I sipped the coffee - the strongest, I was sure, that I'd ever had - even stronger than the shocking brew they typically drank here - and shivered at the feeble warmth of this thin robe, it's complete failure to keep out the bite of the cold morning wind.
"Hermano needs the warm clothes," said the sister with her sonorous accent, dropping a rough, heavy blanket onto my shoulders. She muttered something else in smiling Spanish, but I could only pick out the word "frío", cold. I smiled and nodded in thanks and she went puttering off, shuffling things around on tables and shelves as she passed as though nothing was in quite the right place, though everything was close.
I looked out across the stiff, yellow grass of the back field behind the abbey Santa María de las Rosas Negras at the wind-ruffled lake. Grey winter clouds passed swiftly overhead. Herons skimmed in low over the water from the south and, dragging their feet along the surface to slow themselves, came to rest among the short reeds just offshore. Black silhouettes of ducks bobbed along on the chill waves far out on the lake. The grey cold of the morning made me anxious for activity, for direction. For anything but this damnable waiting.
But, though they tolerated my presence with a kind of warm, courteous disdain, the brothers and sisters of this strict order would not accept my tainted help, the labor of an infidel, in their duties around the abbey. So, I could only sit. And wait. And write. My hands, however, were cramped already from hours of writing yesterday, and sleep in the drafty old shack where I was boarding did little to heal their stiffness. Though my mind was racing with ideas I wanted to explore, the thought of taking up the pencil made me wince.
Where was Father Garay? The brothers and sisters would only say that he was away and that they expected him to return today. They had been saying that for eight days now. "It will surely be today," they would say with a smile. Still there was no sign of him. If I had anywhere else to go I'd have left in defiance to their stiff-necked anti-courtesy, but I had to wait for Father Garay. He was our only hope. Only he knew how to defend against the laser beams of the Martian flying saucers. Only he could save planet Earth.
Hello, friends. How are you today?
Later. Love.
