Black Apple

by Joan Crate

  Each step caused her skirts to rub together. Widow’s weeds. Of course, they were the same black and white as always, the cumbersome signification of her vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Perhaps too much obedience, she was beginning to think. Obedience led to compliance, which over the years had hardened to indifference—and indifference, she suspected, was the demise of the soul.

  At this precise moment she felt completely indifferent to St. Mark’s and its operation, the sisters, the students, and her own role. Her heart was nothing more than a dry husk. Une veuve. Yet she could tell no one of the depth of her grief. She took to her bed, something she had never done in all her years of serving at St. Mark’s, no matter how weakened by cold, flu, or rheumatism.

  * * *

  Three days later, she rose from bed in the afternoon, walked to her narrow window, peered out, and from the second storey, observed that pig farmer Olaf approach Sisters Bernadette and Cilla on the front grounds, a large package—no doubt of pork kidneys or liver, wrapped like some sort of sacred offering—in his hands. From her second-storey window, she heard Sister Bernadette’s giggle as she took the package. Even with her rheumy eyes, she was able to spot the flush in Sister Cilla’s cheek.

  For a full week, she could not muster the resources necessary to descend the stairs to her office. Except for treks to the bathroom or to her window to look out at the waning autumn sun, she remained in bed, dozing through day and night and praying for the soul of Father Patrick, her dear husband. Mon Dieu.

  Sister Bernadette delivered a bowl of watery chicken soup and a note from Father William, but reading first of Patrick’s death, and then about the new Indian Act, had damaged her eyes. Now they burned and watered whenever she tried to look at anything for longer than a few seconds.

  “I’m surely going blind,” she complained to Sister Bernadette, who was about to open her mouth. “Take the note back to Father William, and whatever it is you have to say, I don’t care.”

  “It’s about Sister—”

  “Shush! I don’t want to hear it.”

  She got out of bed on Sunday to listen to Father William’s sermon, but watching him gesticulate in the pulpit started her eyes watering again, and she returned to her room. Sister Simon brought her dinner, which she tried valiantly to eat.

  * * *

  During the first week of October, she finally got up, dressed, and made her way down the hall to the priests’ suite. Onward, Christian soldiers. With her cane, she knocked firmly on Father William’s door.

  “Why, Mother Grace,” he greeted her, scratching his beard. “You must be feeling better. I’m, of course, very glad to see—”

  “I’ve come for that portable radio that was confiscated from the senior girl. I’m not sure how it ended up in your suite.”

  “Um, actually, I want you to look at what I think you’ll find an inspiring article for the Catholic News. I’d be interested in what you—”

  “I’ve come for the radio.”

  “Of course. I’ll get it. No, I can’t expect you to—um, I’ll carry it to your office.”

  “I need it now, William.”

  “Of course, Mother Grace. Right away.”

  * * *

  Late that night, when the students were fast asleep in the third-floor dormitory, the sisters in their rooms, and Father William and Brother Abe in their suite, Mother Grace entered her office and with one creaking arm swept the newspapers from the top of her desk. Leaning forward, she switched on the radio and sat down. Vieilli, the “Hog Report” at this hour? She turned the dial, and music filled the absence.

  You are my sunshine.

  42

  Bobcat with a Rabbit

  TOWARDS THE END of her second month in Black Apple, Rose Marie was constantly worried. She didn’t know if Mother Grace had sent Father Seamus or Mrs. Mooney a cheque for her room and board. Or if she was going to. She didn’t want to ask either of them, afraid she’d be lectured, or maybe even turned out of the old Mooney place. What would she do then?

  As she was clearing the dining room table after supper one night, she turned to see Frank behind her, blocking her exit to the kitchen. His reckless grin knocked her heart out of its rhythm, but then his expression turned sombre.

  “I was wondering,” he began, and, thankfully, he dropped his eyes to his coal-stained hands. “Would you like to come for a walk with me?” He had never asked her so formally, so seriously before.

  She could smell him—not a strong scent—but a mingling of fresh earth, coal, and autumn. Shaking her head, she took a step backward, right into the dining room table. She tried to appear unperturbed; peering around at the gravy-spotted tablecloth she had flung over a chair, but when she looked back at Frank, her composure crumbled. An “undesirable,” Mother Grace would label him—“unworthy,” and, yes, she could see that he was. He never went to church, and he always seemed to be trying to lead her astray. She needed to get away from him, to flee to the kitchen and join the women before she did something she regretted. But with the table at her back, Frank in front, she was stuck.

  “Well?”

  She looked into his dark, handsome face. Go away, she told him inside her head. Then, also inside her head, she was running out the door, and he was chasing her, catching her hand in his.

  His eyes danced, and her heart joined in. She put two fingers against her lips to push back the yes that wanted to pop out. “No, Frank,” she whispered instead.

  “I don’t know why you’re scared of me,” he said, shaking his head. “Shouldn’t be, but you are. Not yet, then, but soon you’ll come with me.” He started to turn away, but then stopped, willing her to look back at him.

  She would not. She turned to grab the tablecloth to throw in the wash.

  He moved closer. Dry hurt. A spark of mischief.

  “I could show you some sights, little lady,” he said, his tone altered, his breath hot against her temple. He was going to tease her; she could tell by the gunfire of his laugh. “Maybe we could go for a dip in the river together. Would you like that?” He inched closer, enjoying her embarrassment as she pressed up against the table. She had refused him, and now he was playing with her—a bobcat with a rabbit.

  “Maybe you got a bathing suit you could put on, one with a little skirt?”

  As he chuckled, Cyril came up behind him and cleared his throat. Frank turned and slapped the big man on the biceps. “Hi there. Best damn miner coal ever seen, Cyril,” he said, looking back to her. “Except for me.”

  With Cyril close by, Frank was more animated, his voice playing the air like a fiddle. “Cyril is big and slow. He’s a white guy—I’m an Indian, right? Like you, Rose Marie.”

  She looked up at both men, wondering how to get by them to the kitchen. She shifted from foot to foot, and there was an awkward silence before Frank continued, his voice bitter.

  “Cyril’s a regular miner, but I’m a bucker, a goddamned bucker.”

  Cyril stepped towards her, hitting Mrs. Mooney’s tea trolley with his shin and making the cups and saucers clatter. “A bucker’s a guy they call in when the coal gets jammed in the chute,” he explained in the smooth radio-announcer voice he used on the porch when she was upset about Father Seamus. “The bucker has to kick the coal down and get out of the way before it lands on top of him. Frank’s the best bucker there ever was.”

  “Yeah,” Frank scoffed. “So good that they keep me doing the most dangerous job in the mine year after year. They used to get the young guys, you know, sixteen, eighteen, then move them out after a few months or as soon as they got injured. Hell, they like me so much, they just keep me at it, kicking at coal, slamming up against the wall or diving into the next room as soon as it comes hurtling down. They liked Eugene too, till he took the hint and left. Kind of gives us Indians a thrill, dodging death like that.” He stared at her so hard she had to look away.

  Her face burned, but she hadn’t done anything wrong. She wasn’t betraying anyone, not Frank, wh
om she hardly knew and who was trouble with a capital T. Not the sisters either. They were the ones who had sent her here. Not even Mama and Papa, who were dead. If anyone had betrayed anyone else, they had betrayed her by letting Father Alphonses and the Indian agent take her from the life she should have had at home with them in the bush, an Indian life. But that wasn’t right either.

  She was trapped between the dining room table and these two men, trapped in this house, this town, trapped into returning to St. Mark’s in less than five weeks. She drew a deep breath. She had to deny Frank . . . yes, his presumption.

  Her voice wavering, she managed to say, “I can’t go for a walk with you. I’m supposed to become a nun, and nuns don’t go for walks alone with men. Especially at night.”

  She would have turned to Cyril and told him, “I don’t need you to fight my battles for me either. I’m nineteen years old,” but the dining room was starting to list, she was dizzy, and she had to put a hand behind her back to support herself against the table.

  “Maybe it’s time I stopped doing what everyone else tells me I should be doing,” Frank said softly. “Maybe we both should be makin’ up our own minds, eh, Rose Marie?”

  Sucking in breath, she pressed forward, and the two men parted to let her pass.

  * * *

  After finishing washing up, she made her way down the hall, past Frank’s closed door to the stairs. Cyril stepped from the porch, took her elbow, and led her outside. He sat down on the top step as usual, but she didn’t take her spot on the step below. The movement was too much for her; she was afraid she’d topple. Putting a hand against the post for support, she remained standing. Even though she had refused cigarettes until he had stopped offering them, tonight Cyril took his pack from the step, pulled a cigarette forward, and, reaching up, offered it to her.

  She took it. “I never saw any of the nuns smoke,” she said, hunching closer as he struck a match with his thumbnail for her. “Sometimes I thought I smelled tobacco on Sister Bernadette, though it could just have been burnt food.” She took a shallow puff.

  Cyril laughed, a happy laugh, and she talked, letting her words spill out, releasing the tightness in her chest. She told him about her parents, who had smoked a bone pipe with guests or in ceremony, sometimes cigarettes they rolled from kinickinick. “If they were outdoors, they used new bark instead of papers. But that was a long time ago.” She took another puff. “I think it’s the mountains that make me think of them so much.”

  “Yeah, the mountains grow on you,” Cyril said, and Papa flashed through her mind, colours spilling from his skin like there was too much of him for his body to contain. Like Frank.

  “Frank is always asking me to go for a walk with him,” she blurted.

  “I know. He’s a good guy. Don’t understand about your, you know, that church thing—”

  “Holy vocation.”

  Cyril smiled. “Yeah, that. Don’t worry. I’ll have a talk with him. Tell him to lay off.”

  “No, I don’t need anyone looking after me.” Maybe God was trying to guide her through Cyril Brown, she thought. But she wasn’t sure she wanted Him to.

  “I feel like I’m just, I don’t know, waiting. At St. Mark’s, I always knew exactly what I had to do, where I was going, and how I would end up. Now my life feels sort of . . . uncertain.” Dust, she thought, blowing in the western wind.

  “Waiting? Yeah, I kind of feel like that too. What are you waiting for?”

  “I guess for ‘that church thing,’ my holy vocation. My destiny.” She heard the cynicism in her voice. “I don’t know, exactly.”

  He chuckled. “Probably neither of us should be spending our lives just waiting.” He took another drink of beer.

  “You know, I’ve never tasted beer before. Only Communion wine.”

  “Here, take a swig,” he offered, holding the bottle out to her.

  “Sure.” That feeling: like she wanted everything she was not supposed to have. “Hey, bubbles. I guess it’s better than Communion wine.” She handed the bottle back. “It’s nice having you to talk to you, Cyril.”

  “I like talking to you too,” he told her, his voice suddenly gruff.

  She went up the stairs ahead of Cyril and into her room.

  “Oh,” she gasped, staring at a girl, young—thirteen, maybe fourteen—wearing a St. Mark’s uniform, for crying out loud! Perched on the chair, the girl didn’t turn her head to Rose Marie but gazed out the window, her thick black hair glowing as if struck by a shaft of sunlight.

  “Taki!” she cried, running over and sliding on her knees before her so she could look up into her friend’s face. “Oh my God, it’s you! How I miss you.”

  “I’m with you lots of times, Rosie,” she said, looking right at her. “You’re my sister.”

  “Yes, I am.” Laughter tickled over her ribs. “I’m so glad to see you, Taki. My life’s all mixed up.”

  Taki smiled. “You’re my sister, and I love you. Sisters are important. Brothers too. Don’t feel alone, Rosie. You’re not alone.”

  For a second, she didn’t feel it.

  Then she made the mistake of reaching for Taki’s hands. But they were in the past and beyond the Wolf Trail, folded in memory and buried in a place she didn’t know.

  “Don’t go, Taki,” she said, though she knew it was too late.

  43

  Intentions

  MOTHER GRACE RESUMED the execution of her duties at St. Mark’s. Hour by hour, day by day, she existed, as efficient as she had ever been, as practical, as reserved, and even more commanding. Not as watchful, perhaps. Certainly not as caring. Yet, not one of the sisters could honestly complain about her performance. Not one of them could have put a finger on exactly what had changed.

  It was just after breakfast on St. Jude’s feast day, the twenty-eighth of October, and she was gazing out her office window at the school grounds, the rolling prairie, and, in the distance, the vague blue outline of the mountains. On nearby farms, the harvest had been completed a month and a half before, but there had been no precipitation since, and the farmers were already grumbling that they needed a dump of snow to provide moisture for planting the following spring. The weather had turned cold overnight, and now a few flakes were fluttering to the ground. Not too much snow, Mother Grace was thinking. Not yet.

  Sister Cilla rushed through the door.

  Startled, Mother Grace tried to rise to her feet, wincing at the dry rasp of her skirts. Her entire body felt the same as her habit. Widow’s weeds, every bit of her, inside and out. As she fell back in her chair, she caught the expression on Sister Cilla’s face.

  “Vieilli, what is it?”

  “Mother Grace,” Sister Cilla cried. “Oh dear, oh law, I don’t know how to say this!”

  “Sit down. What on earth is the matter?”

  Sister Cilla hunched forward in the chair, dissolving into sobs. Having no handkerchief to mop her eyes, she lifted her skirt and buried her face.

  “What is it, Sister?”

  Louder sobs broke out from behind the folds of Sister Cilla’s skirt.

  “Is it Sister Joan? Did she say something cruel? Or Sister Margaret?”

  “No, no.” Sister Cilla briefly moved her skirt from her mouth. “It’s me, my position—” But she was sobbing and speaking at the same time, once more burying her face in her skirt, and her words were unintelligible.

  Reaching across her desk, Mother Grace touched Sister Cilla’s wrist. “Now, now, Sister, there’s no problem we can’t solve with the grace of God.” The word God tasted foreign in her mouth.

  Sister Cilla howled louder.

  She tried to tug Sister Cilla’s hand free of her face. But Cilla, as always, was strong as an ox, while Mother Grace’s own strength was minimal, her arm aching with the effort.

  “Maudit,” she murmured, pressing her lips together. She really had no time for histrionics, and she pushed herself from her chair, grasping her cane. With all that had taken place recently, she had l
ittle patience left, and there was no point in pretending she did. She made her way to the door and was about to walk out of her office, when Sister Cilla wailed, “Please, Mother Grace. I can’t bear you turning your back on me!”

  Mother Grace turned her head. “Well, Sister, what is it?”

  “Dear, oh law. At least say you’ll give Olaf and me your blessing?”

  “What?” She wheeled around to face Sister Cilla. “What did you say?” She stumbled backwards, and the doorknob planted itself firmly between her buttocks. “Merde!” she cried, unable to keep the curse to herself. For a moment, the overhead light seemed to swing in wild yellow circles. She was falling.

  “Mother Grace!” Sister Cilla flew to her. She caught her up and eased her to the floor. “Should I get someone? I’ll phone the doctor at Hilltop.” She sprang to her feet. “I’m sorry! I’m so—”

  “Help me up, Priscilla,” she snapped. “And take me to my bed this instant!”

  Sister Cilla took her up the stairs, half carrying her to her room, and blabbering apologies every brutal step of the way.

  “Have you spoken of this, of your intentions, to anyone else?” Mother Grace demanded once she was propped up on her bed. Every bone in her widow’s body, she could swear, had fractured.

  “No, Mother Grace, I haven’t. But I think Sister Bernadette suspects.”

  “You will say nothing of this to anyone until I give you permission, Sister Cilla. Now, brandy,” she ordered. “Get me the bottle in my bottom desk drawer. Bring my cane too. And hurry. I have a few questions for you, mademoiselle.”