The Sisterhood

by Helen Bryan

  Now they could hear a breathless voice behind the locutio—“Oil from the kitchen, Mother”—and a pale hand wearing a thin gold ring was visible through the ironwork, rubbing a cloth feverishly on the lock. Creaking loudly on its hinges, the iron gate was prized open.

  “Well?” demanded Mother imperiously. She was a tall woman, and more formidable than ever because she was gaunt from the general shortage of food in the convent. She barely tasted what there was on the pretext of fasting, in order to leave as much as possible for the children.

  The two sailors stepped back nervously. “We’ve brought her to the orphanage; we found her at sea a week ago,” began the one holding the child. “And she was wearing…show them, Juan.” The other nodded and held up a greenish disc on a length of tarnished gold chain. Mother peered, picked it up to examine it more closely, and turned it over. “Where…did…you…get…this?”

  The other sailor said, “She was wearing it when we found her. She was all alone in a fishing boat, the only thing alive for miles. The chain was looped round her neck many times, Mother, as if someone hoped the medal would save her. And it must have—it’s a miracle she survived.”

  Mother gazed at the medal, not quite believing her eyes. The old stories about the convent’s medal, its description, and where it had come from had been kept alive in the order for centuries even though the medal itself had disappeared. But now she was holding a medal that fit the description—a swallow on one side and a female figure on the other. Could it really be? “Deo gratias,” she finally managed. “You have done well.” She took the little girl and told Sor Maria Gracia to find the child some clothes at once and to take some money from the poor box and send a lay sister for milk.

  Sor Maria Gracia tottered off in the direction of the poor box and Sor Rosario made cooing noises and held out her arms. Mother gave her the child and examined the medal closely. One of the sailors finally cleared his throat to get her attention. Mother looked up. Instinct told her it was essential that the bishop hear nothing of this. “Please say nothing about medals and miracles to anyone! It would only bring curiosity seekers to the convent and we have our hands full just now. It’s only one child more for the orphanage.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “God bless you,” she said in a perfunctory way, and pulled the creaking gate shut and relocked it.

  Inside Mother leaned against the wall for support. Responsibility settled heavily on her shoulders. What next? “Send for Father. The child may have been baptized, but we cannot be certain. We will give her the name Isabella Salome. But say nothing about the medal to him.”

  Then Mother did the only thing a nun could: pray. She went back to her parlor, closed the door behind her, and sank to her knees on her prie-dieu, presented to an early Mother Superior by a Spanish vice-regent’s wife. It was a heavy wooden piece, solid and immobile as a throne, elaborately carved in the style of the early seventeenth century with angels and human skulls. She prayed as she never had before for inspiration about where the lost Chronicle might be hidden. It was essential they find it—it had the whole story, it must be somewhere…She closed her eyes, gripped the lectern hard in her fervor, praying to all the saints in turn, “Please, please guide us to the Chronicle…”

  She was startled when a panel on the side of the lectern suddenly loosened under her grip. Mother stopped midprayer. She bent sideways and looked at the section of wood beneath her hand. She pressed harder and there was a click as the panel sprang open, like a door. A secret compartment? Mother tentatively put her hand into what should have been a cavity, but behind the panel it was solid. Then she realized that was because something was wedged tightly inside, bulky, wrapped in coarse material.

  It took both hands to maneuver it through the opening. Mother hardly dared breathe as she removed a cover of oiled wool and another of desiccated silk. Then, there it was—an old leather-bound book, rather large, like a ledger, with a blackened gilt clasp and the barely discernible outline of a bird with a long forked tail in faded gilt. Inside were pages of vellum, thin as tissue paper, filled with neat and clear writing, in ink that had faded to dark brown but was surprisingly legible. Mother saw the book was mostly in Spanish, but in the middle, the section in Latin! The Gospel! “Deo gratias,” she whispered. “Sor Agnes’s hiding place! I have found the Chronicle!”

  She thought again about Sor Rosario’s vision and its warning about the hurricane and a “gift,” and now in the space of a few hours the medal and the Chronicle had been restored to the order. The child must have been connected to them somehow, but God moved in mysterious ways and they needed to wait to see how. Meanwhile they had to keep this news within the convent. There would be no end of trouble if it attracted the attention of the church authorities.

  Unfortunately, the two young sailors disobeyed Mother’s injunction to say nothing. A bored American journalist overheard them talking in a bar about the child and her miracle medal and thought it was a good story. He loosened their tongues with cachaca and a little cash that was a fortune to boys on naval pay. They told him everything while he made notes, and his story about the Mano del Diablo “miracle medal” was rehashed by a number of wire services months after the event.

  As Mother had feared, the bishop got wind of it. He wrote a stern letter to the convent, reminding the order that for centuries suspicions of heresy had hovered around the Sors Santas de Jesus like a noxious cloud, and he intended to investigate this matter of the miraculous medal and report to Rome. The Catholic Church had enough of priests accused of abusing children to deal with; it could do without more trouble or controversy just now. He ordered Mother to turn the medal over to him at once. He would interrogate the child Isabella personally, then send her to Rome with his report and the medal.

  Mother temporized. She replied in vague terms that ever since the Mano del Diablo the convent was overwhelmed, everything in disorder, and finding one small medal would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Disingenuously, she asked the bishop to describe the medal in question, so that she would recognize it if it were found. Finally she protested that Isabella was only three years old and therefore unlikely to provide much assistance to a formal inquiry.

  Mother had no intention of relinquishing the medal, nor did she intend to send Isabella to the Vatican. But the nuns could not fend off the bishop forever, and she had no idea what to do next.

  The answer came via a phone call from an American missionary organization. She was telephoned by the regional chief of Christian Outreach—Southern Baptists, the man on the telephone emphasized. That didn’t tell her much. Mother had no idea what distinguished one Protestant sect from another, just that their missionaries were said to hand out pocket Bibles and chewing gum and make a show of baptizing converts en masse in rivers. The man from Christian Outreach went on to say their churches had launched a fund-raising appeal in the US for the victims of the Mano del Diablo disaster. Would Mother allow a photographer into the convent to take pictures of orphans for the appeal? Christian Outreach would donate some of the appeal funds to the convent.

  Mother agreed—the convent was now so desperate for money that two nuns were being sent to beg in the town square each day. And the missionaries’ photographer spotted Isabelita at once, pretty and photogenic, with big wistful eyes. She became the face of the appeal.

  The Southern Baptists donated generously, and two months later Mother almost fainted when she opened a money order large enough to replenish the dispensary; buy a year’s food for the entire convent, and blankets, shoes, and clothes for each child; repair the dormitory roof; and buy equipment for the schoolroom. Even toys. And there was a promise of more money to come. She reasoned that if God chose to work wonders through the Baptists, it was not for her to demur. If anything, it confirmed Mother’s secret conviction that the world had enough trouble without insisting all worship God the same way. There was room before the Throne for everyone who served Him—Baptists and the Hindus, Seventh Day Adventis
ts, Muslims and Jews, as well as Catholics. That this was a wide departure from the Church’s teaching meant Mother had often struggled to fit her conviction into some recognized doctrinal framework. Though it did not fit, and the bishop would have been appalled, it remained a conviction.

  Then the regional chief of Christian Outreach rang again, this time with the news that an American couple had seen Isabella’s photo at a church fundraiser and been so taken with it that they wanted to adopt her. He explained that on the heels of the Mano del Diablo appeal, the church had lobbied Washington in support of its “adopt an orphan” project, and the US government had temporarily relaxed immigration rules to allow these fast-track adoptions for a short period. Mother asked to think it over.

  The nuns held a convent meeting to decide and Mother urged, “Neither Isabelita, nor the medal, nor the Chronicle are safe here. The Marxists are whipping the peasants up with the old stories about churches hoarding Spanish gold while the people starve, and on top of that, the bishop is determined to get the Vatican involved with the medal. The Vatican has appointed an official investigator and if they learn that we have found the Chronicle as well…”

  “They will send the Inquisition,” muttered Sor Rosario rebelliously.

  Mother ignored her and continued. “What better place to hide our medal and Chronicle than with Isabelita in an ordinary small town in America, where she will grow up quietly among the Protestants? I can lay a false trail with the adoption papers so it will be hard to trace her. Besides, adoption in America is a rare opportunity for one of our orphans.”

  The nuns couldn’t disagree with that. Unless an orphan discovered a vocation—it had not happened in many years—the best the nuns could do when she turned sixteen was to turn her out into the world armed with a new set of clothes and a glowing letter of recommendation to enable her to be hired as a servant.

  The nuns had many questions—whether the couple was trustworthy, and how would Mother ensure the medal and Chronicle were not lost once they left the convent. Mother promised she would insist on meeting the couple before she signed the papers. As for the medal and Chronicle, Mother explained her idea, and the nuns murmured their cautious approval—but everything depended on the adoptive parents.

  Waiting for the Americans, Mother had nearly decided that their nonappearance meant it was God’s will that Isabelita, the Chronicle, and the medal remain in the convent, when Sor Rosario appeared to say Señor and Señora Walker had arrived and ushered the couple in.

  The Walkers said “gracias” nervously one after the other and Virgil Walker pulled his phrase book out of his pocket and began trying to make a sentence in labored Spanish. Mother managed a stiff smile and said, “Please be seated. We can speak in English.” She had learned English as a girl, and though hers was rusty, recently she had practiced on the telephone with the people from Christian Outreach.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, relieved. “We tried to learn some Spanish, took one of those crash courses, but right this minute, just when we need it, I can hardly remember a word.” Mother smiled again, less stiffly. The couple were as nervous as she was. It reassured her, that and the teddy bear.

  She glanced down at the couple’s file open on her desk, even though she knew its contents by heart. Sarah-Lynn and Virgil Walker, thirty-seven and forty years old, married for eighteen years, during which time they tried but failed to have children. There was a letter of recommendation from the pastor of their church that said they were a fine upstanding couple and good Christians, that Mrs. Walker was a housewife and homemaker, member of the garden club, and active in her church Bible study group. There was another from their congressman saying they were pillars of their community. There was one from the Chamber of Commerce of Laurel Run, Georgia, confirming Virgil Walker owned a successful plumbing business there and was an active member of the Rotary Club. Mother had looked up Laurel Run in the convent’s atlas, one that had been printed in 1930 and showed the state of Georgia divided up into counties. She found Laurel Run at last, a tiny dot in Bonner County, east of Fulton County where a much bigger dot said Atlanta. Mother was sure that she had heard of Atlanta. “I hope you found us without too much difficulty.”

  “Yes, ma’am, thank you. Sorry we’re late. We were taking pictures outside. Children adopted under the new program are supposed to have a scrapbook for later, with photos and mementoes of where they came from. And speaking of pictures, Sarah-Lynn here has brought some to show you of our house, and the bedroom we’ve fixed up for our little girl.”

  Sarah-Lynn Walker opened a big leather handbag that matched her shoes, took out a manila envelope, and removed a sheaf of photos. “This is our home,” she said, putting the first one on Mother’s desk. “It’s what they call a colonial ranch style, brand new when we bought it eight years ago,” said Sarah-Lynn. The white brick and clapboard house with a pillared porch and surrounded by a lawn and flower beds was a small palace, all clean and new. “I do all the housework myself,” said Sarah-Lynn, the hand with the pictures shaking slightly with nerves. “And the gardening. We put a swing and a sandbox there in the back so the neighbor children can come over to play. And here’s her room.” The bedroom was painted in pink and white, with a small four-poster bed and other child’s furniture painted with flowers. It looked as if an entire toy shop had been emptied into the room, filled with stuffed animals and dolls and a large dollhouse that took up one corner. “I hope it’s alright,” Sarah-Lynn said nervously. “We did it real quick, as soon’s we got the go-ahead. I forgot to get a picture of her bathroom, but it’s decorated to match.”

  “Very nice,” Mother said. Her own bathroom?

  “Here’s our town.” There were more photos: tree-lined streets where every pristine house was surrounded by a similar neat lawn, bushes, flower beds, and trees. There was a photo of the brand-new Baptist church they attended, the town square, and the old-fashioned courthouse. It looked quiet and safe. There were pictures of the local elementary school and the high school, and both Walkers were emphatic their daughter would go to college. “We got us a real good junior college in Laurel Run, kind of old-fashioned and ladylike, and the state university is thirty miles away. Then there are more colleges than you can shake a stick at around Atlanta. I’m what you might call a self-made man, but our little girl will have every opportunity!”

  “My husband’s a hard worker. He built his business from nothing,” Sarah-Lynn interrupted proudly. “He started off as a plumber when we got married and now he owns a plumbing business with five branches, doing work all over the place, clear to Atlanta where there’s lots of new homes going up. Got eighteen people working for him now.”

  “Here, this is one of my trucks,” said Virgil, pulling out his wallet and extracting a business card that showed a sleek dark-green van with classical script on the side: GET A QUOTE FROM VIRGIL. “Latin teacher at the high school’s an old army buddy—this was his idea.”

  “Virgil, honey!” Sarah-Lynn nudged her husband. “Tell about our church.”

  “Well, ma’am, we belong to the First Baptist Church, we go every Sunday, and on Wednesday night for a prayer meeting and a potluck supper.” Virgil talked on about vacation Bible school, and the Little League baseball team he coached, and the Brownies—things that Mother had never heard of but were evidently children’s activities.

  Gunfire in the distance, then an explosion, interrupted them. Both sounded closer than usual. The Walkers jumped.

  Mother gathered up Isabelita’s file, with the newspaper clippings. “Here is all we know about Isabelita. We can only speculate who her parents might have been—almost certainly local people and certainly dead. They may have been from one of the fishing communities on the coast, or trying to escape.”

  The Walkers both nodded and Virgil took the file. “Our adoption worker has stressed that adopted children need to know where they came from. Especially when it’s a foreign adoption. It can turn into a big issue when they grow up. So we’ll make
sure she knows.”

  Mother took a large parcel from her desk. “I understand. And since Isabelita will have so little to go on, here are two keepsakes from the convent. One is a medal she was wearing when she was rescued. You will see a photo of it in the newspaper stories in the file. We were extremely surprised to see it as our convent had one like it once. We felt she should have it.

  “And this book is for her, too. It is very old, some old records of our convent. Our nuns were always educated, and the convent always had a scribe to keep the records. Perhaps Isabelita will want to read it someday if she remembers her Spanish. There is a section in the middle in Latin, too, but I know children do not learn Latin in school as they did in my day. Still, it is all we have to give her. Before I consent to the adoption I require your solemn promise to give her both these things on her sixteenth birthday.” Mother felt an acute pang of regret that they had been unable to read the Chronicle properly before sending it away. Various nuns had made a start during the past year, but God alone knew where the convent’s old Latin dictionary was. No one’s Latin was up to much, and in any case there was so much work to do in the convent there hadn’t been enough time, even to read the Spanish.

  Sarah-Lynn Walker leaned forward earnestly. “That’s lovely! Of course we promise, don’t we Virgil?”

  Her husband nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I give you my word. We’ll see she gets these things. And our local high school still teaches Latin in the honors program; it helps kids get college scholarships so the PTA won’t let them drop it. So we’ll do our best to see she takes Latin, too. Virgil Walker doesn’t go back on his word,” he added and instinctively stuck out his hand to shake on the bargain. Startled but quick on the uptake, Mother reached out her own frail hand for his firm handshake. She believed him.