Black Apple (28 page)

“Aren’t you afraid of cutting yerself?” barked Mrs. Mooney. “There are knives in there and real sharp.”

She shook her head. There was a way to reach into water, she had learned at St. Mark’s, to touch without injuring. “I always do dishes this way.” That was the approach she needed in this town. She set the clean plates and bowls in the dish rack, and without looking at her, Mrs. Derkatch snatched them up and started drying. She wondered if Frizzy remembered her from the bus. The old bat acted like she wasn’t worth even acknowledging. Fine. She gave her one of Sister Joan’s withering looks, but Mrs. Derkatch refused to notice.

As soon as she had finished the dishes and wiped the sink and counter, she left the kitchen and slipped silently down the hall. Just outside Frank’s door, she stopped. Music pulsed into the hallway, a song about a man killing another man because he wanted to see him die, and though the words were disturbing, she couldn’t help but sway her head to the beat.

She was familiar with radios and the strange feelings they seemed to stir. In her second or third year at St. Mark’s, the sisters had bustled importantly up to the priests’ suite one evening to listen to people from across the sea declare the end of the war. She had imagined them sitting around the radio, an ornate wooden chest with a panel of thick upholstery that the sound sputtered from. It was an occasion they had talked about for months, Sister Cilla sometimes imitating the British
awk-cent
in the dorm, making everyone laugh.

When she was an intermediate, she was given the summer chore of dusting the priests’ living quarters every Saturday while they were taking confession. Afraid of being discovered, she never dared turn on the radio until her second summer at the job, and once she figured out how to work the contraption, she learned the importance of pork-belly, wheat, and barley prices, information she passed on to Sister Bernadette, who then knew when to pester local farmers for donations.

Just last winter after Christmas holidays, a senior named Reba had smuggled one of the new portable radios into the dormitory. For two weeks, until they were caught and the radio was confiscated, a group of seniors had snuck into the bathroom after lights-out, giggling and dancing to tunes with names like “Earth Angel,” “Tutti Frutti,” and “Blueberry Hill.” Probably to earn her silence, the girls had insisted she join them, and though she was older—the most senior senior, the only girl in grade twelve and supposedly “responsible”—she had allowed them to persuade her. Imitating their wiggles, shakes, and prances, Rose Marie had felt the sensation of coins jingling up her spine, something she hadn’t experienced since Taki died. She had even heard herself giggle. She joined the girls for a few more nights, but she never felt the same thrill or laughed as much as on the first night. Yet for days after Sister Margaret had carted the radio away, visions of adolescent girls with jittering-fruit breasts and backs with sprouting wings danced through her mind as she was drifting off to sleep.

Clearly Frank had a radio in his room, and she was sure she had heard music coming from both Ruby’s and Cyril’s rooms upstairs. Yet she wouldn’t allow herself to hope for a radio of her own. Soon she would be taking a vow of poverty. Material goods, Mother Grace had told her, would do nothing but impede her spiritual journey. Earthly pleasures must be forsaken. But just that morning, Mrs. Mooney had told her that whenever she wanted, she could listen to the parlour radio, even larger and grander than the one in the priests’ suite. And maybe she would do just that.

She went over to it and spun the biggest wooden knob. The sudden popping of fire eating through a forest made her quickly turn it the other way. Nothing worked the way it was supposed to, and she was afraid to try the other knobs in case someone heard and came running. Smoothing her head covering, she walked towards the stairs. As she passed by the open front door, she glimpsed Cyril sitting on the porch steps, smoking. He turned and motioned her.

“Take a load off your feet,” he called, indicating the step in front of him. “C’mon. I won’t bite.”

She paused. She really wasn’t ready to go up to her room that still stank of cigarettes, and since she’d cleaned it that morning, probably disinfectant as well. She didn’t want to be alone. Besides, Cyril was safe enough, a big man with eyes of water, not sparks and flames. She slipped out the door to the porch.

“Can I offer you a smoke?” Cyril stood and stiffly held out his pack to her, but she shook her head and perched on the step in front of him. “How are you taking to the place?” he asked.

Her mind raced over the crush of the men at supper, Billy Nimsic’s death, Ruby’s swearing, and Mrs. Mooney’s dyed hair, leaving her dumbfounded. “Nice, uh, very nice,” she stuttered. “Mrs. Mooney, that is.”

Cyril laughed. “Some would say
real
nice, if you know what I mean, not that I blame her. She’s had a hard life.” He cleared his throat, and she stared blankly up at him.

“She’s not really Mrs. Mooney, you know.” He sat back down, his foot grazing her knee. She drew back, and Cyril didn’t try to move nearer. “Her name’s Delores. She just added on ‘Mooney’ after old Tom-cat Mooney died, leaving her this house in his will. Tom Mooney knew Delores—well, real well. Why, my mother told me he brought her from the valley when she was but fourteen years old, an orphan girl.”

“Like me,” Rose Marie murmured. “Well, half an orphan.”

Cyril nodded, acknowledging her, but discreetly, not looking directly at her. “Maybe Tom-cat really did care for her in his own way. They say he promised to marry her, but he was already married, of course. Started her up in business, if you get my drift. A right bastard, but a rich one. And they say she was head over heels in love with him.” He stopped to glance at her, an apology on his face. “I guess I’m being an old woman. Talking too much, ain’t I, little girl?” He ran a broad hand through his pale hair.

“Rose Marie.”

“Sorry. Rose Marie.”

He went on, telling her about the town. At least he didn’t bring up Billy Nimsic. Besides, his banter tempered her silence, making her feel less awkward. She was starting to discover that she liked being informed. At St. Mark’s, Mother Grace told her about a tenth of what went on, and the girls in the dorm kept things from her too. She was nineteen years old, for crying out loud, and it was time she learned about life outside St. Mark’s. Learning was probably what the Mother House expected her to do for three months, though she couldn’t imagine they wanted her to experience everything she had in just two days in Black Apple. She had even tried coffee, and she liked it, at least with sugar and a bit of tinned milk.

“Time to turn in,” Cyril said, and he waited for her to rise from the step. “Real nice talking to you, Rose Marie,” he added as he held the door open. “Maybe see you tomorrow evening.”

Once she was in her bedroom, she remembered to write to Mother Grace. She pulled a pad of foolscap from her suitcase. But she was restless, her situation in Black Apple was difficult to explain, and she couldn’t think of what to put on the page other than the obvious.

Dear Mother Grace,

I arrived at Black Apple safe and sound. I am boarding at a house in town run by a widow. Unfortunately, Father Patrick has died.

No, that was too abrupt.
I am truly sorry to be the bearer of such sad news
, she added. She was about to ask if she could return to the school, when she remembered Mother Grace telling her that the Mother Superior of the order had made it “very clear” that she would have to serve her time in a parish before being admitted to the Mother House, that no special accommodation would be made. Heavens, they might send her someplace even worse than Black Apple—a town where every house had a “no Indians allowed” policy, and there was not one friendly face.

Father Patrick’s housekeeper is very nice, and I have met Father Seamus, the priest of Coal River who is filling in for the time being. Now I’ll say my prayers and go to bed. I will write you a letter once I’ve settled in.

She got up, tucked the note in one of the stamped envelopes Mother Grace had supplied her with, and stuffed it in her raincoat pocket to mail the next day. Idly, she flipped open the Bible:
And after all thy abominations and fornications, thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked, and full of confusion, trodden under foot in thy own blood.
Oh my. She slammed the book shut.

As soon as she heard Cyril leave the bathroom, she went in. Her face in the mirror looked drawn, her eyes, staring back at herself, startled. She was frightened, yes, of course, but something else. She examined her expression. Alert. Well, she had to be alert here; danger was everywhere. Not that she was a stranger to it. If she thought about it, she had to admit that there had been all sorts of danger at St. Mark’s, but like most of the other girls, she had finally grown adept at avoiding furious nuns and mean girls. She had even, more or less, become used to the shadow sister. But Black Apple was different. Here she didn’t know what the dangers were or where they might come from.

She pushed onto her tiptoes and leaned closer to the mirror, examining her eyes. Yes, alert and even bright. Though the town scared her, she had met all kinds of people, and some were even nice. She had more room to manoeuvre than she’d ever had at St. Mark’s, and maybe a bit of freedom to act and not just react. Maybe. She recalled the sound of bone hitting concrete and shivered. Maybe not.

After washing and brushing her teeth, she went back to her room and undressed. She was nervous, scared stiff, in fact, but the flutter in her breast felt something like excitement. She knelt by the bed and said five full decades of the rosary and then two run-throughs of the Orphans’ Prayer. An hour had gone by before she had settled down enough to sleep.

M
RS. REES LED
Rose Marie to the back of the rectory. Standing at the door of a large office with a picture of a sun-stroked Jesus hanging over the desk, she said, “This is Father Seamus’s office when he’s in Black Apple.” She shook her head. “He wants me to wash his office floor and dust the shelves twice a week, but he cancelled the monthly Friday-night dinners for the needy because he says I don’t have time for them. Peculiar, he is.” She took Rose Marie’s hand. “Follow me,” she instructed, leading her past a spartan bedroom to the small room at the end of the hall.

“This is Father Patrick’s office. Or was. I’ll get you to clean it, dear. I just can’t.” She sighed heavily, and Rose Marie, afraid Mrs. Rees was about to weep, hurried over to the desk.

The shelves overtop were crammed with books.
Das Kapital
, she read,
The Communist Manifesto, The Ninety-five Theses, Psychology and Religion, NAACP and Labor, The Man Who Never Died, Heart of Darkness, The Origin of Species.
Heavens, she hadn’t heard of one of them! Looking to the next shelf, she was comforted to see what looked like a row of Bibles, though their various names and sizes confused her: Wycliffe’s Bible, the King James Version, Tanakh, the Quaker Bible, the Geneva Bible, Webster’s Revision, Concord Literal Version, Douay-Rheims Bible, Confraternity Edition.

“I’ll fetch the cleaning supplies,” Mrs. Rees murmured, bustling away.

As soon as she was out the door, Rose Marie picked up a photograph of a young nun from the desk, noticing how the frame was worn from handling, the glass spotted with fingerprints. Studying the sculpted ridge of cheek, the uplifted eyes, the inspired expression of a refined young woman ready to go forward and do God’s work, she wondered if it was a picture of Mother Katharine Drexel, who had “worked with the less fortunate races of America”—Mother Grace had impressed upon her the previous year after Mother Katharine’s death. Her gaze fell to the delicate hands pressed together, the shaped nails, and when she looked back to the eyes, she suddenly knew, despite the black-and-white of the photograph, that they were blue.

“Lovely, isn’t she?” Mrs. Rees said, coming up behind her, almost causing her to jump out of her skin. “Father Patrick was always looking at that photo, he was.”

“It’s Mother Grace.”

“They correspond, you know. Corresponded. A letter from her always put him in a good mood, and he’d read it over a few times before writing her back. Had me mail the reply at the post office, and sure enough, when I returned, he’d be burning her letter in the stove. Once I said to him, ‘Father Patrick, is there something there you don’t want me to see?’ That tickled him. ‘There’s nothing in our letters you’d find anything but ordinary, Mrs. Rees, but I’m not so sure about
some.
’ ”

Rose Marie wondered who the
some
were, and after Mrs. Rees left, it came to her that one of them could be Father Seamus. It was normal for priests and nuns to send letters, she knew, at least concerning church business. But only when necessary. Father Seamus, she was certain, would object to anything more.

“Sacrilegious,” old Father David and Father William used to warn students, “not to give a man of God the utmost respect.” But she wasn’t listening to Father William anymore. She wasn’t so sure about Father David either.

As she dusted, washed, and polished, the room grew warmer and a soft chuckle rolled through the air. She liked Father Patrick’s office; it was comfortable, and she took special care of the old leather chair he had sat in, rubbing in oil with her fingertips. When she picked up the cleaning supplies to go, she took a last look at Mother Grace—Sister Grace, then.
Good night, dearest
, she heard a man’s voice murmur.

  *  *  *  

“You have written, haven’t you?” Mrs. Rees asked Rose Marie during the afternoon snack she called “tea.” “That school of yours? Mother Grace?”

“Yes, I dropped Mother Grace a line, but I was too tired to write much.”
Anxiety.
“I don’t know what to say. Mother Grace will worry if she knows I’m boarding in a house full of men.”

Mrs. Rees looked troubled. “Rose Marie, there’s something I need to tell you about that landlady of yours.”