My dear Germán:
A couple weeks after the end of the spiritual exercises, the Mother Superior had us gather in the main courtyard at recess to present to us the new nun who’d come with the title of Treasurer. It was a new position. Until then it had been the Mother Superior herself who did the accounting and Sor Honorina who did the shopping and bought the groceries.
The first thing the Mother Superior told us was that Sor Evangelina Ponce de León belonged to one of the most famous and distinguished families in Colombia. That she had renounced her wealth and status in order to dedicate herself to the humble religious life. That we should be grateful to the Virgin for having sent us a woman of such distinction and piety who would accept the sad responsibility of looking after the economic interests of our modest home.
Sor Evangelina Ponce de León was of medium height, a little fat, pale like church wax, and had downward-sloping features. Her brown, pointy eyes drooped, her nose folded over itself, like a tilting hook, and her fine, pursed lips curved downward, toward the floor. Only her ample bust and her large backside had lift, as if pointing the way forward, and creating distance between her and others. All her pretension was reflected in those two parts of her body. Her sharp teeth were very white, and when she spoke it looked as if she might spit them out. Her hands were bony hooks with very long fingers. She spoke quite slowly, her head always held high, always looking down on us. When she had to touch us, during an observation or to make her way between rows of girls, or in the workshops, she did so only with the tip of her index finger, like someone touching something unclean or contagious. When the nuns referred to us in public or in private, they called us “little ladies.” Sor Evangelina called us “girls,” and when she was upset, “scamps.”
She, too, spoke that day the Mother Superior introduced her. She promised she would make various changes to the food and some changes to the distribution of work so we could make more money.
“Don’t forget you’re all here because of charity, and that you have to work to pay for what you eat. You can’t think that the world gifts us the food we give you, no. We have to pay for it with money, and that money we have to earn through our labor.”
She promised us that next year they might make us new uniforms for the feast days.
“We’ve also been thinking with the Mother Superior that we should pay more attention to your education. You should all learn to read and write, even if it’s just your own names. We’ll also teach you a bit of arithmetic; in life you have to know how to count. Geography. How many of you girls know what geography is? Surely none of you. Someday you’re going to have to go back out into the world, and out there geography is very important.”
The lessons began the next month. She’d come to the workshops for half an hour each day and, without interrupting our work, teach us math from memory. First she taught us to count to twenty, then she taught us that one plus one was two, and two plus one was three, and three plus one was four, and on and on until we got to twenty. She called that adding. Then she taught us to multiply. If we multiply two by two, we get four. It seemed to me that was just like adding—two plus two is four is the same as saying two times two is four. Monday was arithmetic. On Tuesdays we repeated the names of the letters from A to Z. She taught us there were only two letters that were doubles: Ll and Ñ. Wednesdays were geography, which she adored. She taught us what a river was, and the difference between a mountain and a hill. She said that each city, like each person, had a name, and she taught us the names of the most important cities in Colombia.
On Thursdays she’d teach us national history. She told us about a man named Simón Bolívar, who was the father of our country. She taught us to sing a verse about Bolívar that said:
“One hundred years ago, that immensely sad hero died by the sea. Bolívar is our father, our fatherland, our nation.”
She taught us what Atanasio Girardot proclaimed when he climbed a hill through a hail of enemy bullets: “Allow me, Father, to plant this flag atop this mount, and if it’s your will that I die today, I’ll die happy.” And boom! A bullet pierced his heart, and he collapsed dead, wrapped in the national flag.
The national flag was three pieces of cloth sewn together, one yellow, another blue, another red. The yellow signified the gold and riches of our land, the blue the water of the oceans that surrounded our country, and the red the blood of our heroes spilled on the battlefields.
On Fridays class was held in the large courtyard, during recess. We gathered in rows of ten. It was a gymnastics class, to make us grow and not stay so scrawny. We’d begin by lifting our arms toward the sky, then cross them, then stretch them in front of us, then fold them against our chests, then once more above, quickly to the back, to the front again. We’d finish with our arms hanging down, hands wide open. These exercises were accompanied by verses, which we all shouted in chorus:
Courage, young ladies!
Down with laziness!
If we work optimistically
We’ll soon be
Strong enough
To be young ladies
Worthy of honor!
Unfortunately that’s as far as our cultural education went. Sor Evangelina got sick, and neither she nor any of the other nuns ever gave us classes again. The first day that she taught the gymnastics class, she emerged from the cloister with Sor Honorina behind her, carrying a sort of wooden stool, cushioned and covered in red velvet. Sor Evangelina pointed to the spot where she wanted it, then climbed up, clutching Sor Honorina with the tips of her fingers and leaning her weight on her. Not only could she see all the way to the last one of us, but she could also talk down to us from above. As always, the little girls were in the front row. I was the first one, and next to me were the Santos sisters. Next to them, the two Vaca sisters, Teresa and Asunción. After the Vacas was Helena. Sor Evangelina watched her constantly, for the duration of the class. When it was over, she raised her hand slowly and with her index finger pointed to Helena and ordered her to come forward. I watched my sister step out of the row of girls, fear spread across her face.
“Come here, girl.”
From above, Sor Evangelina looked at her head and asked if she had lice. Helena said no, it was her sister who had them (and that was true: lice never left me alone). She rested her hand on Helena’s and climbed down from the stool, and with her finger signaled to Helena to carry it and follow behind her. From that day forward, Helena became Sor Evangelina’s slave. She had to follow her all day with the stool, and when they were in her quarters, Helena did all her chores, even shining her shoes, taking away her bucket of dirty water, carrying her clean water, and going to the kitchen a thousand times to bring her teas and broths and braziers with lit coal to warm her feet.
Beneath the chapel, in the Flores courtyard where Miss Carmelita stayed, there were three large rooms used for storing cloth and decorations. Sor Evangelina had them emptied, and that’s where she made her home. She didn’t follow the rules like the other nuns. She had all the privileges, almost more than the Mother Superior, because the Mother Superior ate in the cloister with the other nuns. Only Sor Honorina accompanied us in the dining room. But Sor Evangelina mostly ate alone in her apartment, and it was Helena who brought her her meals. The first few months, when we were still receiving our lessons, Helena slept in the Baby Jesus dormitory, same as me; but when Sor Evangelina fell ill, she had Helena move her mattress and sleep on the floor next to her bed, so she could call her at any time and Helena could pass her medicine, a glass of water, or whatever she needed. Her friends and family would visit her on Sunday afternoons, and that was the only day she didn’t keep Helena by her side. Instead, after lunch, she sent her to be with the rest of us.
Helena told me and my friends that Sor Evangelina was good to her, that she gave her half of her very good food, that she’d already made her two new sleeping gowns, and that she gave her lessons every day. Helena already knew how to count to a thousand and knew her multiplication tables up to ten. Sor Evangelina had taught her to read perfectly and had her read the life of the saints or the passion of Christ. One day she told us they were reading the story of a very young and very beautiful saint who’d had both her eyes taken out with spoons, her breasts cut off, and all of it placed on a large silver platter that had been offered to a rich and powerful man; but then the angels came down from heaven and took the saint to paradise. The rich man, who was very bad, had gone blind as God’s punishment. Another time she told us that Sor Evangelina had given her a book called Colombian Reader, which had many stories, but when Helena came to see us, she wasn’t allowed to bring anything.
In May, on the Virgin Mary’s feast day, the Santos sisters had their first communion. I don’t know who brought them those beautiful, long white dresses. On their heads they wore translucent veils held by crowns of blue and pink flowers. Because they were blond with light eyes, they looked lovely. They were allowed to wear their dresses all day, and they went from room to room so we could admire them. I watched them and touched them with terrible jealousy. I imagined God’s angels in heaven were just like them.
One day Helena came for me in the sewing workshop because the Mother Superior wanted to talk to us. We went to her desk, and she gave us the key to the dormitory so we could put on the smocks we wore to mass, wash our feet, face, and hands, and brush our hair. Helena was braiding my hair when Sor Evangelina appeared. She told me to take off those horrible black eyeglasses and said we were going to see the bishop and that we should kneel and kiss his hand when we reached him.
The bishop was waiting for us with the Mother Superior, in the same room we’d entered the day the nuns first brought us to the convent. When I kneeled, I saw that the bishop’s robes and socks were red, and I started to cry. No one understood why I was crying. The bishop tried to touch me, and I backed up against the wall. The Mother Superior told him how some Indians had abandoned us in a train station, and that other nuns and a priest had taken us in and then brought us here. Nothing was known about our family, and worse, it wasn’t known if we’d been baptized. They kept talking for a while longer, and then the other nuns arrived, all very agitated. Seeing me in tears, Sor Carmelita approached and asked me why I was crying.
“Because you’re going to give us to the Devil.”
“Which Devil?”
“Him.”
And with my finger I pointed to the bishop. They all fell silent. The bishop asked me very sweetly why I thought he was the Devil.
“Because I know him by his red dress.”
They all started laughing, except Helena, who slapped me across my mouth. She knew what the bishop wanted to say.
They took us to a chapel, and the bishop gave us confirmation, and then he gave each of us a silver medal with the image of the Virgin. He gave Sor Evangelina some money and told her that they should buy us whatever we needed. Sor Evangelina bought white cloth to make us underwear, and even made Helena a bodice, because her breasts were starting to grow and had to be flattened so they wouldn’t look immoral.
Sor Evangelina was tasked with preparing us for our first communion. Every day, after snack, Helena came for me, and we went to Sor Evangelina’s apartment. She sat in a large chair of dark green satin, and Helena placed the red velvet stool under her feet. We sat on the floor, Helena next to her, me a little farther.
It was around then I realized that Sor Evangelina loved Helena very much. She made her work as her servant, but she loved her. She petted her head constantly and found everything that Helena said or did to be marvelous.
I was bored to death sitting through the catechism lessons and the explanations of what the sacraments were and the commandments and the sins and that the communion wafer was the body and the blood of Christ. Most of the time I didn’t understand a thing she was explaining to us. Helena could already read and study the catechism; I had to learn everything from memory, and because I got so bored and distracted, nothing stuck.
Helena had a prodigious memory and easily learned things. Sor Evangelina said she was the smartest and prettiest girl in the whole convent. Helena’s superiority had given me a real complex. I hated everything that had to do with learning. I liked only to make up my own stories, to imagine things; instead of catechism and arithmetic, I would rather they let me play the piano or the harmonium, go to the yard and climb trees. I preferred the stories of Tarrarrurra to the stories of Sacred History. I liked embroideries because I could make up new stitches and new ways to do them. That’s why I favored Sor Carmelita, who said I was the only one who could replace her later. I don’t know if she meant it seriously, but destiny wanted it to occur, because the poor thing went blind.
But about the first communion: Sor Evangelina couldn’t stand my stupidity, and I felt she was starting to really hate me. One day she said:
“I can’t tolerate you anymore. Don’t come back. I hate people who are ugly and stupid, and you’re both.”
It was Sor María Ramírez who took it upon herself to prepare me for the first communion. Helena’s preparations with Sor Evangelina continued.
If you were to ask me who was the first love of my life, I would have to confess it was Sor María. It was a very strange love, as if she were my mother, my father, my brother, my siblings, and my boyfriend. For me, she represented all kinds of love and every shade of tenderness combined. She was tall, very thin, with agile and elegant movements, light brown skin, and penetrating black eyes that were also a little sad. Her facial features were perfectly balanced, but they were neither feminine nor masculine. I’d say they had no gender, but a beauty and equilibrium beyond gender. Sometimes she was a bit hard and masculine, and other times she possessed an extraordinary warmth and sweetness. She couldn’t have been very intelligent or educated. The fact that she was in charge of the ironing workshop said a lot about her standing. She told me her family was very poor, that she was the thirteenth of eighteen brothers and sisters. She’d been born in a tiny town near Cali. Because I was in the embroidery workshop, the most privileged one, I almost never saw her. She slept in our dormitory, but outside of morning prayers, I had very little to do with her.
I began to love her only when she was preparing me for communion. In the afternoons I’d go down to the ironing workshop, and we’d stroll through the courtyards and out to the garden. She’d hold my hand, or I’d hang on her waist. It wasn’t that I learned more with her than with Sor Evangelina, no, but it felt easier and clearer with her because she spoke more simply and also because I felt she loved me.
The preparation lasted for two months. Every day she brought me something hidden in her pockets, either a piece of candy or fruit or an image of a saint. I stole flowers, the smallest ones, from the yard, and I’d press them into her hands and ask her to keep them in her pocket at all times, so she could remember me when I wasn’t with her. When we passed by the doors or the places where she was sure no one could see us, she’d hold me tight and cover my face in kisses. I’d kiss her eyes and the tips of each of her fingers. When I saw her outside of our lessons, crossing the courtyard or a workshop, or simply walking into the chapel or standing for communion, my heart would begin to race and I would lose my breath. When we weren’t together, I would constantly talk to her in my head all the time or make up stories to tell her. She was the only one in my entire childhood who told me I was smart; naturally I didn’t believe her. For me, the only smart one was Helena.
The Mother Superior decided that the best time for our first communion was midnight mass on Christmas, the same hour Jesus was born. I told Sor María she had to help us both get a white dress like the Santos girls, because I didn’t want to receive my first communion without one. She became very sad and told me she couldn’t do anything, that the only ones who could help were the Mother Superior and Sor Evangelina. That day I realized very clearly that the convent—like the world, as I would later understand—divided people into social classes, and only the privileged classes had power. Sor María never could have had the life that Sor Evangelina led. She was as ignorant as we were of what went on among Sor Evangelina, Miss Carmelita, and the Mother Superior. Like Sor Honorina, Sor Inés, and Sor Teresa, she was simply a slave to the others, and that became clearer and more fixed with each passing day. The three women at the top were the aristocracy, the rest of us the rabble.
I hadn’t seen Helena in many days, but since it was time to make the bouquets for Baby Jesus and to write the letters saying what we wanted for Christmas, I decided to go to Miss Carmelita so she could write me a quick letter to Jesus asking him for dresses. She wrote it without comment. I fled using the stairs reserved for the nuns—forbidden for us—and I went to the chapel and placed the letter next to the altar. When I turned around, I saw the Mother Superior at her prayer bench, kneeling and praying. She saw me and didn’t say anything. I ran out.
The days passed, Christmas approached, and Baby Jesus didn’t send our dresses. Father Beltrán came three days before Christmas to hear our confessions. I told him I’d written to the Christ Child asking for a white dress and that there were only three days left and the dresses hadn’t come, and I didn’t want to receive my first communion without a dress. He was furious. That was a sin of vanity, he said, and I should repent and not think of the white dress again. The only white and pure thing I needed was my soul.
On Christmas Day, Father Beltrán returned to receive our confessions and prepare us for communion. I was sad, in a terrible mood, and I don’t think I heard what he said to us. At six o’clock Sor Teresa came for me. We went to the laundry, where there was a giant pool fifty feet long and six and a half feet wide. Surrounding it were the washing tubs, though no one was washing at that hour. Sor Evangelina arrived with Helena. They made us take off our clothes and dressed us in long gray frocks. Sor Evangelina washed Helena’s hair, and Sor Teresa washed mine. They made us scrub our feet, our faces, and our arms and legs with a scouring pad, then they tossed buckets of cold water on us. I thought I was going to freeze to death. I couldn’t breathe. They dried our hair and took us to the dormitory and put us to bed without dinner. They said that since we were going to receive communion at midnight, we couldn’t eat anything until after the midnight mass, and that they’d come to wake us at eleven. They locked the dormitory, and Helena told me I was a dumb kid, that poor girls don’t get white dresses for their first communion.
“And what about the Santos girls? Are the Santos rich?”
“No, but they’re protected by the rich.”
I turned away and went to sleep.
Sor Teresa came by at eleven to wake us up. I could hear the shouts of the other girls waiting for the mass. I was dead tired. We put on our smocks and left the dormitory. Sor Evangelina was waiting for us in the hall. “Come with me.” She took Helena by the hand, and I followed behind. When we got to her apartment, I saw two beautiful white dresses on her bed, much prettier and fancier than the ones the Santos girls had worn. My eyes filled with tears of joy.
“They belong to my nieces, but they’ve lent them to you. It’s charity, so please be careful not to damage them or get them dirty.”
Sor Teresa came running, and the two of them started to dress us. Sor Teresa talked the whole time about the beauty of the dresses. The crowns had not only flowers, but also lustrous pearls. When they put on my shoes, I was dying of laughter. They were the first shoes I’d worn in my life, and they were huge. Helena’s, on the other hand, were too tight. The poor thing, she walked with a limp, while I dragged my feet so my shoes wouldn’t come off. When they were finished dressing us, the bell for mass rang, and they had us go up to the chapel using the staircase for the nuns and enter through the door where Miss Carmelita heard mass. When Miss Carmelita saw us, she called us over to her and told us the dresses were beautiful. In the middle of the chapel, next to the altar, two prayer benches had been set out for us. When we entered the chapel, we could hear all the girls say, “Ah!!!” but when I genuflected, I lost a shoe, and they all started laughing—and I did too.
Mass began exactly at midnight. Father Beltrán lifted the veil that covered the Christ Child, who was resting in his red satin cradle amid clouds of cotton. The chapel was illuminated and filled with flowers. The Mother Superior stood and came over to us, motioning for us to kneel in the center of the communion table. I was very moved, and in that moment I think I truly loved the Jesus I was about to receive in the form of the host. During mass we sang the Christmas carols, and the Mother Superior played the harmonium beautifully.
When mass ended, we got up to leave through the door with all our peers, but were stopped by Sor Evangelina’s hand. She took us down the private staircase to her apartment, where she had us take off the white dresses. We put on our old smocks and took our feet out of the shoes, and she told us to go with the others to the dining hall to eat something. All I ate were my tears.
Happy Easter.
Emma.