by Joan Crate
* * *
“Eyes straight ahead,” Sister Joan ordered the first-year girls. “No looking at the back of chapel to see who might be there. You are in the presence of God.”
“Crabby God,” Taki whispered.
Rose Marie’s parents hadn’t visited since the moon of first snow. Even Forest Fox Crown came only once in a while and seldom with Aunt Angelique. He nodded at her, but never said anything, just tramped upstairs to visit stupid Adele and stupider Esther.
Taki’s parents hardly ever visited either. They lived far, far away. Most Sundays, about half the girls were without visitors, so the sisters gave them three choices of how to spend visiting hour: help the sisters prepare lunch, take a Sunday school lesson with Sister Cilla, or play in the recreation room and clean it after. No one seemed to notice that Anataki and Rose Marie snuck up to the dormitory and played dolls under their beds. They had tied string around washcloths to make the dolls’ heads, and when Rose Marie found some cotton pads by one of the wardrobes, they made those the bodies, attaching them to the heads with safety pins. At night, they tucked the dolls under their pillows.
This particular Sunday, Rose Marie was looking at the spikes stuck through Jesus’ feet at the front of the chapel when she heard Kiaa-yo babble from the back. She spun around and waved frantically at Mama and Papa.
Taki drove a bony elbow into her ribs. “Sister Margaret!”
Father David, all in white, told them the Christ Child was coming. Mother Mary had been chosen by God. That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. It was the most important event in history, Sister Joan had told them that week in class. The Word was made flesh. Yet, with every phrase Father David spoke—the sacrifice we offer—came a scary feeling. Something big was happening, was about to happen. Rose Marie could feel the air tighten like a snare, like the string she had tied around her dolly’s head.
The birth of Christ was a good, a happy thing; she knew that for sure. At least in the beginning. But then things turned bad for Jesus. And for his patient papa, especially his worried-sick mama. Mother of Mercy. To you we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to you we send up our sighs, mourning, and weeping in this valley of tears.
Sitting beside Taki in the pew, Rose Marie felt like she was about to cry. After the angels, the star, and the three wise men came all kinds of hurt, and finally, oh, the cross, the nails and blood.
After Mass, as she and Anataki walked out of chapel, she glimpsed Mama. Oh, Mama! She dropped Taki’s hand and was about to call out, to run to her, but she stopped herself. Mama hadn’t seen her. She was gazing through the window, watching snow swirl in the wind. Light rose from Mama’s skin and shimmered like the halos around Mary and Jesus’ heads. She was quiet-calm, sadness and light at the same time. Then Mama turned, grinned, and opened her arms.
Rose Marie could feel the bones under Mama’s dress. They shuddered as Mama coughed, and then the sun dogs came, pulling at her warmth, making it spill into the dry school air. She cried, and Mama stroked her head as she always did, as she didn’t do anymore because she was so far, far away.
“Sinopaki.”
“Na-a.”
Arm in arm, they walked into the visiting room. Papa was there with Kiaa-yo on his knee. He laughed a flash of orange when he saw her.
“How come you never visit me?” she wanted to know, ducking under Papa’s arm. “How come Forest Fox Crown can’t bring you?”
“The roads are bad,” Mama said, coughing again. She kept coughing until her eyes ran. Her hankie had a spot of red mixed in with yellow, bright as the sometimes-jam Sister Bernadette gave them to eat, as the winter nosebleeds that spread flowers over Rose Marie’s white cotton pillowcase. Way too red.
“Forest has to go west to our place, all the way back, and then farther east to the school,” Papa answered. “Then, after the visit, he has to go all the way to our place and all—”
“Why don’t you get your own truck?”
“No money,” Papa said. His bright energy sank back into his skin, and he glanced down. She waited for him to say, “Don’t worry, it’ll work out okay,” like he usually did, but he didn’t say it. He just kept looking at his moccasins.
The fire worms were crawling through her tummy, so she started to jump. “I’m going to huff and puff and blow your house in,” she sang, blowing in Kiaa-yo’s face. She blew too hard, and he started to cry.
“Mama has to go away,” Papa said.
Mama unbuttoned her dress to feed Kiaa-yo.
“No, Mama,” she said. “Sister Lucy—” But Mama didn’t understand or couldn’t hear. She pressed the baby’s head to her breast.
“Red Rover, Red Rover, send Kiaa-yo over,” she shouted.
Sister Lucy, she could see from the corner of her eye, was frowning.
“Joseph. Send Joseph over.”
“Stay still,” Papa said, his hand on her arm.
She would not stay still! She jumped over his feet, but Papa caught her arm.
“Assa,” he whispered, trying to pull her close.
“No!” She went limp and fell to the floor. Papa had to drag her to him.
“Mama has been sick. She has to go to the sanitorium.”
“Red Rover, Red Rover!” she yelled, climbing back up and struggling to free herself from Papa’s grip.
Sister Lucy frowned and shook her head.
“I have to tell you something, Sinopaki,” Papa said. “It’s a healing place. San-i-tor-i-um. Until Mama’s well again.” His mouth was a crooked grey line and clouds blotted up his voice. “The old medicine isn’t working. I’ll be taking Kiaa-yo up north to my sister’s until Mama is well again.” He put his arms around her, his sinewy arms, and she sank into them. “You have to stay with the nuns over the Christmas holiday.”
“No, Papa!” She yanked herself from him.
“Have to. Mama and I and Father Alphonses talked to your Mother Grace.” Papa pushed his chin in the direction of her office. “I’ll come back and see you as soon as I can.”
“Sinopaki,” Mama cooed, chucking her under the chin with one hand, covering her own mouth with the other. “Kimmat-aki.” My poor girl. Mama tried to hug her, but, no, she wouldn’t let her.
Jumping up and down, she screamed, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Joseph over!”
Abruptly, Sister Lucy stood up. “Visiting hour is over!”
10
New Territory
MOTHER GRACE ORDERED Sister Cilla to move Rose Marie’s things down to the second floor and into the spare bedroom. “She won’t be returning home for the holidays, not with her mother so ill.” She had decided to have the child stay in the bedroom left vacant by the death, three and a half years ago, of Sister Mary of Bethany. After all, Rose Marie was a bright girl, if somewhat unruly. This way Mother Grace could keep an eye on the child and determine what she needed and what she was capable of.
For the first two days, Rose Marie seemed subdued, her behaviour much better than when the other students were at the school, and the sisters were both surprised and relieved. Then the girl’s aunt came for a visit on Sunday, and the following morning Sister Margaret reported that she had heard Rose Marie talking to herself during the night. “Once she yelled, ‘Go alone’ or some fool thing. Why, I marched right in and set the girl straight once and for all.”
Mother Grace sighed. Sister Margaret was always doing something “once and for all.”
That night, after Compline, as the sisters undressed in their rooms, they heard Rose Marie climb the stairs and race around the girls’ dormitory overhead, her bare feet thrumming the floor. Sister Cilla, in only her underblouse and petticoat, climbed the stairs two at a time and flicked on the lights.
“Rose Marie,” she ordered, “stop that. You should be in bed, sound asleep.”
Rose Marie slowed but didn’t stop, and, expecting a chase, Sister Cilla hurried towards her. But the girl let her take her hand and lead her to the door and down the stairs.
“She
went to her room quiet as a lamb,” she told Mother Grace as they brushed their teeth in the sisters’ bathroom that night. “I said, ‘Don’t forget to say your prayers, Rose Marie,’ but she didn’t answer.”
* * *
The next morning at breakfast, Mother Grace issued instructions to send Rose Marie out in the schoolyard to play each morning, providing the weather was suitable. “And she is to be given chores for the remainder of the day.”
“She’s just a first-year,” Sister Cilla protested.
Sister Margaret harrumphed, and Mother Grace felt it necessary to recount how she’d been changing diapers, scrubbing floors, and cooking meals at Rose Marie’s age. “Giving the child work to do will not only help her develop a sense of duty but also keep her energy in check.”
“Unlikely,” Sister Joan remarked sourly. “That girl is impossible . . .” Her voice trailed off when Mother Grace looked sharply at her.
After that, Rose Marie ended up doing most of her tearing about the schoolyard after breakfast, arriving back inside an hour or so later with a runny nose and her energy, thankfully, drained. Sister Bernadette had her clean the dining hall tables once she was out of her coat and boots. She would have liked to put the child to work washing dishes, a chore that, during the winter, left her own hands red and sore, but Rose Marie was too small to reach the sink.
The fourth day of Christmas break, the sky was clear, the sun bright, and the temperature “a mere four below with no wind,” Brother Abe announced as he stamped his boots at the kitchen door.
“Brother Abraham, take them off. Don’t go trailing snow all the way—” Mother Grace called after him, but he pretended not to hear. Immortel! The man was a child himself. She turned her attention to Sister Bernadette, scuttling to the toilet. “Tell Rose Marie to join us in the dining room for meals instead of eating alone in the kitchen.”
Sure enough, when the child saw an egg, a slice of toast, and a spoonful of jam on her breakfast plate, her eyes lit up like the ragged Christmas tree in the corner that Father Alphonses had brought them from Hilltop.
“Goody goody!” She clapped her hands, and the sisters smiled indulgently.
An hour later, Mother Grace came out of her office with letters to mail. She’d get Brother Abe to drive her and Sister Cilla to Hilltop, where she’d buy stamps, post the letters, pick up powdered milk, and, if she had extra change, a few more lights for the tree. In a fit of generosity, she decided to take along Rose Marie to see the Nativity scene at the church.
She called down the hallway, but there was no answer. She popped into the kitchen to see if the child was helping Sister Bernadette, but she wasn’t, so she sent Sister Cilla upstairs to check her bedroom. Perhaps she was playing with that rag she called a doll.
“No,” Sister Cilla shouted down the stairs, “Rose Marie’s not in her room, nor in the dormitory.”
Moses. Marching into the kitchen, Mother Grace put a halt to lunch preparations. “The child’s whereabouts is a more pressing problem, Sister Bernadette.”
She and Sister Bernadette tracked down Sister Joan, sorting out lessons in her classroom.
“I haven’t seen Rose Marie all morning,” Sister Joan reported, not bothering to raise her head.
“Do you know where Sister Margaret is?” Mother Grace enquired, but Sister Joan merely shrugged.
Up the stairs Mother Grace and Sister Bernadette rushed, Grace’s knees grumbling. They located Sister Margaret snoring in her bedroom. “Margaret, wake up,” Mother Grace demanded. “Have you seen Rose Marie?”
“My, well, yes,” Sister Margaret muttered, struggling into a sitting position. “She might have said something about going back outside, but that was, let’s see, just before I came up to—meditate. I must have dozed off.” She sniffed. “Not much more than an hour ago.”
Mon Dieu! Back down the stairs on her aching legs Mother Grace went, the others close behind. She ordered Bernadette, Joan, and Priscilla to the schoolyard, while she and Sister Lucy peered through every window on the main floor, front and back. Nowhere could the child be seen.
She pulled on her overcoat and rushed as best she could in her slippery black oxfords through the snow to Brother Abe, at work in the barn, Sister Cilla close on her heels.
Chickens squawking all around him, Brother Abe looked up from raking straw, clearly annoyed. “Mother Grace, yer upsetting the chick—”
“We are looking for the child, Brother Abraham. Rose Marie.”
“Hmm.” He examined a filthy glove. “I seen that little girl head past the barn to the east this morning. I yelled after her, asking where she thought she was going. ‘To the marsh,’ she told me. I jes’ figured you knew about it.”
Mother Grace’s heart dropped to her kidneys. She leaned against a barn post and tightened her thighs against the sudden urge to urinate. Did Brother Abe have a single brain cell in his head? she wondered. The child could be miles away by now, completely lost, with no one, nothing in sight but patches of yellow grass poking up through drifts of snow.
“I’ll go to the marsh,” Sister Cilla blurted, and before Mother Grace realized Cilla meant right now, the young woman was loping in her boots over the prairie snow towards the marsh, over a mile away, her black skirt waving like a flag and nothing around her but the blanket she had grabbed from a pile of dirty laundry as she ran out the back door.
“Imbécile,” Mother Grace shouted at Brother Abe. “Go after her!”
As soon as he left the barn, she searched out a dark corner. Gathering her skirt in her hands, she squatted. Watching her urine drive a hole in the straw jarred her back to her childhood. On the family farm, she had often lifted her skirt and pissed in the chicken-infested yard, despite her hatred of the creatures. Even as a small girl, she had been independent, doing as she liked, yet responsible to a fault. In control. What had happened to her these past three years?
She pulled up her bloomers and wandered through the barn, keeping as much distance from the birds as possible. Looking around, she realized she hadn’t been near the building since Brother Abe found Father Damien’s body outside, directly under the top hayloft door, and burst into her office, his face white as flour. She shuddered now, seeing the barnyard clearly in her mind’s eye, Damien’s body face down, his bloodied fingers hooking clumps of muck as if he had been trying to crawl away—for help, no doubt. Brother Abe had knelt, turned him over with a squelching sound, and the eyes—Father Damien’s dead eyes—had stared up at her, rusty as a discarded plough blade flaking away. Perhaps that’s what had first kindled her despair. Abandoned, he had looked, even by God.
She raised a hand to a splintery wall for support. St. Mark’s fetid past was coming back to her with surprising clarity. This time she must face it.
Just five days after Father Damien’s body was found in the barnyard, poor Sister Lucy discovered Sister Mary of Bethany lying lifeless on a bed in the girls’ dormitory. Mon Dieu, it had all been too much to bear! It wasn’t simply the tragedy of two lives destroyed so suddenly, seemingly without warning; it was also her own ignorance—though, at the time, she had defined it to herself as innocence.
She had believed she was running what Sister Joan called “a tight ship,” but, in fact, it had been laden with stowaways and disease. For at least a year, since she couldn’t avoid the girls’ dormitory altogether, she had shunned the barn with its noise, stink, and unsettling memories, not even glimpsing it through a window. Yet it was part of St. Mark’s, part of her responsibility. Mon Dieu, how she had neglected that duty since the tragedies. She had not only a right but a duty to be here, however unpleasant. She inhaled the odor of straw and chicken manure. Now it held her old and powerful smell too. She had marked her territory.
* * *
Brother Abe was the first to arrive back at the school. “I couldn’t catch up to that sister,” he reported to Mother Grace as she met him at the front door. “Runs like the wind. I never seen nothing like it in a nun before. I headed back to th
e barn to get these for supper.” Gripped in his filthy glove were two headless chickens, their blood dripping onto the floor. He turned to take them to the kitchen.
“Brother Abraham,” Mother Grace called after him, “surely you don’t mean to tell me you left a small child and an unsuitably dressed sister on the frozen prairie in the midst of winter, do you?”
“It’s okay,” he answered, glancing back at her. “Sister Cilla had the little one in her sights, and a truck was coming down the road. I seen it stop and a farmer get out. He started out after them, so they’ll be all right.” He swung through the kitchen door, shouting, “Sister Bernadette, I got something for you. Them hens was pecking these two near to death, so I chopped off their heads and brung them.”
It wasn’t the first time Mother Grace had to bite her lip to stop from cursing Brother Abe, the imbécile.
As it turned out, she didn’t have to worry for long. Just as she was heading to the front door to scan the horizon, Sister Cilla burst through, Rose Marie, red-faced and runny-nosed, tucked under her arm. Behind Cilla was a tall thin man in an open parka, overalls, and boots, a straw summer hat perched absurdly on his head.
Ignoring him, she snapped at Sister Cilla, “Next time you’re going outside on a winter’s day, dress for it!” Then she turned to the man. “Who are you?”
“Olaf Johanson at your service, ma’am,” he announced, stepping forward.
Mother Grace took his accent to be Scandinavian. Heavens, she hoped he wasn’t a Lutheran.
Sweeping the hat off his head, he bowed clumsily. “Father Alphonses said you be needing a pig or two at the school, yah?”
“What?” The cold had been detrimental to her knees, shoulders, and wrists, and now that both Rose Marie and Sister Cilla were safely back at the school, her mind was registering the extent of her discomfort. “Let me sit down,” she muttered, hobbling over to a dining hall bench, Sister Cilla, Rose Marie, and Olaf Johanson trailing behind. She really had no time for any more foolishness.
