She

by Shireen Jeejeebhoy

chapter twenty

  LIKE A PRINCESS SHE WOULD APPROACH

  THE REVEREND FROM Little Trinity picks her up on New Year’s Day and whizzes her north to the convent. As the streets flash by, she replays over and over her last conversation with her grandmother. It had been awkward. Grandmother had explained that Dr. Scorn’s unfair treatment of her and his ignorance had shocked her, but professional respect had held her tongue in front of the others. She’d countered that her friends weren’t professionals. Grandmother had replied that what her friends had said about her and to her had stunned her into silence. Surely she understood that. She had said nothing in response to that. What could she have said, that it was okay to stay mute, to not stand up for her granddaughter? Grandmother seemed to feel guilty in the face of her muteness and had continued to justify herself till she ran out of words. And then Grandmother had thrown her one of her speculative looks, as if she knew about her trip to the lake, about her decision to visit the convent, although she had not spoken of them to her. Suddenly, Grandmother had apologized. It had torn her —

  The car slowing down as it enters a long drive brings her out of her ruminations. They round a corner and drive past a snowy lawn and frosted trees. She gazes upon a yellow stone building, its warm exterior punctuated by old 1970s-style windows draped inside with heavy curtains. He leads her in and points her up to the guest quarters where a room, St. Elizabeth it’s called, is waiting for her. It’s simple and overlooks a rectangular courtyard, blanketed in white. A white counterpane drapes the single bed. A simple pine desk sits between the bed and the window. A white chenille-covered wing chair sits in the corner. A small closet hides behind the open door. She stuffs her gloves in her coat pockets and hangs up her coat and scarf. She puts her hat on the shelf over the hangers and walks back down the hall to where he is waiting. He introduces her to the convent priest, Doug. Doug shakes her hand firmly. She tries not to wince. After saying good-bye and thanks to the Reverend, she follows Doug, their footsteps sounding on the terrazzo floors, to a large light-filled room, one bulky sofa covered in a rose pattern sitting in front of a bay window, another sitting at right angles to it and across from a wing chair dressed in muted green. The expanse of mullioned windows behind the sofa let in a view of the sky blending into snowflakes blending into a fluffy carpet of white. A woman, her blonde, curly hair pulled back loosely, stands up from the sofa. Her green eyes smile at her, and her white sweater and A-line blue corduroy skirt make her feel comfortable already. The woman’s name is Irene. That namesake song flows into her mind as she sits down in the wing chair, facing Irene.

  After exchanging pleasantries, Irene asks her, “Have you ever been to a convent before?”

  “No,” she whispers. She clears her throat, “No.”

  “Don’t be afraid, this is a place of healing. Wherever you are on your journey with Christ, you are welcome and safe here.”

  She nods.

  “Tell me about how you found us and why you are here?”

  She hesitates. She’s not sure why she’s here, and she’s not sure she wants to share that strange experience on that day during Advent. She’s already been bit once for sharing her first experience with Artashavanti, but looking at this woman with her soft smile and inviting eyes, she feels somehow that it’s okay. She feels … love enfold her.

  “Well, I … I walked into Little Trinity Church. The one I went to as a child. And I felt … I felt … s-s-somehow … that, um, well, I needed to go there.”

  Irene nods encouragingly, still smiling.

  “I met a priest there.”

  Irene waits, as if she has all the time in the world and wants to spend it listening to her. Her confidence growing, she continues, “I, I think he’s the one I knew as a kid, but I’m not sure, before my parents died. He didn’t recognize me, well, he wouldn’t would he? It’s been awhile, eh?” A smile appears and disappears off her face. “Anyway, he suggested coming here …”

  “Tell me a little about yourself.” Irene tucks one leg under the other.

  “Well … I was born here to a Zoroastrian mother and a Christian father. They died, and Grandmother, my mother’s mother that is, raised me.”

  “That must’ve been difficult for you.”

  “Yes, I guess it was.” It seems so long ago now, a different life, a different person. “But it doesn’t seem like it belongs to me anymore.”

  “That’s interesting. Why is that?”

  “Well, I, I was in this, I’m not sure what you call it, this thing happened to me …,” she falters. Her eyes look everywhere but at Irene. In the silence, she’s drawn to look back at Irene. It’s as if Irene is pulling the story out of her, gently, persistently. She can’t resist her; she can’t resist telling her; and suddenly it all comes out in a rush. The incident on Horseshoe Road, Jim leaving, her friends moving from her like rats off a sinking ship, her dream of songwriting disappearing, that last meeting, even seeing Artashavanti walking on the water. She feels so listened to, in a way that she’s never experienced before, like every word she utters is important, every thought and feeling she’s had is valuable, every experience a thread in a beautiful tapestry that Irene can’t wait to see finished.

  An hour and a half later, she winds to a halt, spent but feeling good. Oh so good.

  “Thank you for sharing that with me. You are amazing to have gotten through this, to have survived and seen what you did. This is hope. I think you need some quiet time to reflect on all that’s happened so far, and I have some ideas that I’d like to pray over and then present to you after lunch. And meantime you can reflect and think about what it is you’re seeking. The nuns are in chapel right now. Why don’t you join them? They’ll be taking communion, but you don’t have to. No one is here to judge you. We are here only to bring healing. One of the nuns will show you to the Refectory afterwards. Have you heard of a Silent Dinner?”

  “No,” she shakes her head, frowning in puzzlement.

  “It’s when we eat in silence. There is no talking during the meal. It won’t be just nuns at the meal, but students, people here for courses, men and women. We all eat in communal silence. I think you’ll enjoy it. Take as much time as you need to rest and meditate in your room after you’ve eaten. When you’re ready to return, come back to this room.”

  She nods.

  Irene leads her down to the chapel. It’s small with just a few slatted-board pews on either side of a centre aisle; its ceiling rises up and up and up and makes it feel spacious. A cross adorns the soaring, rock wall behind the altar, and sun shines in through the windows on the right wall. She sits in the last pew at the back. The service has already started. It’s quiet, Doug’s chanting voice the only sound. She lets the service wash over her, not going up to communion, but watching the nuns in their jean jumper dresses over floral patterned shirts processing up and then back to their pews. Afterwards, a tiny white-haired nun approaches her and asks if she needs direction to the Refectory. As they walk together, the elderly nun explains in a hushed voice what the procedure is for a Silent Dinner and ends with the words, “just follow me.” She does.

  The scents of roast beef and boiled vegetables greet them as they push open the swinging door to the Refectory. She follows the nun in and picks up a tray, places a plate on it, takes a napkin, knife, and fork, and is served vegetables, mashed potatoes, a white roll. She eschews the beef. At the end of the line, the nun joins her sisters at tables set aside at one end of the hall, and she looks around for an empty seat among the guests. She hesitates, finding the silence heavy and uncomfortable. A man gestures with his head to follow him. She does, carrying her tray to an empty seat at one of the long tables that seats several people on either side. She starts eating, her knife and fork joining the chorus of other knives and forks clinking on plates, pages being turned as several read their Bibles, the scrape of chairs on terrazzo floor, and the squeaks of rubber-soled shoes as people get up and leave or come in for lunch, the Refectory doors swinging open and bru
shing closed as they move in and out. She finishes her meal, puts her tray away, and leaves for her room. She lies down on that white counterpane, figuring if the room was given to her, it’s okay for her to muss up the well-made bed. She tries to rest, her body heavy with fatigue. But her mind is processing, processing, processing all that has happened to her in only a few short hours. Does she even believe in God? Grandmother had taught her that it was all nonsensical meaningless ritual that filled minds with sentimental drivel and drove people to be judgemental and rigid. Yet she spoke often of good thoughts, good words, good deeds, to be wary of bad thoughts that lead to bad words and bad deeds, of charity being the highest calling: Zoroastrian concepts. She spoke also of Zoroastrians believing in one God, the first people to do so, and treating men and women as equals.

  Speaking her story into an empathetic ear has dampened the fury, and this peaceful place has swept away the dark cloud of irritation that hangs around her every day. She wants to rest some more but senses it’s time to return.

  Irene looks up at her entrance, setting aside a thick book — the Bible she wonders.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Refreshed. Thank you,” she smiles.

  “I’m so glad to hear that. I’ve been thinking about what we can do this afternoon, and I feel very much that you need healing, more than I can give sitting here just listening to you. I would like you to consider an anointing. Doug and I will pray over you in the chapel, and Doug will anoint you. I also feel that you need a Spiritual Director, but we can discuss that more after the anointing, see how you feel. There’s only so much one can take in in one day, eh?”

  She grins, “Yes.”

  “What do you think about the anointing idea?”

  She’s not sure what anointing is other than it’s something religious. That scares her. This is not how she was raised. But does that matter anymore? Does it even matter if she knows what it is, beyond knowing that it is healing? Akaesman has so radically altered her life, killed off who she had been, that now it’s all about creating a new person, she suddenly realizes. That person can do whatever she wants, unrestricted by old ideas and judgements.

  “I’m not sure. But … but I’d like to try it. I’ll, I’ll try anything,” she says at last.

  “Good,” Irene smiles. “Follow me. We’ll go to the chapel. Doug will be there. If not, I’ll find him.”

  They find the chapel empty and Doug moving around in it when they enter through a side door near the altar. He fetches a simple wooden chair for her and graciously places it right in front of the altar, right in front of that caring cross.

  She sits down gingerly.

  “Don’t be afraid. The church has been anointing people for centuries; it’s an age-old tradition of healing. We will pray for you before and after I anoint you.”

  She nods and settles back in the chair. They remain standing. Immediately she’s buzzing. Her whole body buzzes, her feet, her legs, her torso, her arms, her neck, her head. They all buzz in harmony. She wants to run. She wants to get up and run, but Doug and Irene break the silence with harmonious prayers, and their words keep her in place. They stop, and Irene kneels beside her, “Would you like to pray? Would you like to say anything to Christ, to God?”

  The buzzing turns to dizziness. She drops her arms off her lap and hangs on to the sides of the chair. This is so foreign, not only praying, but praying out loud. “I … I ask for peace. I ask for, for healing. I ask for my life back. No, no I don’t want that. That life was a lie. The people in it were not whom I thought they were. I wasn’t the person I want to be now. I don’t know who I want to be, but I want to be well.”

  Irene prays:

  Blessed are you, sovereign God, gentle and merciful,

  creator of heaven and earth.

  Your Word brought light out of darkness,

  and daily your Spirit renews the face of the earth.

  Your anointed Son brought healing to those in weakness and distress.

  He broke the power of evil and set us free from sin and death

  that we might praise your name forever.

  By the power of your Spirit may your blessing rest

  on those who are anointed with this oil in your name;

  may they be made whole in body, mind and spirit,

  restored in your image, renewed in your love,

  and serve you as sons and daughters in your kingdom.

  Through your anointed Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord,

  to whom with you and the Holy Spirit

  we lift our voices of thanks and praise.

  [Doug joins in] Blessed be God, our strength and our salvation, now and forever. Amen.

  Irene stands up and moves in front of her. Doug moves behind her and places his hands on her shoulders.

  She says, “I invite you now to ask God for what you want.”

  “You have to name it to claim it,” she thinks. What is it she wants? Perhaps she should stop thinking and just speak, and whatever comes out of her mouth is what she wants. With Akaesman dormant in this sheltered place, her words will be her words. “I want my dream, God. I would like my dream back. I would like to write s-s-songs, songs of healing, songs to make people happy. I don’t what to sing about bad stuff, only good, because my life is so difficult and I don’t want to hear that in my songs. I want protection from Akaesman. I want him gone out of me. I want to be wholly myself. I don’t know who that is, but I’d like to know and become her.”

  Doug exchanges places with Irene, takes a small pot of oil, and says, “In the name of God and trusting in his might alone, receive Christ’s healing touch to make you whole. May Christ bring you wholeness of body, mind, and spirit, deliver you from every evil, and give you his peace.”

  He leans forward and anoints, making the sign of the cross with his thumb dipped in oil on her forehead, and says, “I anoint you in the name of God who gives you life. Receive Christ’s forgiveness, his healing, and his love. May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ grant you the riches of his grace, his wholeness, and his peace.”

  He straightens up and finishes, “The Almighty Lord, who is a strong tower for all who put their trust in him, whom all things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth obey, be now and evermore your defence. May you believe and trust that the only name under heaven given for health and salvation is the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”

  Doug falls silent, and Irene starts praying. She sounds in a trance, as if she is channelling another’s words. And as Irene’s voice rises, the dizziness in her turns to pain in her neck that streams down her spine and then melts away to nothing. Irene tells her how God loves her, how God sees her as precious, sees her future, sees it as good, sees it as a field of golden ripe wheat, drenched in sunlight, waiting for her. Reassurance sweeps over her as she listens and hears.

  And now it’s over. She follows Irene back to the room with the comfy sofas and the wing chair. They have Earl Grey tea, and she talks and talks about how she feels, what’s she thinking. Irene tells her that during the anointing, she saw her coming from one point and now journeying to another place, a place God has prepared for her and is using this crisis to get her there, a place of golden fields, of ripe glowing wheat.

  At 5:00 p.m., she returns to her room, sits down at the desk, and writes it all out on paper the nuns have set ready on the desk, while she still remembers, before going home. She writes swiftly her thoughts about this journey, about God, about her experiences between the two halves of Advent, and how she feels now. Her hand stops, and she looks out the window. She wants to go home. For once, she looks forward to going home, not as a place to crash and hide from the world but as a warm, safe haven, a haven that she can recreate as her own place.

  And waking up the next morning in her own bed, looking upon the floral wallpaper, the one decoration that was original to the house and not from her and Jim, she’s ready for once to face the day. Bang, bang, bang. Smokey makes her presence known on the other side of
the bedroom door. The fury is back also bang, bang, banging on her senses to send them into overdrive. But the peace and joy from yesterday, the freedom from judgement are too powerful for it to overcome, and she hops out of bed, eager to eat breakfast and get on the computer. It’s time.

  It’s time to find some sort of email course that will teach her how to write songs, play the piano again. “YouTube will probably help with that last part,” she thinks, as she dresses in H&M grey flared sweatpants and a T-shirt that proclaims, “Love mystifies me Chocolate I understand.” She opens the door, and Smokey meows her happiness, mimicking her own feeling of being up. After zipping through her morning ablutions as quickly as her stiff body will allow, she hops down her stairs and looks at the purple walls of her living room, at the strong colours that she and Jim had chosen for their decor, the colours that no longer reflect who she is. She doesn’t know what her colours are. She looks down at her grey pants and pink T-shirt and thinks, “maybe light ones.” She should go to the paint store and whatever colours speak to her, those will be her colours. She’ll put it on VISA. That’ll give her a month to think about how she’ll pay for it or maybe Grandmother will help her. She smiles at the thought of new colours, even though she knows that she’ll probably take hours to figure out which colours are speaking to her. She grabs a Post-it notepad on the desk and jots down: “1. Call Grandmother. 2. Go to paint store. 3. Find painter. 4. Paint.” Yeah, she won’t be able to do it without Grandmother’s help, financial help, but somehow she knows it’ll be okay to ask her, that she’ll say yes.

  She wolfs down her breakfast, faster than Smokey does hers, she’s so eager to start searching. Within fifteen minutes, barely within the limits of her mental alertness, she finds a course. She emails the teacher and signs up.

  Within days, the first class pops up in her Inbox. She focuses on the email waiting for her, its subject line seeming to say, this is it, this is when she learns if she can do this, if she really is a songwriter, if she can relearn. Everything came to her so easily before, but this will not. This situation she’s in is out of her control; only hard work, hard work that will take a long, long time to see results, hard work she cannot do alone, will lead her back to her dream.

  It’s impossible.

  She quivers with nervousness.

  She’s still not sure about this belief in God, about who Jesus is, but she remembers Artashavanti who led her here. Maybe she can talk to her. Don’t Catholics talk to saints, don’t people talk to angels? She’s not Catholic, but …

  She speaks to the air, asking for help she knows not from whom. She sits still to listen. Hears nothing, only her anxiety.

  “Am I doing the right thing?” she asks, her voice loud to her ears, thankful no one can hear her but Smokey, who doesn’t care.

  Slowly each muscle in her neck, her chest, her arms, her legs, releases its tension. And out of the ether, through the fury that is reasserting its control, she hears an answer.

  Yes.

  She clicks on the email and begins to read.

  ~~~*~~~