She looked up at him with her luminous black eyes filled with tears, and Ricardo had no idea what she was thinking. He sighed and rose. She followed suit.
“There are dozens of caves around here,” Ricardo told her. “We’ll hide in one of them for the night. By dawn we can be on our way again.”
His face was raw and bleeding where she had clawed at him, but in spite of what had happened, he felt a defenselessness about her, a fragility that touched him, that made him want to say something to reassure her. But now he was the one who was silent. He could not think of a single thing to say.
The caves had been carved out by eons of winds and floods and earthquakes, and they came in an infinite variety. Some of them were mere indentations in the mountain rocks, others were endless tunnels never explored by man.
A mile from where they had spotted the plane, Ricardo found a cave that was to his satisfaction. The low entrance was almost covered by underbrush.
“Stay here,” he said.
He ducked into the entrance and walked into the cave. It was dark inside, with only faint light spilling through the opening. There was no telling what the length of the cave was, but it did not matter, for there was no reason to explore it.
He went back outside to Graciela.
“It looks safe,” Ricardo said. “Wait inside, please. I’ll gather some branches to cover up the mouth of the cave. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He watched Graciela as she went silently into the cave, and he wondered whether she would be there when he returned. He realized that he desperately wanted her to be.
Inside the cave, Graciela watched him leave, then sank to the cold ground in despair.
I can’t stand any more, she thought. Where are You, Jesus? Please release me from this hell
And it had been hell. From the beginning, Graciela had been fighting the attraction she felt toward Ricardo. She thought of the Moor. I’m afraid of myself. Of the evil in me. I want this man, and I must not
And so she had built a barrier of silence between them, the silence she had lived with in the convent. But now, without the discipline of the convent, without the prayers, without the crutch of the rigid routine, Graciela found herself unable to banish her inner darkness. She had spent years fighting the satanic urges of her body, trying to shut out the remembered sounds, the moans and sighs that had come from her mother’s bed.
The Moor was looking at her naked body.
You’re just a child Get your clothes on and get out of here…
I’m a woman!
She had spent so many years trying to forget the feel of the Moor inside her, trying to push out of her mind the rhythm of their bodies moving together, filling her, giving her a feeling of being alive at last.
Her mother screaming: You bitch!
And the doctor saying: Our chief surgeon decided to sew you up himself. He said you were too beautiful to have scars.
All the years of praying had been to purge herself of guilt And they had failed.
The first time Graciela looked at Ricardo Mellado, the past had come flooding back. He was handsome and gentle and kind. When Graciela was a little girl, she had dreamed of someone like Ricardo. And when he was near her, when he touched her, her body was instantly aflame and she was filled with a deep shame. I am the bride of Christ, and my thoughts are a betrayal of God I belong to You, Jesus. Please help me now. Cleanse my mind of impure thoughts.
Graciela had tried desperately to keep the wall of silence between them, a wall that no one but God could penetrate, a wall to keep out the devil. But did she want to keep the devil out? When Ricardo had jumped on her and pushed her to the ground, it was the Moor making love to her, and the friar trying to rape her, and in her surging panic it was them she had been fighting off. No, she admitted to herself, that’s not the truth. It was her own deep desire she was fighting. She was torn between her spirit and the cravings of her flesh. I must not give in. I must get back to the convent. He’ll be back any minute. What should I do?