The Convent: A Novel (2 page)

T
ime had given the convent of Our Lady of Mercy a mystical appearance. Built in the sixteenth century as a place of calm and contemplation, it stood on top of a hill in an otherwise uninhabited part of the sierra among dense pine forest. In the middle of the convent was a big courtyard with a splendid cloister of pointed arches and twisted columns. On one side of the courtyard was the chapel with its tall bell tower, where in the nineteenth century a clock held by two stone angels had been installed with money given by a widowed merchant in memory of his wife. The interior of the chapel was decorated with beautiful but now faded frescoes that depicted the Stations of the Cross. On the other sides of the courtyard, connected via the cloister, which offered a sheltered passage from the elements, were the Mother Superior’s house, the dormitory for the nuns and the refectory, where the nuns assembled after vespers for recreation until the bell rang for night prayer.

Also facing the courtyard was the old school for novices, which had not been used in many years and had been left to stand derelict. These days the only novice in the convent was Sister Lucía, whom the Mother Superior taught in her office. Lucía participated in the full canonical hours and spent the morning reading the scriptures, while the other nuns busied themselves with the upkeep of the convent. The Mother Superior taught her Latin, set her spiritual exercises and tests of humility, heard her confession and gave her Holy Communion against the rules of the Church: only a priest could do that. When she was not taking instruction, the young novice made competent embroideries of religious subjects, which added to the modest income of the convent. In the afternoons the Mother Superior took her for long walks in the orchard, and they discussed the creation of the world, how many nails were used to crucify Christ and other important doctrinal matters in between brief rests in the shade to admire the beauty of nature. Sister Lucía paid attention to the older woman, asked questions of elaboration rather than disbelief and memorised everything. Although she was not very bright, she was pious, and the Mother Superior, who had guided many girls through the noviciate, had no doubt that one day Lucía would enter the kingdom of Heaven.

The guesthouse behind the old school for novices was rarely used, but was kept in good order by the nuns, who prided themselves on their hospitality. It was here the Bishop had slept on the few occasions that he had stayed the night during his monthly visits. Tempted by the splendid mountain views from the balcony, he would sit with a glass of cold lemonade to watch the sun disappear below the pine trees and make small talk with the Mother Superior, their discussion punctuated by the calls of the wise owls living in the roofs of the convent.

A corridor from the refectory led to the kitchen, the bake-house and the buttery, where the provisions brought by car from the city were kept: sacks of flour, pulses and grains, barrels of salted fish, an icebox made of wood and insulated with cork for those rare occasions when they bought fresh fish.

Every morning, at five o’clock, the sound of the bell woke the nuns, and the first thing they did was to kneel before their beds and pray for the suffering of humankind. Then they washed, dressed and hurried to the chapel, where the Mother Superior was ready to start the dawn prayer. They had time for tea with a slice of bread and a piece of fruit in the refectory before they made their way back to the chapel for the office of prime. After the prayer they assembled in the courtyard, where the Mother Superior allocated them their tasks for the day. The women received their instructions with a bow and went to their posts in silence.

Every three hours they broke off to return to the chapel and pray. Before lunchtime Sister María Inés did her round of the convent to inspect their work. With her hands clasped under the sleeves of her habit, she asked questions, helped solve problems and was generous with her praise, but did not leave without reminding the women that the continuing existence of the convent as well as the salvation of their souls depended on the quality of their work. At one o’clock, they ate lunch without speaking to each other, while a sister read aloud from a book of prayers. Afterwards they had a little free time to write letters to relatives and do odd jobs for themselves.

After the mid-afternoon prayer, they resumed their work until it was time to assemble for supper, which began with each nun having a reluctant spoonful of that cod-liver oil. It was a practice started by the Mother Superior, who was aware of its health benefits from her missionary days. When supper finished, they had an hour of recreation, which they spent doing needlework, reading or, once a month, watching the magic lantern show which the Mother Superior would put on in the refectory with slides ordered by post. It was followed by vespers, and then the nuns were free until the night prayer and the Great Silence. In the middle of the night they left their beds to attend nocturns.

On the eastern transept of the chapel was the library, filled with religious manuscripts and printed books that had not been banned by the Inquisition. There were two gardens in the convent, one where the nuns grew the vegetables and herbs they used in the kitchen and one for the flowers they sold in the summer to a florist in the city to supplement their income. Behind the chapel was a well-equipped carpentry workshop, which had not been used in years, and a cemetery with crosses and gravestones covered with yellow moss where the nuns were buried. There were several other buildings and rooms in the convent, but like the school for novices they, too, had been left empty for a long time and had fallen into disrepair. The music room, where in the past the choir that was famous beyond the borders of the diocese practised, was now used for the storage of furniture and tools which no one wanted to admit that they would never use again. A group of white storks had made their nests on the tall chimneys of the convent, where they stayed until late October, and then left for the African coast, not to return until spring. Over the years the number of nuns in the convent had declined, and these days there were only five and the Mother Superior. Sister María Inés had no doubt that they were the last survivors of an age that was coming to its end.

When the nuns in the chapel heard the baby crying, they crossed themselves and looked at each other with terror. The Mother Superior spoke in a calm firm voice. ‘Sister Carlota,’ she said. Go to my room and feed the child. The milk is on the bedside table.’ She gestured to the other nuns to stand and added: ‘I will be with you as soon as we finish our prayer.’

Sister Carlota obeyed with a bow. She was the oldest nun in the convent, already old when Sister María Inés had arrived, but still carried out her daily tasks with a spirit that could only be understood as a candid contract with death not to call her over as long as she could be useful. The Mother Superior depended on her. Having been brought up in another time, Sister Carlota always carried out any instruction she was given, even if she disagreed with it. She was the one who had welcomed Sister María Inés when she had come back from Africa, and had taken her under her wing with maternal affection. They had remained close until Sister María Inés, having been elected mother superior, had reluctantly distanced herself from the old woman, convinced that their intimacy would compromise her authority.

The nuns watched Sister Carlota leave the chapel and turned to the Mother Superior. They did not dare ask her about the baby. Sister María Inés cleared her throat and resumed the service. The hymns did not dissolve the sense of mystery. She ordered the door shut, but she could tell that the nuns continued not to pay attention. When at last the prayers ended, the women remained on their pews with the hope of learning why there was a baby in the convent. But the Mother Superior was in no mood to explain. She said: ‘That is it. Go in the peace of Christ.’

She left the chapel before them and hurried to her room. Sister Carlota was sitting on the bed with the child in her arms. He was no longer crying. The Mother Superior took him from her with great care and noticed a little silver medal pinned to the bed sheet with which the baby was wrapped.

‘It is Santa Brígida,’ Sister Carlota said. ‘She will look after him.’

The sun had passed its highest point and slanted through the narrow windows. The heat in the room rose. On warm days like this, Sister María Inés often took refuge in the library, whose high-beam ceiling kept it cool all afternoon and allowed her to work there all day, emerging only for prayers and meals. But a room heavy with the smell of old parchment would not have been healthy for a newborn baby. Without taking her eyes from the child, she asked Sister Carlota to open a window. ‘Only one,’ she said.

The old nun did as she was told. She had a natural love of the young and defenceless. The mission closest to her heart was saving the stray dogs of the city and bringing them to the convent, where she cared for them as if she were Saint Francis of Assisi. Time had shown no mercy to her eyesight, but this did not prevent her from going about the convent at any time of day, for she knew the location of every room, staircase and corridor by heart. The Mother Superior said: ‘The baby will need to be changed soon, Carlota. Make him some nappies from the softest cloth you can find.’

The nun promised that she would do so, and asked: ‘Have you decided what to do with him, Reverend Mother?’

Sister María Inés shook her head.

‘Perhaps someone would know of a childless couple,’ the old nun suggested.

‘That would be against the law,’ the Mother Superior said.

‘Then we could try the orphanage.’

The Mother Superior also dismissed that suggestion with a grimace. ‘It would be like giving the baby away to the gypsies,’ she said, and sent the nun away. ‘I am sorry I made you miss the prayer, Carlota. The nappies and nothing else. I relieve you of your other duties for the rest of the day. Pray in your room.’

The old woman thanked her with a bow and left after giving the baby a lingering look. The Mother Superior rocked the child to sleep. No one was allowed in her room without her permission. She cleaned it with a care and commitment that one who did not know her might mistake for humility, but which was in fact a desire for privacy that despite her many years of convent life was as strong as ever. Every day she would wake up long before the bell summoned the sisters to the chapel for the dawn prayer, wash, put on her old habit and take a walk round the convent in the dark as quietly as a ghost, breathing in the night moisture redolent with the scent of pine in the air. Then she would unlock the door of the chapel, light the oil lamps that had gone off during the night, inspect the traps baited with chocolate and throw away the dead rats before Sister Carlota saw them and burst into tears.

By the time that dawn would break, she would be back in her room and sitting at her desk. Her administrative duties usually took up most of her morning. She prepared and signed invoices and recorded all transactions in a book filled with her beautiful handwriting, which she had learned from the medieval calligraphy manuals kept in the library. The convent had no bank account. She kept the money, the promissory notes from their various debtors and the ancient titles to the land that belonged to the convent from the days of King Philip II in a big coffer with three padlocks whose heavy keys hung with the rosary looped over her belt. After updating the accounts, she answered the many letters from women who enquired about taking the veil, trying not to discourage any from joining the convent but stressing the sacrifices that they should be prepared to make. Above all, she tried to estimate the intensity of their faith, for she knew that it was a decision invariably made on impulse, and urged them to take time to consider with great care what they were about to do. This she did perhaps too well because very few women ever wrote to her again.

Her afternoons were devoted to her favourite pastime: servicing the car. Like nursing, it was another skill that she had learned during her time in Africa. The old Ford was kept in a shed behind the chapel, where Midas, their superannuated donkey, also quietly lived out his twilight years. After lunch Sister María Inés put on a loose white smock over her habit and went to the shed where she pumped up the tyres of the car, topped up the radiator, lubricated the engine and fought the doomed fight against the rust that spread on its chassis. Once a month she polished the car from end to end with the wax the nuns used on the wooden floors of the convent. She did all the repairs herself, pleased that she saved the convent the money they would otherwise have to pay the mechanic in the city. She had begun to teach Sister Beatriz about car engines with the hope that one day she would take up the responsibility of keeping the Ford alive.

She would stay in the shed for a long time, breaking only for a brief meditation and the rosary. Then she would return to her room, hang up her smock and make her way to the chapel ahead of the sisters to prepare for the mid-afternoon prayer. She would walk up and down the nave carrying out her tasks in silent meditation, while the draught from the door would make the candles flicker and her shadow flutter on every wall. It was an important ritual. By the time the nuns would come in for the prayer, she would already be in the presence of the Holy Spirit.

But she did not go to the shed this afternoon. Rocking the baby to sleep, she stood at the window and looked at the steps where the suitcase had been found earlier that day. Sister Lucía had driven to the city and would not be back until after vespers. Sister María Inés went from window to window pulling the curtains. In the stifling room she began to sweat, and it was then with the baby in her arms that she understood the significance of what had happened that morning. She kissed the child on the forehead and looked at him as if his face were familiar to her. Then she said: ‘It has been a very long time. I no longer expected you to come. But Our Lord behaves in ways that surprise even his most devoted servants.’ When she was young, she had prayed to God for any sign of mercy, and had continued to pray for mercy for several years after becoming a nun, but He had not seemed to listen. Eventually she had given up praying for mercy, without admitting to herself that she was disappointed in God. Many more years had passed before she had asked His forgiveness for having doubted His wisdom, and still she would sometimes weep in bed with bursts of tears that were heard as far as the nuns’ dormitory.