Life With Mother Superior

by Jane Trahey

  “What’s up, Sister Ethelreda?”

  The place was either on fire or we were at war with China, as Sister Mary William had predicted.

  “It’s Sister Liguori, she’s dead,” she whispered, and tears flooded her pale gray eyes.

  “Dead,” we all breathed back, shocked by the very word.

  “Yes, God rest her soul, she died in the night.”

  Mary and I sat back on our beds and contemplated this totally unexpected news. Sister Liguori was the only “nice” teacher we had. She taught geometry and she was so bright and nice to us, we simply felt it pointless to pull any of our tricks on her. Without our even realizing, we had become not only fond of her but fond of geometry as well.

  “Does this mean we won’t have geometry today?” Florence asked. She seemed saddened, not so much by Sister’s death as the fact that she would miss out on geometry.

  “Don’t be silly, of course not,” said Sister Ethelreda; “we won’t have any classes.”

  It was a grim holiday that left us bereft of regularity. We dressed quietly and wandered down to the chapel.

  No one seemed terribly concerned about us today. This, in itself came as a surprise since usually the Sisters concerned themselves, with nothing but us. This morning, however, they had withdrawn into their own lives, their own community—and whereas we had lost a teacher we liked, they had obviously lost a friend they loved.

  Sister Liguori was a tall, heavy-set nun, who seemed to find our nonsense precisely that and nothing more. In fact, Mary and I amused her and she would prod us into telling her about our escapades and secret plans. She would “tsk” and “tusk” a bit here and a bit there, but she took such pleasure in our silliness that it was impossible to do anything but be good as gold in her class. It was our first sample of reverse psychology.

  With her lumbering, teeter-tottering kind of walk, she would tread heavily into class and greet us as old and good friends. She kept the whole class amused with geometry did it with such deftness, we never learned her tricks. It was the most competitive atmosphere I had ever been in—leaving the childish gyrations of our senior basketball team looking like a game of tiddlywinks. We learned from Sister Liguori, for instance, the way to bet. There were mornings when we played geometric roulette, there were mornings when we played the horses, and there were mornings when we worked out masterly moves with chess. Whatever background Sister Liguori stemmed from, somebody in her household loved to bet, and she merely applied this universal liking for taking a chance to her geometry class. We had team against team, seat against seat, friend against friend. We bet odds on homework, study hours, masses, prayers. In fact, her entire operation was a healthy cross between a superb auctioneer at work and a bookie. No one would ever go to sleep in geometry and everyone got a good grade. It was a most apt system. Every day we had something that paralleled a daily double to end the class, and the lucky soul that won this parlay got a medal strung through a card with an off-beat shade of ribbon. It was “the” prize to win.

  But aside from Sister Liguori’s superb knack of making sixteen unruly girls like such a subject as geometry, we loved her because she had a dog and she was the only nun we ever heard of that had a dog. She didn’t actually own Buttons, as that was against the rules, but one day a mangy, yellow, shaggy, mostly matted lump arrived at the convent for a handout and Sister Liguori happened to be in the kitchen. It just took one meal for Buttons to decide he wanted to live the cloistered life. From what we heard, Mother Superior was not at all keen on having a dog at St. Mark’s, but Sister Liguori was able to convince her that what St. Marks needed most was a watchdog . . . especially now that Roger was getting so old.

  Buttons hung about the garden and Sister Gardener said he was an incredible beast with big feet. Sister Cook said he was a big beast with an incredible appetite, but Sister Liguori saw only his beauty. By the end of the semester, she had most of his mats out, and when he had a bath he looked a bit like a bright yellow sheep dog:

  Buttons adored Sister Liguori and when she went for a walk in the convent garden, Buttons frolicked around, behind, and in front of her, demanding her attention and getting it in large doses.

  He would eat nothing she didn’t feed him. Even though he absolutely adored such things as Mars bars and Hershey chocolate, he would patiently wait until she came down. We tried time and time again to get him to give in and eat some goodie. He would drool over it, but he wouldn’t touch it until he heard, “Well, now my good man, so you have a present?”

  Buttons would wail with pleasure, pushing it over to the hem of her black serge skirt. Then he’d get down on his paws and wiggle with pleasurable agony.

  “Good boy, go eat it.”

  And with yelps of glee, Buttons would swallow whatever tidbit he had.

  “What do you think will happen to Buttons?” Mary said, as we were shepherded to the library by the postulant.

  “Do you think he’ll eat anything?”

  We couldn’t take a chance on going out to see.

  There was no point in doing anything wrong today. It was not the moment to get on Mother Superior’s nerves.

  “We’ll go down after lunch,” I whispered, and slipped into a seat because Sister Ethelreda was staring at us.

  We looked for Sister Cook, to ask about Buttons, but she wasn’t in the kitchen—she’d been relieved by some stern, white-haired lady, who said she had not seen a dog but she thought she’d heard some whining earlier. We looked around, but there was no sign of him.

  After lunch, we returned to the library. Sister took it for granted that we would all want to read St. Augustine, but this form of reading never appealed to me and I sat and twiddled my fountain pen and wondered about death. What did happen to people when they died? Was heaven crowded? Did you wear clothes, or go nude? Did you get to do anything but sing or play the harp? What happened to you if you didn’t like harp playing? All the standard revelations came to me and I was nothing but sad and frightened.

  At four o’clock, Mother Superior came into the study. She looked as if she had been crying and she spoke quietly, with no expression. She said we could all file down to the chapel where Sister Liguori was laid out. I was petrified. I certainly didn’t want to see her dead, but I couldn’t bear everyone going off and leaving me. I sat frozen to my chair while the rest of the classes filed out.

  I had been to wakes many times with my father, but I had never known who was in the coffin, or cared, but this was different. This was someone I had seen walking and laughing and talking yesterday—and now she would be still. Besides, I was embarrassed at seeing a nun asleep.

  “Don’t you want to say good-bye to Sister Liguori?” Mother Superior asked.

  “I don’t know.” I really didn’t wish to make her angry today.

  “Well, she was a good friend of yours,” she said, “always taking your side.”

  I felt that terrible ache begin in my throat when tears want to come so badly. I couldn’t cry in front of Mother Superior. There was nothing I could say.

  Mother Superior must have understood, for she said, “Well, just say a prayer for her, and if you can’t see her, don’t. She would understand.”

  I padded along next to her all the way to the chapel, grateful for her austere company.

  The chapel was darkened, the wintry day had blustered itself into a bright, cold sunset that let a late daylight into the chapel, but not a cheery one. Even though the altar lights were on, the room seemed dark and cold.

  The black casket was at the foot of the altar. It was the European kind, skinnier at the foot than at the top. There were eight long tapers burning around it. The rest of the nuns were scattered about the chapel praying. It was a silent and timeless moment, as if we were vacuumed into their meditative world. Everything was still. Then, as if by some secret signal heard only by nuns, they arose together and filed one by one past the coffin. Each stopped for a moment for a final prayer. Then, Mother Superior beckoned the seniors and each
class filed by. I wanted so badly to see her, but I simply could not face it. Finally, after the freshmen had gone, I went up to the coffin.

  As I knelt down, I was amazed to see how pleased she looked—pale and quiet and sleepy, but so secretly amused. It was an expression no undertaker could make or fake, it was simply her face that had had it. And then I realized how very much I loved this nun. It seemed inconceivable to me that anyone could ever like a nun. They were inevitably involved with the other team—the one that always won. Though I knew that Sister Liguori would stand no nonsense, she hadn’t treated us like babies. She merely understood what we were and let it go at that.

  That night seemed endless, we slept fitfully. Two of the freshmen had nightmares and we could hear the swish of beads go in and out and up and down the corridors. The Sisters kept a night watch in the chapel.

  We had all been told that Sister Liguori would be buried from the Cathedral in town and that we would attend only the Mass. St. Marks had a tiny cemetery where the Sisters were buried. The family would go there, but we would come back to the convent.

  The ride to town was the quietest one I ever had. Usually the trip bordered on a combination of utter chaos and hysteria. When we arrived at the Cathedral, we all filed in two abreast and sat directly behind the Sisters. I was fascinated to learn from Mary that in the front row, across from the nuns, were Sister Liguori’s mother, father and three brothers. I was completely overwhelmed that she had a mother or a father and that her brothers looked quite young. I had been under the impression that nuns were born full-grown. It was amazing that the brothers were so handsome—they were probably in their thirties. They looked younger than my father and, more fascinating than any thing, they all looked like Sister Liguori.

  The Bishop ran on about her sanctity and made quite a point of her youth. It never dawned on us that Sister Liguori could be considered young. To us twenty seemed aged.

  “What did she die from?” I asked Lillian Quigley. She was always seated next to me as a precaution to my talking.

  Lillian kindly excused my bad taste in speaking in church and said tearfully (she’d been in tears since it had happened), “Heart trouble.” I don’t think Lillian really knew, but she said it with conviction. It had to suffice.

  After Mass, we were dispatched back to the convent and, with Mother Superior’s superb sense of timing, for both the faculty and for us, she suggested that we all go back to work.

  As soon as Mary and I had a chance to look for Buttons, we scooted toward the kitchen. He was plastered against the door, but he was “in” the kitchen. Sister Cook was baking and crying.

  “Did he eat anything?” we asked.

  “Not a morsel,” Sister Cook said and broke into tears—real tears.

  We tried to change the subject.

  “And I doubt if he will,” she wailed.

  “Is he mourning?” Mary asked, trying to pat Sister Cook’s hand.

  “Yes, he most certainly is.” She dabbed at her nose.

  “Don’t you think he likes us?” I queried, hoping that we could feed him.

  “Well, you can try,” she said, and handed us a bowl of meat she’d chopped up for him.

  Mary and I sat on the floor with the mournful Buttons. And, even though he’d take something in his mouth, he simply couldn’t swallow it. We despaired and finally Sister Cook took pity on us and said, “Leave him be, darlings, he’ll come round. Now just go play and we’ll try again in the morning.”

  We sadly left old Buttons, who simply put his head back down on the floor and waited patiently for that which was never to be again.

  Even Mother Superior was concerned with the beast and tried to get him to take something. She kept encouraging us to try too. Finally, one day Roger drove him to the city to a vet “to get a tonic” they said, and that was the last we ever saw of Buttons.

  It had been a hard winter, Sister Cook said, and Sister Mary William cried over China and Mother Superior snapped at us more than usual. We were all glad to see the Easter holidays come.

  Chapter Ten: Marvel Ann

  Mother Superior had a long talk with Mama. The general feeling around the convent was a difficult one. A total stalemate existed between the faculty that had put up with Mary Clancey and me for our first two years of high school life, and the faculty that was about to receive us. The first faction felt that we should be promoted at any cost, even against all principles. They felt that Mary and I had enjoyed any and all talents they might have had. The Sisters that taught the junior and senior class felt that we were not ready spiritually or mentally to wear the twenty-two white buttons on our uniforms as a distinguishing sign of an upperclass-man. So, for a change, it was not student versus faculty, it was faculty versus faculty.

  Mother Superior suggested to Mrs. Clancey and Mama, at one of their semimonthly get-togethers, that they either take us out of St Marks and put us in the hands of a competent psychiatrist, or let her handle us as she saw fit. This handling would, however, put us on a very strong extracurricular activity program. By extracurricular, Mother did not mean tennis, she meant extra classes.

  “Extra curricular,” Mary whimpered, “I can’t keep up with the just regular curricular.”

  “If only my mother would stay out of my life, I think I could manage better. Now we’ll have to take painting, and leather tooling, and all that junk.”

  And painting it was. Mother Superior arranged our time so that we finished school around eight in the evening and began at eight in the morning. If we weren’t painting, we were petit-pointing and if we weren’t petit-pointing, we were praying. We had absolutely not a free minute. But, even though we were never again left to our own devices, it had its reward. We did inherit Sister Angela.

  “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop,” she greeted us pleasantly.

  “Good afternoon, Sister Angela!”

  “Don’t good afternoon me, I don’t want you in my lovely class.”

  This was a new approach. We stared at each other.

  “Well, we didn’t want to come,” Mary said. I promptly kicked her, as this was merely playing into her hands.

  Our art teacher reached into her file and took out two great sheets of manila paper. “Five cents, please.”

  “I thought the supplies were paid for,” I snarled back.

  “They are, dear one; this is for the Missions. I am offering up my time to teach you art. The least you can do is offer up your spending money.”

  We sat in front of mahogany desks that tipped. Mary screwed hers up with all the vehemence of a night nurse with a hospital bed. It banged down.

  Sister Angela picked her promptly off her artist’s stool by the back of her collar and quietly whispered, “If you want to break something, try your head.” For all of her arty side, Sister Angela obviously had a special reserve of strength. Neither of us wished her to use it on our bodies. We got to work.

  The weeks slipped along and we drew stuffed bluebirds sitting on a log. Mary was convinced that Sister killed all her own birds and stuffed them. We drew pineapples, apples, and oranges and what we couldn’t draw, we ate. From three-thirty in the afternoon until prayer time, Sister Angela kept us under her protective wing. Custody, of course, would be a better choice of words. While we drew, Sister painted. She was really very avant-garde, painting very much in the Cubist school. Neither Mary nor I nor Mother Superior appreciated her talent at all, and her rendition of Good Friday was really quite frightening and caused quite a sensation among the rest of the Sisters.

  Actually, she was almost as much of a misfit in her way as we were. When Mary and I tried, however, to imitate her Mondrian flair, she slapped me so hard I saw cubes.

  I didn’t have as difficult a time with my charcoals, however, as Mary did. Her hands not only perspired, they manufactured sweat, and when I say “sweat” I really mean they dripped. Mary tried and tried to get her bird drawn without getting the paper soaking wet.

  “It’s all in your mind, Miss C
lancey.”

  “I can’t help it, it just happens.”

  “It won’t, if you don’t want it to. Think dry and you’ll be dry.”

  It finally got so that Mary would put the chalk on and I’d rub it, but with rubbing my own chalk and Mary’s, I was fast wearing out my fingerprints. Meanwhile, the more welcome and more talented students of art came and went at their leisure. We were the only two captive artists. Everyone painted Red Cross posters, and pictures of Baby Jesus, and Spiritual Bouquets, and one group even mixed plaster for casts and made grand cherubs’ heads. It was the plaster that started the whole thing.

  Mary and I decided to cast her cousin Marvel Ann, who was a freshman. Sister Angela kept her eagle eye on us during the week, so that we felt we would certainly do better artistically if we waited till Saturday. Saturday, at the convent, was the day when those students with no demerits went to town. For us, Saturday was a quiet go-to-confession day, hang-around-the-kitchen-and-watch-Sister-Purity-make-bread day, and sit outside on the hill. The Sisters did as they pleased and so we never saw them on Saturday. Our only contact was the Sister in charge, who checked on us every hour or so.

  Marvel Ann had a pug nose, freckles, pale green eyes and a definite point of view. “Go drop dead, you slobs.”

  “Aw, come on, Marvel, we only want to do a mask of you. You can send it to your papa at Christmas.”

  “It’s so much better than pen wipers,” I added wistfully.

  “Listen, you two idiots, if you think you’re going to cover me with plaster, you’re crazy.”

  “We’re not going to do all of you, just your head.”

  Mary and I had watched the other art students mix the plaster with water in a large pail, and pour it over their clay mold, let it harden and then with one fell swoop of the hammer and chisel, the mold would fall off the clay and there you would have, right in the palm of your hand, the cast for a great statue.

  “Just your face, Marvel—that’s all.”

  “Well, what if you get that stuff in my eyes?”