, and that was when somebody passing through the general store had called him "white trash." So what if they didn't have a car or a TV or a washer? So what if their toilet was outside? They had a fine radio in a mahogany case. They had a piano and every year it was tuned. The Katzes were Polish and held firmly to the belief that there had been a great musician among their ancestors. It was a good guess, because during their Novitiate days, Theo could easily hit all the high notes and was their class's top soprano.

Theo told Meg she always knew she would become a nurse. She'd learned about herbs and seeds from her mother, a shy, seemingly frail woman. But once Meg got to know Mrs. Katz, she understood where Theo's keen sense of observation of both people and the natural world came from, as well as her straightforward, no nonsense determination. Her friend told her she was happiest looking after her sisters-all twelve of the Katz kids were girls-but she was also in her glory when she could help the cows calf, or accompany Old Nelly when she birthed her foul. She didn't drop out of school like most of her sisters. No, she was "the smart one," Theo's dad confided to Meg on Clothing Day. He wasn't the least bit surprised that his daughter won a full scholarship to Ohio State. "Come back, Theo-y. Come back and be our nurse, pa-leeze?" But Theo couldn't. At least not before she'd try giving her life to God as a Sister of Charity. "It just seems to me the world should be a better place ... and I gotta move it along that direction," Theo told Meg on the first day they entered the convent.

Meg loved her friend dearly, even if Theo was terribly unsophisticated about political theory or even theology. Meg winced as she tried to picture her in Chile's urbane political circles with her spontaneous openness, her tactless questions. No doubt about it, she'd be an embarrassment. Thank heavens she had been assigned to Chile with Molly, the class intellectual and literary genius.

It would be fascinating to see how El Salvador had changed Theo. Would she still find herself drawn to her, despite her lack of sophistication and her gawkiness? She smiled when she remembered that her class had nicknamed Theo "Tweetie," because she was always flitting around helping everyone. There was something about Theo that centered her. What was it exactly? Some kind of plodding resignation to life as it unfolded? Would Theo still try to mother her? Did she want Theo to mother her? Probably. The Chilean experience was too raw not to want to cry on Theo's shoulder.

Besides Theo, there would be Sister Bernadette, their former novice mistress, Scripture scholar, and expert in the ins-and-outs of monasticism. After launching their class on the path of religious life, she'd decided at the age of sixty that she too was called to be a missionary and joined Theo in El Salvador. How would she be adopting to the rigors of mission life? Meg couldn't imagine this short, round nun, so proper in her bearing, now dressed in jeans and teaching Thomas Aquinas' proofs for the existence of God to Salvadoran peasants. But then Mum always surprised them with her versatility. During her twenty years as novice mistress, she managed to get inside each of her charges to find out exactly what it would take to turn that particular neophyte into a finely honed Sister of Charity.

Meg remembered with a nagging discomfort how "Queen Mum" could always read her heart. The long, deep look under shaded lids discretely observing you. Mum's face was ageless, and although she'd tried over the years, Meg couldn't imagine her as a young, frolicking girl. Good thing she was scheduled to return to the Motherhouse soon, and to a well-deserved retirement.

Back in the Novitiate, Mum would patiently listen to her unwind. Then, asking a question or two, she'd press Meg to find the answers for herself-whether the topic happened to be the nature of grace or the Blessed Virgin Mary as a manifest of the Great Goddess of Neolithic times or her objection to the symbol of the Holy Spirit as a bird. Yes, Queen Mum had helped Meg over some rough spots. If she was honest with herself, it was always the same "rough spot"-the infamous vow of chastity. One day she burst into the Novice Mistress's office and blurted out that she was lusting after the seminarian who cut the grass on the Motherhouse grounds, proof that she was called to be an airline stewardess instead of a nun.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Blood Flowersby Mary Judith Ress Copyright © 2010 by Mary Judith Ress. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: iUniverse
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1440194580
• ISBN 13: 9781440194580
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 284