Sidney Sheldon - The sands of time

To Megan's surprise, she was seated next to Jaime. Felix and Amparo were in the backseat. Jaime glanced at Megan, a grin on his face.

"Typhoid fever," he said, and burst out laughing.

Megan smiled. "He did seem eager to get away, didn't he?"

"Did you say you were in an orphanage, Sister?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"In Ávila."

"You don't look Spanish."

"So I've been told."

"It must have been hell for you in the orphanage."

She was startled by the unexpected concern. "It could have been," she said. "But it wasn't." I wouldn't let it be, she thought.

"Do you have any idea who your parents were?"

Megan recalled her fantasies. "Oh, yes. My father was a brave Englishman who drove an ambulance for the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War. My mother was killed in the fighting and I was left on the doorstep of a farmhouse." Megan shrugged. "Or my father was a foreign prince who had an affair with a peasant girl and abandoned me to avoid a scandal."

Jaime glanced at her, saying nothing.

"I—" she stopped abruptly. "I don't know who my parents were."

They drove on in silence for a while.

"How long were you behind the walls of the convent?"

"About fifteen years."

Jaime was astonished. "Jesus!" Hastily he added, "I beg your pardon, Sister. But it's like talking to someone from another planet. You have no idea what's happened in the world in the past fifteen years."

"I'm sure that whatever changed is only temporary. It will change again."

"Do you still want to go back to a convent?"

The question took Megan by surprise.

"Of course."

"Why?" Jaime made a sweeping gesture. "I mean— there is so much that you must miss behind the walls. Here we have music and poetry. Spain gave the world Cervantes and Picasso,

Lorca, Pizarro, de Soto, Cortés. This is a magical country."

There was a surprising mellowness about this man, a soft fire.

Unexpectedly, Jaime said, "I'm sorry for wanting to desert you earlier, Sister. It was nothing personal. I have had bad experiences with your Church."

"That is difficult to believe."

"Believe it." His voice was bitter.

In his mind's eye he could see the buildings and statues and streets of Guernica exploding in showers of death. He could still hear the screams of the bombs mingling with the screams of the helpless victims being torn apart. The only place of sanctuary was the church.

The priests have locked the church. They won't let us in.

And the deadly hail of bullets that had murdered his mother and father and sisters. No. Not the bullets, Jaime thought. The Church.

"Your Church stood behind Franco and allowed unspeakable things to be done to innocent civilians."

"I'm sure the Church protested," Megan said.

"No. It wasn't until nuns were being raped by his

Falangists and priests were being murdered and churches were being burned that finally the pope broke with Franco. But that didn't bring my mother or father or sisters back to life."

The passion in his voice was frightening.

"I'm sorry. But that was long ago. The war is over."

"No. Not for us it isn't. The government will still not permit us to fly the Basque flag or celebrate our national holidays or speak our own language. No, Sister. We're still being oppressed. We'll keep on fighting until we gain our independence. There are half a million Basques in Spain and a hundred fifty thousand more in France. We want our independence—but your God is too busy to help us."

Megan said earnestly, "God cannot take sides, for He is in all of us. We are all a part of Him, and when we try to destroy Him, we destroy ourselves."

To Megan's surprise, Jaime smiled. "We are a lot alike,

you and I, Sister."

"We are?"

"We may believe in different things, but we believe with a passion. Most people go through life without caring deeply about anything. You devote your life to God; I devote my life to my cause. We care."

And Megan thought: Do I care enough? And if I do, why am I enjoying being with this man? I should be thinking only of returning to a convent. There was a power in Jaime Miró that was like a magnet. Is he like Manolete? Risking his life taking daring chances because he has nothing to lose?

"What will they do to you if the soldiers catch you?"

Megan asked.

"Execute me." He said it so matter-of-factly that for a moment Megan thought she had misunderstood.

"Aren't you afraid?"

"Of course I'm afraid. We're all afraid. None of us wants to die, Sister. We'll meet your God soon enough. We don't want to rush it."

"Have you done such terrible things?"

"That depends on your point of view. The difference between a patriot and a rebel depends on who is in power at the moment. The government calls us terrorists. We call ourselves freedom fighters. Jean Jacques Rousseau said that freedom is the power to choose our own chains. I want that freedom." He studied her a moment. "But you don't have to concern yourself with any of these things, do you? Once you're back in the convent, you'll no longer be interested in the world outside."

Was that true? Being out in the world again had turned her life upside down. Had she given up her freedom? There was so much she wanted to know, so much she had to learn. She felt like an artist with a blank canvas about to start sketching a new life. If I go back to a convent, she thought, I will be shut away from life again. And even as she thought it, Megan was appalled by the word if. When I go back, she corrected herself hastily. Of course I'm going back. I have nowhere else to go.

They camped that night in the woods.

Jaime said, "We're about thirty miles from Logroño and we aren't supposed to meet the others for two days. It will be safer for us to stay on the move until then. So tomorrow we will head toward Vitoria. The next day we'll go into Logroño and just a few hours after that, Sister, you'll be at the convent in Mendavia."

Forever. "Will you be all right?" Megan asked.

"Are you worried about my soul, Sister, or my body?"

Megan found herself blushing.

"Nothing will happen to me. I'll cross the border into

France for a while."

"I will pray for you," Megan told him.

"Thank you," he said gravely. "I will think of you praying for me and it will make me feel safer. Get some sleep now."

As Megan turned to lie down, she saw Amparo staring at her from the far end of the clearing. There was a look of naked hatred on her face.

No one takes my man from me. No one.

Early the following morning, they reached the outskirts of

Nanclares, a small village west of Vitoria. They came to a filling station with a garage, where a mechanic was working on a car. Jaime pulled into the garage.

"Buenos días," the mechanic said. "What is the problem?"

"If I knew," Jaime replied, "I would fix it myself and charge for it. This car is as useless as a mule. It sputters like an old woman and has no energy."

"It sounds like my wife," the mechanic grinned. "I think you may have a carburetor problem, señor."

Jaime shrugged. "I know nothing about cars. All I know is that I have a very important appointment in Madrid tomorrow.

Can you have it fixed by this afternoon?"

The mechanic said, "I have two jobs ahead of you, señor,

but—" He let the rest of the sentence hang in the air.

"I will be glad to pay you double."

The mechanic's face brightened. "Will two o'clock be all right?"

"Wonderful. We'll get something to eat and come back at two."

Jaime turned to the others, who had been listening to the conversation in amazement. "We're in luck," Jaime said. "This man is going to fix the car for us. Let's go eat."