A Shower of Roses

A Shower of Roses

And if your right eye

causes you to sin,

pluck it out...

Matthew 5:29

“After my death I shall let fall

a shower of roses.”

St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Mariana Huaman had worked with the Flores family since Rosa was an infant and had been the one to witness the first miracle, the one that occurred on June 17, 1586. Now Mariana is approaching Rosa on her deathbed and remembers that distant day as if it had just happened. The baby had been in her crib and Mariana had been about to breastfeed her, since Mariana had recently given birth to her own child and copious milk flowed from her ample breasts. As she had approached the baby, something extraordinary had happened. Mariana had seen a crimson rose hover above the infant’s head like a dove and then alight upon the diminutive girl’s face, which had itself suddenly been transformed into a rose. Her small eyes were soft petals, her small, round mouth another. There and then the Amerindian maid had decided that instead of Isabel, her baptized name, the child should be named Rosa. And hearing about the miracle, her mother Maria had agreed.  Thereafter, and for more than thirty years, Mariana and Rosa had been inseparable, like Sancho Panza and Don Quixote, the buxom quechua Indian woman and the fair-skinned descendant of the Spanish nobility.

Today, Mariana has come to pay her last respects. Rosa is still conscious, though she is coughing blood and shivering. On her head there is a garland of roses, which her mother Maria had insisted should be put around her forehead so that the painter she had hired could include that in Rosa’s portrait. Rosa had complained – it was a vanity, after all – but her mother was so distressed by her impending death that Rosa could not deny her this small favor. Her mother had decided to have her painting done so that she would have a means to remember her, and she had insisted on the flowers. Over the years, Maria had often asked Rosa to put a garland of roses on her head, to better highlight the beauty of her face, and Rosa had always protested. But today it is different. There is no longer any chance that her beauty will lead young men to sin through concupiscence.

Mariana approaches Rosa on her deathbed with a Rosary in her hands and the intention of asking the Virgin Mary one last time to restore the health of the child she had raised as if she had been her own. Immediately, Mariana notices that instead of a pillow, there are two thick, rough wooden logs beneath Rosa’s head and shoulders.

“¡Mi niñita!” Mariana exclaims. “Why are you doing this? Aren’t you suffering enough? Come, let me put a soft pillow under your head.”

“No,” Rosa responds. “The Christ suffered a lot more during His Passion. The two crossed sticks are a small inconvenience for me. They will allow me to die on a Cross, as my Savior did. Don’t you know that suffering leads to the heights of grace?”

Mariana does not insist. She knows well that Rosa has a stubborn character, that she will not bow to any entreaties when it comes to her desires to share in the pain suffered by her God during the Passion and through the sins of men.

“All right,” Mariana says. “If that is your wish, I won’t complain. I have brought a Rosary so that we both might pray for your recovery. After all, how you loved your rose garden, my niñita, and Father Lorenzana says the word ‘Rosary’ means just that – a rose garden.”

“I’ll pray the Rosary if you wish,” Rosa responds amid persistent coughs. “But not to pray that I get healed, my dear Mariana, but to thank the Virgin that it is finally the time for me to join her Son and my Betrothed.”

“There are so many things left undone,” Mariana protests, trying to stifle tears. “So many orphans to take care of. So many sick Indians and penniless negroes who are barred from hospitals. So many roses to be cut and taken for sale at the plaza. Surely, it is not time for you to die! Not yet, mi niñita! You know that if you pray for more time, the Lord shall grant your wishes.”

“My wish is to be with the Lord, Mariana, to end this temporary exile. I only desire to bear this cross with valor so that I can be rewarded by Him.”

“Oh, but I’ll miss you!” Mariana begins to weep.

“There’s no reason for tears. Tonight, I’ll be with the Lord in Heaven.”

Rosa starts to cough blood again, profusely, such that it almost chokes her. Mariana is alarmed, takes her kerchief and wipes her niñita’s face. She doesn’t care if the blood stains her own clothing.

And then Rosa smiles at her, radiant as ever.

“It shall only be a little more time,” the dying Rosa says, clasping Mariana’s hand in an effort to strengthen and console her. “It won’t be too long now, my dear, not long at all.”

***

“Wake up, you lazy bones!” Rosa cries out with mirth. “It’s almost six o’clock in the morning and we have so many roses to cut. Come on, get out of bed, Mariana!”

The quechua woman looks at Rosa groggily, through half-closed eyes.

“Can’t this wait till later?” she asks, knowing her complaints will be futile. “You have all day to sell your roses.”

“I’ve been up by four. Why do you need to sleep so much?”

“Probably praying,” Mariana replies. “I hate to say this, but I think you’re something of a a religious fanatic, mi niñita. I’ve never heard a priest say it is necessary to pray so early. Surely you must aspire to be a saint.”

“Don’t say that,” Rosa commands, suddenly perturbed. “Don’t appeal to my vanity. You know vanity is one of my greatest flaws. I’m a miserable, unworthy creature, hardly a saint. And you know that we must pray as much as possible.”

“Still, why must we get up so early?”

Mariana is tired of Rosa’s early morning escapades, like the time she woke her up at dawn because she wanted to be at the port of Callao when the slaves arrived from Santo Domingo, in order to minister to their wounds, both spiritual and physical.

“I want to get to church by one for the last Mass,” Rosa replies. “So, we have to hurry to get to the plaza. And there are so many roses in my garden. They’ve all bloomed at the same time.”

“Well, all right,” Mariana responds, as she yawns and stretches out her arms. “Is Paco ready with the wagon?”

“It’s going to take us more than three hours to collect all the flowers. At the time, Paco will be ready. My sick father will be so pleased. I know he’s worried about how he’ll put food on the table this week. And with so many roses, we’re going to make a bundle, my girl! Maybe even enough to have a little left over to give to the beggars at the Cathedral.”

Rosa and Mariana spend the early morning gathering the roses, red, white, pink and some of a lovely unique hue, Rosa’s favorite, yellow and orange fused together like the horizon in summer. Rosa carefully arranges the flowers in bouquets, while Mariana, still half asleep, helps her withdraw the thorns.  By nine o’clock they are ready, and they put all the bouquets in Paco’s wagon, to be pulled by a donkey as Rosa and Mariana make their way on foot toward the open-air Sunday market at the Plaza de Armas. Mariana complains, her obese body barely able to keep up with the seventeen-year-old Rosa.

“Why couldn’t we get a horse from the stable instead of having to walk for three kilometers?” Mariana asks, as she wipes the sweat off her face. “Or is this one of your ideas of a sacrifice to God?”

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt you to lose some weight,” Rosa laughs. “You’re an angel, Mariana, but don’t forget laziness isn’t exactly a virtue.”

When the two women arrive at the Sunday market, it is already full. Some Amerindian women have come down from the mountains and are selling produce from their huertas. There are people exhibiting all manner of wares and products, sharp steak knives and utensils for the kitchen, toys and tops for the children, porcelain dolls for the girls, ceramic vases and tableware, herbs meant to heal all maladies under the sun. There is even an organ grinder, playing his accordion as a bald-headed monkey does pirouettes to entertain the throngs. Rosa chooses an empty space in a corner and lays her roses on a white linen tablecloth at her feet. She knows the flowers will sell well today, as every Sunday night young caballeros in white pants and white shirts, with red sashes about their waists, parade on one side of the Girón de la Unión, while damsels in their best Sunday outfits parade on the other, until the young men and women meet at the end and the enamored suitors offer their roses to the objects of their affection.

“You should be among those girls,” Mariana tells Rosa when the topic comes up in conversation. “Such a beautiful señorita, already seventeen and without a suitor.”

“If you only knew what’s in my heart,” Rosa gushes, as if remembering a young caballero. “My soul is already pledged to another, my Mariana!”

“And who might that be?” asks Mariana with curiosity.

“For now, it is a secret, but eventually everyone will find out. I can assure you of that, Mariana!”

After a mere three hours, Rosa’s coffers are full, just as she had expected, and all the roses are sold.

“Hurry!” she tells Mariana. “We just have enough time for me to go home and change so that I can attend Sunday Mass and take the Eucharist.”

And the heavyset Mariana trudges right behind her, muttering complaints under her breath. Surely, she is too old to keep up with such a pious and energetic adolescent.

***

On their way back home, Rosa and Mariana stumble upon a black woman weeping.

“I need help!” she cries out. “Won’t anybody call a doctor?!” She is a woman in her mid-thirties, with tawny hair wrapped up in a pañuelo. At her feet there is an ebony-skinned child in threadbare pants and a shirt covered with thick green vomit.

“Oh, my boy,” Rosa says, putting her palm on his forehead. “You have a terrible fever.”

“He is dying!” his mother says. “He needs a doctor, but the municipal hospital refused to tend to him. He’s been sweating all night and this morning he woke up vomiting. Won’t you have mercy on him, please, my lady?”

“Help me lift him,” Rosa tells Mariana. “He’s a thin waif, he won’t be too hard to carry.”

Mariana reluctantly takes the child by the arms trying not to get covered by his verdant puke, but it’s impossible.

“And what do you propose to do, Rosa?” Mariana complains. “Are we taking him home with us? You must remember how angered your father was the last time you brought a beggar into his house. And this boy reeks!”

“Remember Paul’s letter to the Hebrews,” Rosa retorts. “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

When they arrive home, Rosa puts him in her bed and says a prayer for him. She is missing Mass this Sunday but believes charity prevails over devotion. Soon her father Gaspar realizes there are people in Rosa’s room, hears the black woman crying, and he opens the door without knocking.

“What have you done today, Rosa?” her father exclaims.  “What wretched boy have you put on your bed? Must you bring home every repugnant sick person you find in the streets of Lima? And your sheets are covered with vomit!”

“Jesus tells us that we find Him in the downtrodden, in the ill, the desperate,” Rosa responds in an even voice. “If you had found the crucified Jesus on your way back from the plaza, wouldn’t you have brought Him into your home? Sometimes we find God’s face in that of a poverty stricken child.”

“All right,” says her father. “In an argument, you always win. I’ll call Doctor Sagrario to see what he can do.”

“Thank you, father,” Rosa replies, a playful smile on her face, her eyes suddenly bright like votive candles.

“You’ll see,” she tells the little black boy. “Your condition will improve. Just say a prayer to Our Lord and His Virgin Mother, and you won’t even need the doctor!”

And so it is. By the time the physician arrives, the child no longer has a fever, is vomiting no more, and his countenance is the very mirror of tranquility. When Rosa tells him a joke, he smiles, exhibiting a white, toothy grin that illuminates his face like that of an angel.

“Thank you, mamita,” he says. “May the Lord in Heaven bless you.”

***

At some point, while Mariana is busy sweeping the dining room, she hears voices in the living room. She perks her ears up when she realizes the voices are those of Rosa and her parents and those of a potential suitor. It’s about time, she thinks to herself, as she silently approaches the door to the living room, to see what is happening for herself. Rosa has always told Mariana that curiosity is one of her greatest flaws.

Rosa’s father Gaspar, broad-shouldered and with a soldier’s demeanor despite his illness, is tapping the shoulder of a young man approvingly. The gentleman is dressed like a landed hidalgo, in a white linen shirt with a ruff and matching wrist ruffs, over which he has a black doublet with long sleeves and a leather jerkin worn over the doublet.  Mariana thinks he is exceedingly handsome, a marvelous prospect for her niñita.

“I wanted you to meet him,” Rosa’s father begins. “You’re at an age where you should be thinking about suitors, and don Alfonso de Aguilar has expressed an interest in courting you. He wants to take you to a ball tonight, and your mother will accompany you as the chaperone. He’s a caballero born in Spain who owns vast properties. And he’s a staunch Catholic. That should please you. Surely, there is no harm in exploring a relationship. What do you say, my Rosa?”

“I’m flattered,” Rosa replies, trying to find the right words, trying not to offend her gentleman caller. “Don Alfonso is surely a desirable suitor. But I have pledged myself to Christ. I have already told you that, dear father. I cannot respond even to the most worthy of suitors, as I’ve made a vow of chastity to the Lord.”

“You’re exaggerating in your faith,” her father tells her. “There is no reason you can’t be faithful to the Lord and married at the same time.”

“I know that,” Rosa replies. “Marriage is a holy institution, instituted by God Himself. But the Lord has chosen a different path for me, a path of renunciation, a path of submission to Him alone, and I will never marry.”

Rosa pauses and turns to her would-be suitor.

“And you, don Alfonso, don’t take this as an insult or as a personal rejection. I’m sure you’re a wonderful person, an accomplished, worthy man. It’s just that no one compares to Jesus.”

“All I ask is an opportunity to get to know you. Surely, God did not create such a lovely creature, a woman of such hermosura, for her to become a cloistered nun.”

Yes! Mariana is thinking. Insist, insist! My lovely niñita is not meant for the convent!

Rosa blushes, suddenly at a loss for words.

“It’s just that – I’m sorry – nothing would make me happier than joining a religious order. If my father could only come up with the money for the dowry…”

“Well, forget about that,” Gaspar says. “I’ll never consent to your burying yourself in a convent. And I’m sorry, don Alfonso. I’m exceedingly distressed that my daughter is so importunate in her excessive faith. Hopefully you will visit again some time. Maybe her mood will change.”

***

After the young suitor departs, Mariana sees the young Rosa approach her.

“Come with me,” Rosa demands. “Let’s go to the garden.”

“Sure,” Mariana says. “Why go to the garden?”

“I’m challenged by what some people call my beauty. I wish that I had been born with a face as hideous as that of a crone. That would mean I would have no suitors to resist. My father keeps bringing men to meet me, not respecting my vow to remain a virgin. So come with me, Mariana, and help me do this.”

“Do what?” Mariana inquires. This is not the first time that she has failed to understand the desires of her lovely niñita. But she follows her nonetheless, as she always does.

“I’ll cut my hair off completely, to thwart any loveliness men may find in my person, and I’ll rub my face with blistering hot peppers to create disfiguring blotches, to make my face undesirable to ordinary men. Come, bring the peppers to me from the garden. And let’s do this!”

Mariana looks at Rosa with a stupefied face, her eyebrows knitted together like question marks.

“Why would my niñita want to do this? God created you beautiful. And that’s the way He wants you.”

“Don’t tell anyone, Mariana, but I’ve gravely sinned. When don Alfonso said I was lovely, he appealed to my vanity, and I was pleased. Worse than that, he looked at me with eyes of concupiscence, and I did not immediately depart. Instead, I imagined myself in his arms. Don’t tell this to anyone, Mariana, it shall be a secret for my confessor, but I even imagined don Alfonso kissing me.”

“Those are extreme scruples,” Mariana laughs. “It is perfectly normal for a young woman such as you to dream of love. And there’s nothing wrong with an innocent kiss. Pretty soon you’re going to tell me that farting is a sin.”

“I was terrified that I might give in to thoughts of concupiscence,” Rosa confides. “Although at that very moment, I prayed to Saint Catherine of Siena for delivery from temptation and she granted my wish.”

“Catherine of Siena?” Mariana asks.

“Yes, my patron saint. Truly a rose in the eyes of God. After her death, some of the faithful wanted to secretly transport her skull from Rome to Siena. And when some guards at the border stopped them and demanded to know what was in their bag, it appeared to no longer hold her head but only roses.”

 Then Mariana looks at Rosa cut off her lovely auburn hair, sees her also putting hot yellow peppers on her face to stamp out her beauty, knowing that Rosa plans to do it every day to make her face look red and swollen, so that no suitor would continue to pester her and possibly incite her to thoughts of concupiscence.

“What are you doing, my niñita? What is the sense of punishing yourself? I have heard Father Lorenzana preach it so many times at church. Be patient with all things, he says, but above all, yourself!”

“Now you must flog me,” Rosa tells her as she hands her a whip and exposes her naked back. “That is how Saint Catherine resisted temptation, that is how she preserved the precious rose of her virginity.”

“I will not,” Mariana exclaims, raising her arms in desperation. This time Rosa is going too far.

“Yes, you will,” Rosa commands. “I’m not doing this only for myself. Don Alfonso looked at me with unhidden lust. Since I cannot pluck out his eyes, the least I can do is offer this small sacrifice for the benefit of his soul and for all poor sinners. When the Lord said, ‘if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out,’ He wasn’t kidding. Now hurry! Mariana. Ten lashes is all I need. If you don’t do it, I’ll just scourge myself.”

“Oh, my niñita, why do you hate your body?”

“Go on,” Rosa commands. “Oh, my Jesus, increase my sufferings!”

Mariana looks at Rosa with wide eyes open like two full moons, thinking her niñita must be demented. All her life, Mariana has granted Rosa each and every one of her wishes, has complied with all of her outlandish commands to succor the poor and the sick, but she has never been asked to hurt her niñita physically.

“Don’t waste time,” Rosa insists. “Think of what the Christ went through to save us. Certainly, more than ten stripes of discipline.”

Mariana takes the whip hesitatingly into her hands and closes her eyes as she brings it down upon Rosa’s back.

“That’s much too gentle,” Rosa protests. “I could barely feel it. Come on, Mariana, do it with gusto! That way, I will never again be tempted to desire a man’s embrace.”

“Well, then, I must be a great sinner. In my youth, even though I was a fat peasant, I enjoyed a man’s piropo from time to time. And how I dreamed of love! To delight in a lover’s arms! To feel his kisses! Oh, no, my niñita, it isn’t a sin for a seventeen-year-old maiden to be enamored by a handsome suitor.”

“Go on,” Rosa insists. “Quit tempting me to complacency by your words.”

And then Mariana does it, once, twice, ten times. Rosa starts to sob with pain and her back is red with blood. Oh, what have I done! Mariana thinks, as her niñita collapses on the ground exhausted by the fury of her lashes.

Suddenly, Rosa rises to her feet, as if nothing had happened, and she takes the whip from Mariana’s hands.

“Now it’s your turn,” she tells Mariana. “Come, show me your brawny bottom!”

“What do you mean?”

“It is you who must be flogged now,” Rosa responds. “Surely you have sins to expiate.”

Mariana is befuddled, trying to figure out how to avoid the lashes.

“As far as sins,” she says, “I’m very deficient. My gravest flaw is that I indulge in sweet picarones, perhaps too much. As regards sins of the flesh, even my poor husband Genaro hasn’t touched me in the last two years.”

“Still, a little self-mortification might be good for your soul. Don’t tell me you don’t give in to small temptations.”

“Well, fine,” says Mariana, thinking quickly, “but I don’t want to offend my sense of modesty or that of my lady by exposing my buttocks so that they can be flogged. Give me the whip and I shall scourge myself behind the garden.”

Rosa seems satisfied and hands the whip to Mariana, who goes behind the garden, and instead of flogging her ample buttocks she whips a tree. Nobody shall know about this small deception, she thinks, as she makes a sign of the cross, hoping for forgiveness.

***

Rosa has started a new odd penitential practice, lugging a heavy wooden cross about the courtyard for an hour every day, but Mariana knows that her parents do not care, for it is a rumor about the house that Rosa has finally fallen in love. She meets for hours in the living room with don Vicente de Montesinos, a gallant Spaniard, and has even started to once again wear a garland of roses about her head every time he visits the house.

“Carrying the cross is another of her flights of fancy,” Mariana hears Rosa’s mother say to her husband Gaspar, “but it’s harmless, just like her fasting. If Rosa has finally decided to accept a suitor, I don’t care if she spends every minute of her day in prayer or if she spends the night kneeling in front of a crucifix. I just thank God that at long last she has found a man pleasing to her eyes.”

“Yes,” Gaspar replies, “and a wonderful man indeed.”

“Have you realized that she no longer puts hot peppers on her face to disfigure herself as she did in the past when we brought home a potential suitor? And have you noticed there’s a new bounce in her step, a brightness in her eyes every time don Vicente arrives? It seems that our good Lord finally has a competitor when it comes to Rosa’s love.”

But Mariana notices that if anything, her niñita’s penitential practices have only increased. Not only does Rosa exhaust her fragile body carrying a large cross across the courtyard, but she also insists that Mariana double down on the flogging. Now instead of ten lashes once a week, Rosa insists on twenty lashes every morning. And her excessive fasting has only gotten worse. But Mariana cannot deny it: there’s no doubt that don Vicente has sparked a new flame in her niñita’s heart. When she isn’t talking about Jesus, all she does is talk about don Vicente, how intelligent he is, how kind-hearted, how devoted in his faith. And Rosa doesn’t fail to recognize that he is also exceedingly handsome.

“And despite all that,” she tells Mariana, “there’s not a hint of pride in him. Not a trace of vanity. Surely, I’ve never met a man as virtuous as don Vicente.”

“Are you in love with him, my niñita?”

“Love is a word with so many meanings, Mariana. Surely, I cherish his company,” Rosa responds, blushing. Her answer was an emotional outburst, and Rosa instantly regrets having uttered it.

“Now I must get ready for his arrival,” she adds, as if rousing from a dream. “I expect him in an hour.”

“Are you going to put a garland of roses on your hair?” Mariana inquires with a coquettish grin. “That makes you look so pretty.”

“Yes, Mariana, I won’t forget that,” Rosa replies, suddenly pensive. “As I do every time he comes.”

At the appointed time, don Vicente arrives, and Rosa greets him effusively in the living room, a crown of red and yellow roses on her head. Mariana, ever so curious, pretends to be busy in the garden and inspects the scene through a window. The caballero is wearing a fitted black frock over gray-colored breeches and sits about six feet away from Rosa. Move a little closer, Mariana thinks, this is no time for timidity, it’s a time for boldness. Oh yes, handsome gentleman caller, a time for boldness!

And then Mariana sees the man get on his knees. Yes! Mariana says to herself. He is going to propose! Mi niñita will have a husband!

But suddenly Mariana sees Rosa also kneel, right next to the man Mariana thought was a suitor. Rosa is clutching a Rosary and begins to count the beads as don Vicente looks at her with a face full of love, but not the kind of love Mariana has imagined.

“They’re praying!” Mariana suddenly cries out as if she were speaking to someone other than herself. “These young people don’t know how to take advantage of an opportunity!”

Crestfallen, Mariana moves away from the window. She has seen enough! She waits for the caballero to leave and then approaches Rosa, ready to give her a scolding.

“I want to let you know, mi niñita, that praying the Rosary is no way to engage a suitor. At least let him hold your hands, let him softly caress your face. You’re going to scare him away by forcing him to participate in your excessive devotions. That is no way to catch a husband!”

“A husband!” Rosa exclaims. “What makes you think I’m trying to trap a husband?”

“Well, it’s obvious that you’re smitten with him. And with good reason. He seems to have all the necessary qualities, if you don’t mind receiving advice from an overweight, middle-aged woman who loves you.”

“What makes you think I’m smitten with him, Mariana? I delight in his company because we share so much. He’s such a devoted Catholic. I spend time with him just like I do with the black friar Martin de Porres, whom everyone calls a saint.”

“Well, for one thing, all the songs you have lately been singing accompanied by your little vihuela. All of them songs of love. What else could I think?”

“Have you ever listened to the lyrics, Mariana? Really listened to them? ‘My soul melts in your tenderness, my soul awaits you, sweet good, why do you delay if you know my sadness, don’t delay, please come, come sweet magnet, love of my loves, light of my eyes, adored treasure, have mercy on my pains of love, lift up my soul that thinks it’s dying from this fever of love which devours me…’ Don’t you realize the song is addressed to Christ, not to any mortal man?”

But Mariana isn’t satisfied. She is convinced Rosa is in love with don Vicente.

“Don’t lie to me, mi niñita, or, better yet, don’t lie to yourself. Don’t deny that sometimes you think of don Vicente when you happily sing your love songs, accompanied by your little vihuela.”

“Oh, what does it matter?”

“Don’t think everyone hasn’t noticed that when you expect him to visit, you put on a garland of roses on your head. In the past, you were furious at your mother when she insisted you wear a crown of flowers. But you do so every time you wait for don Vicente.”

“Well, let me show you something,” Rosa replies, as if addressing an unschooled child. And then she removes the garland of roses surrounding her head.

“Oh, my niñita, what have you done?” Mariana is aghast. On Rosa’s head there is a circular crown made of pewter, with thirty-three sharpened nails meant to puncture her forehead. Mariana suddenly sees a small trickle of blood, running down the part of her face that had been hidden by the lovely red and yellow roses.

“I realized that I was becoming very fond of don Vicente, perhaps too fond. And so, I decided to wear this metal crown every time I saw him, lest I forget that I am betrothed to Jesus. It helps me remember all that the Christ suffered for me and that from my earliest childhood I swore that I would be His own. Now do you understand, Mariana?”

“I understand nothing,” Mariana says. “I am just an old woman with both feet planted firmly on this earth. I wish that I would have been born with your beauty, your auburn hair, your lovely oval face, your lush figure, your silhouette. And you’ve chosen to squander it! I’ll never understand you, my niñita, not in a hundred years.”

***

The dark night of the soul appears in Rosa’s life like a thief in the night. Mariana notices it almost immediately. Rosa had always been a person with a cheerful mood, even when she was wearing her crown of nails, carrying her heavy wooden cross, even after being flogged. But now she’s often in a surly mood, no longer plays her vihuela nor tends to her roses. Mariana even senses that she’s praying less, something virtually unimaginable. And so, one Sunday morning, noticing how late it is, Mariana goes to Rosa’s bedroom and rouses her.

“It’s almost nine in the morning and you’re still in bed,” Mariana says. “Don’t you realize the roses are in bloom, that it’s time to take them to market? Aren’t you the one that used to call me ‘lazy bones’?”

“Oh, leave me alone, you cow,” Rosa answers with irritation. “Don’t you realize I haven’t slept all night, that I’m still awake? And who cares about the roses anyway? Can’t my brothers get a job and contribute something to the family? Why must everything depend on me? Isn’t my father’s illness merely an excuse to avoid working?”

“Oh, my niñita, what’s wrong? I’ve never heard you say such things. Surely you can confide in me.”

“Go away,” Rosa commands peremptorily. “Leave me alone, you sow!”

“Fine,” says the middle-aged woman as she begins to part, somewhat offended. “If that is what you wish, my rose.”

“No!” Rosa cries out. “Please stay with me!”

“I’ll do whatever you wish, as I’ve done all my life. Stay with you or leave you. What is troubling you, my niñita?”

Rosa speaks haltingly, as if she is unsure whether or not she should be sharing her inner troubles and desolation with Mariana.

“At night, I can’t sleep,” she mutters. “I have the most horrible nightmares. I see people involved in the most vile of acts – things I cannot describe, Mariana – horrible acts of sensuality and passion. And when I wake up startled and begin to pray, I find the Lord’s no longer there, as if He had suddenly abandoned me. I fear I’m in exile, that the Christ is further from me than the Himalayas. So sometimes when He does not answer my prayers – when He forsakes me – I hit my head hard against the wall, to stop the visions. I hit my head again and again until it starts to bleed.”

“Oh, my niñita, the Lord hasn’t forsaken you. You’re one of the most precious roses in His garden! Why do you think you must get to Heaven through acts of violence?”

“Still, for the first time in my life, I’m doubting His existence or – at any event – His presence in my life. I don’t know what to do, Mariana. I’m becoming desperate, as if I am being punished. I find such aridity in prayer.”

“Insist!” Mariana orders with a firm and almost angered voice. The quechua woman has a temper. “Don’t forget what you always say, Rosa, that without afflictions it is impossible to reach the heights of grace. And temptations are no sin if you do not consent. Even the Lord was tempted by the enemy. I’m no priest – perhaps you should speak to your Confessor – but I do know this, that God still has great plans for you, my rose. These dark thoughts you are having do not come from Jesus. Resist, my niñita! with all your strength, and you shall win the battle.”

Rosa’s eyes light up and she sits up on her bed, flashing her typical playful smile. With her simple words, Mariana has given her new hope.

“Perplexed, but not in despair,” she states. “Persecuted but not abandoned!”

“What?” asks Mariana, not understanding Rosa’s response.

“That comes from Saint Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. Come, Mariana, let’s go to the garden and gather some roses. What does friar Martin de Porres say that even the simplest acts can be a form of prayer… I still have a hunger for God. Perhaps that suffices. Perhaps the hunger is itself a sign that I’m still in His good graces. Saint Catherine of Siena went through similar trials, horrible images filled her mind and lustful temptations beset her night and day. But she prevailed.”

Rosa’s dark night of the soul – her dark tunnel – does not disappear overnight, as if by an act of magic. For a long time, it is a permanent part of her spirit, an internal cross so much heavier than the wooden one she carries across her courtyard in remembrance of the Passion, so much more painful than Mariana’s lashes. She insists that Mariana flog her more often than ever as a way to extirpate every carnal temptation, every vision of darkness, every possible sin. And Mariana, knowing of her niñita’s agony, reluctantly agrees. She wishes she was wiser, more learned, not an illiterate servant, so that she could better counsel Rosa, but she gives her niñita all she can, a shoulder on which to cry. And during her trip through the tunnel, Rosa often weeps for no apparent reason.

Rosa’s response to her dark night is to increase her acts of charity towards the poor and the ill. At her moments of greatest doubt, she is the most saintly. Mariana has heard her say it a hundred times: “If the Lord no longer loves me, then I shall only love Him more.” And so, Rosa makes it a practice to visit the local hospital for indigents every day, taking Mariana with her, as always. Many of the sick are inexplicably healed after Rosa prays for them. But Rosa has to fight her squeamishness, her failure to take on the most unpleasant duties, like replacing an old woman’s soiled underpants or cleaning the face of a man with bloody pustules. And to overcome such queasiness, at some point while tending to a sick woman, Rosa makes a decision which astonishes Mariana.

Rosa and Mariana watch as a doctor punctures the boils on a woman’s face and begins to bleed her, collecting her blood in a glass flask, which he places on a dresser next to the bed. Rosa is horrified by the sight and begins to vomit profusely. Mariana sees her niñita swoon, become dizzy and collapse on the floor. When Rosa rises, she exclaims in a loud voice, “No, I must resist these scruples. I am not seeing Christ in this woman’s face!”

And with that, she takes the flask of blood and drinks it in three gulps.

“What are you doing?” Mariana exclaims. “Don’t you see she might be contagious?”

“Whether I get sick or don’t, it will be God’s decision. I have nothing to do with it, Mariana. Was the Christ reluctant to touch leprous hands?”

“Well, in all of my years on this sorry planet, I never heard any priest or nun say that God wanted Christians to engage in acts of folly. I’m sorry, mi niñita, but a fool does not stop being a fool merely because she is pious. Don’t let your rump be stung by a scorpion and then blame the Good Lord because it swells like a coconut.”

But then Mariana hears that the woman, whose doctors had lost all hope, has been miraculously cured. And Mariana hears the rumor everywhere, from her husband Genaro, from other maids who are her friends, even from her own daughter: the people of Lima are declaring that Rosa is a saint. In her dark night, in the period when Rosa feels the Lord is furthest from her, she is effecting the most wonderful miracles. Soon, people of all social classes, landed gamonales, no less than African slaves, are flocking to Rosa’s house, asking to be healed.

***

One morning, Mariana finds Rosa in her garden, surrounded by flowers which emit a sweet aroma which the buxom servant thinks might be emanating not from the flowers but from her tormented niñita herself. After all, it was the Lord who wanted her to be called Rosa.

“What are you doing, praying?” Mariana asks.

“What else can I do?  Sometimes I find solace in this garden. Did you know that when the Christ was in the garden of Gethsemane, that was the only time He expressed some second thoughts about His Father’s intentions for Him? As if the human part of Jesus suddenly realized the enormity of the sacrifice required of Him.”

“Well, I’m happy that you’re no longer wearing pointed nails on your head, that Father Lorenzana told you it was an exaggeration.”

“The Lord wore a crown of thorns during His Passion.”

“Yes, but you’re not the Lord,” Mariana answers. “Have you ever considered that your excessive self-mortification might itself be an act of vanity?”

Rosa marvels at the words coming from the mouth of her ignorant servant, wondering if perhaps she might be right. Maybe even her self-flagellation is an act of pride, a product of her vainglory.

“I’ll go to the church of the Virgen del Rosario tomorrow morning,” states Rosa, “and I’ll ask her if it’s time to stop the flogging. I want you to go with me.”

“Good! But go with the faith of a child. Without punishing yourself for thoughts which aren’t within your control and certainly not your fault.”

***

Bright and early on a Monday morning, Rosa and Mariana, both wearing black mantillas, enter the church advancing on their knees as Rosa has demanded. They proceed until they reach the figure of the Virgen del Rosario carrying the infant Jesus. Rosa begins to pray in silence as Mariana yawns. Mariana thinks it is enough to go to church on Sunday, not so early in the morning on a Monday, but she is hopeful this visit might alleviate her niñita’s suffering and stop her requests for incessant flogging. So, she sits on a pew next to Rosa and begins to mouth the Hail Mary, trying very hard not to fall asleep.

Rosa is in the thrall of prayer, seemingly in a trance. Her eyes have an anguished look about them, as if she is desperately demanding something, and Mariana swears she can see crimson tears fall down her cheeks, which once again look like soft, pink roses. But Mariana can hear nothing, her niñita isn’t praying out loud, she seems to be listening to something, and at some point, she falls prostrate on the marble floor below the statue of the Madonna and Child, with her arms outstretched in the shape of a cross.

Mariana does not know what to do and waits, for at least an hour, thinking her niñita has finally gone mad. For a moment, the buxom woman falls asleep and starts to snore until the sacristan comes around and asks her what her mistress is doing. Mariana doesn’t have an answer and lifts her eyelids with the perplexed look of someone who has no idea what is happening. The sacristan, a staunch, burly dark-skinned man, approaches Rosa and asks her to get up. Since she doesn’t respond, he puts his arms below her armpits and tries to lift her. But she is unbearably heavy, so heavy he can do nothing to move her.

“Is she dead?” he asks Mariana.

“Lord, no!” the servant answers. “I’m not quite sure, but I think she is just communing with her God.”

“Well, the first Mass begins in an hour. We can’t have her lying on the ground when the parishioners arrive.”

Finally, Rosa emerges from her ecstasy, her eyes brimming with hope, the eyes of someone who believes she has just witnessed a beatific vision.

“Thank you,” she says, looking at the Madonna and child. “Thank you so much for your counsel!”

“Are you all right?” Mariana asks her. “Why did you fall asleep on the floor?”

“Didn’t you see them?” Rosa asks.

“See what?” Mariana responds.

“The Holy Mother and the infant Jesus, didn’t you see them?”

“Sure, they’re right there next to the altar.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Rosa replies.  “Didn’t you see them talking to me?”

“No, my lady, I saw nothing of the kind.”

“Our Lady told me that what I was doing to share in the Lord’s Passion was pleasing in His sight, that my desire to share in His cross delights Him.”

“Well, I didn’t hear anything,” Mariana says. “Could it not be the product of your imagination?”

 “You always pester me to doubt, you unbeliever! Obviously, you don’t know much about miracles. I heard the words of Mary herself. And I should add the infant Jesus spoke to me too.”

“What did He say?” Mariana asks.

“He told me He wanted me to be His spouse, ‘Rose of my heart,’ He said. ‘Be thou my bride.’”

“Well, at least you didn’t hear anything terrible. I was afraid that in your rapture you might see some unpleasant sights.”

“Quite the contrary,” Rosa replies. “The Lord told me, ‘The light at the end of the tunnel is no illusion. The tunnel is the illusion. I am the light at the end of the tunnel.’”

“Well, I didn’t hear anything,” Mariana says. “But if my niñita is happy now, if her pain will now be eased, who am I to say the vision didn’t happen?”

“I’ve decided I’m going to join the Third Order of Saint Dominic. Whether my parents approve or not, whether the whole world objects, I feel it’s my destiny and my calling. Soon I’ll put on the white habit of the Dominicans.”

***

Gaspar and Maria Flores come out of Rosa’s room and Gaspar taps Mariana gently on the shoulder.

“It’s time,” he says. “Father Lorenzana has just given her the last rites, and death shall soon rip her from us. I know how much you love her and how much she loves you. Surely, you more than anyone, need to be at her side in this moment of parting.”

“Oh, my niñita,” Mariana says, as she approaches her deathbed. “How I shall miss you!”

 “I’ll wait for you,” Rosa says in a very quiet voice.

“Pray for me when you’re in Heaven,” responds Mariana.

“I promise you,” says Rosa, smiling.

“I never really understood you, my niñita. Now I see that you were right all along, that the ladder of the Cross is the only way to Heaven. You were not mad, I was the one who was demented. Not understanding why, you needed to engage in extreme sacrifice, that you were doing it not only for your soul but for those of all poor sinners. Not realizing you were saintly, that you were imitating the Christ, that you had an enormous strength.”

“Jesus gave me the power,” Rosa responds. “And I was not saintly, just a woman in love with her God and His creatures.”

“Well, from this moment on, I’ve decided that I will fast. I’m pledging to the Lord that I will give up meat completely, as well as the sweets which so delight me. I realize now that gluttony is a cardinal sin and that self-denial is the way to the Lord. I also promise you that I will be less slothful, since that is also unpleasing in the eyes of God.”

 “That’s good,” Rosa assents, in a weak, languishing voice. “Fasting is the chief of all penances. Did you know that the Church Fathers were more concerned with gluttony and greed than with giving in to forbidden sexual desire?”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“I thirst,” Rosa whispers. Mariana puts a sponge in water and brings it to the mouth of her niñita.

And then Rosa expires, and Mariana buries her face in her chest. Rosa’s father Gaspar opens the drapes of the window overlooking Rosa’s garden to let in the sunshine, and Mariana sees a wondrous sight. Red roses are falling from the heavens, thousands of them, and Mariana once again remembers the infant with the face of a rose that once suckled at her breast.

***

Twenty-five years later, Mariana, frail, thin, and stooping over a cane, visits the Basilica of Lima where the skull of her niñita is encased in glass, exhibited below a statue of the Virgin Mary for all the faithful to see. And there are so many faithful! The skull is crowned by a garland of crimson roses. The flowers seem to have been freshly cut, Mariana thinks, as if they had just been clipped from Rosa’s garden.

About the Author

Sandro F. Piedrahita

Sandro Piedrahita is an American writer of Peruvian and Ecuadorian descent, with a degree in Comparative Literature from Yale College. Most of his stories revolve around Latin American mythical or historic themes, told with a modern twist. Mr. Piedrahita's short stories have been accepted for publication in The Write Launch, The Acentos Review, Hive Avenue Literary Journal, Carmina Magazine, Synchronized Chaos, The Ganga Review, Limit Experience Journal and Foreshadow Magazine.