The Sisters of St. Croix

by Diney Costeloe

  “Give her some milk and get her clean and dry, please, Sister, while Sister Henriette finds David something to eat. Then we’ll see what else needs to be done. Ask Sister Marie-Joseph to come to me as well, please.” Mother Marie-Pierre turned back to the little boy, still clinging onto the handle of the pram. She spoke gently. “When the doctor comes we’ll get Catherine into bed and make her comfortable. Will you go with Henriette to the kitchen?”

  David shook his head. It was clear he did not want to leave Catherine. “Papa said look after the girls,” he whispered.

  “Was your papa with you?” asked Mother Marie-Pierre.

  The boy shook his head again. “Just Maman…” His face crumpled and Sister Henriette dropped onto her knees beside him and putting her arms round him, gathered him against her.

  For a long while he leaned against her, his sobs muffled in her habit. Sister Henriette looked over his head at Reverend Mother, who nodded briskly and gently lifted the little girl from the pram, carrying her indoors to find the doctor.

  At last David’s tears began to lessen and he pulled himself free of the nun’s arms. “Maman is dead,” he said on a sob. “The planes came and shot her. She’s in the ditch. We had to leave her in the ditch. I couldn’t carry her.” He added pitifully, “She’ll get cold.”

  “I know, I know,” soothed Sister Henriette. “We’ll find her for you. We won’t leave her in the ditch, I promise you. You’ve been so brave, David. We’ll help you now. You did what Papa told you to. You’ve been very strong. He’ll be proud of you.”

  Tentatively Sister Henriette reached for the boy’s hand and when he didn’t draw away, she went to lead him up the steps, saying as he looked back anxiously at the pram, “Don’t worry about your things, they will be quite safe here, I promise you.” Still he dragged his feet, so she said brightly, “Tell you what, David, let’s go in through the kitchen door and you can leave the pram safely in the yard.”

  Together they pushed the pram round the building and on reaching the courtyard, Sister Henriette helped him put it into the small shed there before leading him indoors.

  Sister Marie-Joseph joined them in the kitchen as David was tucking into bread and cheese and a glass of milk, clearly very hungry.

  “Mother wants you in the recreation room,” she said to Sister Henriette. “I’m to take David over to the infirmary to see his sisters and to have him checked over by Dr Felix.” She smiled down at the boy sitting at the table. “If you come with me, David, you can see your sisters. Catherine is awake now. She had a bump on the head, but the doctor says she’ll be fine very soon.”

  She held out her hand, and David slid off the stool and took it. He found her less intimidating because, although she wore peculiar clothes too, her hat wasn’t as big as the other ladies’ and she didn’t peer at him from underneath it.

  When Sister Henriette reached the recreation room she found many of the sisters assembled there. At Reverend Mother’s request she quickly put them in the picture.

  “All that gunfire we heard earlier and the planes; that was the Germans firing on a group of refugees,” she told them. “Aeroplanes dive bombing them. When I went down, I met a woman who was bringing three children up here. She said their mother was dead at the roadside. There are people in the village who have been wounded. We need to send help at once and prepare beds in the infirmary for the most badly injured.” She looked round at her assembled sisters and noticed that most of those who worked in the infirmary were not there.

  “Sister Jeanne-Marie has already set off for the village with three others. Sister Eloise is making ready in the hospital,” Mother Marie-Pierre said. “The rest of us need to prepare for an influx of injured and frightened people,” adding with the ghost of a smile, “just like before.”

  Mother Marie-Pierre was very glad that some of the nursing sisters who had worked so hard during the last war, caring for the wounded ferried back from the trenches, were still able to work in the infirmary. She would need to rely on their experience and expertise to help them all through this crisis and the many more she expected to come with the arrival of the Germans.

  Mother Marie-Pierre was a young reverend mother, but one of her great strengths was to use the gifts of those around her. When Mother Marie-Georges had died a few years after the war, her place had been taken by Sister Magdalene, the sister who had run the convent hospital so efficiently throughout the war. The new reverend mother had at once seen the potential in the newly professed Sister Marie-Pierre, and had put her to work in the growing orphanage. She had not been disappointed in her choice. Before long Sister Marie-Pierre had been given charge of the orphans and over the years Mother Magdalene had come to rely on her, respecting her judgement and seeking her opinion on matters which arose. Mother Magdalene had also been a comparatively young reverend mother, and had supervised the running of the convent for almost fourteen years before she had been summoned to the order’s mother house in Paris. Despite her youth and the fact that many of the other sisters were technically more senior than she, it was Sister Marie-Pierre she left in charge while she was away. Again her confidence was not misplaced. The strange English girl, who had arrived of her own volition to help nurse the wounded during the Great War, had proved her worth as a member of the community, and Mother Magdalene knew that she would one day be capable of taking over from her.

  Now in her mid-sixties, Mother Magdalene had moved to the Paris convent permanently as the overall mother superior of the order, leaving the community in St Croix in little doubt as to whom she wanted them to elect as her successor. There had been those who doubted the wisdom of her choice and one or two who resented that such a young sister—Sister Marie-Pierre was not much more than forty—had been placed over them, demanding their unquestioning obedience. On the whole, however, the choice had been considered a good one. She was always ready to listen to what anyone had to say, welcomed discussion, and when she finally made a decision her reasons were explained so that everyone understood her action. Thus, she soon had the complete loyalty of most of her sisters.

  Now, in a crisis, her unquestioned authority paid dividends as she quickly organised the sisters to deal with the emergency. Sister Danielle who, with Sister Marie-Joseph, now looked after the orphans, quickly took the Leon children into her domain and tried to make them comfortable. Catherine had been kept in the infirmary under the careful eye of Sister Eloise; David and Hannah were washed and dressed in clean clothes. Their few possessions had been retrieved from the pram, stored safely in the shed in the courtyard. David had visited Catherine in the ward and found her sitting up in bed with a large white bandage round her head with one of the lay workers, Marthe, spooning warm soup into her mouth. Catherine smiled when she saw him. “David,” she called out, “David, I bumped my head and they’ve put it in a bandage!” Marthe spooned in another mouthful of soup and then Catherine asked, “Where’s Maman? Why isn’t she here? My head hurts.”

  “Now then, Catherine,” Marthe said hastily, “eat your soup like a good girl,” adding as she turned to David, “poor Catherine can’t remember how she hurt her head.”

  “We’ll tell her all about it when she’s feeling a bit better,” Sister Danielle said quietly. She was still holding the little boy’s hand. “We want her to try and sleep as soon as she’s had her soup.”

  David understood what they were saying. Catherine didn’t know Maman was dead. The sudden picture of his mother lying, staring up at him with empty eyes and blood oozing from holes in her neck made him cry out in despair; a primordial sound that wrenched at the heart. Sister Danielle scooped him up into her arms and sitting on a chair rocked him like a baby as he wept.

  Later, when he had been checked over by Dr Felix and was finally asleep in one of the tiny bedrooms usually kept for visitors, Sister Danielle went to consult with Mother Marie-Pierre.

  “We must bring their mother in for Christian burial,” she said. “It is very hard for children as young as David and C
atherine to take in what has happened. The baby, of course, will remember nothing. As long as she’s fed and dry she will do very well, but the little boy…” The nun shook a regretful head.

  “I’m not sure about the Christian burial,” replied Mother Marie-Pierre. “I have been talking to Sister Henriette, and she says the woman who brought the children here said that they are Jews. That’s why they were on the road, I imagine.” She looked across at Sister Danielle. “I think it would be wiser to keep this piece of information to ourselves. Sister Henriette knows too, of course, but it could be very dangerous for those children if it leaked out.”

  “You mean to the Germans?” Sister Danielle was wide-eyed. “What would they do?”

  Mother Marie-Pierre shrugged. “Probably nothing with children this young. They’d be no use in one of their work camps, but there is no need to draw attention to the fact that they are Jewish.”

  “Would anyone guess?” wondered Sister Danielle.

  “Again, probably not,” Mother Marie-Pierre said, “but the woman who brought them did remind Sister Henriette that there would be a physical sign on the boy.”

  “A physical sign?” Sister Danielle looked puzzled.

  “Jewish boys are circumcised,” Mother Marie-Pierre said, adding with a faint smile, “you remember Our Lord in the temple when he was a baby?”

  “Oh!” Colour flooded up into Sister Danielle’s face. She knew the story well enough, everyone did, but the actuality, the physical side of it had never dawned on her and the thought of her Lord Jesus having such a thing done to him brought a hot flush to her cheeks.

  Seeing her confusion, Mother Marie-Pierre said gently, “Don’t worry about it, Sister, all we have to do is see that it is you who gives him his bath. He’s only a little boy, you know.” Then to change the subject onto less embarrassing ground she went on. “However, their mother, and all the other dead, must be brought to the village for burial. Father Michel will say Mass for them and they will be buried in the churchyard. I will speak to him about the children’s mother.”

  It wasn’t just the Germans Mother Marie-Pierre was worried about, though she could hardly say so to Sister Danielle. Marthe, one of the lay workers at the convent, was also a Jew. Her family had lived in St Croix since before the first war and were part of the village community. Her father, Claude, was a farm labourer and her mother, Rochelle, kept a tiny store that sold everything from buttons and lace to billhooks and lamp oil. Marthe had come to the convent looking for work to help maintain the family… there were four children younger than she… and Mother Marie-Pierre had agreed to let her help with the rough work in the infirmary. Sister Marie-Paul, the novice mistress, had come to her in outrage.

  “How can you let a Jew into the convent?” she demanded, red-faced. “It is no place for Jews. We are a Christian community!” Her anger had made her outspoken, but Mother Marie-Pierre did not reprove her for that. She simply said, “But Sister, we have a Jew living with us permanently.”

  Sister Marie-Paul stared at her. “Who?” she asked, dismay on her face. “Who here is a Jew?”

  Mother Marie-Pierre replied gently, “Our Lord, Sister.”

  Sister Marie-Paul had been silenced, but she had not been reconciled to Marthe coming to the hospital each day, and Mother Marie-Pierre rather thought that she gave the girl a hard time. Luckily it was Sister Eloise who ran the hospital now, and she, recognising not only a hard worker, but someone with an instinctive flare for nursing, was pleased to have the girl and protected her much of the time from Sister Marie-Paul’s spite.

  The rest of the day and much of the night was spent providing care for the others who had been hurt in the German raid, food for those who had survived and somewhere to sleep for the night.

  Mathilde Leon was found still lying at the roadside and carried in on a makeshift stretcher along with ten others who had also been killed. They were laid out in the village school to be identified and then buried in the little churchyard.

  The curé, Father Michel, was to say Mass for them and then they would be buried in a corner of the churchyard already set aside for strangers. When friends and families had identified the bodies, it turned out that two more of the casualties, a man and a little boy, were also Jews. Their family did not want them included in the requiem Mass, nor buried in a Christian churchyard. A weeping woman had claimed the man as her husband and a bleak-eyed man said the boy was his son. They begged that they be buried somewhere separate.

  The curé had shrugged and said that they certainly couldn’t be buried in the churchyard if they were not baptised and told them to ask the mayor, Monsieur Dubois, who was trying to organise the refugees in the square.

  The mayor had shrugged helplessly when applied to, but Mother Marie-Pierre had spoken to him and suggested the little copse beyond the graveyard wall, which was quiet and secluded, might be a suitable resting place. The mayor, anxious to be done with the whole thing, agreed and sent a gravedigger there as well.

  With the aid of the photograph that had been among the things in David’s pram, Mother Marie-Pierre had identified the children’s mother.

  “This woman is also Jewish,” she had murmured to the priest. “I think she should be buried with the other Jews.”

  “How do you know?” demanded the curé suspiciously. “No one has claimed her.”

  “No, but I have her children safely at the convent. One is injured and in the hospital and one is a baby.” She produced the photo and showed him. “This picture was in their things. You can see it is the woman lying here.” She did not mention David, and afterwards wondered why. She was glad that she hadn’t and actually regretted mentioning the girls, but it was too late now, and anyway the curé was hardly a risk.

  She walked over to the families of the Jewish dead and said, “There is another Jewish woman over here. She should be buried with her own people. Will you see to her as well? She has no one else to say the prayers.”

  With a desolate nod, the father of the dead boy followed her to where Mathilde lay, and, picking her up, carried her to where his son and the other man lay awaiting burial.

  Mother Marie-Pierre considered giving them Mathilde’s wedding picture to place in the grave with her, but decided it would be better to keep it for her children, and for her husband if he should ever return home to find them.

  Gradually, over the next two weeks the convent returned to its normal routine. The news continued going from bad to worse. Despair and anger flooded through the demoralised French army as it continued to retreat, a defeated force. Fear and anguish enveloped the civilians they had failed to protect. Everyone knew that within days, barring a miracle, the Germans would be at the gates of Paris and Paris would fall.

  Belgium had already fallen and King Leopold, surrendering, had sued for peace. The Allies were left with an unprotected flank as they were backed steadily towards the sea. Considering them now a defeated army with no stomach for the fight and no prospect of escape, the Panzers turned south, towards Paris. With their eyes fixed on the glorious capture of the French capital, they allowed the British Expeditionary Army and many of their French allies to be rescued by the Royal Navy, along with an armada of tiny ships crossing the Channel that snatched the cornered men from under the German artillery fire and dive-bomb raids.

  Rumours of the disasters around Calais and Dunkerque spread through the people like wildfire. All had heard of the English army’s escape, but the despondent talk in the cafés and village squares was of the English deserting their allies, of failing to send enough planes, and when Paris fell on 14th June everyone knew it was only a matter of days before France would formally surrender and the Nazis would take control.

  However, the nuns kept to the comforting routine of daily office and went about their normal tasks as if disaster were not just around the corner. The hospital continued to care for the wounded refugees who had been brought in after the raid. Several had left to continue their flight to places where they thought th
ey would be safe from the Germans, two more had died, and the task began to assume more manageable proportions.

  The Leon children were absorbed into the orphanage wing and although Catherine continued to ask for her mother, David never mentioned her. Baby Hannah had been renamed Anne.

  “The other children have ordinary enough names,” Mother Marie-Pierre said to Sister Danielle, “and if we all call the baby Anne from now on, everyone will soon forget that she was ever called anything else.”

  The other orphans, Paulette, Monique and Jean-Pierre accepted the arrival of more children without question. Each of them had joined the orphan family in the convent at different times and knew that children came and went. Jean-Pierre was pleased because David was a boy and he’d been feeling a bit outnumbered. Aged eleven, he decided it was his job to show the younger boy the ropes, and Sister Danielle was pleased to see that he had sort of adopted the new boy. Paulette, nearly fourteen and due to leave the convent very soon, was delighted to be allowed to help with baby Anne, and even Monique, always something of a loner, took the young Catherine under her wing.

  In the uncertain times, the children were not going to school as they had been, but were now doing lessons with Sister Marie-Joseph, and helping with chores in the kitchen and the garden.

  It was in the third week after the raid that Mother Marie-Pierre’s private devotions were interrupted by Sister Celestine banging with unusual vigour on the reverend mother’s office door. Mother Marie-Pierre closed her missal and rang the bell for the nun to enter.

  “Oh, Mother, come quickly,” she cried in extreme agitation. “The Germans are here. There’s a car coming up the lane. The Germans are coming here.”

  “Calm down, Sister,” Mother Marie-Pierre instructed briskly. “I’ll come and see what they want. In the meantime, send a message to Sister Danielle and tell her to keep the children in and ask Sister Clothilde to light the fire in here.”

  Sister Celestine drew a deep breath and murmured “Yes, Mother,” before turning and running off to do as she’d been bidden.