by Rumer Godden
‘But she must learn,’ said Lise. ‘She knows nothing.’
‘Except the one thing that matters,’ said Soeur Marie Mercédes. ‘But certainly she must know a little of scripture, customs, prayers.’
‘How?’ asked Lise. ‘It would mean hours of patience. We only see her once a month and the local priest has several parishes to serve and he is getting old. It needs someone who would understand, read a little to her at a time, explain, get her to repeat, slowly bring her …’ Soeur Marie Mercédes and Lise looked at one another and both said, ‘Père Marc’
‘Would he?’
‘I know he would.’
‘It’s quite a long way to drive – just for one person.’
‘One can be more important than the ninety-nine.’
‘Yes,’ said Marc when he heard, and with fervour, ‘Yes!’
For him too something unexpected had happened – not as surprising as Big Jo but unexpected, ‘and maybe glorious,’ he said, trying to keep excitement out of his voice. ‘I may be wrong but it makes me feel that nothing, nothing at all is wasted.’ A Chinese girl from his parish at Kowloon was coming to Saint Etienne. ‘First as a visitor, of course – just to see – then, we hope, as an aspirant.’ She was not an indigent girl, one of Marc’s ‘rags and tags’ as Father Louis called them, but the daughter of a well-to-do family whose father was a Christian. ‘Lee Wan Tsui is educated – for instance, she speaks French – this would be impossible for her without that. Perhaps it is a sign,’ said Marc and, ‘I think – believe – she has a vocation.’
‘Are you sure it’s a vocation and not Father Marc?’ teased Louis.
‘For a time perhaps it was Father Marc,’ Marc was serious. ‘But I haven’t seen her for two years. There have, of course, been letters.’
‘Constant letters.’
‘Necessarily so, but Wan Tsui knows when she comes to France it’s unlikely I shall see her, at any rate for some time. She will be at Saint Etienne, I here, though I might be at Saint Xavier if she comes there later on. Besides, long before she met me she had wanted to be a nun: she tried one of the Orders in Hong Kong but teaching or nursing didn’t seem right for her. She was searching, then suddenly Béthanie … I don’t know why.’
‘Except somehow it always seems to happen like that,’ said Lise.
‘For Wan Tsui it will all be so strange, no one can tell how it will turn out, but …’
‘All the same you have brought us Béthanie’s first aspirant from the Far East …’
‘Perhaps it is a sign,’ said Marc.
‘More like a sign-post,’ said Lise.
In farewell, Mademoiselle Signoret had given Big Jo what seemed an extraordinary present, ‘and an extremely expensive one,’ said Lise, ‘but priceless to Big Jo.’ It was a museum reproduction in a limited edition of a Book of Hours with page after page of miniature paintings showing scenes from the Bible in borders of flowers, leaves, jewels, minute portraits and grotesques. ‘For Big Jo!’ Lise had been dumbfounded but, ‘Don’t you see,’ said Mademoiselle, ‘It’s like stained glass windows which were the Bible of the poor. Big Jo can’t read but she can conjure up the meaning of each picture.’
When Big Jo first took the book into her hands, they trembled. ‘For me?’ but, as she turned the pages, the trembling was forgotten in wonder. She kept the book wrapped in a cloth and washed her hands before she touched it. ‘The little pictures,’ she said, looking at the background landscapes of castles and farms, hills, rocks, meadows; her coarse forefinger endlessly traced the intricacies of the borders; her eyes loving the flowers and fruit, laughing at the monkeys, the ass laden with faggots, the beehives, symbol of purity. ‘I believe she looks at it every day,’ Lise told Mademoiselle. ‘And to think,’ said Big Jo, ‘I called that one “cette enculée!’”
Summer, autumn, winter, spring, summer came and went, ‘like a flash,’ said Lise; now it was autumn again and an uncommonly hot one. As she carried up baskets of apples to the cider heap in the courtyard, Lise was sweating. She had spent the whole morning picking up windfalls, shaking the trees and climbing them. ‘No one would think you were over fifty,’ Soeur Fiacre had called up.
‘Fifty-five,’ Lise called back. ‘But it’s funny – I feel younger now than I did at twenty.’ All the same, with the weight of the baskets and the sun she was panting; Lucette appeared, small, reproachful. ‘Soeur Marie Lise, you shouldn’t be carrying that basket by yourself. It’s far too heavy.’
‘I don’t need a nounou, thank you.’ The inevitable irritation broke; Lucette shrank back as she always did when Lise was sharp – Lise could not forget that. At the same time as Lucette, the porteress, Soeur Elizabeth, ran out from the lodge. ‘Soeur Marie Lise, telephone.’
It was Mademoiselle. ‘Marie Lise?’
‘Yes.’
‘Vivi Ambard was released last week.’
‘Vivi!’ It was like an arrow – no, a bullet – shattering the peace. ‘Vivi! I had almost forgotten about her.’
‘That’s what I guessed,’ said Mademoiselle, ‘which is why I’m ringing. Vivi hasn’t forgotten. She came here yesterday, ostensibly asking to see Zaza, but I think it was really to find out where you were. We wouldn’t allow her near Zaza, of course, but I saw Vivi. I saw her myself simply because I was worried for you, and I think I’m right. Prison has done a great deal for Vivi, physically – regular food and sleep and exercise. For all her age she is blooming, still beautiful – attractive – and she knows how to wheedle. I’m afraid of a leak.’
‘But what leak could reach me?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mademoiselle, ‘but for some reason I’m apprehensive. Lise, I beg you … take care.’
‘Take care. Why?’ But Mademoiselle had rung off.
They think they can stop me from finding out where that salope, that pute, Madame Lise, is – but they can’t. It’s all her fault, always has been her fault, and when she broke my beads, she broke my luck. I’ll find her somehow. This time she won’t escape.
‘What do you want?’ Madame la Directrice said it without the least flicker of pity, like the monument she is. I had hoped it would be the éducatrice, or even Madame Chef, anyone but her, that old cow. ‘What do you want?’
‘Just to be allowed to see Zaza, my friend, for five minutes.’
‘You know very well you can’t.’
‘If I knew that I shouldn’t be here, should I?’
I couldn’t stop myself being impertinent – she’s like a lighted match on petrol. She tried to quell me with a look but I am still myself, Vivi, and, ‘If you won’t let me see Zaza, at least give me Big Jo’s address.’
‘I can’t do that either.’
‘Why not? You can’t stop me seeing Big Jo. She’s free.’
She did not answer, only pressed her bell and sent for a wardress. ‘Take Vivi out, right out.’
As a parting present I spat full on her papers. I wish it could have reached her face, but outside the gate I didn’t know what to do. It’s like a chain; I knew before I left Le Fouest for Vesoul that Jo – big silly – had gone over to the frangines … she was blubbing and bellowing about her sins. She could never keep her mouth shut and she would have told Zaza where she would go when they let her out and I could have made Big Jo speak, easily – but now. I sat down on the curb to think.
The devil looks after his own. Monsieur Patrice used to tease Madame Lise by saying that, and it is true – I sat there and I was so furious I began to cry. I cried and cried and then the girl came along.
She was a wardress, I could see the white uniform under her coat, but she was young and her gold hair was fine and pale, like Rico’s; I think, like Rico, she was not altogether here – she was smiling at everything, the sky, the trees, the street, humming a little tune, and walking as if the pavement was made of air – perhaps she was in love. I cried harder than ever and she, the ninny, stopped as I guessed she would.
‘Madame, something’s wrong? Why are you sitting
on the pavement? And you’re crying. Are you hurt?’
‘No.’ I made big tears fall and rocked myself. ‘They have hurt me. Hurt me.’
‘How? Who?’
‘Madame – Madame la Directrice. Oh, she’s cruel.’
‘Madame cruel? Never.’
‘You know only one side. You don’t know the other. You can’t – you’re one of them.’
‘There must be a misunderstanding,’ but I shook my head. ‘At least get up. There! Here’s a handkerchief,’ and, as I wiped my eyes and blew my nose like a child, ‘When did you see Madame?’
‘Just now. She threw me out.’
‘But why?’
‘I don’t know – except she always had it in for me. She sent me away before to Vesoul … I only came out yesterday. I didn’t want to come here but I had to … I had to. I had to ask.
‘For what?’
‘Only if I could see Zaza – just for a minute.’
‘Zaza!’ That shook her and for a moment she was wary, careful. I had to cry again. ‘I know nobody likes her, poor Zaza, but Mademoiselle, if they told you you were an irrécupérable, went on telling you, wouldn’t you be one?’
‘I never thought of that.’
‘Nor do they. Zaza’s a good friend,’ more crying. ‘She would have told me at once.’
‘Told you what?’
‘I need – I have to know where my dear Big Jo is.’
‘Big Jo. I have heard of her, not seen her, but I haven’t been here very long.’
I could have told her that! ‘Big Jo was here with us and should have come out two years ago. She promised when my turn came she would help me, find me work, so I could go straight … give me a chance. Now,’ I sobbed. ‘How can she when I don’t know where she is?’
‘If you explained this to Madame …’
‘I did. I did. She wouldn’t listen,’ and I mocked just like Madame, “It’s against regulations for a prisoner to see an ex-prisoner …” No matter what, or how hurtful.’
‘It seems – inhuman,’ said my little rabbit.
‘It is. We’re not poison, Mademoiselle. What harm could there be in an address?’
‘I’ll ask Madame Chef if I …’
‘Not Madame Chef – she’s against me too – but Mademoiselle – if you could yourself … You haven’t had time to grow hard, callous, you have only to ask Zaza. I know Big Jo would have told her. Zaza wouldn’t have to write anything – you could scribble it down yourself … I would wait here till you come off duty.’
‘That won’t be till evening and – I have to meet somebody …’ She blushed.
I’ll wait. I would wait all night – and I won’t be in the way. I’ll disappear at once. Oh, Mademoiselle, please, please.’
11
It was twelve o’clock, time for dinner, but Lise was in the chapel, ‘watching.’ This was the half-hour she always chose because of the silence. The refectory was at the back of the old château and thick-walled, as were the kitchens beyond, so that while they were busy the whole domaine was as quiet as it was empty; the glass doors shut off all sound from the ante-chapel. It was also the watching time that no one else wanted; women who began their day at six, had only a cup of coffee and bread for breakfast and worked all morning needed no excuse for being famished at mid-day. ‘But you, ma Soeur, what about you?’ Soeur Marie Emmanuel was far too careful of her flock to let any of them go hungry. ‘I can have mine afterwards,’ said Lise. ‘For years I was used to eat at any time. Please, ma Mère.’
This was what Lise still loved best, to be alone in the chapel, alone with Him; to be, for a few minutes, really like Mary Magdalen who, ignoring everything else, chose that ‘better part’, to sit at His feet and hear Him. For Lise it could usually only be half an hour – one of the others would come and relieve her; most days it was not a relief but an interruption because sometimes Lise would lose herself utterly, only for a moment, or what seemed to be a moment – she often found, to her surprise, it had been the whole half-hour; then the tap on her shoulder came as a painful shock. She had soared – there was no other way to put it – into a nothingness, a mist, the Cloud of Unknowing in the book of all books she loved best to read; a cloud but perhaps, one day, some day, she would pierce it and be truly lost into infinity, and she was finding more and more the way to that was not through prayers and thought; it seemed simply to be the repeating of one word. Just as the book said, ‘someone burning to death does not use sentences but cries “Help!” or “Fire!”,’ so one word seems to deliver me, thought Lise; sometimes ‘Lord’ or ‘Seigneur’, sometimes simply ‘Love’; often even that one word gave way to silence and oblivion.
Then no sound or whisper reached her, not the ticking of the clock, the door opening quietly or, through the window, birds in the garden: a car in the road: nothing. It was only afterwards when she tried to stand up and found herself stiff that she knew how still, even rigid, she had been; it took time to bring herself back.
This autumn day, when she took her place, a bowl of chrysanthemums had been put on the floor before the altar, blooms grown with pride by Soeur Fiacre in the glasshouse; the colours, bronze and pinkish brown, were beautiful in the candlelight but the scent was pungent and bitter, and Lise remembered that for the French, chrysanthemums are the flowers of death – but, If I should die in one of these ‘cloud’ times, thought Lise, I’m sure they wouldn’t have to bury me. I should be gone. But that was presumptuous – ‘Who do you think you are? The Virgin Mary?’ and it was stupid, because such moments are ‘vouchsafed’; when one thinks consciously about them, they don’t happen. You can’t command, nor even ask for them, thought Lise. You can only watch and wait …
Now, for the first few minutes, she was filled with distractions, needs and worries; the cider press had broken down again – it’s getting old, how are we to replace it? Soeur Thecla’s bronchitis: why did the Prioress, Soeur Marie Emmanuel, look so tired? Then it was of a birthday card she, Lise, had forgotten to send to a prisoner. How could I forget! ‘One keeps on discovering these holes, failures, in oneself.’ ‘Lord, help me,’ prayed Lise. ‘Lord. Lord …’ and then it was ‘vouchsafed’; as if a cloak had fallen round her, Lise was taken up and forgot.
Suddenly, and as frighteningly, as if she had been thrown down from space, Lise found herself back on the prie-dieu. She was used, at such times, to feeling cold – it was part of being rigid – but not as cold as this. She glanced up at the clock; it had only been a few minutes and then Lise knew it was the cold of fear – why fear? – and then there came a sense of evil, such evil that she could only hold to the wood of the prie-dieu and keep her eyes on the round of white in the monstrance; she could not even pray, only hold on, and it seemed to her there was a stench, not of the chrysanthemums, bitter as that was, but a smell of … blood, thought Lise?
She knew she must not move, not even dare look round, only hold; she had heard no sound, seen no one, but someone or something was there, standing behind her, standing over her. She thought she was going to faint and shut her eyes, but only for a second; the only way was to keep them fixed on the Host. Lord. Lord. Beads of sweat broke out on her, not only on her forehead and neck but over her whole body. ‘You had that too, in the garden of Gethsemane when you too were afraid. Let this cup pass from me,’ prayed Lise. Then, ‘But your will, not mine, be done,’ and she raised her head waiting, for what she did not know – a blow? a stab? a horde breaking into the chapel? a stroke?
And then the chapel was as it had been when she came in, empty, filled with autumn sun; there was only the scent of the chrysanthemums, the steady flame of the candles and, ‘Really,’ said Lise to herself, ‘you must go and see Father Marc. You are having hallucinations.’
Then she heard footsteps and a touch came on her shoulder but it was not the sister to relieve her; it was not time yet for that. It was Marc himself. ‘Soeur Marie Lise. You must come. Come quickly. We must get help.’
It was then that Lise looked d
own; beside her prie-dieu, on the floor, was a cluster of pale pink mother-of-pearl, a rosary, its chain broken into pieces, making a little heap of beads.
‘So, it was there.’ Marc noticed she did not say ‘she’, but, ‘Indeed she was,’ he said and shuddered. ‘Mon Dieu! It might have been you.’
‘But she didn’t …’
‘She did. Come quickly,’ but a voice rang out from the ante-chapel, an old voice, shrill with anger. ‘What have you done to my nice clean floor – and I washed it this very morning.’ It was Soeur Anne Colombe. ‘Look at the mess. It’s wine, that’s what it is. Get up you lazy girl and go and fetch me a bucket. Don’t just lie … A-ah!’ Soeur Anne Colombe’s scream rent the convent, but Marc and Lise were there first.
It must have been a desperate silent struggle; Lise guessed that Vivi’s strong hand had been clapped at once over Lucette’s mouth.
‘Lucette must have been watching, as she always did.’ Lise could hardly get the words out. ‘She knew, as she always knew; she may even have overheard that telephone call from Mademoiselle. She went without her food to watch over me.’
Lucette was still breathing but as Lise lifted her head and shoulders, more blood flowed out onto Soeur Anne Colombe’s clean floor and the white tunic grew redder and redder.
The Prioress and infirmarian were there. Soeur Elizabeth had run to the telephone; the other nuns kept back, out of the way, silent, only their lips moving. Soeur Marie Mercédes held Soeur Anne Colombe who was weeping with remorse. At a sign from the Prioress they knelt, as Marc knelt too. With infinite tenderness, he took the holy oil he had hurriedly fetched from the sacristy and made the sign of the Cross on Lucette’s forehead; then the words came strongly. ‘Through this holy anointing may the Lord, in His love and mercy, help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit,’ and quietly the voices echoed ‘Amen’.
