Gilman, Dorothy - A Nun in the Closet

by Dorothy Gilman

  "But doesn't Mr. Eaton the farmer mind your missing so much time?" Sister John had asked him.

  "He likes us," Alfie said, pleased. "Actually he's very sympathetic about the migrant workers but he has to make a living. He says if there was a really tough enforced law he wouldn't mind fixing up his shacks but it would take money none of the other farmers are spending and he couldn't deduct it as charity. The shacks are used only about six weeks out of the year, you see."

  "And that's exactly where the solution lies," Sister John had said, nodding vigorously and at the same time looking mysterious.

  Now she said to Sister Hyacinthe, "I know you won't let Mr. Ianicelli into the house again but I want you to remember that we seem to be surrounded by wolves in sheeps' clothing, all of them bent on coming inside."

  "Yes, that's becoming obvious," pointed out Sister Hyacinthe, "but have you decided why?"

  "An idea begins to take shape," Sister John told her, nodding.

  "A deduction?"

  "Yes, and although it bothers me a great deal to say this I feel you must regard any stranger with suspicion."

  "I always have," Sister Hyacinthe said truthfully.

  Sister John looked startled. "Yes, I suppose you have."

  "I don't," said Sister Hyacinthe carefully, "trust people in general. I don't love them all, as you do, and look for God in them. I can't usually find God in them at all."

  "It takes time," Sister John said, warmly patting her hand. "But for just one more week-heaven forgive me for saying it-I think it would be wise for you to continue being suspicious. Then you can try loving them." She arose and carried breakfast dishes to the sink. "I'll get ready now . . . . I plan to take the children through the five-and-dime store, show them the court house, the Catholic church and the supermarket and then buy each of them an ice-cream cone. In the meantime," she added, "there could be a letter from Mother Angelique today, in reply to my phone call. Watch for it, will you?" With this she picked up Sister Ursula's breakfast tray and vanished with it.

  It was a motley-looking group that assembled in the garden an hour later, at nine o'clock. Uncle Joe was a black man bent almost double from rheumatism; he leaned heavily on Melida, who was blond, with a worn, once-pretty face turned passive from too many sterile hours. Alice led them, eyes shining, a small Joan of Arc in sneakers. Her five companions, none of them older than Alice, looked stupefied with terror. They were introduced as Moses, Rosebeth, Lucas, Harry and Carrie.

  Almost at once Moses announced that he had to go to the bathroom and since he was too frightened to go alone Alice, Rosebeth, Lucas, Harry and Carrie insisted on accompanying him upstairs. They crowded into the bathroom together in spite of Sister John's protests, and while Moses attended to the call of nature the others examined the bathtub and made faces at themselves in the mirror.

  "Rosebeth's got on her best hair ribbon," Alice confided to Sister John, "and Lucas is wearin' his pa's bow tie. Harry ain't got no tie but he's wearin' clean underdrawers special, an' Moses has socks on today and Carrie's wearin' beads."

  "How nice," said Sister John, beaming at these revelations. "Are you quite finished now, Moses? Shall we go down and get into the car?"

  En masse they left the bathroom, each of them wistfully stroking the banisters as they moved downstairs, where they collected in a knot and peered into the living room. "Don't touch-stand," Alice told them, and like puppies they stood.

  "Okay," called Naomi, opening the doors of the van and waving to them. "In you go, sit on the floor and hold on tight."

  Cars were obviously an oasis of the familiar after their brief glimpse into a victorian mansion, for Harry promptly relaxed enough to hit Moses in the stomach. Sister John didn't see this because she was helping Uncle Joe into the seat up front but Sister Hyacinthe saw it and marveled again at Sister John's heroism. Once the children were stowed away in the back Melida and Sister John climbed in beside them, Naomi closed the rear of the van and inserted herself behind the wheel next to Uncle Joe. The van began to move, promoting a roar of squeals and giggles from the interior, and crawled down the driveway toward Fallen Stump Road.

  Alfie said, looking after them, "Sister John really blows the mind, doesn't she?"

  Gatesville was not a large town but it was a county seat. The era had long since passed when on Court Day citizens lined up to watch Judge Farley hit a spittoon at thirty feet with his tobacco juice, or when Jeb Pickering, weaving only slightly, made his way from South Main to North Main every morning, bowing and removing his hat at every pretty lady and sometimes at the statue of General Grant by the post office; Jeb was now banished to the Elmwood State Hospital, where eccentrics belonged. The original Gatesville-cluttered, colorful, easy-going-had turned into a suburban town whose virtues were preserved like an embryo in formaldehyde: these values were reflected in the elegance of the neo-Colonial gas stations, the long line of cedar-and-glass shops in the mall, the rather self-conscious antiquity of the old court house and the litter baskets painted pale blue each spring by the Cub Scouts. If the thoughtful eye found a certain blandness in the scene, that was the way Gatesville liked it. Dedicated to homogeneity, it had been at least twenty years since anyone had seen heterogeneousness on Main Street.

  The van's arrival introduced heterogeneousness in one fell swoop. Since it was Friday, a major shopping day, there were a considerable number of people to observe the invasion of Gatesville by its migrant children. It elicited a number of benevolent smiles, for if there was one thing Gatesville prided itself on it was its liberal attitude toward the black and the poor, none of whom lived within its boundaries. The liberalness was of a particular generous quality because the town voted Republican so overwhelmingly at each election that no one could be labeled radical, no matter how liberal they dared to be: it was a situation that Sheriff McGee understood perfectly, and one which had returned him unerringly to office every four years.

  There was a certain CARE-poster quality about the children as they climbed out of the van: Carrie began to suck her thumb, Alice clung to Sister John's skirts and Rosebeth began to sob quietly. Almost immediately Uncle Joe added to the confusion because it took nearly ten minutes to prise him out of the front seat and establish him on his feet. During this interval Moses announced that he had to go to the bathroom again, although once in motion he abandoned the idea; it was apparently a ploy with which he filled his idle moments. Uncle Joe's progress across Main Street to the five-and-dime store was slow, and stopped traffic for three blocks while he maneuvered between Sister John and Melida. Once in the store Sister John distributed dimes, only to discover that nothing could be purchased with a dime, and she began to wonder if she could afford the ice-cream treat later.

  The visit to the five-and-dime store proved to be a success, however. The boys left clutching microscopic plastic trucks and the girls hair ribbons or jewelry; even Melida wore a faint wan smile. Once again they crossed Main Street, causing an even longer backup of cars as shoppers poured into town on late-morning errands. Reaching the court house they sprawled on the lawn while Sister John explained the functions of the law. This was received politely, the children occupied by their store purchases, but the driver of a passing truck shouted, "Right on, Sister!" From there they moved down the street to the Catholic church but since everyone appeared to be Baptist, Sister John's explanations were listened to with bewilderment. At last they crossed the street to the supermarket where Sister John planned to give the children a small lecture on food, nutrition and free enterprise.

  It was the supermarket that proved their undoing. Plastic toys and hair ribbons were all very well in their place but for children who breakfasted on cold grits, lunched on canned beans and saw meat and milk only a few times a month, the sight of so much food produced far more reverence than any church, and a great deal more excitement than toys in a discount shop. Not even the music pouring softly through the walls could equal the sight of aisle after aisle of shelves filled with cans and boxes of foo
d. They clustered around Sister John and Naomi, urgently pointing and tugging, all except for Uncle Joe who backed against a deceptively solid pyramid of canned corn (Weekend Sale 4/1.00). The towering display of cans trembled, tilted and cascaded, can by can, to the floor.

  One hundred cans of corn (4/1.00) caused a great deal of noise and sent Uncle Joe to his knees. Melida screamed and ran up the aisle to hide behind a special weekend display of Picnic Pleasers, Naomi raced to stop the cans from rolling all over the store and Sister John tried to help Uncle Joe to his feet. Alice began to cry softly. Moses announced in a loud voice that he had to go to the bathroom, and strung to a new pitch of anxiety Carrie began to vomit.

  It was a trying moment.

  Into this circle of total confusion strolled Sheriff McGee, not at all surprised to see them: news of their arrival in town had reached him two minutes after they parked their van. He had closely watched their progress up and down Main Street, resenting very much their squatting on the court house lawn, and still more their holding up traffic. He was filled now with triumph at finding them delivered to him like so many wiggling fish in a net.

  "All right, all right," he said, wading through the cans. "All right, that's enough, let's move along now. I'll handle it, Joe," he told a harassed store manager who arrived breathlessly from the nether regions. "You get somebody to clean up this mess and I'll get them out of your store."

  "We can leave quite well by ourselves," Sister John told him, succeeding at last in propping up a dazed Uncle Joe. "He only backed up without looking behind him."

  "Just come along," said the sheriff. "For Chrissake can somebody get this black kid a paper bag, she's upchucking all over my new boots."

  Naomi, looking distraught, said, "Other people vomit in supermarkets and knock things over by accident."

  "Yeah, well, they're taxpayers. Right now I'm arresting you all for disturbing the peace on a Friday morning in Gatesville."

  "Arresting us for what?" gasped Sister John.

  The manager said, "Oh, come on now, Bill, that's overdoing things a bit, isn't it? I'm not complaining."

  "I didn't catch your name," Sister John told him happily.

  "Epworth. And what's more, Bill-"

  "What's more, they were disturbing the peace all up and down Main Street," said Sheriff McGee. "You give these people an inch and they'll take a mile, Joe. You want them in your store every day?"

  Joe looked around him at a littered floor, gaping customers and terrified young faces. "Maybe they just got excited. I got no reason to kick them out, Bill. Their money's just as good as anybody's."

  Sheriff McGee's laugh was contemptuous. "If they have any! Well, I've got the right, and I know my Gatesville, how the hell d'ye think I stay in office?" To Sister John he said coldly, "Let's go."

  "You're arresting children?" cried Sister John.

  "Save your speeches for the court house," he said warningly. "All of you, no exceptions, move along."

  11

  For Sister Hyacinthe the first hint of anything unexpected came when six bedraggled children could be seen approaching the house through the field of mustard around two o'clock. She and Alfie were sitting on the front steps waiting for the first glimpse of Mr. Armisbruck's red van and assuming that a good many bathrooms must have been visited to make the group so late. "Look!" cried Sister Hyacinthe, and pointed.

  Six heads, rising like flowers from the tall grass, increased in height and presently gained shoulders and waists as they mounted the sloping lawn. Behind them limped only one adult figure in a pale flowered dress. "That's Melida," said Alfie, shading his eyes against the sun.

  "But walking?" protested Sister Hyacinthe. "Where's the van, and where are the others? They shouldn't be walking, it's five miles from Gatesville."

  "Maybe the van broke down," Alfie said, rising to his feet.

  Slowly the children made their way toward them and stopped in a grim and silent line in front of them. Their eyes were accusing. They had, after all, believed that Sister John, with her long whispering skirts, her veil, her shining face and smiling eyes, had possessed the magic to protect them even when their parents had said she did not. Melida, coming up behind them, nodded in a civil manner, leaned over to take off her shoes and said, "You better get down to the jail real quick, Alfie."

  "Jail!" faltered Sister Hyacinthe.

  "Yes'm, because Sister John's there, and Miss Naomi, and Uncle Joe's there, and that sheriff says we all disturbed the peace of their day and he's a mean one. No ma'am, we don't want to sit down, we just want to get home, thank you, but somebody better go down before Sister John gets into any more trouble, and Miss Naomi wants for you to call the-the BCLU I think it is-''

  "ACLU," put in Alfie.

  "-and that sheriff, he put us in a room with a lady who ain't no better than she should be, and Uncle Joe, he's off by himself and that ain't good for him, seeing as how he's a man who likes his folks close by him, and what I want to know is, they let us go because Sister John made such a fuss about the children, but who's to get the rest of them out when they been arrested and Sister John won't plead guilty?"

  "She wouldn't, of course," Alfie said, staring in fascination at a Melida who had never said more than yes or no within his hearing.

  "And," continued Melida, "Sister John's down there threatening the sheriff and telling him she won't pay no fine or even leave until he apologizes for arrestin' us all."

  "Oboy," said Alfie.

  "Is that bad?" asked Sister Hyacinthe.

  "Well, it's certainly interesting," admitted Alfie.

  "And now we're going to go along home, seeing as how the children are tired," said Melida, "and afore the folks get to worrying about us if they ain't already."

  "Yes," said Alfie. "And do you mind telling Brill what happened and get him over here in a hurry?"

  "I surely will," Melida said with dignity, and herded the children toward the side of the house.

  Just before they vanished Moses looked back and said over his shoulder bitterly, "We didn't get no ice cream neither."

  The lunch that Sister Hyacinthe had made was eaten only by Sister Ursula; Alfie had brought his own with him and Sister Hyacinthe certainly had no appetite for food while Sister John languished in prison. Brill, hastily summoned from his bean-picking, arrived on Naomi's motorcycle and said he'd go at once to the court house to find out what had happened. "I warned her," he said mysteriously, and with a curt nod rode off. They did not see him again for eight hours.

  At half-past five Bhanjan Singh walked up the driveway carring a small suitcase. Sister Ursula had ventured downstairs for dinner because, as he put it evasively, it didn't seem the same upstairs without Sister John stopping in to pray over him at odd moments. Once established in the living room he discovered the Victrola and began issuing orders: "Does it work?" he asked. "See if you can find a handle. If there's a handle you insert it, wind it up and the damn thing plays without electricity. Are there phonograph records?"

  Faced with preparing dinner and knowing her limitations, Sister Hyacinthe retired to the kitchen to do some research. From a pile of greens gathered in the woods she selected young nettle leaves, handfuls of red clover blossoms, dandelion greens and a number of fiddlehead ferns. From the refrigerator she extracted spinach and two onions, and seeing the collection grow she was pleased: after steaming the greens and sautéing the onions she would add two quarts of milk to make a soup teeming with vitamins and minerals. If anyone-it would be Sister Ursula, naturally-protested the clover blossoms she could insist it was spinach soup. Everyone ate spinach soup. For a main dish she would stuff comfrey leaves with cheese and breadcrumbs.

  At that moment she heard the screen door slam and Bhanjan Singh's voice say, "Good afternoon please, everyone."

  Brightening, Sister Hyacinthe dropped her apron and hurried into the hall to welcome him. He stood with the sun at his back, cordially beaming at them and bowing. "I had not planned to come until tomorrow," he said, "bu
t I had a very strong intuitive feeling that I am needed today." He held out a letter. "I took the liberty in passing the mailbox to extract this envelope."

  Sister Hyacinthe grasped the letter, read the words on the envelope and burst into tears. "It's j-j-just the letter Sister John was waiting for and now she's in prison, Bhanjan."

  "It has already begun then," he said, nodding. "You must not lose faith: an eclipse is sometimes a great blessing. I wonder if you could tell me where to place my suitcase, please?"

  There were three jail cells provided in the court house for unhappy souls in transit, and the first cell was occupied by two other women beside Sister John and Naomi. Uncle Joe sat alone in the second cell and passed the time praying in a loud voice while a gentleman with delirium tremens huddled in the third and complained loudly that Uncle Joe was sending greenhaired angels into his cell. "Get them away," he shouted over and above Uncle Joe's solemn Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

  Only Naomi was calm, giving invaluable legal advice to Sister John, whose indignation remained at a high pitch until the children were at last sent home with Melida. This took place around one o'clock, and only then did Sister John relax and turn her attention to her cellmates, remedying her previous oversight by announcing that she was Sister John of St. Tabitha's Abbey.

  The girl lying on the lower bunk reading Amazing Confessions looked up and said sarcastically, "No kidding."

  Sister John stared at her in astonishment; she was certainly no older than fifteen. "What on earth are you doing here, you poor child?"

  The girl's glance was bored. "Shoplifting," she said. "A bum rap, and if Daddy doesn't come soon and get me out of this hellhole I'll raise bloody murder."