Gilman, Dorothy - A Nun in the Closet

by Dorothy Gilman

  "This is great," said Alfie after an interval, rolling over in the moss. "I've forgotten it's my lunch hour, I've even forgotten Mr. Ianicelli, Sister Hyacinthe. All this sun, and I haven't tasted anything so ambrosial in weeks as these berries. Who's Mr. Ianicelli anyway? A nice guy trying to sell crosses. A nice, even thoughtful, salesman."

  "Not really so thoughtful," Sister Hyacinthe pointed out unforgivingly. "He said the cross I admired cost five dollars. The cross he gave me cost five dollars, too, and if he'd been really thoughtful he would have given me the one I liked."

  Alfie grinned. "I didn't realize nuns could be so human. How do you know the two crosses are the same price?"

  "Because of the price tag," said Sister Hyacinthe patiently. "I picked up the cross he left on the mantel and there was a tiny sticker on the back that said five dollars, which is exactly what he said was the price of the jeweled cross."

  Alfie gave her a long thoughtful look. "That's sort of funny, you know? I mean, if I were slightly paranoid . . . " He stopped and considered this. "A salesman who leaves for a drink of water the minute he gets a customer hooked on his merchandise . . . then leaves you with a particular cross but not the one you admired . . . I mean, if he did come to the house to look around-if he was looking for Sister Ursula, for instance, and if I were really

  suspicious . . ." He closed his mouth with a snap. "I am," he said. "Sister Hyacinthe, let's get back to the house on the double. Never mind your shoes-run!"

  8

  Sister John had carried glasses of peppermint tea to the living room where she and Brill sat on the couch, maps and papers between them. "That's how it works," he said, his finger tracing lines on the map. "It begins in Florida in early spring when they follow the sun and the crops up north. It's beans, tomatoes, berries, fruits and then back to Florida in November for the oranges, and then it's early spring and they start all over again."

  Sister John said, puzzled, "I don't understand. When and where do the children go to school?"

  "Often they don't," Brill said. "Two weeks in one town, one week in another-they soon get discouraged. They don't learn much, they only learn how different they are from the other kids. It's humiliating for them. That's how the system perpetuates itself because the only thing that will change them is education, and to get schooling they'd have to stay in one place. It's practically a conspiracy against them. By ten or eleven the kids are burnt out, old. They're often married by fourteen and parents at fifteen. No way out."

  "There has to be a way out," said Sister John.

  "Try and find it," he told her angrily. "The incredible thing is their stoicism. I don't mean they accept their life, they know damn well they deserve more. You get the feeling there's nothing for them except endurance. When they can't endure any longer they just give up and die. It's one more case of the human spirit being degraded over and over again. They just go on and on, beans today, peas tomorrow, sometimes a day off, more often not, the same backaches, same fields, same highways over and over and over."

  "A nightmare," agreed Sister John and added sadly, "I don't suppose they believe in God?"

  "Surprisingly they do," said Brill. "Lord knows there's nobody else they can turn to for a reward. I get no sense of grief from them when someone is killed in one of those lousy trucks or dies of malnutrition. When I first met them I thought they were damn insensitive, but now I realize they're actually glad when someone dies, there's a kind of awe that God has released them. From the wheel, you might say."

  "The wheel," repeated Sister John quietly. "How terrible, when this is America where they live. Is there no joy at all in their lives, then, no kind of earthly release, however small? Surely a moving picture or a little shopping trip into town-"

  "Oh but they never go into town," Brill said flatly.

  She looked at him in surprise. "Why?"

  "It's part of the conspiracy, that's all," he said, shrugging contemptuously. "They even travel at night, when people in the towns are sleeping, it's how they're kept invisible. They're warned against ever going into a town. I might add that their fears of the town are not exaggerated," Brill said dryly. "They get arrested rather quickly because of their clothes, their innocence, and there's nobody to get them out of jail. You have your order behind you to back you up, I have parents, a certain confidence born of affluence and a whole web of relationships. They have no one to speak for them, so of course it's safer for them to huddle together for protection and avoid towns."

  "I've never heard of such a thing," Sister John said indignantly. "Now that's something that can be changed, it's something even I can change. Of course they must go into town, I'll take them myself."

  "Now look, Sister John, there's a reason behind everything and you can't just-" He broke off as the back door slammed, footsteps raced through the house and Alfie ran into the living room. He stopped at sight of them and with exaggerated politeness said, "Hello there."

  Sister Hyacinthe followed, looking distraught and saying, "But what did you mean, Alfie?"

  "Nothing at all, go right on talking," Alfie said, and nonchalantly strolled toward the mantel. He picked up the silver cross, looked at it, carried it over to the window and held it up to the light.

  "Alfie, what's wrong?" protested Sister Hyacinthe.

  Alfie paid no attention. He was studying the piece of jewelry, which was complicated and baroque, a piece of flat silver to which a three-dimensional silver rose had been grafted. The stem of the rose ran vertically up to the intersection of the cross, where it blossomed out into an intricate flower with sharp petals and a bud. It was this Protuberance that he examined with narrowed eyes.

  "What is it?" asked Sister Hyacinthe, while Sister John and Brill watched in astonishment from the couch.

  Alfie brought a penknife from his pocket, selected the thinnest point out of several possibilities and inserted it into the heart of the rose.

  "Alfie-my cross!" cried Sister Hyacinthe, and then stared openmouthed as the silver rose was severed from its background and a tiny black cylinder fell into the palm of Alfie's hand.

  He dropped it to the floor and placed a foot on it, squashing it. "That's why he gave you this particular cross," he said triumphantly. "It's bugged."

  The word catapulted Brill from the sofa. "You've got to be kidding," he said, and dropped to his knees, picked up the broken pieces and stared at them. "By God it looks like it. Douse it in water, Alfie, it may still be working."

  "But what kind of bug?" asked Sister John, following him into the kitchen. "In this climate there aren't any dangerous insects, I'm sure of it."

  "This," said Alfie, dropping it into a pan of water, "is an electronic bug for eavesdropping. Somebody went to a great deal of trouble to find out what you and Sister Hyacinthe talk about in this house."

  "Talk about?" Sister John looked at him as if he had gone mad. "How on earth can you think that? How do you even know about such things?"

  "Our generation is quite advanced, we watched the Watergate hearings."

  "Watergate," repeated Sister John. "That's chapter nineteen but I've only reached chapter fourteen in Brill's book." She stared at the glittering little black pebble underwater. "It's so tiny, how can it be anything?"

  "Everything's transistorized these days," said Brill, picking it up. "It's actually a tiny microphone that carries the sound of your voices out to-"

  "Yeah, out to where?" asked Alfie.

  "Probably to a parked car," Brill said. "No, Alfie, don't go looking, the more important thing is to puzzle out what was picked up by the bug before you had your brain wave."

  "No, there's something even more important that that," Alfie said abruptly. "The pantry. Ianicelli was standing by the pantry when I first saw him."

  "Doing what?"

  Alfie narrowed his eyes, remembering. "He was standing there staring into the pantry and looking pleased."

  "Pleased?"

  "Like a cat that's just swallowed a canary. A purring expression on hi
s face. Do you think he could have bugged the pantry too?"

  They hurried from sink to pantry and began a tedious search of all the shelves but they found no further signs of bugging. "I don't think he had the time anyway," insisted Sister Hyacinthe. "He left the living room and about three minutes later I heard Alfie come in and shout at him."

  "Well, there doesn't seem to be any bug here," said Brill, "but you'd better hurry up and disguise Sister Ursula because, damn it, somebody's determined to-to-"

  "Yes, what?" asked Sister Hyacinthe.

  "Get themselves into this house, or you out of it," said Alfie.

  Sister John, closing the door of the pantry, conceded this to be a possible conclusion. "In which case the most logical move would be to call in the police, except that any move to call in Sheriff McGee would not be logical, and in any case Sister Ursula is probably wanted by the police. Or so we must assume until he decides to talk."

  "What do you suggest then?" asked Sister Hyacinthe.

  Sister John's smile was unexpected and dazzling. "That we all keep an open mind and wait for more clues, which I believe is one of the requisites of detective work."

  "I don't want to be a detective," Sister Hyacinthe said gloomily. "I came here to help you take inventory."

  "Inventory seems to include Mr. Ianicelli as well as Sister Ursula," pointed out Sister John, "and now that I think about it I have a few doubts about Mr. Giovianni, too."

  "Who the devil's Mr. Giovianni?" asked Brill.

  "He was taking the town census yesterday and wanted to know how many people are occupying the house."

  "And you believed him?" gasped Alfie.

  "Of course I believed him," Sister John said impatiently. "He had a clipboard."

  "Yes, and Mr. Ianicelli had rosaries."

  "Of course I understand now that things are no longer what they appear to be, but Mr. Armisbruck, although a Lutheran, is always what he appears to be, and he's been the extent of our experience until Monday."

  Sister Hyacinthe's eyes were on Alfie, who was staring transfixed at the table and smiling. "What is it, Alfie?"

  He looked up with eyes shining. "I've just gotten this perfectly wonderful idea. Look at the pattern: Sister Ursula is shot and left for dead . . . . The next night three men come back, presumably looking for his remains-think how they felt when they couldn't find any!-so they send Mr. Ianicelli with a bug to find out if Sister Ursula's inside the house. If my theory's correct then what they're really looking for is reassurance that Sister Ursula's dead."

  "But he isn't," pointed out Sister Hyacinthe.

  "No, but if we could persuade Sister Ursula to give us his name-just his name, mind you-I could impersonate him. I could sign into a motel using his name-that would draw attention from this house wouldn't it?-or you could smear me with blood and I could stagger into a doctor's office saying I've been shot."

  Brill grinned. "You're slipping, Alfie. What happens when it becomes obvious the motel room is empty, or when the doctor says, Okay, let's have a look at those bullet holes?"

  "All right, so maybe it's a bit creaky but the point is sound. There has to be some way to get these people off Sister John's back."

  "There is," Brill said. "Get the guy into the nun's habit in a hurry, pray hard and let Mr. Ianicelli puzzle out what happened to Sister Ursula. In the meantime"-he glanced at his watch-"this is-or was-our lunch hour and we've got to get back to bean picking. Sister John, we'll talk some more after dinner tonight?"

  "Splendid," she said.

  "And I'll come up with a better idea," promised Alfie. "You'll be here all afternoon and make certain nobody else gets into the house?"

  "All afternoon," Sister John told him firmly.

  "Good. See you later then."

  After hearing that a Mr. Ianicelli had penetrated their defenses Sister Ursula became unusually subdued; one could almost say he turned docile. He allowed Sister John to tuck and baste him into skirt and veil and then to walk him up and down the hall once. When he was refused a kitchen knife-to protect himself, he said-he swore only once, feebly. He didn't even complain when Sister John announced they would hold afternoon prayers in his room to acquaint him with the rituals of their order, and he listened almost humbly as Sister John read in a stern, declamatory voice, ". . . O Lord deliver my soul from wicked lips and from a deceitful tongue . . . ."

  At five o'clock Sister John had just discovered a spinning wheel in the basement and was adding this to her inventory when Sister Hyacinthe came to tell her that for the past hour a child had been watching her from behind a tree at the edge of the garden. She had been carefully transplanting her herbs, she said, and it was making her nervous to be watched.

  "I wonder . . ." said Sister John thoughtfully. "I wonder if that could be Alice. Did you speak to her?"

  "She doesn't want me to know she's there. I'm not supposed to see her."

  "Let's get the suitcase," said Sister John and, with notebook and holland cloths in hand, led the way to the preserve closet. Noting the piles of money naked and unprotected she unfurled her dustcloths and covered them, leaving them looking rather like loaves of bread rising on the shelves. Carrying the empty suitcase, she headed upstairs and through the kitchen to the garden. "Alice?" she called. When there was no response she turned to Sister Hyacinthe. "Which tree?"

  "The big oak near the path into the woods."

  Sister John set out alone, tiptoeing with the suitcase in hand. She found the child pressed to the tree like a wind-blown leaf, too shy even to lift her head; when Sister John gently pried her loose the girl promptly burst into tears. Sister John was not dismayed: she understood that for Alice this was a nervewracking venture into the unknown.

  "Alice?" she said gently.

  "Yes'm," the child gasped, wiping her nose with a dirty band.

  "This is your suitcase."

  Alice stopped sniffling and looked up at Sister John. Sister Hyacinthe, joining them, saw an uncommonly plain child with ragged blond hair and small buttoned-up features, but when Alice wrenched her gaze from Sister John to the suitcase her eyes suddenly blazed. She made no move to touch the suitcase but a look stirred in her face like the first ripples of wind in a pond; the prim mouth softened, the sun rose in her eyes. Alice had met with bliss.

  "Take it," Sister John said, watching her. "Take it and come back tomorrow. I think perhaps we can find a few small things to put into it."

  Alice received ownership with dignity. A furtive little smile tugged at her lips as she struggled off toward the path with the suitcase banging against her thin legs. A moment later she vanished into the woods.

  "That," said Sister John unnecessarily, "was Alice."

  As the afternoon waned the sky began to fade to the color of dull pewter. A hot, sickly breeze sprang up to flutter the drooping leaves of the trees, a few drops of rain fell and the earth became very still. "Blowing up a storm," said Sister Hyacinthe as they dined on mushroom omelet.

  "I wonder if we have candles."

  "Yes, in the drawer. A whole box."

  The wind suddenly burst around the corner of the house with a roar, and Sister Hyacinthe, hurrying to the window, saw the privet hedge bend almost double and the elms' leaves turn white as the wind whipped them inside out. In the wake of the wind came rain: great sheets of it beating against the glass. Through it Sister Hyacinthe saw lightning flash and raced the thunder back to her omelet, saying crossly, "I suppose this means that Brill and Naomi and Alfie won't come over tonight."

  "I think you're right," Sister John said, nodding. "This will be a wonderful chance for some quiet reading, a little more inventory, a little sewing. The world has been very much with us, Sister Hyacinthe, but I think we'll be left entirely alone this evening."

  Which, as it turned out, proved that Sister John could be wrong on occasion, too.

  9

  The events that Sister John later referred to as their haunting began about nine, after the storm had left every tree and shrub dr
ipping, and the earth sodden. Quite suddenly-and without reason, for the wind had long since died away-the lights went out. Sister John, reading Brill's book in the living room, was left hanging in the middle of a sentence. Sister Hyacinthe, seated on the floor grinding slippery elm bark for breakfast, gave a small gasp and said, "The lights have gone out."

  "Hey," shouted Sister Ursula from upstairs, "the lights have gone out."

  Rising, Sister John moved to the bottom of the stairs and called, "We'll be up with candles in a few minutes." She asked Sister Hyacinthe in which drawer the candles could be found, and then groped her way through the passage to the kitchen table. She unearthed the flashlight as well as the candles and, thus armed, returned to the living room to discover Sister Hyacinthe kneeling behind a chair. "Heard something outside," she whispered. "A noise."

  "Nonsense, that's your imagination again," Sister John told her firmly. "Get off the floor, Sister Hyacinthe-you really must, you look like a Thurber animal crouched there-and help drip tallow into saucers for candleholders."

  Sister Hyacinthe reluctantly stumbled to her feet. One flickering candle did little to banish the darkness; it sent menacing shadows leaping up the walls but left the remainder of the high-ceilinged room in darkness. The smell of hot tallow filled the room as Sister John bent over saucers and distributed hot wax. When several candles were rooted and upright Sister Hyacinthe carried them to the mantel and placed them there in a row. As she turned, her mouth dropped open, she drew in her breath sharply, extended a trembling finger toward the window and screamed.

  Following her glance of horror, Sister John looked at the window and saw a face peering at them through the glass, a face illuminated by a shimmering otherworldly light, floating in mid-air without neck or shoulders, eyes deep-set and burning, every seam of its waxen flesh outlined and shadowed by the luminous unearthly light. It was the face of a man in torment. For a long moment he stared through ,the glass at them while they stared back at him in astonishment and then, as suddenly as he had come, he disappeared like marsh mist.