Awakening of Miss Prim

by Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera

  The hall of the large old house where Lulu Thiberville lived had a smell of birdseed and medicine, but also of cake batter baking and bread toasting in the kitchen in preparation for the librarian’s visit. Miss Prim found the old lady reclining on a sofa by the window. A heavy silver tea service was set out on a pedestal table beside her. Miss Prim approached and seated herself on a little padded footstool.

  “For the love of God, child, sit on a chair!” cried the old lady in her cracked voice. “You’ll put your back out on that thing.”

  Prudencia assured her that she was quite comfortable on the stool. She never hunched; she’d been taught not to as a child.

  “Yes, I’ve noticed you always sit properly, on the edge of your chair with a very straight back. It’s a comfort to think that there are still some women who know how to sit correctly. I can’t stand to see all those young things slouching along the streets with sunken chests and rounded shoulders. I blame modern schools. Tell me, Miss Prim, did you learn to sit as you do in a modern school?”

  She explained that her excellent posture was not a product of her schooling but was thanks to an old aunt of her mother’s who had trained her from an early age to walk with books balanced on her head and to sit with the elegant rigidity of an Egyptian queen.

  “They used to teach it in schools. Of course in those days they were still places where children learned something. Now they’re factories of indiscipline, hatcheries for rude, ignorant little monsters.”

  Miss Prim looked uneasily at the old lady.

  “I wouldn’t put it quite so strongly,” she murmured.

  “Of course you wouldn’t, but I just have. You have no idea what schools used to be like, have you?”

  She confessed meekly that she hadn’t.

  “Then you’re in no position to compare. You simply have well-meaning opinions. And people of an optimistic outlook, as you seem to be, not only don’t improve things but contribute to their decline. They convey the false impression that everything is going well when in fact—don’t deceive yourself—it is going hopelessly badly. But please explain,” she said, motioning to the cook to place two serving dishes on a side table near her, “why you’re leaving us? Is it because of that business we discussed at Hortensia’s house?”

  Miss Prim nodded. She’d wanted to avoid this. In the past week she felt as if she’d done nothing but take her leave of people who wanted to delve over and over into the matter.

  As if guessing how she felt, the old lady went on: “Don’t worry, I’m not going to get you to tell me the whole story. This is a small place. I assume you realize I don’t have to inquire directly to find out what’s going on?”

  Prudencia, pouring the tea, shuddered.

  “I had hoped that my private affairs wouldn’t be spread around the village. Maybe I was being naive.”

  The old lady smiled wryly, accepting a cup of tea.

  “No, not naive, just young.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “It used to be, and it should be. But nowadays, who knows?”

  Miss Prim looked gravely into the old lady’s face.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, that the young should be as naive as human nature permits, child. Young people still walk in a certain innocence, still view the world with wonder and hope. Later on, as time passes, they find things aren’t as they’d imagined and they begin to change, to lose that luminosity, that innocence. Their gaze clouds over and darkens. In one sense it’s very sad, but in another it’s inevitable, because it’s precisely these sorrows that lead to maturity.”

  Prudencia took a piece of buttered toast.

  “And you think this has changed?”

  “Of course it has. You’d have to be a fool or a lunatic not to see it. Young people today extend childhood well beyond the chronologically allotted time. They’re immature and irresponsible at an age when they should no longer be so. But at the same time they lose their simplicity, their innocence and freshness early. Strange as it sounds, they grow old early.”

  “Grow old? What an extraordinary idea!”

  Lulu sipped her tea and gestured to her guest to cut her a piece of cake.

  “Skepticism has always been considered an affliction of maturity, Prudencia, but now that is no longer the case. Those children have grown up unfamiliar with the great ideals that have shaped people for generations and made them strong. They’ve been taught to view them with contempt and, in their place, to substitute something cloying and sentimental that even they quickly find unsatisfying and even repellent. They lose the most valuable thing—I’d say the only truly valuable thing—that youth possesses and maturity does not. It’s terrible to have to say such things, don’t think I don’t know.”

  Miss Prim wondered how a woman of ninety-five who spent most of her time lying on an ancient sofa could have developed such acerbic views on the education system and the failings of young people. Before she could say anything, the old lady leaned forward with a shrewd grin on her face.

  “You think I’m too old to know the modern world and its problems.”

  “Of course not,” she lied.

  “Don’t fib, child. You’re partly right, but you must bear one thing in mind. Many different kinds of people pass through here. They like coming to the village. They visit our community as if it were a museum. And I’m very observant, my dear. At my age, there’s not much else to do.”

  Miss Prim made as if to protest but the old lady took no notice.

  “That’s not enough, though. You can’t rely just on your own experience. The experience of a single human lifetime constitutes a narrow field of study, even a lifetime as long as mine. It’s easy to fool oneself, God knows.”

  Lulu paused as if for breath before continuing.

  “Because, fundamentally, nothing changes, you know. The huge old mistakes emerge time and again from the depths, like cunning monsters stalking prey. If you could sit at the window and watch human history unfold, do you know what you’d see?”

  A little apprehensively, Miss Prim said she did not.

  “I’ll tell you. You’d see an immense chain of mistakes repeated over the centuries, that’s what. You’d watch them, arrayed in different garb, hidden behind various masks, concealed beneath a multitude of disguises, but they’d remain the same. No, it’s not easy to become aware of it, of course not. You have to stay alert and keep your eyes open to detect those evil old threats, recurring endlessly. Do you think I’m raving? No, my dear. You can’t see it—most people no longer can—but it’s growing dark, and I sense night falling. Those poor children, what do you think they get in schools?”

  She blinked, trying to make sense of the old lady’s speech.

  “Knowledge, I suppose.”

  Lulu sat up, unexpectedly spry.

  “You’re wrong. What they’re getting is sophism—foul, rotten sophism. Sophists have taken over schools and are working hard for their cause.”

  “Aren’t you being rather pessimistic?” Miss Prim asked tentatively, glancing surreptitiously at the clock.

  Lulu stared at her in silence.

  “Pessimistic? Not at all, my dear. What is a gatekeeper to do if not to warn of what she’s seen? Gatekeepers aren’t optimistic or pessimistic, Prudencia. They’re either awake or asleep.”

  Prudencia sighed. She couldn’t grasp the full scope of Lulu Thiberville’s ideas. It would take more than an afternoon to plumb the depths of the old lady’s mind. It was as dark and opaque as a cup of hot chocolate, too rich for afternoon tea and cake.

  “So you’re bound for Italy,” Lulu abruptly changed the subject as she poured more tea. “What part are you going to?”

  Miss Prim confessed that, though this was an obvious question, as yet she had no complete answer. Of course she knew where she would go first: she’d decided to start with Florence, where else? She’d spend part of the winter there, making the city her base, while traveling deeper into the country, gettin
g to know its hidden corners, exploring its palazzos, towns, and churches, reading lazily beneath its sun and sky, soaking in the beauty she so craved. She also thought she knew where she’d end her trip: Rome. But in between? Miss Prim wasn’t sure. And despite this, or perhaps precisely because of it, she felt extraordinarily happy.

  Lulu listened patiently to all these explanations, then closed her eyes, leaned back on the sofa, and said: “You must go to Nursia.”

  Miss Prim crossed her legs and looked out of the window in resignation. Since she announced her plan, the entire village had been intent on telling her where she must go and what she must not miss out.

  “Nursia,” echoed Miss Prim.

  “The birthplace of Benedict,” said the old lady, as if the saint were a friend of hers. And she went on: “I’m very fond of the monks who live there.”

  Miss Prim remained resolutely silent. She felt intensely annoyed at the thought that Lulu Thiberville might ask her to run some errand that would force her to go to a place she hadn’t intended to visit. She’d always thought it inconsiderate to use one’s age as leverage to make others do one’s bidding. After all, she had her own plans, her own duties and obligations. She had no intention of going to visit monks of whom Lulu Thiberville had decided to be fond. Absolutely not.

  “Don’t rush to conclusions,” said Lulu with the imperious air that had created such an impression on the librarian at their first meeting. “I’m not about to get you to run an errand in deepest Italy. Would you be so kind as to bring me that green book from the shelves? And that red one on top of the piano?”

  Miss Prim went to get the books, which turned out to be two enormous photograph albums. Her hostess took them in her thin hands and started turning the pages. After about five minutes, which felt more like fifteen, she found what she was looking for.

  “Here we are,” she said.

  She indicated a group of photographs and her guest studied them closely.

  “It looks like a beautiful place,” murmured Miss Prim, “and a beautiful monastery.”

  “San Benedetto,” said the old lady, adopting a light Italian accent.

  “San Benedetto?”

  “That’s right. Doesn’t it sound like music?”

  “Actually, it does,” she replied, examining the photographs. “But the monks . . . it’s strange, I thought they’d all be very old.”

  “You know little of life,” muttered Lulu with delight. “Tradition is ageless, child. It’s modernity that ages. Before I forget, you must go down to the crypt.”

  “Why?” asked Miss Prim, far from overjoyed at the prospect of descending into any kind of crypt.

  The old lady eyed her sternly, like a teacher faced with a child who stubbornly refuses to understand and whom she’s beginning to suspect may not be worth teaching.

  “Look at this,” she said, turning another few pages of the album. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  Miss Prim looked at the photos and nodded. Nursia had an austere piazza dominated by a statue of St. Benedict. At one end stood a basilica of the same name with a rose window set into its white facade. “Probably thirteenth century,” registered Miss Prim’s methodical mind. Another photograph showed a vast, deserted meadow between mountains, where thousands of poppies, primroses, violets, and other wildflowers formed a resplendent carpet.

  “How wonderful,” she exclaimed admiringly. “It looks like a high plateau.”

  “An apt comparison, since it is a high plateau. There’s an excellent hotel in the village, run by a delightful family. It’s perfect for you. The best thing to do there is rest, watch the world go by, and mix with the locals. You can’t imagine how inspiring it is to walk through the village to the market, saying hello to people, and then watch the monks tilling their land and listen to them singing Gregorian chant in the crypt. They’re restoring a second monastery. They may need help.”

  “Nursia,” repeated Miss Prim in a murmur. “Who knows?”

  Lulu peered at her with renewed attention.

  “I think it’ll do you a lot of good, Prudencia. It’ll temper your modern hardness.”

  She laughed, stirring her usual two lumps of sugar into her tea.

  “Modern hardness? What do you mean?”

  Lulu sat up so as to observe her guest more closely.

  “Look at me, child, and tell me what you see. A sweet little old lady, perhaps?”

  Miss Prim shook her head, smiling.

  “I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”

  “And you’d do well not to. I’m a hard woman. And do you know why? Because I’m old. Now look at yourself. What do you see?”

  The smile slowly faded from the librarian’s lips.

  “I don’t know, it’s difficult to judge oneself.”

  “I’ll tell you: a hard young woman.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” said Miss Prim, who had never considered herself a hard woman.

  “Don’t take offense, child. Maybe I wasn’t being clear. I’m not saying that you, specifically, are a hard woman. What I mean is that modern women like you are all, to a greater or lesser extent, hard.”

  The librarian fiddled nervously with the zip to her bag. According to this last explanation, maybe she hadn’t been insulted personally, only generically, but she still felt she had to object out of a sense of honor. Lulu listened with a slight smile before responding.

  “So you’re wondering how I justify what I said, is that right?”

  Miss Prim declared that this was indeed what she was wondering.

  “It’s the yearning. Plainly and simply, it’s the yearning.”

  “Yearning? For what?”

  The old lady hesitated almost imperceptibly before continuing and, when she did, it seemed as if she would never fall silent again.

  “The yearning you all display to prove your worth, to show that you know this and that, to ensure that you can have it all. The yearning to succeed and, even more, the yearning not to fail; the yearning not to be seen as inferior, but instead even as superior, simply for being exactly what you believe you are, or rather what you’ve been made to believe you are. The inexplicable yearning for the world to give you credit simply for being women. Ah, you’re getting angry with me, aren’t you?”

  Prudencia, lips clenched and knuckles almost white, did not reply.

  “Of course you are. Yet you only have to listen to yourself talk about the man you work for to realize that some of what I say is true. Why do you seem so angry? Why do you compare and register everything as if life were designed to be measured with a ruler? Why are you so afraid of losing your ranking, of being left behind? Why, my dear, are you so defensive?”

  Miss Prim stared at the old lady, lost for words. She tried to calm herself as she wondered how to respond to what she was hearing. Meanwhile, Lulu went on, her voice rasping and weary.

  “You say you’re looking for beauty, but this isn’t the way to achieve it, my dear friend. You won’t find it while you look to yourself, as if everything revolved around you. Don’t you see? It’s exactly the other way around, precisely the other way around. You mustn’t be careful, you must get hurt. What I’m trying to explain, child, is that unless you allow the beauty you seek to hurt you, to break you and knock you down, you’ll never find it.”

  Miss Prim stood up, roughly shaking the cake crumbs from her tweed skirt. She glanced coldly at the old lady on the sofa, who nodded in silent farewell, and then she walked out of Lulu Thiberville’s sitting room and life, firmly resolved never to return.

  6

  During her last few days in San Ireneo de Arnois, Miss Prim tried to avoid the Man in the Wing Chair. She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but during that time of suitcases, packages, and farewells, she had the feeling that he was avoiding her just as assiduously. The weather had turned particularly cold, as it always did in late February, and the frozen fields beyond gave the house and garden the aspect of a lifeless landscape painting. On the morning of her dep
arture she was in her room checking her packing one last time. Everything was there—the few books she had brought with her, her clothes and shoes, one or two personal objects, and the countless presents received in the past few hours from friends and neighbors all over the village. Miss Prim contemplated the pile of luggage with a sad smile. After inspecting the chest of drawers and bedside tables to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, she straightened up and let her melancholy gaze rest on the view outside the window. At that moment, she was startled by a snowball striking the glass with a dull thud. She opened the door onto the balcony and looked down. There in the garden, bundled up to his eyes, stood the Man in the Wing Chair.

  “Will you come down?” he called out.

  “Come down? It’s several degrees below zero—not a good day for a stroll in the garden.”

  He smiled, or so she deduced from the crinkling of his eyes, the only part of his face that was visible.

  “I think it’s a perfect day. For the garden and for you there won’t be a better one. I won’t have the pleasure of seeing you both together after today.”

  “That’s true,” murmured Miss Prim.

  “What did you say?” he shouted.

  “I said that’s true,” she repeated more loudly. “But the gardener’s picking me up in half an hour. I haven’t got time to chat.”

  He came and stood right beneath the window.