The Eldorado Network Read Free

barked.
    'I apologise, Sister. It just seemed to me that if God went to all that trouble, we ought to know what's on His mind.'
    Sister Theresa clenched her jaw and pursed her lips until her sparse moustache bristled. 'When it is necessary for you to know, then you will be told,' she declared. The class shifted restlessly and looked at each other. 'There is no great urgency about the matter,' she added. Luis shrugged his shoulders, and she could see that several other children were looking puzzled or sceptical or, even worse, amused. 'Which is not to say that the divine messages were not extremely important at the time,' she said sternly. 'Our Lady announced the end of the Great War. She also warned us against the evil spread of the Godless Russian Communism, which despite the valiant efforts of the Catholic Church has come about, and she predicted that unless men cease from sinning an even worse war will follow.' Sister Theresa gave Luis a look of grim satisfaction: Make something of that if you can, you little fiend.
    'I heard there was another message,' Luis said. 'A secret one.'
    'That need not concern us,' Sister Theresa said firmly, 'as it was written down by one of the children, at the instruction of Our Lady, and placed in a sealed envelope which is now entrusted to the care of the Bishop of Leiria.'
    'Why doesn't he open it?' Luis asked.
    'The time is not yet right.'
    'Who says?'
    Sister Theresa stiffened. 'Cabrillo, I give you leave to reconsider your question,' she said, snapping her fingers nervously.
    Luis thought about it. 'It doesn't make any sense, Sister, that's all,' he said. 'What's the point of God going to all that trouble to send us a message in 1917 if some Bishop won't tell us what it was?'
    'The Church knows greater mysteries than your weak faith can comprehend, my son,' said Sister Theresa. Her finger-clicking grew louder.
    'Yes, of course,' Luis agreed. 'I have never questioned that, Sister. I just wonder who is really in charge: God, or the Bishop of Leiria?'
    'God through the Bishop,' Sister Theresa ruled.
    'I bet he's opened it,' Luis said. There was a sharp intake of breath by the rest of the class, but Luis could not stop himself. 'I bet he opened it and read it and it's not a message from God at all, it's just a load of old Portuguese rubbish, and that's why he won't tell  -- '
    'Foul-mouthed wretch!' Sister Theresa shouted. She crashed her leatherbound Bible against Luis's head and knocked him off his seat. 'Evil, poisonous brute!' Her large shoes kicked him to the front of the class. Another beating was on its way. Sister Theresa died of a stroke the following year, and all the other nuns blamed Luis Cabrillo; but by then Luis was in another town, another school, and another battle.
    As he grew older, his conflicts became more dogged. He refused to learn any geography because the school could give him no good reason, why he. should memorise the principal rivers of Australia. He was in trouble in the art class, where his nude studies were considered too explicit. 'Unhealthy' was the word the art teacher used. 'But this same human body was good enough for El Greco and Goya and Rubens and Raphael,' Luis argued. 'There's acres of flesh hanging in the Prado, isn't there?' For once he was not beaten, but was sent out to play soccer. That didn't work either. He tripped opponents and he handled the ball so often that the teacher who was refereeing threatened to send him off. 'But tripping and handling are difficult skills,' Luis claimed. 'Besides, how can the game ever develop unless new techniques are introduced?' 'Shut up, Cabrillo,' the referee said. 'Free kick against your team.' Two minutes later, Luis tripped the referee.
    That was the day he left school for good. He possessed only one academic skill: he could read and write English and (to some extent) speak it, no thanks to any of the schools he had passed through. Luis Cabrillo had taught himself English so that he could get his moneys