Ophelia

by Lisa Klein

  “I understand,” I say, thinking of Cristiana.

  “But enough; it is wrong for me to speak ill of her.” She shakes her head and continues in a sprightly tone, “We cannot sit here chattering, for Mother Ermentrude has requested that you be brought to her today.”

  The announcement fills me with dread.

  “I am not ready to meet her. Tell her that I am fevered again,” I plead. “Or tell her that melancholy afflicts me still.”

  “You are much better; anyone can see that,” she says, rebuking me lightly. She takes my arm. “Do not fear, for she is kind.”

  Isabel leads me through the hallways and down the stairs. I take small, slow steps, for I am unwilling to obey this summons. Mother Ermentrude is no queen whom I have pledged to serve. Sensing my hesitation, Isabel urges me gently through the alleys of the cloisters. Their rounded arches frame a square courtyard and a garden that is brown and shriveled by frost. The November air bites my skin.

  We enter the chapter house. With its oiled wood panels on the walls, it reminds me of the chamber at Elsinore where the king received his visitors. A hallway leads to Mother Ermentrude’s quarters. Marguerite waits there, a silent sentinel. Isabel presses my hand and departs.

  Without speaking, Marguerite ushers me into the room and withdraws when Mother Ermentrude nods her head. I make myself small within my linen robe. I kneel before the prioress of St. Emilion so that I see only the broad swath of her simple habit, edged in green velvet. Crossing my arms over my chest, I avoid her gaze.

  “Ophelia, my child, you have come to us for aid. What is the trouble?” she asks.

  So Isabel has told Mother Ermentrude my name. It is good that I have been sparing in my speech with her. No one must learn my secrets yet.

  “I have been afraid for my life, Your Grace. More I cannot say now.”

  “You grieve beyond what is natural, and your body does weaken and waste away,” she says gently. “Our duty, and Isabel’s particular care, is to restore you to soundness of body and soul.”

  “I have suffered a great loss. I am most grateful for your aid,” I say, fixing my eyes on the simple cross on her breast. It has a single bright jewel at the center, yellow, the color of hope.

  “What is it you desire?” she asks.

  “I desire solitude and prayer.” This is not all the truth, but it must suffice, for words cannot draw the vast map of my longing.

  “Your generous purse and the circumstances of your arrival suggest to me that you are a gentlewoman of means. Do you flee a cruel father or a forced marriage?”

  “No.” I stove to keep my voice even and my tears in check.

  “Do you wish to pursue the cloistered life and take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience?”

  I am already poor, having lost everything I treasure, and no longer pure. I was never obedient. But I do not say this.

  “I do not know,” I say truthfully.

  “Have you committed some wrong for which you repent?”

  “Yes … No! Please, in due time I will reveal all. Do not cast me out!” I plead, bowing almost to the floor. I see only the hem of her garment now and her leather-shod feet. I would kiss them if doing so would persuade her to let me stay.

  “You may remain here,” she says. “But you must work and pray with us and study God’s purpose for you. Sister Isabel will be your guide.”

  Like an angel of the annunciation, Mother Ermentrude spreads her arms and folds her hands over my head. “Now rise, and go in the peace of Christ.”

  Deep within, I feel something like the touch of a finger’s tip against my soul, rekindling hope there.

  Chapter 39

  The whiteness of winter surrounds me. The nuns await the day of Christ’s birth, only weeks away. Bells call them to vespers, to matins, to noonday prayer. In their white habits, the sisters tread in each other’s snowy tracks on their way to chapel. Their breath, expelled in small clouds, vanishes like smoke from a chimney. Do their prayers also vanish on the wind, or do they pierce the dome of heaven and reach God’s ear?

  Under the frozen earth, curled in darkness, all life waits. I also wait through the long Advent nights that are lit by a feeble white moon. Though I dress in white like a nun, I feel the stain of sin, of mortality, around me like a bright girdle.

  My body grows round again with recovered health, and my belly swells more than the rest of me. I am still able to hide it beneath my loose-fitting dress. Only I see the growing mound when I bathe myself. Only I feel it when the child moves while I am reciting prayers with the sisters, “Pray for us, O holy mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.” I hope these promises of Christ are more certain than those of men.

  Often my mind wanders during prayers. I find myself remembering Gertrude’s kindness as I gaze upon Mother Ermentrude, whose humility contrasts with my queen’s grandeur. Sister Angelina, with her rough but loving manner, reminds me of dear Elnora. Isabel, who shows her gap-toothed smile even when she prays, makes me wish that I had known such a cheerful friend at Elsinore. Sister Marguerite is proud, like Cristiana, and seems to harbor some secret ambition, which rouses my curiosity.

  “You pray with growing devotion, I see,” says Isabel, mistaking my dreaminess for piety.

  “No, in truth, I am thinking how much this convent is like a prince’s court,” I say, then hasten to add, “A place I have read about in books.”

  “What do you mean?” she asks.

  “Your prioress is like a queen, the fountain of all goodness. All the sisters are her ladies-in-waiting, happy to live under her benevolent rule. There is a hierarchy, with servants in the lowest place.” I pause, considering the comparison. “But I see one vital difference. Here there are no men to vie for your love. You worship only Christ, and he bestows his love equally. At a prince’s court, no woman would share her lover, nor would a man share his mistress.”

  Isabel understands quickly.

  “Yes, for if a lady is desired by more than one man, it brings about jealousy and much strife. I also read those books, long ago,” she says, lowering her voice, though there is no one to overhear us. The nuns have all left the chapel. “But do not deceive yourself that St. Emilion is a perfect place. We have our faults, such as envy, if one of us has a finer voice or is more favored by Mother. We are vain, too. I have seen Marguerite hold up her graceful hands and gaze on them in admiration. Once I was punished by Mother for keeping a small bit of lace beneath my pillow.”

  “Such poverty would sit hard with a queen and her ladies,” I admit. “Still this place seems to me a peaceful realm where no tyrannical king can oppress you.”

  Isabel’s usually cheery face grows clouded.

  “There is no king at St. Emilion, as you say, but man’s power still holds sway here. Mother Ermentrude is bound to obey Bishop Garamond, as he is God’s deputy on earth,” she explains. “But this bishop serves Count Durufle, who is our convent’s chief patron and a morally scrupulous man.” She shows me a stone monument, like a proud claim staked upon the humble chapel. “Durufle erected this to honor himself though it was his ancestors who gave this land to found our convent some two hundred years ago. For this past generosity, he thinks himself God’s favorite and the bishop’s equal!” she says, indignant. “He sorely tests my charity!”

  “How like a royal court,” I muse, “where powerful lords and councillors direct the king’s course.”

  “At least Durufle and the bishop are seldom seen among us. But the count has appointed his nephew, a surly and discourteous youth, to be our steward. He oversees the servants and the convent’s business, though he has no ability for the work. Last week Marguerite called him a fool to his face!” Isabel laughs at the thought, then rolls her eyes. “You begin to see why I am grateful to be a nun. I could be married to such a one. Or, God forbid, to a man as old as Father Alphonse, who trembles as he says the Mass and is almost completely deaf. I have to shout to make him hear me, and then my sisters overhe
ar my sins!” Isabel says with some distress. “So I confess only that I have neglected my prayers, which is a fault most common with us.”

  “Your only fault, Isabel, is too much kindness to the undeserving,” I murmur, thinking of her goodness to me.

  “No; I am more unkind than you know. I am jealous of Marguerite’s beauty and her favor with Mother. I boil with impatience at Angelina’s slowness and I blame her when we must fast and eat nothing but stale bread. Sometimes I steal sugar from the larder!”

  I smile at her offenses, for they fall far short of deceit and murder and revenge, the crimes that went unconfessed at Elsinore.

  But Isabel takes my hand and says in earnest, “Ophelia, you shall be my priest, for you are as secret as an effigy on a tomb.”

  “Confess, then, and I will absolve you,” I say, trying to sound like Father Alphonse, and we both laugh. Yet how her trust tempts me! I long to share my stones with her, but discretion holds my tongue and silence feeds my loneliness.

  I often lament that I have no place at St. Emilion. At Elsinore I knew my role as one of the queen’s ladies. Here I am neither a servant nor a nun. I may not sit with the nuns in the sanctuary of the chapel, but I pray their prayers. I may not share their table, yet I eat the same food. Like a departed spirit not yet at rest, I travel between worlds. I am free to leave the convent grounds if I wish. Instead, I spend hours in the library, often losing myself in The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius the Roman. I also translate prayers into French for the nuns who do not read Latin.

  One day Mother Ermentrude, seeing me studying intently, asks me to help tutor the girls of the convent school. I agree, for I wish to be useful here. But pity overwhelms me at the sight of these small, sad-eyed children taken from the arms of their parents and given to a God whose embrace they cannot feel. One girl, the picture of despair, leans her cheek in her hands, her too-short skirt revealing bare legs above her shoes. I remember wearing such ill-fitting dresses and wish I had some stockings to give her. I long to put my arms around the child, but I am afraid of her large, frightened eyes. Instead I give her something paltry and useless: a verb to conjugate. While the girls bend over their books, I draw from my pocket the miniature painting of my mother that I carry always. In her face is my exact likeness; I see my own hair, cheeks, and nose, all mirrored in miniature. I dig in the deepest recesses of my mind for a memory of her touch.

  “Oh, teach me how to be a mother, and give me courage!” I whisper, willing the image itself to speak to me. “What will we do, my babe and I? Where shall we make our home? Tell me!” I feel like a child, abandoned in the dark woods; not even my mother’s image comforts me.

  Then I see that Marguerite has come into the library. How long has she been standing there? The girls have finished their exercise and are whispering and giggling among themselves. Marguerite regards me with her cool, unsmiling gaze. I feel like a book laid wide open, where my story is written in plain words for her to read.

  “It seems that teaching does not suit you. I will inform Mother Ermentrude,” she says. Her voice is without pity or judgment.

  I am unable to reply, so full am I with longing for the mother I never knew.

  Chapter 40

  December holds us all in its thrall; not even the fires in the stoves and grates can loosen its icy grip. I rub my hands together for the feeble warmth as I pass by the door of the refectory, where the nuns eat in silence, their heads bent in a row over their food. Spoons scrape dully on the wooden trenchers. Steam rises from a pot of soup. The voice of Mother Ermentrude rises and falls as she reads aloud.

  “Let us partake with temperance and sober piety and due thanksgiving, only food that is proper and nourishing. Remember that Christ’s body was broken and that bread and water are here broken to be taken into our bodies. So in the Eucharist does Christ’s body nourish us.”

  I wonder what Hamlet, the philosopher and man of reason, would have made of the nuns’ simple faith that they consume Christ’s true body. The bread served at meals and the bread served at Mass look and taste the same to me. I find it strange that the sisters’ eating is governed by silence and strict rules. I think of the feasts at Elsinore, loud with laughter and the crack mg of bones and sucking of marrow, with dogs growling and fighting over food thrown to the floor. Wine flowed from hogsheads like water from a fountain, and at each meal fish, fowl, and a joint of beef were served.

  With the thought of such plenty, my appetite grows. The babe within me makes me long for cider and sweetmeats, roast meat, rich milk, and apricots. But the nuns are fasting now, eating only bread with salt and water. So I eat in the kitchen with the scullery maid and steward so that I may have meat and fruit. They are quiet in my presence, for I am still considered a mystery at St. Emilion. A poor farmer who tills the nuns’ field, his three hollow-eyed children, and a guest, a traveling scholar, round out the company.

  Therese, being a servant, should also eat in the kitchen. But she does not appear for meals. When I ask about her, the steward, his mouth full of bread, merely shrugs.

  “Indeed, milady, she doesn’t eat that I know of,” offers the maid.

  “Who would not eat when hunger bids them?” I ask. “I will take her this portion of meat and some cakes.”

  “She won’t eat it, I say. I’ve never seen her touch meat.”

  Against this warning, I take the food to Therese’s room, a damp cell even narrower than my own. The door opens at my touch, and a wall covered with crucifixes greets my sight. I count at least a dozen. All are crudely made and painted with an image of the Lord in agony. Beneath the crosses, Therese kneels on the hard floor, rocking back and forth. She does not acknowledge my presence; indeed she seems not to hear or see me. Her eyes are lifted up and fixed upon the air. Ashamed of my intrusion in the closet of her soul, I leave the food upon her bed and silently depart. But the image of the laundress, dazed with prayer, will not leave me. Later I return to see if she has eaten. The plate of bread sits on the floor outside her door, untouched except by the mouse that nibbles the bread and scurries away at my approach.

  I wonder why Therese abstains from food, though she is not bound by the nun’s vows. I decide to observe her more closely. Like a spy, I pretend to read a book while walking in the corridor near the kitchen. Therese wears a veil that she wraps around her head when she works, making her look like a Turk. Her sleeves are rolled up to her shoulders, and I see that her flesh barely covers her bones. She moves slowly, pausing often as she carries a bucket of hot water.

  I cannot bear to see her struggle with simple tasks, so I set my book down and offer to help her. To my surprise, she accepts with a look of gratitude. I had imagined her to be proud in her isolation from the sisters, but she seems glad of my company. Now Therese drops the soiled garments in soapy water with fingers that are long and tapered, like a lady’s, but red and rough, like a servant’s. I beat and stir the clothes with wooden paddles. It surprises me how much strength the task requires, and soon my face is damp with sweat, despite the cold.

  “God grants you health again, I see. We are joyful to see you well,” says Therese. Her words surprise me, for I did not think she noticed me or knew of my illness.

  “I cannot rejoice in my strength while yours weakens,” I reply.

  “The Lord upholds the weak,” she says in quick reply, as if she is used to defending herself.

  “Your spirit indeed is strong, but your body wastes away. Why do you not eat?”

  “I need nothing but the Lord who nourishes my soul in the bread of the Eucharist,” she says. Her eyes are bright, though her cheeks are sunken, making her look no longer young.

  “He also gives us daily bread to nourish our bodies, that we may have strength for our work in the world,” I say, feeling a contentious spirit rise in me.

  “I care nothing for the world, which has shown little favor to me,” she replies. Her voice is calm, without bitterness. “I was always shunned for my twisted leg, and my parents were
ashamed of me. My only desire has been to become a nun. But the bishop has told Mother Ermentrude that my visions are improper and he forbids my admission as a postulant. So I find my own pathway to God.”

  “Does God ask you to suffer for him?”

  Therese draws back from me with an air of injured dignity.

  “He bids me praise him daily, and so I do.”

  Desperate for her to understand my good intentions, I lay my hand on her arm, stilling it in the water. Her forearm, like a child’s, fits within the circle of my thumb and finger.

  “Therese, you must eat daily, or you will die!”

  She does not even flinch at my words. I realize that perhaps she wants to die.

  “When I do not eat, the Christ child himself comes to me and nurses at my breast, which swells with rich milk,” she says with perfect calm. “I taste honey and sweetness in my mouth. No mortal mother feels such joy.”

  Is this the conviction of faith or evidence of madness? I think of the ghostly visions that stirred Hamlet to revenge, while Therese’s fill her with joy. Both are beyond all reason. Who can judge whether they are true?

  I take her hands in mine. The palms and wrists are scarred.

  “My hands bleed sometimes, as Christ’s wounds bled,” she says, a look of bliss on her face.

  “It is no wonder; your skin is so dry. Let me make a liniment that will soften it and ease the pain.” I know I can help her overcome this undeserved suffering.

  Therese shakes her head vigorously and withdraws her hands as if I am offering to take away a precious gift. She turns from me and will not speak again.

  I fear that Therese’s mind is made feeble by her suffering. I do not want her to die, for I have seen enough of madness and death.

  Chapter 41

  It is the new year, and like the two-faced god Janus, I look forward and backward at once. Looking behind me, I remember Hamlet giving me the token, the pressure of his fingers on my palm, our brief joy and the long despair that followed it. Looking ahead, I see only a blank page on which I know not what to write.