Anna

by Norman Collins

  But for Sister Veronica, Anna would have given up all hope. It was Sister Veronica who supported her constantly, going out of her way to be beside her during the hour of afternoon recreation in the garden; contriving for a moment to see her before and after the long sewing sessions; planning that they should meet in the porch of the chapel as they went their separate ways after service.

  The Reverend Mother had observed the friendship; and deplored it. She knew how distracting such relationships could be. It was of Anna’s own good that she was thinking.

  “She thinks even now only of her feelings,” she reflected, “and not of what lies upon her soul. It is our task to reawaken that conscience that she has allowed to fall asleep inside her. And it is impossible for us to do that if she is chattering when she should be contemplating. I must ask Sister Veronica to leave her alone for a little. I will show her how unhelpful she is being.”

  On the following day, therefore, she sent for her. She told her calmly and dispassionately that her present conduct only served to make it more difficult for Anna to adapt herself to her new life. She reasoned with her.

  At first Sister Veronica resisted: she pleaded. But the Reverend Mother was not moved. She asked Sister Veronica to be more thoughtful, less impulsive. Then, finding that Sister Veronica was still unpersuaded, she told her, in the same quiet voice that she had used throughout, that this devoted friendship was to cease.

  But the very eagerness with which Sister Veronica had pursued this acquaintanceship made it the more difficult for it to be put right, she said. And she decided, therefore, that the friendship should not be broken off immediately. She would still permit, she said, one recreation hour spent together weekly. She suggested further that Sister Veronica might care to choose to-day for the first of these hours so that she could explain the Reverend Mother’s decision, and the reasons for it.

  “I am really alone now,” Anna told herself. “There is no one even to speak to me.”

  And she went on down the path that stretched empty in front of her, her head held high, not inclined forward as the nuns held theirs, their eyes scanning the ground in front of them. The path led towards the kitchen garden where she had walked with Sister Veronica. She followed it and came to the mound where she had watched the children playing.

  “I will climb it,” she thought. “I will stand there and watch. At least they cannot take my sight away from me.”

  But, at the last moment, she turned away from the mound and walked in the direction of the wall that divided the school from the rest of the convent. There was a door set in the middle of the wall and she went towards it.

  “There may be a keyhole in it that I can look through,” she began saying. “I shall be nearer then.”

  But when she reached the door, she found that it was open; it hung ajar on its hinges. Between the door and the gatepost she caught a glimpse of the bare courtyard, saw the flicker of the striped uniforms somewhere in the distance as a file of children marched obediently past. It was playtime again.

  Her heart was hammering; it was beating so fast that she had to place her hand over it. Very slowly she pushed the gate open wider. She could see everything now.

  The nun who stood in the centre of the courtyard was clapping her hands regularly while the children marched past her. The crocodile curved and twisted. There were the big girls, some of them with the figures almost of women, in front. But Anna was looking only at the infants in the rear. She was not in the first pair, or the second, or the third. Then, suddenly, she saw Annette. And, as she saw her, a fierce flame of physical love went running through her. She had no thoughts any more for the nuns who were standing there, for the laws of the convent, for the Reverend Mother, for the consequences.

  And, leaving the shelter of the gate, she ran forward, calling Annette by name. The nun in the centre turned round and looked at her in astonishment—inside the convent nobody ever ran—and the clip-clapping of her hands stopped abruptly. There was confusion; the children simply stood there, gaping.

  It was the bigger girls who were standing in Anna’s way: they made a solid unbroken cordon, their striped dresses mingling. She began pushing her way through them. One girl, a fat stupid-looking creature, started crying.

  Then the nun in the centre asserted herself. She came forward, very red in the face, her head-dress twitching.

  “Stop,” she shouted. “Are you out of your senses? Have you gone mad?”

  She spread her arms wide open and stood there.

  But Anna avoided her. She forced her way to Annette and snatching her up in her arms, she sank to the ground, holding the child. She was covering her with kisses, saying little pet names, crooning over her.

  Then, as she held Annette in her arms, a red mist descended on her and she could no longer see. The playground and everyone in it started to revolve and spin about her, and there were hands tearing at her, attacking, trying to pull her away. But the hands didn’t hurt; they seemed too blunt and muffled somehow.

  The last thing that she was aware of before she fainted was the terrified crying of the little child held close to her.

  v

  Inside the infirmary it was quieter even than in the rest of the convent. The windows were small and the air had a close, sickly smell. What light penetrated into the place was dim and filtered.

  Anna turned on her side and saw the long perspective of the room stretched out in front of her. There was an emptiness about it, a sense of space, that she found vaguely frightening. The beds ranged along the walls were low and narrow, and over each a small wooden crucifix was hanging. Only two of the beds were occupied, but the sleepers in them lay quiet and motionless, scarcely disturbing the smooth hard line of the bedclothes. There was no sign of life and movement anywhere. It was as though the room had somehow become detached from the world and left forgotten.

  Then she realised suddenly that she had no business there, that this strange deserted dormitory was not her room at all. She sat up hurriedly and looked about her. For a moment her mind tricked her and she thought that she was back in prison again. She wanted to scream. But her head was too heavy when she sat up, and her eyes kept closing. She tried to support herself, tried to thrust out her arms to get hold of something, and all the time she felt herself slipping, slipping. She lay back on the pillow.

  At the same moment a grey figure in the doorway began moving forward. Her felt slippers slid almost noiselessly over the smooth floor. There was a glass in her hand and she put it to Anna’s lips. The taste of the mixture was bitter and unpleasant. And as she drank she remembered that she had drunk this medicine before. She had drunk it when she came here. Only that time there had been people holding her, and the glass had been forced against her lips: they had made her drink it.

  The sense of time was more unreal than ever now. She lay there sleeping most of the day, not knowing how long she had been there. Father Ignatius called once—he looked more shabby and ill-cared for than ever: he had not shaved that morning—and he administered the sacrament. But she was too exhausted to talk to him.

  The nuns who nursed her were kind and patient. They spoke only rarely as if they had found a means of living without conversation; and when she asked them anything, if there was any news of Annette, how long she had been there, when she would be returning to the ordinary life of the convent again, they would only shrug their shoulders and tell her that she must not tax her mind again, that she must still Sleep as much as possible. They did not seem to understand alexfety. But they never left her.

  It was only gradually that Anna became aware that there was always one of them watching her. At first Anna accepted it as something natural, as something that in the loneliness of that lonely room was oddly comforting. But slowly this other presence began to haunt her. She could not move without this other pair of eyes observing her. Even at night when the place was lit by only a tiny lamp set in a blue bowl she could see the blurred outlines of the figure, the figure of someone who would
still be watching even while she slept.

  And then one day the secret was revealed to her. It was a lay sister, a talkative foolish woman who had been lent temporarily to the infirmary, who revealed it. She was relieving the regular sister and when she came to take over her duties she walked over to the bed and peered down at Anna. There was something furtive about her as she did so: it was as though she were anxious about what this new duty might entail. As she came near the bed Anna closed her eyes. She kept them closed until the woman had gone away again. When the lay sister withdrew she was apparently satisfied. She began speaking in a low hoarse voice.

  “She seems quiet enough now,” the sister answered.

  “If she has an attack to-night I shall call you,” the lay sister continued. “The Reverend Mother should have left two of us.”

  “She won’t have any attack,” the same quiet voice continued.

  “She should have been sent away as Sister Marie was,” the first speaker persisted. “This isn’t the place for her.”

  There was a pause.

  “There have been no further symptoms,” the quiet voice answered. “We send our report every day to the Reverend Mother.”

  “All the same I don’t like it,” the lay sister admitted. “I shall pray all the time until I’m out of here.”

  There was the noise of a chair scraping over bare boards and the faint almost inaudible whisper of felt slippers. Then the door closed.

  Anna and the nervous sister were left alone together.

  But the Reverend Mother said nothing to Anna of any misgivings. On her weekly visit to the infirmary she stood beside the bed and asked after her, as a visitor might inquire about any invalid.

  And it was in the same quiet fashion that she asked finally if Anna felt that she would soon be strong enough to share in the ordinary life of the convent once more. She added that until she was really sure of herself she could have one of the other nuns for a companion. There were many, the Reverend Mother declared, who would be glad to be of such service to one who had been ill. She said their names—Sister Marie, Sister Lavinia, Sister Virginie, Sister … But Sister Veronica’s name was not among them.

  In the end it was Sister Virginie who was chosen. An inert, expressionless woman, who agreed with whatever was said to her, she followed Anna about like a shadow. There was something in this double presence that was forbidding: the other nuns avoided both of them. And Sister Veronica was not even in the convent any more: she had been discreetly transferred to the nursing Sisters who were sent out visiting.

  But the Reverend Mother was specially kind to Anna. She devoted much of her leisure to her. This precious leisure amounted to only half an hour a day, and the Reverend Mother spent it walking in the garden, usually alone. She invited Anna to walk with her, however, and the two of them crossed and re-crossed the level stretch of gravel between the sanatorium and the chapel, with Sister Virginie half a pace behind.

  It was on one of these walks that the Reverend Mother explained why she had not yet suggested that Anna should see Annette. The child had been badly upset by the “incident,” as she called it: it had disturbed that evenness which was so important in a young life. But a new arrangement had occurred to her, she said: she hadprayed, and a method had been revealed. She suggested that they should go together to the school that very afternoon, so that Anna could see how happy Annette now was.

  It was only when Anna showed her delight that the Reverend Mother added that for the present she felt that it would be better that the little girl should not be told about the visit. What she was actually proposing was simply that she and Anna and Virginie should go into the playground and watch while the little ones were having their exercises. Then, once Anna had satisfied herself that Annette was well, that she was not pining, they could come away again.

  There was no danger that the child would recognise her, the Reverend Mother said: the presence of merely another lay sister would convey nothing.

  Anna had seen Annette: it had been exactly as the Reverend Mother had promised. They had stood in the shade of one of the tall cypresses and had watched the little ones playing. The game was a peaceful and orderly one. They simply stood in a circle and rolled a large coloured ball, one to the other. When Annette missed it, she gave a little cry and broke her place in the circle. The nun who was in charge of them led her gently back into position, and the game continued. It was obvious that the children were entirely absorbed in their play: they had no cares, no worries, no unhappiness.

  And as she watched, Anna was conscious for the first time of something dividing her from Annette. The child was living a small life of her own now. She was separate. She no longer needed her. Anna found herself wanting to cry.

  “But she is happy,” she consoled herself. “I can see that she is happy. That is all that I should mind about.”

  There were other feelings, too, strange ones, that came to Anna as she stood there. She had to keep reminding herself that this small, sturdy figure in the hideous striped uniform really was Annette, that she was the same child who had been brought up in the ivory nursery of the villa. For she was sturdy now, she had to admit. With her hair cropped short like the other children’s, she was oddly different from the delicate, doll-like creature that Anna remembered in the big boat-shaped bassinette on the terrace of the villa.

  The nun who was in charge of the children clapped her hands and picked up the ball. The children gathered together in the centre and formed into a line. On their way back to the schoolroom, theypassed so close to Anna that if she had stepped a few paces forward, she could have stopped them. But she did not move; and the children scarcely glanced in their direction. Annette was deep in conversation with the little girl beside her. Together they were laughing about something.

  “You see?” said the Reverend Mother. “The child enjoys her life here. She is well looked after. She has made new friends.”

  “Yes, she has made new friends. You can see she is well looked after,” Sister Virginie repeated.

  VI

  The Reverend Mother had said that Anna still looked ill. And it worried her. Of course she looked ill. She felt ill. How could she feel otherwise? The Reverend Mother had gone on to ask if there was anything that was worrying her. She wanted to laugh at the question as she remembered it. But she was not strong enough. Not strong enough to laugh. And how ill did she look, she wondered? There was no way of discovering. There was not a mirror inside the whole convent.

  Then she remembered the door that led from the convent into the chapel. There was glass, blue glass, in the doors, and when they were open they reflected everything. She had seen the image of herself in them when she had gone down to Mass.

  As soon as she could escape from the sewing-class, she went down to the long passage leading to the chapel. She looked behind her, and saw that there was no one there. Then she opened the door quietly and peered into the chapel. There was only one old nun there, deep in prayer and shut off from the world entirely. Pulling the door right back, Anna stood in front of the deep blue panel.

  The face that stared back at her was thin and drawn: it was the face of a sick woman. The eyes somehow looked too big and a lank tress of hair fell across her forehead.

  But as she stood there she heard the sound of footsteps and she moved hurriedly away. Two of the younger nuns, girls of her own age, came in sight. They moved forward, their long habits trailing, and passed into the chapel. Their eyes were kept so meekly to the ground that they did not seem even to notice her. They sank down on to their knees, these brides of Christ, in a mood of happy ecstasy. It was a special penance for the sins of others that the Reverend Mother had permitted them.

  Her illness, her sense of weakness persisted. There seemed asteady insidious drag upon her energy. And she was unable eventually to disguise it. One day when the nuns were unloading the logs that had been brought into the convent for heating, she had to stop because the effort was too much for her. She looked at the elderly w
omen all around her, working like labourers, and she envied them, envied them the strength that she no longer had. Her weakness, too, revealed itself in other ways. Even the work in the sewing class tired her. She could no longer keep up with the others; and then, finding herself behind she would stitch rapidly and badly. The change did not escape Sister Ursula. She grumbled; she grumbled continuously, so that her voice rang all the time in Anna’s ears. In the end, she reported the state of affairs to the Reverend Mother.

  The Reverend Mother was placid and unperturbed. She assured Sister Ursula that Anna was not well, that she needed a change. Convent life, she said, did not suit certain types of women. And, sending for Anna, she told her that she should work in the garden in future. She spoke as though to be in the garden were some kind of special honour, a privilege. But she emphasised how important it was, how even a single moment spent gossiping instead of working meant that there was that much less food for them to Send away to the sick. When she had gone away, the Reverend Mother sent for Sister Xavier who was in charge of the gardens and warned her that Anna was not strong, that the heavy work should not be given to her.

  But in a kitchen garden all the work is heavy. There were the rows of potatoes, fifty metres long, to be hoed. Anna’s hands grew sore and blistered, and her back never stopped aching. There was digging, too. Some of the nuns—the country ones—dug like men, but Anna was too slow: the others kept overtaking her. And, pityingly, she was given the odd jobs of the garden to do: the weeding—creeping along almost on all fours over the endless acreage; wheeling away the rubbish in a barrow that was too large, too heavy, for her; fetching the tools that the others, the workers, needed.