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Las Magdalenas While it's still dark, they drape shawls over their sequins, swing black-stockinged legs out of long cars parked a block or two away. The five A.M. mass is preferred, convenient. On entering the dim nave they begin to shed la vida: stale perfume absorbed by the censer the angelic altar boyswings as he leads the sleepy man in scarlet robes—no less splendid than the women's evening clothes— to the altar—the man with the soft hands who does not touch women, the one who can drive the money changers away from the temples of their bodies. Each Sunday it is the same, like sweeping sand from a house on the beach. They bow their heads to accept what was promised Magdalene. The tired man serves them humbly at his master's table. He breaks the bread and pours the inexhaustible wine. "Peace be with you." He sends them away an hour before dawn. "And with you," they reply in unison, yawning into their mantillas, ready now for the clean sheets of their absolution.§3 ...

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