A Long Petal of the Sea(55)

At the rosary hour that same evening, Father Urbina came to visit her and was received by a flurry of black habits and white wimples, a noisy throng of fawning women kissing his hand and asking his blessing. He was still a haughty young man, who seemed to wear his cassock as a disguise. “How is my protégée?” he inquired good-naturedly once he was installed with a cup of thick hot chocolate. The nuns sent for Ofelia, who waddled in like a frigate, swaying on her massive legs. Urbina held out his consecrated hand for the customary kiss, but she shook it in a firm greeting.

“How do you feel, my child?”

“How do you expect me to feel with a watermelon in my belly?” she retorted.

“I understand, my child, but you must accept your discomfort. It’s normal in your condition: offer it up to God Almighty. As the holy scriptures say: man has to work by the sweat of his brow, and woman has to give birth in pain.”

“As far as I can tell, Father, you don’t sweat when you work.”

“Well, well, I can see you’re agitated.”



“When is my aunt Teresa coming? You said you would arrange permission for her to be with me.”

“We’ll see, my child. Orinda Naranjo tells me we can expect the birth in a few weeks. Call on Our Lady of Hope to come to your aid, and make sure you are free of sin. Remember that many women render up their souls to God in the act of giving birth.”

“I have confessed and taken communion every day since I’ve been here.”

“Has it been a complete confession?”

“You want to know if I told my confessor the name of the father of this child…It didn’t seem to me necessary, because what matters is the sin, not with whom one sins.”

“What do you know about categories of sin, Ofelia?”

“Nothing.”

“An incomplete confession is the same as not having confessed at all.”

“You’re dying of curiosity, aren’t you, Father?” said Ofelia with a smile.

“Don’t be so insolent! My priestly duty is to lead you along the right path. I suppose you know that.”

“Yes, Father, and I’m truly grateful. I don’t know what I would have done in my situation without your help,” she said in such a humble tone it sounded like irony.

“Well, my child, you have been lucky all the same. I’ve brought good news. I’ve carried out rigorous searches for the best possible couple to adopt your baby, and I can tell you now that I believe I’ve found them. They’re very good, hardworking people, in a comfortable economic position, and Catholic, of course. I cannot tell you anything more, but don’t worry, I’ll watch over you and your child.”

“It’s a girl.”

“How do you know?” asked the startled priest.

“Because I dreamed it.”



“Dreams are just that: dreams.”

“There are prophetic ones. But whether it’s a boy or a girl, I’m its mother and I intend to bring it up. You can forget about adoption, Father Urbina.”

“What are you saying, for the love of God!”

Ofelia’s decision proved unshakable. The priest’s argument and threats couldn’t make her change her mind. Later on, when her mother and her brother Felipe arrived to try to convince her, backed up by the mother superior, she listened to them slightly amused, as if they were speaking the language of pharisees. However, the avalanche of excessive reproaches and dire warnings eventually had their effect, or perhaps it was one of those winter viruses that killed dozens of old people and children every year. Ofelia came down with a high fever, talking deliriously about mermaids, prostrate from back pain and exhausted by a cough that kept her from eating or sleeping. The doctor Felipe brought prescribed tincture of opium diluted in red wine and several medicines in blue bottles labeled only with numbers. The nuns treated her with herbal infusions from the garden and hot linseed poultices for her congested lungs.

Six days later, her chest had been somewhat burned by the poultices, but she felt better. Assisted by two novices who had been at her side day and night, she got up and managed to shuffle to the small leisure room in the convent, where the nuns met during their free moments. It was a cheerful place bathed in natural light, with a shiny wooden floor and potted plants, presided over by a statue of the Virgin of Carmen, Chile’s patron saint, holding the infant Jesus in her arms, both wearing imperial crowns of gilded tin. Ofelia spent the morning covered with a blanket in an armchair, staring blankly at the cloudy sky through the window and raised to paradise by the miraculous combination of opium and alcohol. Three hours later, when the novices helped her stand up, they saw the stain on the chair and the blood trickling down her legs.



Following Father Urbina’s instructions, they didn’t call a doctor, but Orinda Naranjo. She arrived looking quite professional and announced in her plaintive whine that the birth could come at any time now, even though according to her calculations it wasn’t due for another two weeks. She advised the nuns to keep the patient lying flat with her legs up, and to put cold compresses on her stomach. “Pray, because the heartbeats are faint; the baby is very weak,” she added. On their own initiative, the nuns stemmed the hemorrhage with cinnamon tea and warm milk with mustard seeds.

When he heard the midwife’s report, Father Urbina ordered Laura del Solar to move into the convent to be with her daughter. It would be good for both of them, he said, and help them to be reconciled. She insisted they weren’t angry with each other, but he explained that Ofelia was furious with everyone, even God. Laura was given a cell identical to her daughter’s, and for the first time in her life was able to experience the peace of religious life she had so much desired. She adapted at once to the icy blasts inside the building and the rigid litany of religious offices. She would get out of bed before dawn to wait for first light in the chapel praising the Lord, attend Mass at seven, and have a lunch of soup, bread, and cheese with the congregation in silence while someone read aloud the scripture selection of the day. In the afternoon she had a few hours for private meditation and prayer, and then at dusk she would join the nuns for vespers. Supper was also eaten silently, and was as frugal as lunch, although a little fish was added. Laura was happy in this female haven, and even the rumbles of hunger and lack of sweet things pleased her with the thought of how much weight she was losing. She loved the enchanted garden, the high, wide corridors where footsteps resounded like castanets, the perfume of candles and incense in the chapel, the creak of the heavy doors, the sound of the bells and chants, the murmur of prayer. The mother superior exempted her from work in the garden, the embroidery workshop, the kitchen or laundry, so that she could fully attend to the physical and spiritual needs of Ofelia, who, at Father Urbina’s urging, she had to convince to accept adoption, which would legitimize this poor creature born of lust, and offer Ofelia the chance to rebuild her life. Ofelia would drink the magic potion in another glass of wine and doze like a lifeless doll on her horsehair mattress, watched over by the novices and lulled by her mother’s purring voice, although she didn’t take in a word of what her mother was saying. Father Urbina did them the favor of visiting them, and after witnessing yet again this misguided young woman’s stubbornness, he took Laura del Solar out into the garden under an umbrella while a rain as fine as dew fell on them. Neither of them ever repeated the subject of their conversation.