"You're probably pregnant now," he warned. "Breathing quickly is a sure sign."
"I was horrified. My father had thrown my mother out of the house for being pregnant; what would he do to me?"
...
"Paterfamilias told me that he might be able to perform a secret religious ceremony that would prevent the pregnancy from continuing. He could only perform this ceremony to a deserving, loyal, faithful girl who would keep that ceremony secret. If other girls found out that he could stop a pregnancy, he'd be besieged with requests. Was I the type of girl who could keep a secret for the rest of my life? I said that I was. He said that a person who broke an oath of silence while in a confessional would be guilty of a mortal sin. I'd burn in Hell forever. I told him that he could trust me. He told me to come to the cathedral the next morning at 6 a.m. I should tell the guards that I was going to sing, but really, I was to meet him in the confessional."
...
"The cathedral was deserted that early in the morning. I went into the confessional and he said that I should come around to his side. I did. His side was bigger than the other side, but it was still cramped. He said that I'd have to sit on his knee while he performed the ceremony. So I did."
"He said a few prayers and held my hand. He told me that he knew that I was a good girl but had made a mistake. He could fix the mistake, but he reminded me that I would have to make an oath of eternal silence about the ceremony. He held out his cross of office and I kissed it and swore on it. I would tell nobody."
...
"Paterfamilias told me I had to take all my clothes off and sit on his knee again. He would perform the ceremony of the laying on of hands. Wherever his hands touched, any evil within me would be expelled. This ceremony would take him a long time but I would not be pregnant any longer. I would know that the ceremony had worked the next time I had my monthly cycle. I took off my clothes and let him touch me all over because I didn't want to be pregnant."
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Chapter 17
After a week of attending university, sort of, Bean had fallen into a routine that satisfied her need to keep busy. During the morning, she continued to work her way through the first bot in the Religious Studies program. Lunch was at the student union building as were breakfast and dinner. The military has taught her to keep her body (the army's weapon) properly maintained. Guns need cleaning and oiling; her body needed fuel and proper sleep. During the afternoon, she attended the volleyball practices. Older volleyball players would come into the gym and chide the rookies on their desire to play games all the time. So more than half of the time was spent on setting, or digging out the ball, or slamming the ball into precise locations on the floor. Bean's experience as a military gym supervisor came to the fore here. She ended up running the practice with her gruff, no-nonsense approach.
In the evenings, she would attend the basketball practices solely as a way to stay fit. A graduate from the program was keeping everybody on track and Bean's basketball skills were not anything that the other girls would look up to. She still tried to hit her 3-pointers; she still lived down to everybody's expectations. The graduate taught her to dunk the basketball and stay close to the key. Bean didn't particularly enjoy this location. It was too easy. She wanted a challenge. Score at least one three point shot in her life!
Between practices, Bean didn't have the mental energy to study, so she went to the campus library and buried herself in women's webpages. Make up, fashions, clothes... Everything that other women were and Bean was not became a target for what was becoming a semi-obsessive search. How can I make myself into a charming, attractive woman? How can I learn to see men as desirable companions rather than as bodies that need to have a knife sticking out of them?
Bean continued to shower after all of the other women had left the locker room. She did this by staying an extra 15-minutes in the gym and working on weaknesses. This was attracting some positive attention from the older girls serving as coaches; it was also making her a better player. She was training about six hours a day in two sports. Loyola didn't realize yet what she would be able to do for their sports programs.
The talking mother showerhead did not reappear during this month. Instead, her father showed up. This happened on a Friday night – a night when Bean was planning to visit a bar. That visit wouldn't be for food. She was washing her hair and rinsing the soap off her face when her father's face replaced the showerhead. Bean immediately shrieked and tried to cover up. This would be a natural reaction when a girl is naked and her father walks into the bathroom and watches her in the shower.
"Relax," he said. "I can't see you. You can see me, but it doesn't work the other way."
"Why not," she managed to squeak while trying to attach the washcloth to her father's face.
"Might be because I'm dead."
"You're dead?"
"Would you care? Do you care at all about your parents and what you did to us? Seems to me that you only care about yourself."
Bean's father had never spoken sharply to her before. If indeed this was her father and not a giant talking soap bubble that looked like him.
"That time that you murdered and burned that police captain, you could have visited your mother and me. You could have told us why you had deserted us. You could have put your mother's guilt to rest. I felt the same as she did, you know. If only I had taken you into the city, my daughter would have survived. You wouldn't have become what you are now."
Bean had nothing to say. How do you defend yourself against a talking soap bubble?
"Are you planning to murder another man tonight? Does this excite you sexually? Is that the real reason you do it?"
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 18
Whenever I have told the feminine members of my family the story of what happened to Kashmira in the confessional, their response has been immediate and potentially fatal to males in the immediate vicinity. I always insert a break in the story to give them a chance to compose themselves. I have just done the same thing for you in this novel. Chapter 17's account of Bean's life on a peaceful university campus was intended to give you a chance to de-stress. Sneaky of me, eh? I'm returning you to the cathedral in Maasin City now.
An awkward silence had followed Kashmira's description of the events in the confessional. You'll recall that she had hidden herself from Mathias so that she couldn't see him looking at her. She obviously would have become upset in the retelling. Mathias didn't know what to do or say. In time, he spoke. "Are you OK?"
"What do you think?"
"What do you want me to do?"
"Get out."
"OK. Do you want me to leave the cathedral?"
"No. I want you to go to the kitchen. Wear the tablecloth. Promise me that you'll stay there."
"I promise, but why the tablecloth? You have all of your clothes on."
"Get out. Don't try to look at me."
# # # # # # # #
"Is the tablecloth still over your head?" Kashmira asked. She was standing immediately outside the kitchen. She had been singing in the music room for about thirty minutes.
"Yes."
"Were you here the whole time?"
"Yes. I promised I would stay in the kitchen. Are you feeling better now?"
"Why would I be feeling better now?" [Climate change, Mathias. Snow warning. Be careful!]
"Because you sang and that always makes me feel better. I thought that..."
"You said that you had stayed here!" Kashmira had moved instantaneously from storm squall into full blizzard mode. Her icy winds blistered Mathias' skin. Snowdrifts started to accumulate around his knees. "How would you know that I had sung if you were in the kitchen where you couldn't hear me? You lied about staying here."
"I didn't lie. You were in a music room; you didn't want me there. It's obvious you were planning to sing but you didn't want me to hear it. I didn't hear anything." Mathias' automatic reaction was to raise his voic
e in return. "Why don't you trust me?"
"You know what that xxx xxxxxx xxx xxx xxx xxx paterfamilias did to me."
[Narrator: I have chosen to mask the string of adjectives that Kashmira just used. Even in Spanish, they cannot appear in a document where tender eyes might see them.]
"Yes, you told me."
"You know what my xxx xxxxxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx father has done to me. You're a man. Why would I trust you?"
[Narrator: Those words aren't allowed to appear either.]
"I'm not like them."
"Idiota!"
"I'm not an idiot. I'm a friend."
"I was talking about myself. I'm an idiota for believing that [Emergency delete! Emergency delete!] xxx xxxxxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx pervertido. I'm an idiota for believing that you would stay in the kitchen."
"I STAYED IN THE KITCHEN!"
# # # # # # # #
"Are you feeling better yet?" Mathias was still sitting table-clothed on one of the kitchen chairs.
"No. Don't talk to me." Kashmira was also sitting on a kitchen chair but it was in the middle of the open doorway. She was facing away from the kitchen.
# # # # # # # #
"I'm going to cut his fingers off one at a time and make him eat them!"
"I'll hold down his hands while you cut them off."
"Seriously?"
"Of course. What he did to you was horrible. He deserves it."
"I have a right to be angry!"
"You do. Be angry at the paterfamilias. Not at me."
# # # # # # # #
"You can take off your tablecloth, if you want."
Mathias did. Kashmira was sitting at the table now, next to Mathias.
"Why did you want me to wear the tablecloth? You had all of your clothes on."
"I knew that I would be very angry when I sang my song. I had to be angry to be able to sing the thoughts that I wanted to sing. When I become angry, I look ugly. I didn't want you to see me looking ugly. I got mad at you because I thought you had seen me being ugly."
"That wouldn't have changed my opinion of you."
"Do you think badly of me?"
"No. I'm a friend."
"I didn't mean the things I yelled at you."
"I know."
# # # # # # # #
"I know a way that you can get back at El Pervertido."
"How?"
"We could include it in the plan to help you escape from your father."
"In this plan, would my father be captured and prevented from killing Pablo and his family?"
"Yes. We would lure him and the guards into the jungle. We would have our battle there where he could not easily escape."
"Only the three of us. You, your granny and me."
"Yes. Your father and his men wouldn't be used to fighting in the jungle. My granny and I know how to fight such a battle. You would help us track where they are, but you'd be safe."
"It still wouldn't work. My father wouldn't be there."
"He wouldn't go into battle with his soldiers?"
"No. He'd stay in his house where he'd be safe. If we killed all of his soldiers, he'd only hire more. All of his wealth is in the basement vault. Why would he leave the safety of the vault to fight in the jungle?"
"We'll have to capture him in the vault then."
"You can't. Nobody can enter except for my father and me."
"You could let us in."
"If I've run away, he'll change the codes so that I can't get in."
"What kind of system is it?"
"Why would you believe that I'd answer such a question?"
# # # # # # # #
"You won't tell me about the vault's protection because you believe that I'm trying to steal your father's wealth."
"It's what other men would do. I've already shown you that I will believe anything that a man would say to me. I'm an idiota, remember."
"I thought you trusted me."
"I trust you more than I did. But some men can charm women into doing anything they want them to do. You could be one of those men."
"Hardly."
"I already told you the secret of the guards and the lunch. Now you want me to reveal my father's most important secret?"
# # # # # # # #
"OK. You're right to be suspicious. You don't know me. I will prove to you that you, my Granny, and I could capture your father in his vault. If we can do that, he could not kill any of the people you want to protect."
"You can't enter the vault. You are wasting your time. I told you before – you're a dreamer."
"Will you answer questions about the vault?"
"Like what passcode do I enter to open the door?"
"No. Will you answer this question? When you're inside the vault, can you simply walk out? Or do you have to pass through another security system first?"
"I can walk out right away."
"Second and last question: how high and wide is the door to the vault?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"So I can drive a big solar truck into the vault and haul the gold away."
"You can't drive a solar truck into the house."
"I know. I'm being silly."
"You don't want to tell me why you want the dimensions."
"That's correct. Do you know the dimensions?"
"No."
"Could you stay home on Thursday night and get them for me?"
"I guess. I don't see how knowing the dimensions will help you."
"The dimensions are not important."
"You're being silly again?"
"Nope. I'm being truthful. The dimensions will not help me. But I still want you to measure the opening of the vault for me on Thursday night."
"You can't break into the vault. Nobody can."
# # # # # # # #
"I'm telling you that I can break into the vault. I'll prove it."
"How will you prove it?"
"By bringing something out of the vault that you put into it."
"What would you bring out?"
"The gargoyle."
"Poco Mathias?" [Little Mathias]
"You have named it?"
"Yes. He's a dreamer too."
"I am a dreamer, I admit it. I dream up ideas for rescuing you. This will work. Hide Poco Mathias in the vault. I will find him and bring him out."
"You can't."
"I can."
"Want to bet?"
"Sure," Mathias said.
"If you don't bring him out of the vault, you will not mention this dream of capturing my father again."
"Can we still talk about the songs?"
"Yes."
"I agree. But if I do bring Poco Mathias out?"
"I will listen to your plan."
"Not much of a reward."
"Better than not listening to it."
"Meet me in the music room Friday morning at your usual time. Bring the vault's dimensions with you. Poco Mathias will be here waiting for you."
# # # # # # # #
Friday morning at 10:30 in the morning, Kashmira walked into the cathedral carrying a folded piece of paper listing the vault's dimensions. The night before, she had hidden the gargoyle in the back of a vault storage container full of bottled food. It had taken her fifteen minutes to take out enough bottles so that she could hide the gargoyle at the very back and bottom of the bin. She unlocked the door to the music room. Mathias was sitting behind the AMIT. "Hi," he said.
"Hi. Here's your information." She held her hand out with the folded paper.
Mathias took the paper and ripped it up without unfolding it. He handed the pieces of paper back to her, saying "Put the pieces in a pocket."
When she had done that, he fished in his own pocket and held out Poco Mathias. "Told you I didn't need the door's dimensions. Do you recognize the burn marks on the bottom?"
"Yes, they look the same." Kashmira held up the statue next to Mathias' face. Her eyes flicked from Mathias to the gargoyle and then to Mathias. "T
here is a certain resemblance," she said.
"Compare them now." Mathias furrowed his brows and opened his mouth in a gargoylian yawn.
"A perfect match," she confirmed. "A long lost uncle, perhaps?"
Mathias added some growly sound effects to the yawn and Kashmira giggled.
# # # # # # # #
"Are you going to tell me how you did that?"
"Not now. Perhaps later. Poco Mathias was at the very back of a drawer with bottled food."
"Yes, that's where I hid him."
"Kashmira, I could have robbed your father blind. I could be a wealthy teenager now rather than a pilot. I could be long gone. I'm didn't take a thing except for the gargoyle. Do you trust me now?"
"Yes. Are you mad at me for doubting you?"
"No. I'd want you to be just as careful protecting my own secrets. I have somebody who may want to buy the rights to two of your songs: the one that was very sad and the one about El Pervertido. The mad song. Are you interested in selling them?"
"Is this part of the plan for capturing my father?"
"It's part of the plan to make you independent of your father. If you can sell your songs, you will have money. That way, when you leave your father, you can live on your own if you wish to."
"But I still won't be free of him?"
"No, not at that point. I have to make some changes in that part of the plan. Luring his guards out to the jungle won't work if he hides in his vault when he's in danger. One of my older sisters will help me create a workable plan and then we'll share it with you. Her name is Melissa. For now, you and I need to focus on your songs. I'm going to introduce you to one of my brothers. His name is Wizard. He'll talk to you about your music and the music table."
"When?"
"Now. He's in the kitchen. One of my other sisters is in the kitchen too. Her name is Winnie."