“You’re going somewhere, Elo.”
Elodie sits up, confusion giving way to exhilaration. “I’m leaving here?” she says.
“Yes,” Sister whispers, helping her out of bed.
She puts her feet on the ice-cold floor and winces. “Did my mother come for me?” she cries, her voice bursting with hope.
“Of course not,” Sister says. “Get dressed. Put this on.”
“That’s not my uniform,” Elodie says, studying the dress Sister Tata has laid out on her bed.
“You don’t need your uniform. Just put on the dress.”
“It smells funny,” Elodie says.
“Chut!” Sister Tata says, exasperated. “You and your debating.”
“Where am I going?”
“To a new place.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re overcrowded here.”
“Where is this new place?”
“You’ll find out when the time comes.”
“When will that be?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why do we have to go in the middle of the night?” Elodie wants to know, her excitement giving way to dread.
“I don’t make the decisions,” Sister Tata answers, moving down the narrow aisle to one of the other cots and waking another girl, and then another. “Now go wash up and get dressed.”
“But—”
“Stop with your silly questions!”
A parade of girls joins Elodie in the bathroom to wash and change. When she returns to the dorm, she counts six of them in total lined up in their donated dresses, as sleepy and bewildered as she is. That’s when she realizes with a wave of horror that Claire is not among them.
“Isn’t Claire coming, too?” Elodie asks, panic rising.
“No,” Sister says, collecting some of the saved trinkets from their First Communions and confirmations and dumping them into one small suitcase.
Elodie looks around at all the other sleeping girls with a stab of jealousy, not because she’s happy here but because it’s the only place she’s ever known and it’s beginning to dawn on her that she’s leaving here for good.
“Let’s go, girls. The train is waiting.”
“The train?” Elodie cries, always the one to speak up. The other girls are older by at least two years and know better than to argue. “Where are we going?”
Sister Tata doesn’t answer.
“I have to say good-bye to Claire—”
“There’s no time,” Sister whispers. “And you mustn’t wake her.”
Elodie looks beseechingly at the mound of Claire’s sleeping body. How can she not say good-bye? They’ve been inseparable for the past five years. “Why can’t I say good-bye to Claire?” she whimpers, tears springing to her eyes. “She won’t know where I’ve gone!”
“Stop whining, Elodie. You’ll wake the others.”
Elodie reaches for Poupée and clutches her to her chest.
“You can’t take that,” Sister says, taking Poupée away from her. “I’m sorry. Dolls aren’t allowed where you’re going.”
“But, Sister—”
“Hurry up, Elo.”
The moment Sister Tata turns away to console one of the other girls who isn’t allowed to bring her mother’s silver chain with her, Elodie crouches down and grabs all the drawings she’s ever made of her imaginary family. She’s been hiding them beneath her mattress since the orphanage became a hospital, and now she stuffs them inside her bloomers. She won’t leave those behind.
With one last look at the room where she’s slept for as long as she can remember, Elodie shuffles down the hall, tears rolling down her cheeks. Good-bye, Claire. Good-bye, Poupée.
The air of mystery only adds to Elodie’s sense of impending doom as she follows Sister Tata and the other girls down the stairs, shivering in her thin dress. As they reach the landing, she feels someone’s hand wrap itself around hers. She looks up, and one of the older girls—a pretty, redheaded ten-year-old by the name of Emmeline—winks at her and squeezes her hand.
Outside, Elodie can see her breath in the air. A station wagon is waiting to take them to the train station. All six girls climb in the back while Sister Tata sits in the front seat, her small black Bible pressed to her lap. A million questions are on the tip of Elodie’s tongue: Where are we going? How far is it? Why us? Is it a proper orphanage or a convent? But she dares not speak them aloud. Part of her is relieved to be pulling away from Saint-Sulpice—it’s never been the same since it turned into a hospital—but her heart still feels heavy for the ones she’s leaving behind. She is not crazy. She doesn’t belong in a hospital, and she assumes they’ve finally figured out their mistake. Elodie can only hope that Claire will come along shortly with another batch of girls.
When they reach the station a few minutes later, they silently pile out of the car and follow Sister Tata single file down the length of the platform. The station itself is in a squat redbrick building beside a track, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. “Where are we?” Elodie whispers to Emmeline.
“Farnham,” she says as Sister Tata hands some papers to a man in a funny hat. He checks them carefully and invites them to board.
“Bon voyage,” he says.
Elodie sits beside Emmeline, still holding her hand. She has the window seat and stares outside with her nose pressed against the glass from the moment the train starts to rumble and shake until it jerks forward and starts pulling away from Farnham.
The sun is just beginning to rise, giving Elodie her very first view of the world outside the walls of Saint-Sulpice. The train rolls past miles of bright orange and red trees, vast fields, farms, and cows. Elodie is mesmerized and pensive as she takes in the unfamiliar landscape, trying to imprint all of it in her mind. Her whole body is tingling with anticipation, curiosity, wonderment, until, with a sudden bolt of dread, something occurs to her.
“Sister Tata!” she cries.
“Lower your voice, Elo,” Sister says sharply. “What is it?”
“What if my mother comes for me?” she asks, tears filling her eyes. “I won’t be there!”
One of the girls in the seat in front of her snickers, and Elodie reaches out and smacks her head from behind.
“Elodie!” Sister says.
“Will my mother know where to find me?” Elodie wants to know.
“Yes, Elodie. There’s a Record of Transfer. Now settle down.”
Relieved, Elodie flops back in her seat and rests her head against the window, peering through the glass until her vision blurs and she dozes off.
The next thing she knows, someone is tugging on her arm and dragging her to her feet. “We’re here,” Emmeline says.
Elodie looks around, taking in the gray buildings, concrete, cars, dirt, and funny smells. “Where are we?” she asks disapprovingly. “It’s ugly and it smells bad.”
“Chut.”
“It’s Montreal,” Emmeline explains softly. “We’re in the city.”
The city. Elodie’s heart starts pounding. Another car is waiting for them. It’s shiny and new, with the letters b-u-i-c-k written on the back. Elodie can read now, thanks to Claire, who taught her whenever they had snatches of free time.
Sister Tata instructs the girls to get inside the Buick. The mood in the car is somber as Sister turns around to look at them with a troubled expression on her face.
“Are you going to stay with us?” Elodie asks her.
“I can’t, Elo. I have to go back to Saint-Sulpice.”
Elodie squeezes back tears, trying not to be a baby, but her lower lip won’t stop quivering. They drive through the city streets in silence, past tall buildings and garish signs that loom above them on every corner, dwarfing the landscape. drink pepsi! ask for labatt! du maurier, the distinguished cigarette.
Elodie can see Sister Tata’s lips moving as she recites her prayers to herself. Elodie is spellbound and repelled at the same time by everything happening around her. “Look at the train on the
street!” she cries, pointing out the window.
“It’s a streetcar,” Sister Tata explains.
Finally, the car comes to a stop in front of an imposing gray stone building with a cross at the top of its center colonnade. At first Elodie thinks it’s a convent, but then she notices the words carved into the stone facade: hôpital st. nazarius.
“Another hospital?” she cries. “I don’t belong in a hospital!”
Sister Tata gets out of the car. The other girls follow, but Elodie refuses to budge.
“Get out,” Sister says harshly. “This is your new home, whether you like it or not. You won’t be any worse off than you were at Saint-Sulpice.”
Elodie reluctantly gets out and shuffles miserably behind the procession of the other more compliant orphans as they make their way up the front steps. What she wouldn’t give to be back at Saint-Sulpice.
Once inside the foyer, a heavy double door is opened for them by another nun and then locked with a single twist of a large, gleaming gold lock. Elodie jumps as it clicks, and then she cowers behind Emmeline.
Sister Tata hands over the suitcase and some papers to the other nun—a short, thick woman with a pinched face, thin lips, and small dark eyes like a bat. “The youngest is seven,” Sister Tata tells her, pulling Elodie forward.
The nun looks Elodie over, inspecting her with her wide-set bat eyes, and frowns. “She’ll be in Ward B with the older ones,” she says in a cold voice that makes Elodie want to hide under Sister Tata’s skirt.
“Very well then,” Sister Tata says, turning to face the girls. “I have to go back now.”
Elodie bursts into tears. “Don’t leave us!” she cries, wrapping her arms around Tata’s waist. “I don’t belong in a hospital!”
Sister Tata kneels down and cups Elodie’s face in her hands. “You’ll be with other orphans,” she whispers. “Don’t talk back and you should be fine.”
And then she stands up and straightens her habit and touches Elodie’s shoulder. “Good luck, girls,” she says, and Elodie can see that her eyes are watering. “Sister Ignatia is in charge of you now.”
They all turn to look at the nun whose grim demeanor, cartoonish frown, and harsh voice have already put the fear of God in them.
“Good luck,” Sister Tata repeats, unlocking the door and disappearing into the first light of morning.
Sister Ignatia moves quickly to lock the door again. Click.
“Follow me,” she says, and the girls do as they’re told, walking behind her up six flights of stairs and then single file down a long, eerily quiet corridor.
Where is everyone? Elodie wonders, but doesn’t dare ask.
At the end of the seemingly endless hallway, Sister Ignatia stops and unlocks another door, on which there is a sign: wards a–d.
The moment they pass through that door, the place springs to life, assaulting them with the smell of bleach, the purposeful comings and goings of nuns in white habits, and a cacophony of wailing and distant screams. They continue to follow Sister Ignatia until she stops in front of yet another mysterious room.
“This is the dormitory for Ward B,” she says, pushing open the door to reveal a huge room with six rows of ten white iron beds, each one placed head to foot with barely enough space between them for a stubby chest of drawers no bigger than a filing cabinet. A simple cross hangs above the first bed of each row. Ten crosses, Elodie counts. Sixty beds, sixty drab wool blankets. Six barred windows facing a concrete wasteland and gray sky as far as the eye can see. In the corner of the room, a terrifying statue of Jesus on the cross presides over them, keeping watch when the nuns can’t.
Sister Ignatia doesn’t give them much time to absorb their surroundings before leading them along the back wall to the bathroom. “You have to go through the bathroom to get to the common room,” she explains, striding ahead of them on short but efficient legs. She pushes open the door to the common room, and Elodie gasps.
“What’s the matter?” Sister Ignatia says, turning to her with black eyes and flared nostrils. “You’ve never seen a mongoloid before?”
Elodie swallows a thick lump in her throat and nods her head. There was Philodora, but she was different somehow; sweet and harmless, not frightening like these girls.
“Better get used to them,” Sister Ignatia barks.
The room is organized in similar fashion to the dormitory, only instead of rows of beds there are dozens of rows of rocking chairs, most of them occupied by girls not much older than Elodie who are babbling to themselves or snarling like animals or staring at the wall with weird dead eyes. They all have the same chopped hair. It’s hard to distinguish the mentally retarded from the mentally ill; here in the common room, they’re all lumped together. Somehow, the sight of young mental patients is more terrifying than the old ones back at Saint-Sulpice.
“Why are some of them wrapped up like that?” Elodie asks, pointing to a strange white jacket with buckles.
“It’s a straitjacket,” Sister Ignatia responds. “And if you don’t behave, there’s one for you.”
Elodie steps back, still hiding behind Emmeline, and notices a naked girl whimpering in the corner. She’s curled on her side, the bones of her white spine prominent, her knees pulled up to her chest, shivering violently.
Elodie can’t believe her eyes. The girl’s wrist is chained to a pipe.
Sister Ignatia doesn’t acknowledge the girl, nor try to explain or justify the reason for it. It all seems to be part of normal life here at Saint-Nazarius.
After the tour is finished, it’s time for haircuts. A moonfaced girl—one of the other patients—chops the new girls’ hair into a broom style above the ears with a thick thatch of uneven bangs. When it’s done, Elodie stares at herself in the bathroom mirror and frowns. Now she looks like the crazy girls from the rocking chairs.
“Are they all as horrible as Sister Ignatia?” Emmeline asks the moonfaced girl.
“They got rid of the last Ward B supervisor because she wasn’t mean enough. In case you haven’t figured it out, you’ve arrived in hell.”
When the haircuts are done, the girls are made to line up for inspection. Sister Ignatia rejoins them and gives them a disdainful once-over.
“Sister?”
Everyone turns to look at the girl who, with trembling voice, has dared to address Sister Ignatia. It’s Emmeline.
Sister Ignatia approaches her with a curious expression. “What is it?” she says.
“I think there’s been a mistake,” Emmeline tells her, meeting her icy glare. “We’re orphans. We don’t belong in a hospital like this.”
Elodie wants to cheer. At last, someone has spoken the very words she’s been dying to scream from the moment they pulled up this morning. This place is a madhouse. A place for the severely retarded and the lunatics, patients much worse off than the old people from the orphanage.
“You don’t belong in a place like this?” Sister Ignatia repeats, her lips curling into a menacing half smile. “Where do you belong?”
Emmeline looks down at the floor. “An orphanage,” she replies softly. “There still might be a chance for us to get adopted. No one will ever find us here—”
Without any warning, Sister Ignatia’s arm crashes down on the side of Emmeline’s skull. The blow is so powerful Emmeline stumbles backwards and lands on the floor, stunned.
“This is exactly where you belong,” Sister Ignatia says, standing above her. “You were born in sin, were you not?”
She paces in front of the frightened girls. “You must never question whether you belong here. You’re lucky we let you have a roof over your heads and food in your bellies. It’s more than you deserve. Your lives are worthless, and you will be treated as such.”
She turns back to Emmeline, who is still crumpled on the floor. “And you,” Sister says, prodding Emmeline with her black boot. “You will stay in Ward D with the epileptics.”
“No, please,” Emmeline begs. “I won’t say another word.”
>
Sister Ignatia grabs a fistful of Emmeline’s freshly chopped hair and drags her down the hall. Elodie blocks her ears to drown out Emmeline’s screams and bites her lip hard to keep from making a sound. She can feel the girls on either side of her trembling, and when she sneaks a peek, she sees tears streaming down their cheeks.
The rest of the day is a fog. The meals are inedible—brown meat and soggy vegetables with a drop of molasses smeared on the plate for dessert. The afternoon hours are interminable. The girls are left in the common room to rock in the chairs with the zombies. They haven’t been assigned jobs yet, so there’s nothing to do but stare at the walls and avoid being noticed by the nuns.
At night, Elodie slips gratefully under the itchy gray blanket on her cot and closes her eyes. Sleep will be her only reprieve here; she already knows that. The moment she loses consciousness, she will be free.
“Sit up.”
Elodie opens her eyes, startled to see one of the nuns standing over her.
“Open your mouth.”
“What for?” Elodie asks, regretting it immediately. The nun slaps her face.
“Open your mouth,” she repeats.
Elodie opens her mouth and the nun places a pill on her tongue. “Swallow it,” she says, handing Elodie a glass of warm water. “It’s to help you sleep.”
Elodie lies back down as the nun moves over to the next girl. She lies there for a long time, thinking about Sister Tata and Claire, wondering what they’re doing. Do they miss her? Has Claire asked where she is? Will she ever see them again? Her thoughts turn to Emmeline, and she worries for her on the epileptic ward. She doesn’t even know what an epileptic is, but it sounds terrifying.
And then, out of the ghostly silence, she hears a little girl singing a lullaby from across the room, and she wonders if she’s dreaming. “Fais dodo, bébé a Maman; fais dodo . . .”
Elodie tries to move her head to see who it is, but she can’t; she’s paralyzed. She can barely keep her eyes open, too. Her body is floating now and she feels strangely calm. The little girl’s song is soothing, buoyant in this dark place.
She hears someone whisper, “Shh! Agathe. Sister will hear you.” But the little girl continues to sing. Elodie drifts off. Her mouth feels dry and her tongue thick; her hands and feet are tingling. “Fais dodo, bébé a Maman; fais dodo . . .”
The Home for Unwanted Girls Page 11
