“If you’re asking if I’m Roman Catholic, no.”
“I was afraid that would happen. I have never been able, and I have prayed, to forgive your father for abandoning you.”
“My father did not abandon me,” Clete said softly.
Dorotea’s eyes showed alarm. She knew that when her husband was really angry, he spoke so softly it was hard sometimes to hear what he said.
“What would you call it?” Mother Superior asked. “When your mother died, he returned from the United State
s without you. He never came here again. When I finally saw him in Buenos Aires and asked about you, he said you were none of my business. Actually, his words were ‘It’s none of your goddamn business.’ Then he walked out of the room. I never saw him or heard from him again.”
“Why did you think he might feel that way?” Clete asked very softly.
“I told you, your mother and I were dear friends.”
“How did that happen?”
“When your father and mother were first married, they spent a good deal of their time here. Your mother loved Casa Montagna. She came to a retreat here at the convent, and we met. She knew that she was ill, so we prayed together for the safe delivery of her first child—you—and rejoiced together when that happened.”
Clete looked at Welner.
“Obviously, you didn’t know about this?”
The priest shook his head.
“Let me tell you about my father,” Clete said, still speaking very softly. “He didn’t abandon me. There were two factors involved. One was my grandfather, my mother’s father. He could not find it in his heart—and still doesn’t—to forgive the Catholic Church for convincing my mother that contraception was a sin, even when another pregnancy would probably kill her. As it did.
“When my mother died, and my father tried to bring me to Argentina, my grandfather stopped him and had him deported. When my father reentered the United States from Mexico with the intent to take me, my grandfather had him arrested, and my father spent ninety days in chains on a Texas road gang for illegal entry. My grandfather had my father’s visa revoked so that he could never again legally enter the United States. It was implied that my mother’s father would have my father killed if he again returned and tried to take me.
“My father could have, of course, made an effort to kidnap me, and he told me that he had considered this seriously. But finally he realized that he couldn’t, even shouldn’t, try to raise an infant by himself. There were two female relatives who could. One was my Aunt Martha, my mother’s brother’s wife, a good solid woman, and the other was his sister, and my father knew Beatriz was a fruitcake.”
“Cletus!” Dorotea exclaimed.
Clete looked at her, then back at the Mother Superior, and despite not trusting his voice as his anger rose, went on: “My father decided that what was best for me was my Aunt Martha. And he was right. You have nothing to forgive him for. And as far as abandoning me is concerned, not only did he not marry the woman he loved for the rest of his life, because your country’s absurd rules of inheritance would have kept him from leaving me everything he owned, but he hired people to keep an eye on me. He knew every time I fell off my horse. The shelves in his study at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo are lined with scrapbooks about me, and the walls covered with pictures of me.”
Clete felt his throat constrict, cleared it, then finished: “And as far as forgiving people is concerned, my father told me he long ago had forgiven my grandfather for what the man had done to him. He said in his shoes he would have done the same thing.”
Mother Superior looked at him for a long moment.
“Your mother, may she rest in peace, would be pleased to know you were reunited with your father,” she said finally.
“Are we through here?” Frade said sharply, and stood.
“I thought you came here seeking my help,” Mother Superior said.
“Sit down, darling,” Dorotea ordered softly.
Father Welner made a Sit down gesture. After a moment, Frade made a face, then slowly sank back in his seat.
“We have a woman with us who is mentally ill,” Welner began. “She needs not only care but . . . it’s rather delicate, Mother.”
“Who is she?” Mother Superior asked.
“I’ll tell you who she is,” Frade said. “And if you let your mouth run, her death will be on your conscience—”
“Cletus!” Dorotea said warningly.
“She’s a German, a Nazi, and if the Germans find out where she is, they will do their best to kill her and her husband—and maybe anyone else who gets in their way.”