The Convent: A Novel (8 page)

T
he punishment of the two nuns was perhaps not as severe as it could have been, considering Sister María Inés’s fury. Nevertheless, it was unjust and hurtful enough to change the mood in the convent. Everybody still carried out their tasks with diligence, stopped their work every three hours to pray in the chapel, ate together in the refectory, but a shadow had fallen over whatever they did, and they had lost their cheerfulness. The Mother Superior noticed it and wondered whether perhaps she had treated the two nuns a bit too harshly, but did nothing to show her doubt. She neither called off their punishment nor moderated it, but hoped that the incident would soon be forgotten. A few days later, things were indeed beginning to return to normal, but then something happened that shattered any hope for peace between her and the sisters.

She had left Sister Beatriz in charge of the child and gone to midday prayer. When she returned to her room, she was pleased to find the young nun also kneeling in prayer, with the child on her lap and her head bowed. She had insisted that her assistant should not neglect her religious duties even when she had to care for the child, and had instructed her to recite the canonical hours wherever she happened to be with as much devotion as if she were in the chapel. The Mother Superior paused at the door and waited for the nun to finish. When Sister Beatriz crossed herself and stood up with the child in her arms, the Mother Superior shut the door. The young woman gave a start.

‘I am very pleased with you, Beatriz,’ the Mother Superior said. ‘Your assistance with the child is important to me and your absence from the chapel has not turned you into a heathen.’

‘I’m glad that I can be of help, Reverend Mother.’

‘One day I hope to repay you for all your kindness and good sense.’

She stretched her arms towards the baby and the nun obediently handed him to her. Sister María Inés told her when to have his food ready. The young woman bowed and left the room. In recent days Sister María Inés had been feeling a drop in temperature. Autumn was coming and soon the weather would turn and something would have to be done about keeping the room warm. Winters in the convent were bitterly cold. In the past, she used to welcome them with penitent spirit, but now she had to think less about her soul and more about the child. She opened a drawer in her desk and took out the box where she kept her savings. She counted the money and decided to ask Sister Beatriz to buy her a small stove the next time she went to the city.

She wrapped the child well with a blanket and went out for a stroll before it was time to feed him. There was no one outside: it was the time when the nuns gathered round the refectory table to parcel the altar breads. Sister María Inés walked across the courtyard, observing everything as if she had never seen it before. The bell tower, the chimneys, the gargoyles on the roofs, the stork nests, the faces on the statues of the saints in the cloister, even the moss on the flagstones and the peeling paint on the old doors fascinated her. For her the signs of decay were not simply reminders of the passage of time but the telltale signs of an undying remorse that trailed back to the Fall of Man.

A stork rising from its nest caught her eye and she watched it fly away with a few easy flaps of its wings. The birds would soon be leaving for Africa. In a medieval bestiary that she had found in the convent library, she had read that if a stork’s nest caught fire the bird would stay and burn in it rather than abandon it. She had no doubt that it was true and often wondered whether she herself would have the courage to do the same if it ever came to it. She wanted to be able to say that she would, but the choice she had made when she was young did not allow her to believe with certainty that she was capable of self-sacrifice.

At the refectory, she pushed open the heavy door just a crack and watched the nuns working. She could not hear what they were saying. She closed the door softly and walked on. Suddenly she had an idea and climbed the steps to the dormitory and walked along the loggia. There were no locks on the doors to the nuns’ rooms, a tradition that dated back to the early days of the convent, when a strict mother superior used to pay unannounced visits in the middle of the night to ensure the sisters were not violating their vows in any way. Confident that the nuns were busy in the refectory and also that the wooden floor of the loggia would give her ample warning if anyone happened to come, Sister María Inés entered Sister Ana’s room.

She never spied on the nuns, but this time she believed that she had to break her rule because the truth could be a matter of life and death. She paced round, holding the child in her arms. A strong smell of turpentine was trapped in the room, where the windows seemed not to have been opened in a long time. A canvas with an unfinished picture was on the easel. On a table in the middle of the room were painting brushes and knives, a large palette, many jars with pigments, a pestle and mortar. Sister María Inés did not know what she hoped to find–perhaps a diary, where Sister Ana had recorded her thoughts and evil plans, would be a good reason to expel her. She quickly admitted that her foe was too clever to make such simple mistakes. The gramophone was the only item that aroused her curiosity. She peeked inside its horn, gave the turntable a little push and flicked through the records of the language courses. On one of the covers it read:…
a truly natural way of learning a language, a way you first, as a child, learned your own mother tongue.
It was a confident statement printed in thick dark letters. She read on:
The results of this method are astonishing. Under this tireless tutor, mastery becomes easy…
As a child Sister María Inés remembered her father having an Edison phonograph that played wax cylinders–flat records had not become popular until some time after she had taken the veil. She put the gramophone records back exactly where she had found them and came out into the loggia again.

She had found no clue about Sister Ana’s plans. Perhaps, she thought, despite what Sister Beatriz feared, Sister Ana had no plan at all–just hate that sooner or later would burn out. The sky was scattered with clouds that kept the air cool but blocked only a few sunrays. She felt that she ought to ask God forgiveness for having treated Sister Carlota and Sister Teresa harshly. She entered the chapel, where only a few inches of daylight crept in past the vestibule. A few things could be vaguely seen inside: the crucifix, the large candlesticks, the altar table. The nuns celebrated Mass every Sunday, against the rule which stated that only an ordained priest could administer the sacraments. The Bishop, who could only visit one Sunday a month, turned a blind eye on the understanding that the Mother Superior would not consecrate the host. She had promised him not to do it but had disobeyed, every time, convinced that it was far more important that the nuns received the Body of Christ than obey a rule which Sister María Inés was not even certain had a basis in the Holy Scripture. Against a wall was the confessional. She gave it a cursory glance, thinking that she would have to be careful what she would tell the Bishop about the child when he visited at the end of the month. Then she knelt in front of the tabernacle and bowed her head in prayer with the child in her arm, and her eyes shut. She said: ‘O God, I have done wrong. I have been cruel to Carlota and Teresa. Please forgive me. All I want is to carry out Your wish and save this child. Only You know how important he is to me…I wish I could explain this to the sisters, but please help so that I do not have to do it. If I were expelled from the Order, it would be difficult for the child too.’

She felt a mounting determination and opened her eyes. She placed the child gently on the floor in front of her and continued: ‘I have to be strong for this child. There are people who might hurt him whether they know what they are doing or not.’ The child was looking up at her. She said: ‘O God, give me the strength and wisdom…’ She prayed a little longer and then crossed herself, picked up the child and stood up.

There was no one in the courtyard when she came out of the chapel. She glanced at the clock on the bell tower. There was still a little time before Sister Beatriz brought the child’s milk to her room. Carefully she began to climb down the steps to the courtyard with the child still in her arms. Stretched out in the shade of the cloister, one of Sister Carlota’s stray dogs raised its head and watched her. When she reached the bottom of the chapel steps, it stood up and began to cross the courtyard. Sister María Inés glanced at it. Then she looked down at the child and wrapped the blanket tightly round him.

As the dog came closer, it began to growl. ‘Go,’ the woman said. ‘Go away.’ The dog continued to growl at her. Sister María Inés squeezed the child in her arms and tried to kick the dog. She missed and the dog gave a bark. ‘Go! Go!’ she shouted and kicked out a few more times, her heart beating faster. The dog avoided her foot and snapped at her ankle. She backed off. The dog made a dart for her habit and tore a piece off the edge.

She kept her eyes fixed on the animal and took off her belt with her free hand. Her rosary fell to the ground but she made no attempt to pick it up. She wanted to go towards the chapel but the dog was in her way, so she backed towards the well in the middle of the courtyard, slowly winding the end of her belt round her hand. The dog continued to bark and show its teeth. She made a sudden attempt to hit it with her belt but missed, and it lunged at her. She quickly hit out again. This time the buckle found the dog’s muzzle and the animal retreated with a yelp. She knew it would come back–it would not go away because of a little blood. She glanced behind her to see where the well was and she moved slowly backwards until she reached it. She had been holding the child with one arm for a long time and now felt a painful tightening of her muscles. But she did not loosen her hold. Then the child began to cry. She leaned against the well, breathing heavily, not taking her eyes off the dog, and rocked the child. She said: ‘God help me. O God…’

The animal came cautiously towards her again, afraid of the belt but not prepared to give up. Out of the corner of her eye, Sister María Inés saw the door of the refectory open. One after another the nuns came out, but instead of going to her aid they watched with horror from the arches of the cloister. She felt the child slip from her, and the hand that held the belt moved instinctively to take some of the weight that until then was carried only by her other arm. Then the dog darted at her and bit her on the ankle. She felt the teeth clamp over the bone and immediately withdraw, leaving a wet sensation on her skin. She heard a nun scream: ‘Mother of God! It will kill them both!’ She guessed that it was Sister Beatriz. It was she. She tried to run to the Mother Superior but the other nuns held her back. Sister María Inés turned to the dog and struck it with the belt several times. While the dog retreated, she heard: ‘Carlota, quick!’ The old nun, who had just come from the kitchen, crossed the courtyard as fast as she could and took the dog by the scruff of its neck.

In the middle of the courtyard, Sister María Inés stood with the crying child. Her arms shook and her ankle was bleeding but she seemed not to know it. When the nuns approached her, she threatened them with her belt and they quickly backed off. They watched her limp across the courtyard with the child in her arms, breathing heavily, and they instantly knew that from that moment on there was no power on earth or in heaven that could make her heart good again.

O
ver the years Sister Carlota had given shelter to many dogs in the convent. Almost every time she went to the city, which was three or four times a year, she came back with a starving mongrel that she had found wandering the streets. Moved by her kindness, the Mother Superior let her keep them as long as they did not get in the way of the old nun’s duties. Sister Carlota washed every new arrival with soapy water, healed their wounds with mercurochrome and their mange with sulphurated lime, and ended the ritual by putting a small wooden cross round their neck, engraved with a name she had chosen from the Bible. Treated with such care, the dogs gave her their absolute loyalty. They never barked in her presence; they ran to her when they heard their names and followed her everywhere apart from the chapel, where she had taught them to wait at the door while she prayed with the sisters. They slept anywhere in the convent, under the arches of the cloister, on the steps of the chapel, in the abandoned buildings, depending on the weather. Sister Carlota fed them with whatever she could spare from the meagre provisions of the convent and the bones and offal she was given for free in the city, but it was hardly enough to satisfy their appetites, and every morning she took to letting them out to forage like wild animals in the woods round the convent.

On one of her rare holidays some years earlier, she had visited the famous Cimetière des Chiens near Paris, where a monument to a Saint Bernard dog gave her the idea to train her dogs to rescue people lost in the sierra. When she returned to the convent, she spoke to the Mother Superior. Sister María Inés doubted that Sister Carlota’s strays could match the abilities of the noble Swiss breed but did not want to disappoint the nun and gave her consent. As she suspected, it was a futile endeavour. The dogs were too old to learn and nothing could make them relinquish the freedom to which they had been accustomed. Sister Carlota tried to teach them discipline, but even though they wanted to please her they were unable to understand her orders and simply looked at her with eyes full of curiosity. She threatened to beat them, but they could sense that she would not do it. She hid things and showed them how to find them, but they had no natural drive for searching unless it was food they were after. And so, with great disappointment, she acknowledged her failure and let them do whatever God intended them to do.

At night the nuns were often awoken by the sound of a dog howling, which was then joined by the howls of a second dog, then another, and so on, until the whole convent echoed with their cries. Then Sister Carlota had to get out of bed and search in the dark until she had found every dog and calmed them all down. It was not her only problem. She also had to put up with their untamed bowels, which they emptied with abandon. She rushed to clean after them, puzzling over how they were capable of turning out such an unimaginable amount of excrement when they seemed to eat so little. Worse still was their fondness for vice, which scandalised the old nun and made her question Noah’s wisdom in having taken them on the Ark. And yet, whatever their filthy and dissolute habits, they had never until now been aggressive towards anyone.

After the attack Sister María Inés returned to her room and sat rocking the child. Sister Beatriz came with the bowl of milk and did not want to leave. The Mother Superior sent her away, reassuring her: ‘Do not worry. The child has not been harmed. He is only scared. It was not as frightening as it seemed.’ But as she fed him, put him in the cradle and rocked him to sleep, she could not stop shaking with fear. Finally, she sat on the edge of her bed and began to calm down. On the floor a few drops of blood marked her course from the door when she had first come in. She found her belt and put it on, noticing that her rosary was missing. She had no idea where she could have lost it. For a moment she wondered whether the incident meant that she had lost God’s support but dismissed her fears. She thought that God ought to be pleased that she had saved an innocent life.

She lifted the hem of her habit and inspected her wound with a nurse’s detachment. Her fingers traced the blood that was beginning to congeal. The marks left by the dog’s teeth were deep but the wound did not need stitching. She was not bothered by the likelihood of a scar. She cleaned the wound with water, then with surgical spirit and finally wrapped it with a clean cloth. She did everything with competence and the composure of one who has seen far greater horrors in her life. Then she lay in bed and rested until she heard the bell. She was too tired to leave her room and for the first time in all her years in the convent she did not go to the chapel for prayer but knelt and said the angelus instead. In the evening, when she brought her some soup, Sister Beatriz found her kneeling by her bed again. The Mother Superior finished her prayer and stood up. She said: ‘Thank you, but I am not hungry.’

Sister Beatriz put the dish on the desk. ‘You have to eat, Mother. Who knows what would’ve happened today if you hadn’t been so strong.’

The nun stood beside the cradle and observed the sleeping child. The Mother Superior sat to eat. ‘I am now convinced that he would be lost without me,’ she said.

Sister Beatriz put her hand in her pocket and took out a dusty rosary. She brushed it against her habit and gave it to the other woman. The Mother Superior took it with both hands, touched the cross to her lips with great relief and looped the worn string of beads over her belt. She had been given it when she was a postulant and expected that she would be buried with it wound round her fingers. Over the years she had attended several burials, sometimes leading the funeral service from the altar, feeling no fear but standing in awe of the start of the eternal life. The open coffin on the bier, the dead nun dressed in a starched habit, recumbent with her hands clasped in prayer on her chest, the ashen face which a little earlier stirred with the vestiges of life–they always seemed to her to exude the calm of a great burden having been lifted. Sitting now at her desk, she felt the smell of burning candles and the words of the funeral Mass came into her mind:
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis
–Eternal rest give to them, Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them…

‘How is your ankle, Reverend Mother?’ the nun asked.

‘You can help me change the bandage.’

She left her soup unfinished and lay down on the bed, pointing at the surgical spirit, the cotton wool and some clean cloths on the table. The young nun began to unwrap the cloth tied round Sister María Inés’s ankle. The Mother Superior said: ‘Only clean the wound with alcohol. If it turns out that I need treatment, it will have to be a vaccine. But I do not think the dog carries rabies.’

The nun soaked a piece of cotton wool in surgical spirit and began to clean the wound. ‘Such a thing has never happened before,’ she said. She cleaned the wound a second time and began to wrap a clean cloth round the swollen ankle. ‘Sister Carlota is very sorry, She wants to come and see you.’

‘I want to see no one.’

Sister Beatriz finished attending to the wound and gathered the used cotton wool and the dirty bandage to throw away. The Mother Superior covered her ankles again with her habit and glanced at the sleeping child from where she lay. She said: ‘I want you to stay with the child tomorrow, Beatriz. You will have to miss the early morning prayer.’

The nun bowed and went out with one last glance at the child. For a long time afterwards, Sister María Inés was unable to sleep. When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed that it was the time of prayer and she was on her way to the chapel. But when she climbed the steps and dipped her fingers in the marble stoup next to the door, she found it empty. She quickly went to the well to fill the bucket, but the well was dry. When she returned to the chapel, the Virgin was standing at the door. Sister María Inés crossed herself and tried to walk past but the Virgin stopped her. She said: ‘You have to cleanse yourself of your sins first, Isabel.’ The nun did not know what to do. Then the Virgin closed the door and the prayer began inside the chapel. Sister María Inés went away…

She woke with the sound of the bell at dawn, still shaken by her dream, and the first thing she did was to check that the child was well. Then she washed her face and sat at her desk, which was what she always did when she had to make a difficult decision. For a while she wavered, but then she called to mind the incident with the dog in all its horror and had no doubt about what she ought to do. Someone knocked on her door. She expected it to be Sister Beatriz but it was Sister Carlota. The Mother Superior looked at her coolly.

‘I wanted to see you, Reverend Mother,’ the elderly nun said. ‘I’m very sorry about what happened. I will have the dogs neutered. It will calm them down.’

‘That will not be necessary.’

There was a knock on the door and Sister Beatriz entered with the bowl of milk for the child and a walking stick for the Mother Superior.

‘It was a mistake to give sanctuary to those animals,’ Sister María Inés said. ‘But I do not blame you, Carlota. You did it out of kindness.’

As soon as the old nun was gone, the Mother Superior sat on the edge of the bed and replaced the bandage herself: the wound was healing well. When she finished, she unlocked the cupboard where she kept the rat poison. Sister Beatriz watched her. ‘Feed the child,’ the Mother Superior said and took the poison and the walking stick. ‘I will not be long.’ The young nun followed the Mother Superior with her eyes until she left the room.

The idea had come to Sister María Inés during the night, and once she had decided no one could dissuade her from going through with it. Leaning on the walking stick, she went downstairs. There was no one around: the sisters were in the chapel. She went across the cloister with the bag of poison under her arm, her walking stick tapping against the flagstones. The offal for the dogs was kept in the buttery. She took several pieces and went round the convent calling them. They came briskly from several directions, wagging their tails. Sister María Inés was ready to use the walking stick to protect herself but the dogs were as friendly as they had always been. She was uncertain which one had attacked her but it did not matter. After counting them to make certain they were all there, she dipped the meat in the arsenic, taking care not to touch the powder with her fingers. The dogs smelled the meat and crowded round her. She said: ‘Be patient. There is enough for all of you.’ She threw them the pieces and they ate hungrily. When she had thrown all the meat, she sat on a bench in the cloister and watched the dogs eat. She had no doubt that what she had done was necessary to keep the child safe.

Later, when the prayer ended and the nuns came out, they could tell right away that the dogs were in the courtyard. But, it being dark inside the chapel, it took the women’s eyes some time to get used to the daylight and only then did they see that the dogs lying in the dust were not lazing in the sun, as they had at first assumed, but were in fact slowly dying in the creamy pools of their own vomit.