Second Skin (39 page)

Jaqui, praying in Latin, as was the habit of the order, formed the words and felt as clumsy as a drunken bluejay. Often, as now, she was struck with the awesome asceticism of the life she had chosen. Or had it chosen her? This was her fear, that she had lost all control over her life. Which, of course, she had. As Bernice so accurately pointed out, one entered the order ceding all control to God.

Jaqui prayed, and as she did so, doubt crept in. She knew – because Bernice had told her – that doubt was the work of the devil. Belief in God was the Shining Path, but her fear was that that divine belief was a sham, nothing more than blind, unthinking obedience, and Jaqui hated anything blind and unthinking.

She tried not to hate her father, she tried not to hate her brother Caesare for being blind and unthinking about her and their father and the world at large. She knew hate was the work of the devil; that if she hated she was not worthy of being in the order, not worthy of Bernice’s trust, not worthy of God. To hate was like dying inside, and yet she could not help what she felt. These were evil men and in her heart she knew it. God could never smile upon these men of her family as, surely, He smiled upon Michael.

She was not pure; but Bernice had told her purity was not a component of human nature. Purity was for the saints and for God. The object – surely the only real object in submitting to God’s will – was to strive for that purity.

Jaqui, her head bent, kneeling within the sight of God, felt His presence sweep through the chapel like the rush of wings across treetops. She felt a warmth and closed her eyes. It was as if a great hand squeezed her shoulder, and she was reassured.

Perhaps Bernice was right – perhaps she was destined for great things.

In the turning of the solstice, with the coming of spring, Jaqui met Paul Chiaramonte at the small bakery on one corner of the block in Astoria dominated by Santa Maria. Mrs Paglia was gathering up six loaves of bread for the convent when Paul walked in. Jaqui, who was counting out the money on Mrs Paglia’s crumb-strewn glass countertop, looked up to see a dark-faced, dark-eyed young man regarding her.

He sauntered to the counter with the exaggerated air of a drunkard or a kid wanting to act older than he was. He did not reek of liquor and he could not take his eyes off her. Jaqui smiled at him and he looked as if he would faint. His knees seemed to buckle and he clutched the edge of the counter with the desperation of a drowning man.

Mrs Paglia, ever the worrier, eyed him and said, ‘Paulie, are you okay?’

‘Sure, Mrs Paglia,’ Paul croaked. ‘I could use a drinka water, though.’

She nodded, put Jaqui’s bags down, and bustled into the back.

Paul grinned at Jaqui, said, ‘Hi! My name’s Paul Chiaramonte.’

She extended her hand. ‘Jaqui Leonforte.’

Paul seemed so stunned he did not know what to do with her hand. He continued to stare at her as if she were made of porcelain. Then, as if regaining consciousness, he grasped her hand, pumped it twice, then let it go as if it had been a hot poker. He seemed disappointed he had done that.

‘I live around heah,’ he said. ‘You?’

She shook her head. ‘Ozone Park. But in a few weeks I’m going to be staying at Santa Maria.’

He goggled at her. ‘You’re going to be a nun?’

‘Is that so odd?’

‘Oh, God.’ He seemed so crestfallen. ‘I haven’t even gotten to know you yet.’

At that moment, Mrs Paglia returned with a glass of water. Paul drank and Jaqui paid for her bread.

‘Nice meeting you,’ she murmured, and could not help giggling as he almost choked on the water.

She also could not help thinking about her effect on him. He was no kindred spirit. She did not feel drawn to him in the same way as she did to Michael. She and Michael shared the same emotional wavelength; that kind of intimacy she did not believe could be repeated.

But she felt something else for Paul. Jaqui had never had a boyfriend, had never, in fact, gone out on a date. Boys bored her with their groping sweaty hands and their lethargic brains. Michael’s brain was agile and unpredictable and she loved him for it. This was, she supposed, why she had not tried to stop him from going after Grandpa’s murderer. She could not in any way condone his thirst for vengeance, but at least she could understand it. Nietzsche wrote that the greatest danger to mankind is that he will choke on compassion.

This was, in a way, what Bernice had taught her: that valor was a matter of fanaticism. In the end, compassion had been an inadequate defense of the Sacred Heart of Santa Maria. Therefore, God had shown Donà di Piave and her warrior-nuns another way. They took up the swords of the soldiers and had beaten back the enemy. And then God had shown them another way: what Bernice liked to call the diplomacy of fanaticism. ‘But our own kind of fanaticism,’ Bernice said. ‘In those days females needed fanaticism in order to rise above their traditional lot in life, to gain the strength to free themselves from the bondage of drudgery. But God showed Donà di Piave a divine truth: that fanaticism is inherently dangerous because it can so easily blind the faithful to facts.’

When God struck the soldier’s bloody sword from Donà di Piave’s fist when the Sacred Heart of Santa Maria had successfully been defended, He ordered her never to take it up again. God blinded her for the space of thirty seconds, and in that time He showed her the path she dare not take. Fanatics, God revealed to her, are blinded to the truths all around them because they are fixated on the one truth by which they set their sails.

In light of all Bernice had taught her, it did not seem odd to Jaqui that Michael had become something of a hero when he killed the two men responsible for Grandpa’s murder. On the other hand, she knew Michael could not long tolerate notoriety in the world he had come to loathe, and she knew, deep in her soul, that he would soon be going far away.

Paul, too, seemed different, though not in the same way. Thus, to her utter astonishment, she found herself standing outside the bakery, waiting for him to emerge. When he did, he seemed as astounded as she. He carried her bags to the convent and, after she had deposited them in the kitchen, was still waiting for her outside the iron gates.

They walked together in the gathering twilight. Cars passed by, their headlights sweeping past them in brief golden flares. Streetlights dropped puddles of bluish light on the pavement.

They spoke very little, of nothing and everything. Jaqui had no desire to open herself up to him in the way she did with Michael. Besides, that was a kind of sacred relationship that she would not violate, even with Bernice. Her desire for Paul was like an acute hunger in the pit of her stomach. And, though it was an entirely new sensation for her, she suspected it was foolish for her to attempt to satisfy it. Within weeks, she would be locked away from Michael’s world – and Paul’s – within the white stone walls of Santa Maria. She had pledged herself to the order, and far from causing her to doubt that vow, her feelings for Paul only made it stronger.

And yet she wanted him. It was foolish because it was so selfish. He was smitten with her now, but in time he would get over it. To go deeper than this innocent walk, to explore this longing in her lower belly, and then to turn her back on him was more than selfish. It would be cruel. But hadn’t she already warned him about her intentions? Yes, yes. And still he took her hand, gazed into her eyes with such naked hunger that her knees turned to jelly.

She had never been naked in front of a man. As a small child, she had run naked with her brothers, but that had stopped long, long ago. And once in a while they would catch a glimpse of one another through the steamy bathroom they shared. But, anyway, that was different, all curiosity.

There was none of this liquid heat she felt as Paul opened the buttons of her dress, none of this breathless anticipation as her stiff fingers fumbled at his belt. But when his hands pushed aside her bra and closed over her breasts, it was she who almost fainted from the sensation. Her eyes fluttered closed and her body went limp in his arms.

He carried her through the damp grass of his backyard to the toolshed, kicking open the door. The sharp tang of well-oiled steel mingled with his own scent, making her nostrils flare. She gave a tiny moan and kissed the skin of his bare shoulder.

He loomed above her like a god. The experience, so unearthly up until now, assumed a supraclarity she would carry with her for the rest of her days. He did not press down on her, he did not fumble and hurt her with his powerful hands. Instead, he waited for her to reach up to him, to bring his heat down to her quivering flesh.

He did not enter her at once, but played with her, kissing her all over – on her forehead, her cheeks, her eyelids, her lips, his tongue slipping between her partly open lips. She panted into his mouth, arching her breasts against him.

When his mouth enclosed a nipple, her thighs rippled open, and when he slipped to her belly, licking her there, she gasped, kneading the powerful muscles of his shoulders.

‘Oh, no!’ she cried when he reached her sex, but she had no idea what she meant by that. He opened her with his lips and tongue, and she smelled the roses from Santa Maria, as if her petals were giving off the same rich scent. She was immersed in sensation she had not been able to imagine. She felt a growing heaviness between her thighs, spiraling outward through her whole body. It was as if they had been transported off the earth and were lying on a planet whose gravity drew them down, sucked them inward to its glowing core.

He slipped into her and she wanted him so completely she twined her arms around him, bringing him to her, lifting her thighs as he tore past her ribbon of membrane, and then he was inside.

Her eyes flew open and she licked the sweat from his forehead. Her eyes, big as moons, were all pupil in the darkness of the shed. She saw rakes and pruners, hedge clippers, a metal can of three-in-one oil, two pairs of soiled garden gloves, piles of wooden stakes, bags of lawn seed and Holly-tone, and these became like stars, like constellations floating in a mist of ecstasy. She wanted him with every fiber of her being, right now, right here, and it was happening. Afterward, she wept for the exquisite beauty of it and for the loss, because she knew she would never have it again.

Jaqui knelt in the chapel, waiting. It was almost midnight. Outside, a full moon rode in a clear sky. Its light fell through the long, slender stained-glass window, painting pale patterns on the stone floor and wooden pews. The altar before which Jaqui knelt was draped in purple velvet upon which sat a chalice of chased silver. She could hear chanting.

She was dressed in robes of white linen with an overdress of heavy black muslin, on which was stitched a cross in gold thread. It was an exact replica of the garments worn by Donà di Piave centuries ago. The last time it was worn was when Bernice had knelt before a similar altar to be initiated by Mary Margaret.

Jaqui, head bowed, eyes closed in prayer, felt Bernice enter the chapel. She carried with her the broadsword of Donà di Piave. Bernice took her place and began the Latin prayer. She poured sacrificial wine into the chalice and, as she recited another prayer, anointed the tip of the sword with the wine. She wiped it clean with a white cloth, then held the newly stained material aloft.

‘Here is the blood of those who died in the service of the order. We remember and honor them,’ Bernice intoned. ‘Here is the blood of Donà di Piave. We honor and cherish her memory.’ She carefully folded the cloth three times and placed it beneath the silver chalice.

Then she stepped down off the dais of the altar and stood before Jaqui. ‘Sister Marie Rose, you have been chosen by God, you have been touched by Donà di Piave to continue her work in God’s name.’ She brought the flat of the blade onto Jaqui’s left shoulder and let it rest there. ‘Swear before God that you will serve His will wherever it may lead you.’

‘I swear,’ Jaqui murmured.

Bernice moved the flat of the blade to her right shoulder. ‘Swear that you will serve the order. Swear that you will do whatever is required of you.’

‘I swear.’

Bernice moved the flat of the blade to the top of her head. ‘Swear that your life, your mind, and your heart belong to the order and to God.’

‘I swear.’

Bernice removed the blade, and she and Jaqui recited a Latin prayer. Then Bernice bade Jaqui rise and, grasping her shoulders, kissed her on first one cheek, then the other.

Bernice’s eyes were shining with the light of God. ‘It is done,’ she said.

Of course, at the last moment it threatened to all come undone. It was her fault, Jaqui knew that, but it was a kind of divine intervention, as well, as Bernice said. She had said her good-byes to Michael, who had come to see her, as she knew he must, before he slipped off to God only knew where. Jaqui was unsurprised by his leave-taking – or that he was taking the radical step of joining the military. He needed to get as far away from Ozone Park as he could. Besides, John had been in the military during World War II, stationed in Tokyo. It would not surprise her if Michael ended up there, as well.

But the farewell proved far more difficult than she had imagined. Michael was choked with emotion. He would have loved taking her with him, so that they could continue their journey to far-off climes together. But that was Michael for you, always wanting his cake and eating it, too.

She was far too happy for him to immediately feel the loss. But he seemed so melancholy she knew that despite his facade he was missing Grandpa with an almost palpable pain. He had been the closest to the old man, had understood him far better than either of Grandpa’s sons. Perhaps, though, that was the way of the world.

She was also happy to see him go because he would not be around when she died. She did not think she could bear knowing that he was standing above her grave as they lowered her coffin into the ground. She had almost withered and died to see the look on his face when they had stood over Grandpa’s sprawled body in the bloody courtyard. She never wanted to see that expression again.

As for Caesare, they never spoke again after the incident in the car. It was just as well. He had never cared to take the time to understand her. Caesare had inherited too much of his father. He felt about women as he did about furniture: they were useful when and where they were needed.