by Greg Herren
It hadn’t been what she had wanted. She had spent all these years being brave and controlled and leading as close to a normal life as she could for a girl whose grandfather had killed women and whose grandmother had known and said nothing. She had tried to be a good student and pray every day and make friends and not seem like the displaced orphan girl who kept herself cloistered like a nun behind the walls of St. Cecelia’s. But Mother had blown that safe façade apart with her box of who-knows-what and her declarative statement that Sister Anne Marie, Faye’s first friend, her protector, her second mother, had been murdered by her grandfather.
And now all she could do was weep. Ten years of weeping. She wanted to wail and claw at her own skin and tear her clothes, like some biblical hysteric, but she didn’t. She just sat, her head on her arm on Mother’s desk, weeping.
Mother stood over her, stroking her hair. They stayed like that for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. And then as suddenly as she had begun to cry, Faye just stopped. She pulled a tissue from her uniform pocket, wiped her face, blew her nose, and stood.
“I’ll take the box now, Mother, and go across the hall if no one is there.” Her voice sounded hollow and scary, even to her. Mother walked around the desk, picked up the box, and handed it to Faye.
“I would say perhaps now is not the time, but I don’t think there will ever be a right time, my dear. I am sorry. Please knock on my door when you are finished and I will keep the box here for you.” Mother opened the door for Faye and led her across the hall to the creepy room that had fascinated and repelled Faye since she’d first come to St. Cecelia’s. Faye put the box down on one of the marble tables next to some beakers and turned toward Mother, who said, “I’m going to pull these doors shut, Faye. Please don’t let anyone in. And remember, you have done nothing wrong, and God loves you as His own.”
With that, Mother had pulled the double doors out from the wall and closed them, leaving Faye alone with the shelves of jars filled with horror and the box filled with still more.
Faye had involuntarily made the sign of the cross before she opened the box. But when she looked inside, at first it all seemed anticlimactic.
Inside there appeared to be nothing but a big stack of thin, opaque paper envelopes of the sort her grandfather used to put the finished photographs in when he gave them to clients. But as Faye began lifting them out, she saw what they were. Strips and strips of negatives. Hundreds of them. Perhaps as many as a thousand. And at the bottom of the box, several small notebooks and a small stack of the little paintings Faye used to do at the kitchen table when her grandfather was coloring the photographs. Faye looked at the first few envelopes and saw that they were labeled in that silver pencil that her grandfather used. She sorted through the pile until she found the envelope she was looking for, the one she knew would be there, even as she hoped it wouldn’t.
The photographs of Sister Anne Marie.
Faye thought about whether or not she should look at the pictures, thought about whether or not she should read the notebooks. But she was seventeen now, not six and a half, and she had experienced more than most adults ever would—she knew that, even though she had spent all these years pretending that those things had happened to someone else, a different Faye, not the Faye who had always lived at St. Cecelia’s.
She slid the negatives out from the envelope and the whispery crackle of the paper sounded shockingly loud in the sterile quiet of the science lab. She closed her eyes for a moment and thought of Sister Anne Marie as she had last seen her, angry and determined, beautiful and strong as she had walked away from St. Cecelia’s for what would be the last time, intent on protecting Faye from her murderous grandfather. Faye had loved Sister Anne Marie. Without her, Faye knew she would be dead, knew she would never have learned that she could ever be safe, that there would always be women to protect her and hold her and keep her from the kind of harm the women in the photographs her grandfather had taken could not be protected from.
Faye held the first strip up to the light, and the gasp that escaped her was involuntary. She had known what she would see, but still it shocked her, and she lowered the strip to the table, took a deep breath, and slipped it back into its envelope. She didn’t need to see more. She knew what was there. The box was a catalogue of mayhem. Ordinary women, ordinary mayhem. They hadn’t known what would happen when they encountered the mild-mannered, attractive older man with the camera who just wanted to take a picture of a pretty girl. Faye could imagine her grandfather—out walking, or driving in the car—coming up to each woman. He was striking, her grandfather. Tall, his hair still dark, with only a little gray at the temples. He was handsome, with good, strong features and sparkly eyes that were a very pale blue that made them stand out against his dark hair and skin that always seemed to be somewhat tanned, no matter what time of year it was. Faye could imagine how the women felt comfortable around him because she had seen him calm crying babies and soothe nervous prom dates and talk easily with client after client, as if he had known them for years.
Faye could imagine a girl getting in her grandfather’s car because it was too cold or too hot or just because her feet hurt and she wanted a ride and thought it would be safe, with this calm, attractive older guy. And then they had ended up in the basement, cut open, cut apart, other things, the things Faye couldn’t think about, done to them on the little bed down there.
Faye didn’t want to think about how that had happened to Sister Anne Marie. She hadn’t thought of Sister Anne Marie the way she had about those women in the photographs. But Sister Anne Marie was beautiful. She had told Faye she was black Irish—that her family had come over from Ireland and settled in Brooklyn only one generation ago. That both her parents had strong accents and she herself had had one when she was Faye’s age, but the nuns had drilled it out of her, the brogue, she called it.
So when Faye saw the beautiful Sister Anne Marie tied up on the little bed with the marks that Faye now knew were mutilations on her body, with her habit pushed up past mid-thigh, she had been shocked, saddened, sickened, angry. She didn’t want to think of what had happened to Sister Anne Marie. Most of all, she didn’t want to think that it was her fault.
Faye whispered “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,” and put the envelope back into the box. She took out one of the small notebooks, slipped it into the pocket of her uniform, put the lid on the box, opened the double doors, and went back to Mother Superior’s office. She balanced the box and knocked on the door. When Mother opened, she handed it to her, turned, and walked away. She heard the door close, but she didn’t look back.
Instead Faye looked up the stairs at St. Cecelia and then quickly ran up, touched the three slashes in her neck, ran back down, and walked quickly to the door that led to the grotto. All she could see was Sister Anne Marie, mutilated, in the basement of her grandfather’s house. Only Mary could help her now. St. Cecelia was just another victim.
*
That night in the dorm room, everyone seemed subdued. There was none of the usual laughter and pillow tossing and fake shoving that went on most nights. Even Sister Mary Margaret seemed to know that the realization that soon they would be leaving the safe enclave of St. Cecelia’s, the place that had been their only real home, had hit them all, hard, with the separation interviews. From this day until the day each of them left St. Cecelia’s, it would all be different. They would have to toughen up, prepare themselves for battle with the world outside this cocoon of studies and prayer and nuns who loved them like the families they never really had. From now on they were on their way to the outside, and whatever that held. Faye knew better than most what lay beyond the ivy-covered walls of St. Cecelia’s. And that knowing frightened her more than she could say.
When the lights went out, Faye could hear the muffled crying of Rosario, Theresa, and several other girls. It made her feel less alone as the tears fell onto her pillow until she finally drifted off to sleep.
32.
Nick had decid
ed to wait for the unveiling, and as Faye glanced at her, Persia seemed relieved. Faye suddenly wondered if the actual reveal would be as compelling as either she or Persia had anticipated.
Faye felt surprisingly calm. Preternaturally calm, in fact. Faye’s whole life had built to this moment. She realized that now. Her parents’ deaths, the first time she had seen the photographs in her grandfather’s darkroom, some of which were arrayed in baroque frames on one of the tables in the gallery. Sister Anne Marie at the grotto. The day Mother Superior handed her the box of her grandfather’s negatives and notebooks. And then all the stories she had covered, all the bits and pieces of horror she had collected and catalogued over the years since she had left St. Cecelia’s. This, this exhibit, this wasn’t a retrospective of her work so much as it was a retrospective of her life.
A line had formed outside the gallery an hour before the show was scheduled to start. It was clear that Nick’s hype had worked. Plus, there had been a blog post on a local arts webzine that had suggested Faye had had a breakdown when she’d returned from the DRC. Faye knew people liked to see other people fall apart publicly. No doubt some of the people in line had done just that—come to see her, expecting her to be gaunt and wraithlike and muttering to herself. Except she wasn’t. She felt fine for the first time in months. Even she didn’t know why. Just last night she’d thought she’d never make it to the gallery, never get the show up, never be there for the opening. Last night she had thought it was over, that she would indeed kill herself. Last night she’d nearly lost it for good.
*
It was only twenty-four hours before her own opening when Faye went to the book signing of her old friend, Keiko Izanami, who had just been nominated for a major literary award for the poetry collection she was reading from that night. The two women had gone to NYU together and Keiko had been one of Faye’s first lovers during her freshman year. They’d both stayed in New York after college and had remained close over the years, but Faye hadn’t planned on going to the event. She had kept most of her friends at arm’s length the past few weeks, trying to pull herself together, trying to sleep without dreaming, trying, still, to keep herself from the urgent desire to kill herself that kept seizing her every other day. The only person she confided in was Martine, because the only person she thought understood was Martine. And yet even she didn’t know Faye’s secrets. No one did, except Shihong. But after the opening, after all the pieces of the exhibit were laid bare, then everyone would know. Then she would be free of secrets, she’d have exorcised all the demons. And maybe then she could either drown herself in the river or she could get her life back.
Keiko had texted her several times and Faye hadn’t even responded, which was a level of rudeness she didn’t like in herself, but which she couldn’t explain. It was late in the afternoon of the book signing when Keiko called. Faye saw the number and this time, she picked up. Keiko was both worried and pissed, and said that while she knew Faye’s big opening was the next night, that was really no excuse not to come to the signing, and Keiko really wanted her there. So Faye said she would go.
Keiko and her publisher had chosen one of the independent bookstores downtown for the big event. It was a nice shop and Faye had been there many times. The two old queens who owned it had patterned it after Shakespeare and Company and it had taken the place of several other shops that had closed in recent years.
Faye really wasn’t prepared for so many people, but she promised Keiko she’d stay for the entire reading and that she’d hang around to meet Keiko’s new girlfriend as well as another poet friend that Keiko thought would be a nice match for her. Faye said she was only doing anonymous one-nighters these days after she was on her fourth or fifth drink and when Keiko stared back at her, Faye laughed and said, “Just kidding. I’m currently single, but sure, I’d love to meet her.” But Faye didn’t want to meet anyone. Faye wanted to go home and sleep the dreamless sleep of the dead.
The poetry was heady. Keiko’s entire book was dedicated to Japanese forms—haiku and tonka, with a series of poems toward the end that were done in tercets. Faye had felt a measure of pride as she listened because she knew how hard Keiko had worked over the years. Like Faye, she hadn’t had an easy early life, and the two had bonded over that when they had first met.
The audience was a mix of Keiko’s colleagues and students from NYU, other poets, and a group of those art predators Persia had been railing about, but Faye relaxed more easily than she had expected to and settled into the rhythm of the pieces as Keiko read in her lilting, mellifluous voice. Faye felt calmed and soothed by the cadence and Keiko’s lush, sensual imagery. She was glad she had come and wondered now why she had avoided it.
When Keiko announced she was about to read her last poem, she explained that it was an older one, a haiku she had written in college for a close friend, but which she still had great affection for—as she did for the friend. She looked over toward Faye and Faye felt herself blush involuntarily as the audience responded with the light laughter that naturally accompanied such revelations from a poet as seasoned as Keiko. Then she read:
there is a way to
cut a mango right
no blood, just fruit, and you you
As the audience applauded and Keiko bowed, Japanese-style, with her hands clasped in front of her, Faye felt an unpleasant wave of dizziness come over her. She remembered the occasion of that poem—a morning when she had been preparing breakfast for the two of them and had sliced through the too-soft mango and into her finger, nearly to the bone. Something about the blood pulsing and the fleshy mango had made her almost hysterical and Keiko had rushed in, her long black hair flying out behind her. Keiko had helped Faye wash the cut and wrap it. They had gone to the student health office, which was closer than the hospital, and Faye had gotten six tight little stitches and an Ativan to calm her.
Faye had never told Keiko why she had gotten so upset, hadn’t told her that the blood and the fruit together had made her think of the plates on the table in those photographs of her grandfather’s, that somehow it seemed as if the mango were a pulsing, living organ there on the narrow counter when the blood spurted onto it.
The applause had subsided and Faye continued to sit while the rest of the audience rose and headed toward Keiko to have her sign their books. Faye wasn’t sure how long she had sat there when Keiko came over and asked her to come upstairs, said that there was food and a surprise and the woman that she wanted Faye to meet.
Faye wanted to leave, but she let herself be led up the narrow little staircase to the large upper room of the store. Bookshelves lined the room and there were tables pushed to the side with more books on them. Chairs were scattered around the room, but everyone seemed to be standing, talking and laughing and milling about. A level of normalcy Faye had missed these past few weeks.
At the back of the room was the food table. Or what was passing for a food table. Stretched out on a red linen tablecloth on what Faye presumed to be a massage table was a young, naked woman covered in sushi. On a table next to her, bottles of wine were arrayed. People were standing around the table with the woman and as Faye and Keiko approached her, Faye could see she was Asian and impossibly fit, as well as beautiful. Faye felt the dizziness she’d experienced earlier return and she leaned over and told Keiko she really had to leave.
“It’s a little too claustrophobic here, for me, and I really do have an intense day tomorrow,” she explained, but Keiko wasn’t having it.
“Oh you can stay for a little sushi,” Keiko said and nudged her, smiling. “That’s my new girlfriend, by the way. Mika. She is, as you can see, delicious.” Keiko laughed her wry little laugh and pulled Faye forward. As they came up to the woman, Faye could see that people were actually eating bits of food directly from her. Faye had heard this was a new trend, but she’d never actually seen it before. Something about it horrified her.
“She’s lovely, but I prefer my food served on plates, and I really have to go.” Faye wa
s feeling hot and dizzy and intensely claustrophobic. A woman came up beside Keiko, then, and she turned toward her, smiling and hugging the woman. Faye stared. The woman looked so much like Sister Anne Marie, it was eerie—no, frightening. Faye felt her heart start to race again. It was absolutely time for her to leave. She looked away for a moment and saw several men eating sushi off Mika’s perfect body. She got a flash of Vandana at the Congo clinic, saying, “They made a meal of us,” and thought she might vomit. A rush of images came into her head, each more terrible than the other. She had to get out of there. Faye turned back toward Keiko and touched her arm, “Now I do have to go, Keiko,” she said, trying to keep the rising panic out of her voice, but Keiko interrupted her. She was pulling the Sister Anne Marie doppleganger closer, and introducing her to Faye. “Faye, this is Morgan, the writer I was telling you about. We teach together. Morgan, this is Faye, she’s about to be the most famous photographer in New York, after her super-secret gallery opening tomorrow night.”
“Super-secret? Sounds intriguing. I will have to come.” Morgan extended her hand to Faye and Faye took it, took Sister Anne Marie’s hand, and held it fast. Morgan looked at her quizzically.
“If you’re going to hold on to it, you’d better at least read the palm.” She laughed her Sister Anne Marie laugh and tried to turn her hand slightly in Faye’s grasp. Faye let go.
“I’m sorry—you look like—you remind me of—someone I used to know.” Faye wanted to walk away, but felt trapped, mesmerized by the dead woman in front of her.
Keiko turned to Morgan. “Faye has been very reclusive lately, working on her show. Also, she just returned from a pretty harrowing trip to the Congo. Maybe you saw her piece last week in the Sunday magazine?”
