Gerd arrived in Avila at last, knowing no one and speaking not a word of Spanish. She took a tiny room near the station, and went to the convent of La Encarnación, where St. Teresa spent 27 years of her religious life, and where the first and most famous of her mystical encounters with "His Majesty" occurred, and where the idea of the Reform was born. She went to the church every day, sitting through the mass. Soon she asked the custodian whether she might help to clean the church. She was refused. So, every day she picked up the trash from the street around the convent, and continued to come to the mass. It was all she could think of to do. Meanwhile, sitting in the mass, she began to understand that God was instructing her to become a Catholic. This was a very big step, very much at odds with all of her religious upbringing and the deepest roots of ingrained bias, and she resisted. She says she sat in the mass every day, "thinking bad thoughts about the priest!"

Before long, the nuns came to hear of the strange woman practicing her devotion of cleaning up in the street every day. The custodian told her she might help in the church. The custodian proved to be a harsh and demanding tutor, and Gerd took the abuse without ever complaining. She was this much nearer her unknowable goal, simply following her instincts and surrendering herself to them. She began to take on odd jobs, painting and restoring furniture and doors, and the nuns have let her know that they would make sure she never starved. What little money she had is running out.

Gerd would converse on spiritual matters with the Prioress at the torno (turn), the lazy-susan type device with a closable external shutter, that allows objects to be passed back and forth between the nuns and visitors but prevents them from being seen. The nuns open the shutter by means of a chain or rope during certain hours of the morning and afternoon. At last, just before a trip home to Denmark to see her daughters and the grandchildren born since she left, she got up the courage to ask whether she could hope to be received as a novice.

The communities of the Primitive Carmelite rule are limited in number. For her to eventually enter, a nun would have to die to open a place. There are 21 nuns in the community of La Encarnación. Two are young Americans, one from Texas, who realized her surprising vocation only after coming to Avila. To Gerd's question the Prioress answered "No."

Torno, Primitive Carmelite Convent of San José, Malagón

Gerd continues to come daily to La Encarnación, but now comes also to San José, to sit in the church and be with God. San José has begun to give her graces, indications of spiritual relationship and guidance. Gerd did not say exactly how she experiences these indications. She described an event she experienced in her kitchen, in the course of which God made her understand she must convert to Catholicism. She has. She continues in her simple life, waiting for an understanding of the next steps she must take.

Seeing and hearing Gerd talk about her life and spiritual searching with such matter-of-factness and certainty was for me like seeing and hearing St. Teresa. La Santa wrote in her conversational style of events like being levitated during mystical conversations with the same total matter-of-factness. Annette has asked me whether I believe St. Teresa actually levitated. I don't know how to answer. I neither believe nor disbelieve, and don't feel the need to decide for now, or perhaps ever. Still, seeing and hearing Gerd, with her shining face and gentle smile of complete joy, her easy, if painful candor, was like sitting in the presence, right now, in real time, of St. Teresa of Avila. And I thought, it's happened, the story has happened, the event I didn't hope for, has happened!

I was feeling by now overwhelmed. Gerd offered, if we had the time before leaving the next day, to take us to La Encarnación for a special tour. I had been, but Annette hadn't, and I wanted to see it again, through Gerd's eyes. We agreed to meet at 9:30.