The Convent: A Novel (3 page)

The baby had fallen asleep and she placed him on the bed. Then she went and put the old suitcase in the back of her wardrobe, and knelt in front of the statue of the Virgin to pray to the glory of God.

I
n the refectory the three nuns were cutting and parcelling the altar breads, their main source of income. The breads had to be ready before the women went to bed. Once a week, very early in the morning, a baker came from the city in a van to collect them. The nuns had spent the entire afternoon talking about the child and had fallen behind with their work. Now it was almost evening, and they worked in a hurry, no longer talking to each other. When Sister Carlota entered, they looked at her with expectation. Without saying a word, she went to the storeroom and came back with a clean tablecloth and the scissors. She sat at the table and began to cut the cloth in squares. Sister Teresa could not stand her silence. She asked: ‘Have you learned anything about the baby?’

The old woman shrugged. ‘I am not allowed to say. Ask the Mother. But I don’t think she knows much either.’

The nuns resumed their work, but it was not long before Sister Ana spoke up. ‘Nevertheless, he is here now. And we have to decide what to do.’

Sister Carlota cut another square from the tablecloth. She said: ‘I think she means to keep him,’ and put the piece of cloth with the ones she had already cut.

Sister Ana frowned. ‘That is out of the question,’ she said, and the lines on her face which owed more to her forbidding temperament than old age, deepened. She had come to the convent of Our Lady of Mercy from another convent, which she had left with bitterness because her abilities had not been fully acknowledged. She knew stenography, spoke German, French and Italian, and had brought with her a Remington typewriter made in the previous century and almost too heavy to lift, which only she could use. Sister María Inés did not like her but admired her clerical skills. She often asked her to help with her correspondence, even though she had ambivalent feelings towards the typewriter, which she suspected was invented to make lying easier. Her reasoning was simple: she believed that handwriting revealed the truth behind one’s words no matter how hard one tried to hide it with subterfuges, ambiguities and outright lies. It was her opinion as an amateur graphologist. In fact she claimed that she could open any manuscript from the convent library and tell from the penmanship whether the medieval copyist had been a pious Christian or a lost soul who now burned in Hell.

Sister Ana had nothing but scorn for her theories but never dared say so in her presence. She cut another altar bread and said: ‘I propose we discuss the matter of the child tonight.’

‘There is no point,’ Sister Beatriz said. ‘The Mother makes her own decisions.’

‘Not if she intends to keep the child. That would be a gross violation of the rules of this place.’

‘The Mother knows the rules as well as you do. We’ll have to abide by her decision.’

‘Don’t talk to me about obedience,’ Sister Ana said and returned to her work. But it was not long before she spoke again: ‘In any case there are higher authorities than the Mother in this world. I hope she intends at least to notify the Guardia.’

‘There is also the Bishop,’ Sister Carlota said.

At one end of the room, a large wooden Jesus on the Cross was fixed to the floor. The light cast his shadow on the wall as high up as the ceiling. After four centuries in the damp air of the convent, his body had turned a dull, almost black colour. The remains of a red colour on his crown of thorns were in fact real blood: some time in the eighteenth century, a mother superior had taken it down and worn it on Holy Week to recreate the Passion. It was one of those extravagances that Sister María Inés did not approve of because they seemed to her grim ailments of the soul rather than examples of great piety.

Sister Ana pointed at the old nun and said: ‘Sister Carlota is right. His Excellency ought to know.’

‘That is one thing we don’t have to worry about,’ Sister Teresa said. ‘His Excellency is omniscient.’

Sister Ana shot her an angry glance. ‘That is vulgarity. Sister Teresa, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.’

‘It is the truth. The Bishop knows everything that goes on in here. He must have a crystal ball on his desk.’

‘You are expected to obey His Excellency, Sister Teresa,’ Sister Ana said.

Sister Carlota cut the last square from the tablecloth. ‘Our vows are to God,’ she said, inspecting her work.

Sister Teresa said: ‘Exactly–not to Sister Ana.’

It was a calculated insult. From the day Sister Ana had taken her vows, more than a decade earlier, she had dreamed of being in charge of a convent, which she would make the leading one in the country. She hoped to fulfil her ambition in the convent of Our Lady of Mercy, where she had immediately taken on many responsibilities with a zeal that had impressed everyone. One of her first accomplishments had been the digging of an artesian well so that they could irrigate the crops without the need for a pump. Next she taught herself stenography and bookkeeping, and asked permission to buy a gramophone, not in order to play music but to learn foreign languages by listening to records made for that purpose. All this she did without neglecting her religious duties. She never missed prayers; she worked in the kitchen, said the rosary, did her penances and everything else that was expected of her. And yet Sister María Inés could still not decide whether the woman was motivated by deep faith or personal ambition, which was wholly inappropriate for a servant of God.

Sister Ana said curtly: ‘My only desire is to fulfil my duties as best as my body and mind allow, Sister Teresa. I don’t shirk from my obligations.’

‘No you don’t,’ the other woman said. ‘But sometimes one should take time off work to consider whether what one is doing is really what God expects or not.’

‘This place is too small to allow us the privilege of ignoring each other,’ Sister Beatriz said. ‘We have to live together whether we like it or not.’

‘That doesn’t sound very noble,’ Sister Ana said. ‘But at least it is sincere.’

Sister Beatriz said: ‘I think we ought to keep him. Whoever brought the baby here could’ve taken him to the orphanage or a church in the city. That can only mean they want us to keep him. We ought to respect their wish.’

‘Whoever left him on the steps did not care for him,’ Sister Ana said. ‘You don’t abandon a child you love.’

‘Some people are simply too poor to look after a child,’ Sister Teresa said.

‘In that case,’ Sister Ana said, ‘they shouldn’t have children.’

They had to wait for Sister Lucía to come back from the city to learn more about the baby. A little after seven they heard the Ford, and hurried to help the young novice with the provisions before it was time for the night prayer. It was dark when they assembled in the chapel, each holding a hurricane lamp. Although they were used to the Mother Superior’s furtive ways, they did not notice that she was already there kneeling in prayer. Only when they blew out their lamps, sat on the pews and their eyes grew used to the dark did they see her taking shape out of the shadows and coming to the altar, the only sound that of her habit brushing against the floor. She began: ‘
Aperi, Domine, os meum ad benedicendum nomen sanctum tuum.
’ Unlike noontime, she now led the prayers with great concentration, speaking with a moving voice while keeping her eyes shut throughout the service, shrouded in shadow except for her face, which, white and solemn, reflected the candlelight from the brass holders at either end of the altar. When the prayers ended, Sister Ana stood up to speak, but Sister María Inés raised her hand and stopped her before she had the chance to say a single word: ‘Not here.’

The nuns lit their lamps and followed her across the courtyard to the refectory, where Sister María Inés asked them to sit. When she finally spoke, there was no hesitation in her voice. She said: ‘The arrival of the child is nothing less than a miracle.’

The nuns had never heard her speak with such conviction. They all understood the significance of the meeting for what it was: a momentous occasion. The Mother Superior had the reputation of considering any decision for several days before making up her mind, and if that rule did not apply in this instance, it could only be because she was aware of something that they did not know themselves. But she had no intention of telling them what it was. ‘Believe me,’ she said. ‘This is a matter between Our Lord and me.’ Then she asked them not to doubt her piety or her good sense, but to accept the baby as a gift to the convent from God.

Sister Ana did not agree. ‘Our life is one of prayer and renunciation, Mother,’ she said. ‘When we became nuns, we agreed to renounce all ties that bind us to this world, and that includes having children.’

‘That child was not borne by one of us,’ Sister María Inés said, pacing the room. ‘And yet if we choose to keep him, then we choose to love him with a love that is even purer than the maternal love we have renounced.’

‘That is deception not theology,’ the other nun said. ‘The result is the same: we have a child in our midst.’

‘I say let’s keep him,’ Sister Teresa said. ‘It’d be a blessing. All we do here is grow vegetables and flowers.’

‘I agree,’ Sister Beatriz said. ‘I don’t see how looking after a child could be incompatible with our mission.’

Sister Ana said: ‘I understand the child is a boy. This is one more reason not to keep him. This is a retreat for women. It would be a sacrilege to have a male child living here.’

Sister Carlota said: ‘Just like Moses.’

‘Yes,’ Sister Lucía said. ‘But in a suitcase not in a basket of bulrushes.’

‘He isn’t ours, and he isn’t Moses,’ Sister Ana said. ‘Who will take care of him? There are only six of us and our work takes up all our day.’

‘There will be no changes to your daily schedule,’ Sister María Inés said. ‘I will look after him myself.’

‘I would like to help too,’ Sister Beatriz said. ‘The problem is that a baby needs a woman’s milk.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Sister María Inés said. ‘I helped babies in Africa without a drop of it. One can mix ordinary milk with other things to make something similar to human milk. But it has to be in exact proportions. Only that way will a baby be able to digest it.’ They had gone past the start of the Great Silence. The Mother Superior stood at the head of the table and rested her hands against it. ‘Well, I thank you,’ she said. ‘There is nothing more to be said. Let me think about it. You may retire. Sleep in peace.’

The truth was that she had decided to keep the baby long before discussing the matter with the nuns, but nevertheless was pleased that all but one had given her their support. When Sister Ana passed by her to leave the room, the Mother Superior touched her on the arm. She said: ‘I understand your reservations, Ana. But I have no doubt it is Our Lord’s wish.’

The other woman paused and then replied with a few words in Latin that made the Mother Superior shudder: ‘
Crux sancta sit mihi lux. Non draco sit mihi dux
.’

Sister Ana walked out of the room and followed the other nuns in the cloister to the dormitory. Sister María Inés watched her in the moonlight until her shadow had disappeared in the corridors of the convent. Then she returned to her room, where she made sure the baby sleeping quietly wrapped in a blanket was well. She removed her wooden pectoral cross, kissed it and placed it on her bedside table, then took off her veil and her habit and arranged them carefully on a chair. In her flowing white undergarment, she lay softly next to the baby.

She had not paid attention to her hair before, the way she did not care about her body besides keeping it clean, which she did in a washtub filled with cold water even in winter: she did not approve of the indulgence of hot baths. But when she lay in bed that night, she noticed how grey her hair was, and for the first time became conscious of her age. She thought: ‘I am an old woman,’ with as much surprise as if it had only happened the previous night while she slept. She brought her head closer to the baby, and smelled the odour of leather from the old suitcase on his skin. She would have to make a cradle. She closed her eyes and thanked God for bringing the baby to her. She knew that it meant He had forgiven her. During the night she left her bed to warm some milk and feed the baby, and later she rose to go to nocturns. After the prayer she returned to her room and slept peacefully until just before dawn. Then she opened her eyes, and the words that Sister Ana had said to her in Latin the previous evening came back to her, making her shudder again: ‘May the Holy Cross be my light. Let not the dragon lead me.’

S
ister María Inés had good reason to believe that the arrival of the child at the convent was the work of Divine Providence. When she was nineteen years old and her name was still Isabel, she had answered a discreet advertisement in the newspaper. A few days after receiving a reply she took the train to another town in search of an address that turned out to be difficult to find. The three-storey art-nouveau villa with the gabled roof was far from the centre of the town, at the end of an interminable boulevard with palm trees on each side. Although Isabel had come on the agreed day, the shutters on the several bow windows were closed and there was no sign of life. Isabel rang the bell and waited long enough to think again about her decision before an unfriendly voice behind the door asked her name and rescued her from her mounting doubts. An old woman in a black dress allowed her to enter without a greeting and showed her into the parlour. Although the shutters on the windows facing the street were shut, an open door that gave onto an enclosed courtyard let in sufficient light.

The room had a tiled floor and was decorated with expensive furniture that smelled of beeswax. The potted tropical plants in the corners had grown out of control and threatened to swallow the paintings on the walls, but they kept the air agreeably cool in such an infernal summer. The woman who had let Isabel in studied her briefly with intense eyes and left without a word. The silence made Isabel tremble. In the years to come, she would grow accustomed to solitude and even reach the point where she would favour it over the company of people, but at that young age she still thought of it as a foretaste of the eternity of death. Waiting for someone to come, she walked out to the courtyard, where birds hidden in a mass of dense ivy raised her spirits with their deafening noise. A piano began in an upstairs room and silenced the birds. Isabel sat on a bench and listened. Some time later the music stopped, a door opened across the courtyard and a tall woman in a black crêpe de Chine dress came towards her.

‘Who are you?’ the woman asked.

Isabel stood up. ‘I’ve come for the piano lessons, madam.’

‘Is that so?’

Round her neck the woman wore a gold chain ending with a pair of pince-nez, which she now raised to her eyes and studied her visitor. Isabel said: ‘We have an appointment.’

‘We do?’ the woman asked. ‘I have never seen you before in my life.’

‘I…’

‘Speak up.’

‘I wrote to you. You replied a week ago.’

‘Show me the letter.’

Isabel searched her handbag. The woman held her glasses to her nose and read the letter in silence. ‘That explains it,’ she said at last. ‘You are early. Your appointment isn’t until the afternoon.’

‘I apologise. I took an earlier train in case it was delayed.’

The woman tore the letter up and said: ‘Do not talk to me about train schedules. I am not a stationmaster. There is a reason why I receive only by appointment.’

‘I could come back later.’

‘Stay. It so happens that I am free.’ The woman walked into the parlour and beckoned Isabel to follow her. ‘Do you like the piano?’ she asked, inspecting the overgrown plants with satisfaction.

‘Very much.’

‘And do you want to
learn
?’

‘Yes.’

The woman fixed her with a stare. ‘Are you certain?’

Isabel nodded.

‘Good,’ the woman said. ‘Have you done this before?’ Isabel shook her head from side to side. ‘I see. Never before. There is no need to be afraid, child. Come with me.’

She opened the door and came into a hall where the old woman who had showed Isabel in stood holding a rolling pin. She looked at Isabel with mistrust, leaving her in no doubt that she would use it on her if her mistress gave her the order. But the other woman only said: ‘Thank you, Bienvenida. It is fine. I will call you when I need you.’

The old woman nodded respectfully and let them pass. They made their way to the upper floor by a grand wooden staircase that creaked under their feet and entered a big room with a huge arched window. As soon as the woman closed the door, she became a different person. ‘I am sorry, my dear,’ she said and offered Isabel a seat. ‘In my line of work we have to take precautions.’

‘I understand, madam.’

‘If only we did not live in the Middle Ages,’ the woman sighed.

This room was also elegantly furnished with an upright piano, a heavy desk and a large ceramic fireplace. The walls were decorated with friezes painted with floral patterns that pleased the eye. The enormous window had no shutters, but its stained glass was enough to preserve the privacy of those inside from the prying stares directed up from the pavements of the boulevard. The room was cooled by an oscillating fan that rustled the papers on the desk with each pass. A door behind the desk was partly open, and Isabel saw that it led into a smaller room with medical equipment crammed round an operating table. The woman saw her staring at it, and went and closed the door. She said: ‘Do not fear these things, my dear. They have been invented to help us. Do you really like music?’

‘Was it you playing earlier, madam?’

The woman nodded. ‘I am very fond of music. Also, it is good exercise for my hands. They are as important to a surgeon as to a concert pianist.’ She patted her visitor on the shoulder. ‘I apologise about the charade of the piano lessons. But I am told the Guardia have begun to suspect.’

‘I know it is a serious offence.’

‘Indeed it is.’

‘Is there a chance we might get arrested?’ Isabel asked, and looked at the door. She waited but nothing happened: all she could hear was the birds chirping in the courtyard.

‘There is always the possibility,’ the woman said. ‘But don’t worry too much. As you can tell by now, I take every precaution.’ She sat at her desk and began to arrange her papers. She said: ‘Believe me, I’m more worried about it than you. A prison cell would be much less comfortable than what I am used to.’

A horse-drawn cart went past outside, rattling the stained glass. Isabel held her breath until she could no longer hear it. She said: ‘This is not the right time for me to have a child.’

The woman stopped her. ‘I do not need to know, my dear. I am a doctor, not a cleric.’ She finished clearing her desk and joined her visitor on the sofa. ‘What I have to be certain about is whether it is your final decision,’ she said, taking the girl’s hand in hers. ‘I hope no one has forced you to do it.’

Isabel shook her head and asked the question that had been tormenting her ever since she had received the reply to her letter: ‘Is there danger?’

‘I have several years of experience. There have never been any complications.’

‘Will it hurt?’

‘Only a little–afterwards. I’ll give you some pills. Don’t worry about that now. You’ll be under ether.’

‘I won’t complain even if it hurts a lot. It was only fear that made me ask. Perhaps it
ought
to hurt.’

‘Why, my dear, what on earth do you mean?’

‘Since it’s such a grave sin,’ Isabel said. ‘Don’t you think, madam? I hope God will forgive me.’

‘Like I said, I don’t attend to the soul but only to the body. If you have any doubt, I suggest you go away and think more about it.’

The woman pulled a tasselled cord and her old assistant came. It was time. For several weeks Isabel had tried every herbal preparation, every poison, every patent medicine advertised in the newspapers to save herself from this moment but had failed. She followed the woman to the small room with weak steps and began to undress.

It all had begun with an afternoon walk to the Botanic Garden. The sun had been so strong that she had to seek refuge in the shade of the gazebo, where she sat with a book. It was a round gazebo with an iron railing, a domed roof and a single bench in the middle of an oriental arboretum with tall willows. She read for a long time with intense concentration, which was the way she always read (whether it was one of the latest novels or, years later, the religious manuscripts of the convent library), and stopped paying attention to the world round her. Her trance was broken when she heard footsteps: a young man in white uniform was coming down the path towards the gazebo. When he saw it was occupied, he hesitated for a moment, but then came and climbed the steps bravely, took off his cap and wiped his forehead on his cuff. Isabel shut her book and reached for her handbag.

‘There is no need to go,’ the man in uniform said. ‘I am unarmed.’

‘I was about to go.’

‘No, you were not,’ the man said. ‘If my presence inconveniences you in any way, I should go instead.’

‘You don’t have to,’ Isabel said quietly. ‘There is enough room for both of us.’

The man bowed and sat down as far away from her as possible. He said: ‘Thank you. I needed a little rest. It was very unwise of us to take a walk at this hour.’

They said nothing for a while. Isabel opened her book again, and the man fanned himself with his cap. Shafts of sunlight passed through the neat rows of trees in the arboretum. From where he sat, the man in uniform looked at Isabel and scrutinised the cover of her book. ‘This is my favourite spot,’ he said. ‘I like to sit and listen to the leaves rustling in the breeze. Can you hear?’ He was silent for a moment. ‘Dead calm,’ he said with disappointment. ‘Not a puff of air today.’

And he fanned himself with his cap again. His immaculate uniform had gold buttons and a white leather belt from which a small ceremonial sword hung. Isabel noticed that despite the heat he wore his white gloves. He saw her looking at his hands and waited, hoping that she would speak, but time passed without Isabel giving any sign of doing so. Finally, he asked: ‘And you, Miss? Do you come here often?’

She said that she did.

‘You are very fortunate,’ he said. ‘Very fortunate. Where I come from, the nature isn’t at all beautiful.’

This was his first year in the city. He was a cadet in the Naval Academy and came to the Botanic Garden as often as he could because it was the only place in the city to escape his classmates, who wanted to take him to taverns and places of ill repute. He said in dead earnest: ‘But I refuse to be corrupted.’ He took out his pocket watch and glanced at it, then stood up and put on his cap. ‘Enjoy the rest of your day,’ he said and left.

Later, when the heat eased, Isabel took a long walk, and saw him sitting alone at a table of the Garden café with a jug of water and a plate of sweetmeats. He bowed to her.

She saw him again a week later at a religious festival, among the crowd drawn to the revelry by the promise of miracles, and he saw her too, but before he had the chance to speak to her a group of nuns dressed in black carried him away in a torrent of ecstasy. The next time they met it was a Sunday and she was in the churchyard dressed in white with a wide muslin hat tied with a ribbon under her chin. He recognised her from a distance and approached her, amused by what she was doing: she had seeds in her pocket and was throwing them to a flock of parakeets that was jumping about her feet. He saluted and enquired whether she had been at the service.

‘I come every Sunday,’ she replied and continued to feed the birds.

‘How strange we hadn’t met till now.’

‘It is a big church.’

‘It’s a big world too, but we still met.’

‘In a church one should pay attention to the service not the congregation.’

‘You talk like a priest.’

‘You were standing on the left, near the pulpit,’ Isabel said.

‘So you did see me, after all.’

‘Of course. One cannot fail to notice you.’

‘You are flattering me.’

‘I mean your uniform. It is impossible to miss in a crowd.’

They took a stroll round the churchyard. The service had long ended, and it was empty of people. Isabel asked: ‘Do your studies allow you much time for recreation?’

‘They let us out on Sundays and two evenings a week.’

‘Is it enough?’

‘Not since I met you.’

Isabel said nothing to that and they continued their stroll. She had finished school the year before, but had no plans to further her formal education. She liked to read, and once a week raided the bookshops for books on any subject as long as they were written in simple language. They talked a little more about what she had read recently, and then Isabel offered her hand. But the cadet did not kiss it: he took off his glove, and they parted with a handshake. His action made a good impression on her. They began to meet in the Botanic Garden on the two evenings a week the young cadet was allowed out of the Academy, and they took a long walk that always ended with him removing his glove and shaking her hand. Nothing more happened until one day, absorbed in conversation about the Age of Discovery, they lost their way in the Botanic Garden and came to an isolated spot where the path petered out into the overgrowth. Isabel said: ‘I think we made a navigational error, Captain Columbus.’

She turned back, but he touched her arm. ‘Yes, My Lady,’ he said. ‘But we discovered a new world that in my opinion is worth conquering.’ He took off his cap and kissed her. Then, pleased not to have met any resistance, he said: ‘Thank you. I come in peace.’

‘I am not an Indian to believe you, Captain.’

‘My proper title is Admiral of the Ocean Sea. And I have the honour of proposing a voyage.’

‘Which you want me to fund?’

The cadet had had enough of the jest about the discovery of America. He looked at Isabel and said without smiling: ‘I mean it. Let’s go away for a few days.’

It was more than a month later that Isabel managed to find an excuse for their short holiday. They still took great precautions. Even though they travelled in the same train, they sat in separate compartments and did not speak to each other until they arrived at the seaside town that was their destination, a resort with old crumbling buildings. The town did not come alive until noon, and then it was as if one had stepped back into the beginning of the nineteenth century. Very old men and women in summer clothes came out of their hotels and pensions to take a stroll in the sun, ride horse carriages or sit in the cafés on the promenade. Then, early in the evening, while the sun was still very high, an imperceptible drop in temperature drove them all back to their hotel rooms, and they were not seen again until the following noon.