Love Letters

by Madeleine L'engle

  “That’s all any of us has, Cotty,” Violet said.

  “But you always seem to know exactly what you have to do and how to do it.”

  “Perhaps the times I seem most sure are the times I am most unsure. A good deal of the time I simply act, with great positiveness and very little assurance. I have all the arrogance of utter insecurity.”

  “But you do act—”

  “Don’t try to imitate me. I have made as many mistakes as it is possible to make, and a few more besides. And Cotty, dear Cotty, you must stop making the error of thinking that the people you love can’t do wrong. We can. I, in particular, have.”

  The doctor got up from his chair and picked up the breakfast tray around which bees were beginning to buzz. He moved quietly through the long open windows into the cool darkness of the house, leaving Violet and Charlotte alone.

  “I do not go back on saying that I did what I had to do,” Violet continued, looking not at Charlotte but at the withdrawing figure of the doctor. “But in doing it, I did wrong. To put it bluntly, I sinned. In a sense you are paying for my sin now. I am partly responsible for what Patrick is. Not entirely. I don’t overestimate myself to that extent. Charlotte, tell me, what do you want for Patrick?”

  “I want him to be happy and alive. And I haven’t been making him happy. That’s obvious.”

  “Do you think leaving him will help?”

  “That’s one of the things I came to Beja to find out.”

  “If you leave him do you think he’ll get things in their right perspective again? Or will it be just one more betrayal in human relationships? First me, his mother. Then his father putting the South American aborigines before his son, though who am I to say he was wrong? I haven’t the faintest notion. And then Andrew, Cotty. Just the fact that Andrew was killed must have seemed to Patrick another betrayal. And now you.”

  “You’re putting too much on me,” Charlotte said desperately.

  “I, who of all people have no right to?”

  “It’s not that, it’s—”

  —if I could understand anything. Anything at all. Father said once that to love is to listen. I haven’t listened to Patrick, but only to my own cries. Like Mariana.

  If I could laugh again, God. That’s what’s wrong. I’ve forgotten joy. And it’s the only thing.… How do I move back into joy? Sometimes Patrick and I in the middle of the night … what’s happened to the fun? the wild glorious laughter? If we were still able to laugh he could never have said.…

  So I came to Beja in the middle of the winter

  where Mariana

  The winter is long. Joy is nipped by the cold, washed away by the rain.

  But there are flowers. All winter long, beside the black wet branches of the fig trees, the naked crawling of the grapevines, there are the winter flowers. They are there, thrusting into bloom, opening to a sun that never seems to shine.

  In the winter the children wouldn’t have been able to work in the gardens, though it couldn’t have been much colder out of doors than within the raw damp of those thick walls. But at least they would have been protected from the rain.

  The older ones, the ones who would soon have to return to the world or accept the cloister for the rest of their lives, who would soon become someone’s bride, man’s or God’s, were sometimes allowed to work in the library, taking over Mariana’s task of copying and illuminating manuscripts.

  … Ampara looked nastily at Peregrina. “You needn’t sound so grand. Her Grace may be called before the Inquisition for keeping a certain sister here.”

  Peregrina rolled her brush carefully against gold leaf (Ampara was not allowed to use the gold). “You keep quiet.”

  Urraca purred, “Ampara’s silly. My father says no Alcoforado’s peccadilloes are important enough for the Inquisition to notice.”

  Ampara spat across the table at Peregrina. “Perhaps. But in any case my father says they’re laughing at your father in court.”

  Peregrina rose, leaned across the table, and struck Ampara.

  “Sister! Sister!” Ampara called. “Peregrina Alcoforado hit me!”

  Sister Maria da Assunção came over to the table where the girls were working. “What’s the matter, Ampara?”

  “Peregrina hit me.”

  Sofia looked up from her copying. If her fat fingers could not cope with needle and thread they were meticulous with a paintbrush. “It was Ampara’s fault. She asked for it.”

  “I didn’t do a thing!” Ampara cried with injured innocence.

  Sofia looked at Sister Maria da Assunção, wishing it were Mother Escolastica. “Ampara was talking about Sister Mariana.”

  Still full of innocence, Ampara cried, “I never mentioned her name.”

  “Was that necessary?” Urraca leered.

  Sister Maria da Assunção drew in her thin lips. “Ampara, you know that we do not talk about Sister Mariana, even indirectly. Peregrina, you know that the Most Reverend Mother Brites does not allow any pinching or slapping. There have been too many complaints about you lately.”

  Peregrina looked down at her work, muttering under her breath, “I don’t care.”

  Before Sister Maria da Assunção could come in with a reprimand, Sofia took a breath and plunged in. “It’s not Peregrina’s fault. People tease her about Sister Mariana’s being locked in her cell when she’s not in the gatehouse, and about her not being allowed to see us or teach us any more. Everybody thinks it’s strange.”

  “It’s not strange at all,” Sister Maria da Assunção almost shouted. “Sister Mariana’s not well, and her Grace wants her to rest all she can. That is why she has been relieved of her duties.”

  “If Sister Mariana’s not well,” Urraca asked slyly, “then why does her Grace make her be Sister Portress and sit at the gates?”

  “Because it’s quiet, easy work,” Sister Maria da Assunção said, her voice still unusually loud. “I am ashamed of all of you. What would you think of the sisters if we gossiped the way you girls do? If you can’t talk without upsetting each other and making up wild tales about one of the sisters, then I think you had better be in silence until Sister Beatriz comes to give you your French lesson.”

  In her cell Mariana lay face down on her bed. Her hard bed. The straw pallet on the narrow slab of wood was unkind to her bones. She lay not moving, not breathing. On her face. If she opened her eyes she saw only the rough blanket. Not the window. Not the cross.

  A key turned in the lock and Mother Escolastica entered with a bowl of fish soup. She put it down on the floor by Mariana, stood looking at her. Then she sat down on the narrow pallet beside the girl and took her into her arms, holding her and rocking her as though she were a very small child. Mariana lay in the old nun’s arms, rigid, her blue eyes vacant, the gold flecks dulled, almost lost. Suddenly she burst into a wild torrent of sobbing. The old nun continued to rock her. At last the sobs spent themselves and Mariana lay limply against the old woman. When Mother Escolastica saw that the girl was relaxed, she laid her gently down on the pallet and left the cell, turning the key in the lock.

  When she was not in her cell, Mariana sat in the gatehouse. Old Sister Portress, retired, like an old horse put out to pasture, warmed herself by the kitchen fire and the kitchen gossip. Visitors to the gate were no longer welcomed by her toothless grin, her cackling laugh. She was missed. The only pleasure anyone had in coming through the gates now was in seeing a great Alcoforado brought so low, though the new Sister Portress herself seemed unaware of either who she was or what she was. Her face was indifferent. She did not speak unless it was absolutely necessary.

  In the library Michaela and Joaquina were oiling and cleaning the leather-bound volumes. At a lectern in one corner Beatriz read to them while they worked.

  “… so that the Lord could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings and because of the abominations which ye have committed; therefore is your land a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse.’”

  The
cold and damp that crumbled the bindings of the books to green mould penetrated the heavy habits of the nuns. Michaela shivered. “It’s cold.”

  Joaquina’s hands were raw with chilblains. She glared at Michaela. “Hush.”

  Beatriz’s cool, dispassionate voice continued. “‘What thing shall I take witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, oh virgin daughter of Zion? for thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?’”

  “Oh, please.” With a jerky movement Michaela returned a book to the shelf, took down another. The blue and white tiles above the shelves were stained with a trickle of damp rustiness. Michaela sat down, rubber her hands over the fabric of her scapular.

  Beatriz flicked her eyes towards Michaela, but did not pause. “‘All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash their teeth: they say, We have swallowed her hu: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.’”

  As Michaela rose, Joaquina snapped, “Sit down.”

  Beatriz continued, “‘The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries—’”

  “Please!” Michaela cried. “Why did Sister Beatriz choose to read this?”

  At last Beatriz raised her eyes from the book on the lectern. “I didn’t choose it. It is what Mother Escolastica marked for me to read.”

  Joaquina rubbed the spine of her book with an oiled rag. “Just because Sister Maria da Assunção was called out is no reason for us to talk.”

  “Please!” Michaela cried again, her voice trembling on the borders of hysteria. “I know it’s wrong, but it’s also wrong to sit with our lips buttoned up over—” she stopped as her mouth began to tremble, her eyes to fill.

  “Over what, Sister?” Beatriz asked.

  “You know what! It’s been months now since—”

  “Since what?”

  “Do you need to ask?” Joaquina rubbed the oil into the book with vehement energy. “Since Mariana’s sin.”

  “Sister.” Beatriz’s voice was chill. “Her Grace doesn’t wish us to talk about it.”

  “Or to talk at all during Silence,” Joaquina retorted.

  Michaela’s tears began to overflow. She rubbed them away, saying, “I’ve got to talk! I have to! I can’t just think and think and think.… When we can’t talk about it, it’s as though one of us had a terrible illness, and we have to go around in whispers as though we were afraid a loud noise would make her die.”

  Joaquina poured fresh oil on her rag. “She is dead.”

  Beatriz spoke with authority from her position at the lectern. “No. Sister Michaela’s right. It is as though Mariana were ill. She is ill. And all we can do is pray for her to recover, to come back to us, to be one of us again.”

  Joaquina corked the oil bottle. “That can never be.”

  Michaela clasped her chapped hands unhappily. “Why not?”

  Joaquina spoke with downcast eyes but rigid stubbornness. “This is a Community of virgins.”

  Beatriz said, “Our Lady had a Son and yet she remained a virgin.”

  “That’s heresy!” Joaquina cried in a shocked voice.

  “Why?” Beatriz asked. “Nuns who are taken by men unwillingly remain pure in the eyes of the Lord. Why not one who has been taken unknowingly?”

  Joaquina said, “We should not be breaking silence to discuss this, and certainly not in this manner. It’s bad enough when the children and lay Sisters do it.”

  Beatriz shook her head. “No. Sister Michaela’s right. We need to talk about it. It’s with us all the time. We need to face it, not turn our backs on it. I read what Mother Escolastica has marked for me and immediately it appears to be about our Community, about Mariana. Sometimes the wisdom of a rule is in knowing when it should be broken. I will go to her Grace this evening and tell her what we have done.”

  “God is punishing us all!” Michaela cried, “not just Mariana. I think evil thoughts. I think perhaps none of this would have happened if Sister Joaquina hadn’t gone to the Most Reverend Mo—” She stopped and with her tongue licked a tear that had trickled down.

  Beatriz, standing firm behind the lectern, said, “Her Grace would have learned about it in any case.”

  “I know, but that doesn’t stop my thinking. And then I think about how I used to trust Mariana, and I want to go to her the way I used to, and tell her how unhappy I am. and then I remember. She’s turned from our Lord and towards Satan. How could she?”

  Beatriz said, her words as chiseled as her features, “Satan’s an angel, even if he’s a fallen one. That’s what makes him dangerous. It would be easy to resist an ugly tempter. But the prince of darkness is beautiful.”

  “Beatriz,” Michaela said, “you’re the only one who can speak of Mariana as though—as though nothing were changed. How can you? Oh—I’m so confused!” She licked away another tear, then put her head down on the heavy leather book, so that a stain of oil smeared her veil.

  Beatriz remained standing by the lectern but spoke more gently. “We’re all upset, Sister. Her Grace, too. And I think now I should start reading again. But I will read something different.” She stepped out from behind the lectern, went to the shelves, selected a book, and returned to her place. As she read her voice was as always quiet, controlled. Too controlled. “‘It must be remembered that, although in times past, soon after the Passion of our Lord, there may have been more saints, and people were holier and richer in spiritual blessings than they are in these miserable times of ours, yet there is no doubt that some such are to be found still …’”

  The two young nuns continued their work on the musty bindings. Yes, the extremes of weather in Beja were hard on the leather, on the vellum, on

  the entire convent. Tension lay about the walls as heavily as the fog and cold.

  Beatriz went to the abbess. Her cheeks were flushed; she had lost her usual marble dignity. In the serenity of chiseled stone she was beautiful, but now life pulsed through the marble so that the abbess caught her breath, checked her sharp words, and listened with infinite sadness. It was Beatriz, she knew now, who would be the next abbess instead of Mariana.

  “I do not believe that this is what is asked of us,” Beatriz said, “to behave as though we were dead. It is in the first place arrogance to think that we can in human life—even the Religious life—attain this degree of beatitude, disinterestedness. I am alive and I am flawed and I am interested, I am passionately interested. What is happening to Mariana concerns us all. I do not believe that we are not intended to suffer from it, or that we ought to withhold our love. All we can do is discipline our interests, all we can do is control it by the structure of the sacraments.”

  “And your vows,” the abbess reminded. “You have promised obedience.”

  “I have not forgotten, your Grace,” Beatriz said. “That is why I am here.”

  Michaela sought Beatriz out as she had once sought Mariana. “I can’t find God anywhere.” Her voice trembled, as it nearly always did now. “All I see and hear is the devil and I am afraid.”

  Beatriz sighed. “You are not afraid of God?”

  “God is love,” Michaela said.

  “You are not afraid of love?”

  “Love is supposed to be kind.”

  “Is it?” Beatriz asked.

  Michaela would wander out to the gatehouse when she should have been helping Sister Isabella. She would stand looking at Mariana sitting in the shadows, but though Mariana seemed to be staring directly at her she did not in any way acknowledge her presence, and Michaela would flee back to the safety of work and rule.

  Baltazar, too, went to see Mariana at the gatehouse. Sometimes she would speak to him, but usually she turned away her face.

  Spring and the
heat of the sun returned.

  Baltazar stood with Peregrina on the dusty road outside the wrought-iron gates. The walls that surrounded the convent threw the glare back at them. In the thickening excrescence of wall that was the gatehouse the heat was fierce in summer, the cold bitter in winter. Old Sister Portress had kept the shutters almost closed against the glare of sun, the blast of wind, but Mariana simply sat there. The wind blew from the Alentejo plains, leaving a fine grey film of dust on her coif, her veil. She herself seemed as grey and lifeless as the dust.

  Peregrina looked helplessly at Baltazar. “Where does she go?”

  He shook his head, staring down at his feet, watching the bright polish of his boots dim with dust.

  “She sits there and she is not there.” Peregrina looked into the dark of the gatehouse. The open half door was like a gaping mouth in the white of wall. “It’s like the saints when they’re at prayer. They move so deeply into the mind of God that they are hardly in their bodies at all.”

  “She is not at prayer,” Baltazar said sharply.

  Peregrina wrinkled her face in distressed acknowledgment. “I know. But I don’t know where she is. She just sits there, and she isn’t there at all.”

  With an impatient movement Baltazar turned away.

  “When she cries,” Peregrina said, “I can understand that, Baltazar. I can understand it when she cries. She is alive. She is suffering. She—she wants something. But when she just sits there at the gates, the way she’s doing now, and isn’t there—I’m afraid.”

  “I have to leave,” Baltazar said. “Go on in, Peregrina. You’ll get in trouble with Aunt if you stay out here. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

  The next day he returned, but not alone.

  She sat there. It was not that she sat and endured. It was simply, as Peregrina said, that she sat there.