My Dad Got Me to a Nunnery

by B. A. Berube

  my godmother, determined not to let Soeur Boulé know about it. How I ever received an

  unopened envelope, escaping Soeur Boulé’s light fingers remains a mystery to me. Yes, I

  covertly placed that dollar in my pocket for a major spending spree to occur at a point later.

  Over time, the dollar simply vanished. Lost in the laundry, maybe? My fault, no doubt.

  Boulé wins.

  I profoundly disliked this bandit, shrouded in the gray cloth. After I returned to the

  convent from Christmas break at home in Lewiston, my brother Lionel’s bought me an

  exceptional gift. It was a medium-sized handsome brown teddy bear, a singular gift from Lionel—no one else. It was my only Christmas gift. I treasured it as the greatest thrill of my

  life at age eight. I never let this toy leave me until… one of the boys at St. Louis and I were

  seen by one of Soeur Boulé’s snitching sleuths as we played a game of catch with this teddy.

  Soeur Boulé evidently found harm or fault with this amusement. She pointed out that a teddy

  bear is, after all, not a ball, and should not have been treated like one. I must have failed to

  note the difference and apologized profusely. No go. This wickedl witch of the cloth

  snatched the teddy away from me. I humbly begged for its return many times later. My sole

  Christmas gift of 1955 was never recovered.

  Meals at St. Louis Home were of mixed value. So, too, for the ambience of dining

  with Soeur Boulé as the maître d'. We could have some steamed hot dogs (no rolls, no

  condiments) served with over-boiled potatoes, pâté Chinois (loose hamburg and creamed

  corn, layered with mashed potatoes)—a respectable crowd pleaser. Spaghetti was, of course,

  popular, too. Suppers were not very different. There were two preparations that were

  unappetizing and hideously sickening: Chinese chop suey with celery and sprouts in a

  phlegm-like paste. Another was loose hamburg in a warm but flavorless lubricant served with

  mashed potato. Either one made me vomit. And gag, I did! I truly tried fantasizing that I was

  eating the greatest ice cream in the land as I was swallowing this swill. The reality of the

  refuse entering my digestive system set in before the swallow. No throwing up around Soeur

  Boulé. I tried to just put down my dish, untouched, hoping that my full plate would somehow

  make it to the swill can before she arrived at my table. Oh, no. Ever vigilant, Soeur Boulé

  insisted that the food I was given was good for me and, after a pop upside my head, she proceeded to spoon-feed me like an infant, one spoonful at a time. I hurriedly left the dining

  room after this intolerable excuse for a meal and heaved this mixture ill-suited for a squalid

  skunk. Relief, at last.

  My fellow mates found some concoctions at St. Louis to be appallingly gross. For

  instance, there were the baked saltine crackers in hot milk with melted orange American

  cheese dried on the top. For me, that was a delicacy. I would eat the servings of others at the

  table, hoping not to get caught doing so by Soeur Boulé or her appointed bloodhounds. Ditto

  for desserts like super-soft over-ripe banana slices in sweet slime sauce. Perhaps

  masochistically, I loved that muck. So, too, for boiled sweet rice with raisins. Where did they

  dream up these putrid recipes? Surely not in Québec?

  Several meals called for boiled carrots on the side or, worse yet, lima beans. What,

  other than Chinese chop suey or ground hamburg pieces could be worse? Solution: trade off

  with my table peers. Get caught? Major infraction. Off to Soeur Boulé’s castigatory devices

  again.

  The pattern was ever evident: meals around Soeur Boulé were not very pleasant

  occasions. She frequently engaged an envoy among us to serve as an infiltrator. She was

  always on her guard trying to catch someone speaking (a very big no-no) when we were not in

  recess. Worse yet was the sharing of food at the table, though we did it as often as we could

  get away with it as in, “I’ll give you my dessert if you’ll take my carrots.” There was one

  entrée that no one would accept: lard-laden chopped hamburg. It was consistently the prime

  perpetrator of puke. I could not, would not stomach this sewage. As time neared for everyone to receive dessert, there set my vomit-to-be, and the omniscient Soeur Boulé knew it.

  She spoon-fed this swill to me until I gulped it all down. When the meal ended, I would rush

  to the toilet for the satisfying release of that venom from my system. This took place perhaps

  once each month.

  Meals at St. Louis Home were varied, wholesomely healthy—far more so than

  anything I would be able to consume back home in Lewiston. For example, Soeur Boulé

  would serve either lumpy oatmeal, lumpy cream of wheat, or cold white toast with milk for

  breakfast. Kitchen staff in a building adjacent to ours prepared the food, but to us, everything

  we ate came from the bully. On the other hand, with her, we could load up on dry cereal with

  butter and sugar at will—nothing like that at my home where we would be lucky to have two

  stale slices of bread to toast and embellish with real butter from government surplus

  provisions. She knew that, and reminded us of our caste status with frequency. So, every

  meal was to be treated as a lavish banquet, no matter how horribly prepared they sometimes

  were.

  Soeur Boulé knew that Danny was no easy kid for me, his peer and caregiver, to tend

  to, especially at mealtime. Yet, one slip-up, one lapse in judgment from him, and I was to be

  blamed because, as Soeur Boulé continually reminded me, “Ce n’est pas sa faut qu’il est

  comme ça.” [It’s not his fault that he’s like that.”] The other admonition was more positive,

  with regard to my duties for tending to his needs, that there would be a reward in the “next

  world” for me if I do this job well. Until then, heaven must wait.

  One day over lunch, Danny’s tall bottle of Father John’s Medicine somehow tipped over. I discovered the spill too late to thwart it. To me, the stream was but a curative russet

  sea. To Soeur Boulé it must have appeared to be a volcanic eruption of the convent’s septic

  system. Nonetheless, I did not commit this transgression. Truly, I was innocent. Not so, here

  comes the Nazi commandant: arrived, primed for the kill. Lifted up and escorted from my seat

  by both ears to the front of the dining hall I was thrown to the floor to, shedding whatever

  dignity I may have had, and assumed the canine position—all fours. Listening to her rifle

  through the drawer for the most torturous tool, fear overtook me afresh. She had no rubber

  sole, no stick, and no traditional bludgeoning instrument. Awaiting me was her preeminent

  finishing touch: a large stainless steel serving spoon. The simple ordeal was a repeated

  whipping with this object across my keister. “Arêt de brailler!” [“Stop the weeping.”] Again.

  One more strike. “Arête de brailler”! In agonizing pain, I was lifted from the floor again

  from the ears, and back to the table. No doubt audible not so much to me but to the others in

  this silent gathering, was her last command, “Clean up this mess, you fool.”

  From this ineffable experience, I was determined to exact justice. Danny was to

  blame. No question in my mind. The right time for vengeance had arrived. As it happened,

  Danny had soiled his pants, something he rarely did, since he was toilet trained. Yet, here was


  an accident, and I knew it. I also knew that if Soeur Boulé knew of this accident, I would be

  admonished for failing to avert this display of crudity. One step ahead of Soeur Boulé, I asked

  to take him to the bathroom. Permission granted.

  What I was about to do to this kid was unspeakably hideous. I seized a wire hanger

  and beat him to a pulp with this weapon, as he was en route to the lavatory. No one could hear him cry but me. When he stopped crying, I cleaned up his mess. He and I gracefully

  returned to the fold. I felt self-righteously proud and unrepentant. I sometimes think of

  actress Joan Crawford’s repulsive child-beating scene involving a coat hanger captured in the

  1981 film, Mommie Dearest. This violent incident from the fifties must have been inspired in

  some psychically perverse way by the commission of my cruelty 3000 miles away from

  Crawford’s Beverly Hills. It was a wickedly appalling act that I will forever remember as

  evil. Genuinely repentant as I eventually was, I asked for forgiveness and received absolution

  from the Good Father. Nothing approaching this act would ever recur.

  Surely, all nuns must abide by the oath of their vocation. Yes, Soeur Boulé, like any

  other nun must do that. The fundamental tenet of all Roman Catholicism, if not especially for

  the women of the sacred cloth and crucifix-on-a-chain, would be that lying is a commission of

  an transgression against God. Ah, but a devine accommodation must have been made for

  Soeur Boulé’s canards. Indeed, the mendacious Soeur Boulé taught us petits garçons that

  lying was evil. Telling one’s parents, for example, that life at St. Louis Home was an

  agonizing experience of corporal punishment, abuse, and neglect would have to be termed a

  fabrication, a deception, a common lie. After all, one would more accurately describe living

  in a penal complex as an agonizing experience as opposed to the nurturing environment we

  would presumably enjoy by living in a Church-operated boys’ home. Perceptions are truly not

  what they seem. Besides, Soeur Boulé so often reminded us little cherubs that St. Louis Home

  was not a reform school, but a good Catholic home and school for us children from

  dysfunctional homes. If anything, we must be grateful to the Lord for the nuns’ awe-inspiring conduct toward us. Right, she was. This was not a reform school. But it did seem enough

  like one to most of us. Hence, the topic would be fair game in “private” conversations with

  parents or other visitors. Of course, some parents and visitors queried about such alleged

  oppression. Sometimes the snitchers enlisted by Soeur Boulé who were within earshot of the

  conversations eavesdropped. Soeur Boulé’s retribution would inevitably follow.

  Imagine, too, her reaction when a parent would repeat what her son reported to her, such

  as accepting a thrashing for dangling one’s tongue during mealtime silence. The furtive Soeur

  Boulé was very well prepared to sentence the little perpetrator of perjury. Whenever that

  happened, the child, still lamenting the exit of his loved ones, would be held up to all of us as

  an exemplar of a fraud. She delivered many, many Sunday evening homilies, each of which

  always featured the same caesura and topic, “A cette heure, la lecture de la politesse.” [“Now,

  for your politeness lecture.”] Following her harangue came her acrimonious exhortation---in

  this case, a demonstration of the consequences for lying to one’s parents about maltreatment

  that was, gulp, non-existent at St. Louis Home. A penalty must be paid for perpetrating

  calumny, as Soeur Boulé reminded us. That would likely be three lashes of the rubber

  flooring strip on the elbow’s sensitive underside or on each wrist. Perhaps she had the best of

  intentions in keeping the chronic abuse under cover: making the “home” look good to

  outsiders. Image was everything. As noted earlier, no one among us would ever receive

  unopened mail. Soeur Boulé would open our letters, read them, and be sure to take out

  (“borrow?”) any money that might have been enclosed. I surmise that she was, of course,

  either too dim-witted (or more charitably, that she was illiterate) to notice the line in one’s letters, that read, “Here’s a dollar for you so you can buy some stamps” or that her English

  skills were too marginal. No money. No stamps, either. That was stealing, and I think that

  offense was among those carved on a tablet that perhaps a twentieth century Moses should

  have photocopied for this malevolent, unholy woman. SoeurBouléwas a crook.

  Soeur Boulés primitive modes of petty behavior modification were clearly sadistic and

  ostensibly masochistic as well. Her methods for exacting reprisal were vindictive, unmerciful,

  mortifying, inventive, fierce, and always triggered by her persistently livid autocracy. The

  most minor infractions would result in an early-to-bed outcome. Then there was always the

  quick, easy and direct face slap. For her convenience, we sometimes were commanded to slap

  the mischievous mugs of our best friends as hard as we might under her orders. That made

  SoeurBouléhappy.

  In addition to the rubber strip of flooring remnants, there was a shoe sole that Soeur

  Boulé kept on her person as any other woman might carry a purse. Those two items were her

  favorite instruments for tormenting us. As justice would have it, she had a carefully

  choreographed system for identifying offenders, covering a wide range of infractions. Some

  involved speaking during meals or during tooth-brushing regimens or during line-ups. Others

  were violations worthy of the same invective such as overstaying time in the lavatory or

  accusing others of doing these things as a result of a snitching peer’s intervention. Once we

  children were identified as violators of her official directives, we might receive the three-to-a

  hand stinging with the rubber shoe sole. Sometimes it was just more efficient for her to strike

  us against the wrist using her bare open palm. At other times, she would incarcerate individuals under her desk where they would sit for an hour or so in a most uncomfortable

  fetal position. If the underside of the desk was already taken, there was always the dungeon

  like solo bathroom, toilet with no sink, with the six-inch thick heavy metal door at the foot of

  the steps leading to that area. The underside of the desk was torture far less medieval. In this

  lightless room that was easy to pass by unnoticed, we were frequently confined, often

  forgotten for hours. Mental pain through incarceration was a mode of punishment more

  severe than, say, whipping with the stick or rubber strap. It was the deafening long-term

  solitude in that six-by-six toilet cell. Ah, our transgressions! Boulé’s blind style of

  management?

  Beatings with a stick were reserved for repeat offenders. Take my brother Bobby, for

  example. Once he was held up as an example, too, when Soeur Boulé gave him fair warning,

  “ 74, Tu va avoir le mal affaire à moi.” [Loosely: “Number 74, You will receive the worst of

  me.”]. Soeur Boulé’s three-foot long pointer stick was used in the same way as the rubber

  strap. Bobby could be ornery sometimes, willing even to confront authority as others like him

  had done without success. Even a docile, obsequious lad like me knew better than they. My

  advice: Go along with it and get over the beating until the next time. Not Bobby. With his

  arm gingerly stretched out towar
d his oppressor, he was prepared for one lash on the left wrist

  with the stick. Ouch! Yikes! Enter Strike Two! But wait. Bobby ain’t gonna take this one.

  No way. Simultaneously but swiftly down goes his arm as the speedy stick shatters over

  Soeur Boulé’s knee. Visibly upset about Bobby’s one-upsmanship, she whacks the remains of

  her fragmented stick across his worried face, resulting in cuts, a swollen face for Bob, and a yelp far greater than he would have otherwise endured. Another strike. And another across

  his side, continuing until her anger abated. What had he learned? He probably learned that he

  should be more careful about dodging a bullet from Soeur Boulé. The fool just thought that

  maybe this once, he would prevail. Never so with this gray dame.

  Not all beatings for misdeeds were equal. For example, talking too loudly on the

  playground would trigger a penance such as: “Tien ta langue.” [“Hold your tongue”]. That is

  to say, you must pinch the tip of your tongue with your thumb and forefinger—quite literally.

  Punishment awaited any of us who sat on the playground swing seat facing the public

  Dunstan School across the street where little girls may be noticed from afar. Ah, that was to

  risk another creative but common response: placing one’s nose against the wall for several

  minutes. Sometimes Soeur Boulé was too lazy to do the beating herself; Consequently, she

  Dunstan Public School: Forbidden view of the school from our play area across the street asked one of us to give a slap across the face to the kid next to us. After the slap from a peer,

  the child would be told why the slap was warranted. Efficiency at work.

  Soeur Boulé trained her surrogates from her home-made text on childcare. No, surrogates

  were not so much nuns like the aforementioned Sister Rita, but no-name Madame. Madame

  was an aging, frustrated, mean, widowed woman. She was hired to tend to us when Soeur

  Boulé or Sister Rita attended to meals with their fellow nuns or somewhere else that nuns go

  that we kids would know nothing about. Madame was feared only second to Soeur Boulé; no

  nun was worse than these two spiteful rogues. Madame’s favorite punishment was to have us

  miscreants sit in the fetal position under her desk for wrongdoings such as talking during