Collected Short Stories: Volume III

by Barry Rachin

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  The Wayward Nun

  Entering the vestibule of Mount Saint Rita's Abbey, Rachel Mathews sniffed the air. The monastic community was famous for their baked breads, homemade milk chocolates, jams and jellies. Like edible incense, the confectionaries permeated every permeable object. A thin nun in white habit with matching headdress was standing behind a display case. A navy scapula covered the front of her ivory habit. "Currants and baked goods won't be ready for another half hour or so." She spoke in a feathery soft voice that got little usage.

  "I just drove six hours from Bangor, Maine to be with my sister, who I haven't seen in twenty years,” Rachel announced. “She's staying at the abbey."

  In the late sixties, at the height of the psychedelic revolution, twenty-two-year-old Alice Mathews ran off, disappearing like a chalky blip on a radar screen for three years. Then a picture postcard arrived from Tucson, Arizona. Nothing more for a decade, then another colorful missive featuring a broad expanse of deciduous forest in the foreground offset by snow-capped mountains – Nome, Alaska in late Autumn.

  By definition, a vagabond was a person who led an unsettled or disreputable life, wandering aimlessly without any fixed home. Alice qualified in all respects. Most recently, she had been working with a traveling circus. When they passed through Brandenburg, she abandoned the troupe and came to stay at the abbey.

  The nun came out from behind the desk. "Sister Claudia manages the retreat center. She's over at the chapel." She indicated a gothic looking structure surrounded by massive oak trees a hundred yards away. Rachel wandered back out into the bright New England sunshine, where the smell of candies was replaced by that of pungent marigolds and knotty pine. Rachel passed into the chapel foyer. To the left, in a sanctuary, a dozen nuns seated on rough-hewn maple benches were chanting Gregorian melodies.

  In a room no bigger than a broom closet just off the chapel, an older sister seated at a desk was writing in a ledger book. The slender woman, who stood just barely five feet, squinted distractedly through thick bifocals. Sister Claudia had the fastidious features of a gray squirrel. "Can I help you?"

  "I'm Rachel Mathews. My sister, Alice, is staying here.”

  The nun closed the ledger, putting the fountain pen aside. "Yes, such a sweet soul." The affection was unforced. "She was with us almost a month doing spiritual retreat. Then just yesterday, Alice announced that she was leaving the abbey… moving on."

  "Moving where?"

  "Didn't say?" The older woman smiled benevolently. “She paid her bill and left after the evening meal.”

  The chorus in the other room followed the outline of a pentatonic scale. "From three-ring circus to a Cistercian Abbey," Rachel muttered. "How does your religion make sense out of this?"

  The grizzled nun cocked her head to one side. "Our faith doesn't offer answers, just courage." Sister Claudia took a step closer and pressed the girl's hand.

  "I drove all this way non-stop for nothing. I'm so goddamn tired!"

  The nun sat down beside Rachel and placed an arm around her shoulder. She made no reference to the foul language. There was a break in the music. In an adjoining room, someone was repeating Hail Marys in a breathy monotone. A tall priest entered the chapel and gestured to Sister Claudia. The nun went and spoke with him briefly before returning. "Your sister has a gentle spirit."

  "She was a social misfit who thumbed her nose at conventional society!" Rachel shot back no longer masking her annoyance.

  In the adjacent room, someone blew a reedy tone on a pitch pipe, and the nuns, who had paused momentarily, shifted to a new hymn in a minor key. Sister Claudia led the way back out into the garden skirting the abbey. "I'm truly sorry you missed your sister."

  "I'm not driving back today." Rachel pulled her car keys from the purse. "Could you recommend a hotel in the area?"

  "There's a Marriott a mile up the road from here." A group of visitors were coming and going from the monastery store. A little boy was chewing on a huge chocolate bar. "Our faith teaches us to believe that all souls are inherently good and redeemable, but that's theological hogwash. There are good souls and the other kind. Despite her 'unconventional' habits, your sister was a delight. I'll remember Alice in my prayers." Sister Claudia's pokerfaced expression never softened as she turned and hurried back to the chapel.

  *****

 

  Mount Saint Rita's Abbey - Rachel had researched the religious order on the internet before leaving Maine. According to their founder, Sister Catherine McDonald, the nuns instructed the ignorant, counseled the doubtful, admonished sinners, forgave offenses willingly and prayed for both the living and the dead. In addition to their cottage industry breads, jams and chocolates, they served in emergency shelters, prisons, treatment and detention centers. Rachel noted sardonically that, given her sister's appetite for the ‘unconventional’, Alice had probably passed through all four. Over the course of a lifetime, dealing with her sister was like picking at a scab, an ulcerated, necrotic sore that never showed the least inclination to heal and give ground to healthy tissue.

  Rachel didn't get back to the hotel until well after five. Throwing herself down on the queen-size bed, she massaged her eyes with her fingertips. After a brief nap, she showered and washed her hair. As Rachel was buttoning her blouse, there was a knock at the door. Sister Claudia was standing in the hallway. "Just happened to be in the area…."

  Despite her pristine habit and serene demeanor, there was something skewed and out of kilter about this seemingly beneficent Cistercian. "I'm on my way downstairs to supper," Rachel replied.

  "We take our meals quite early at the convent, but I wouldn't mind joining you for a cup of tea."

  Rachel led the nun back out onto the landing, and they made their way to the elevator. In the hotel dining room, the waitress showed them to a table. "On second thought," Sister Claudia announced as she scanned the menu, "I might eat a little something… a light appetizer, perhaps." When the waitress returned, Rachel ordered the baked scrod with mashed potatoes and a garden salad.

  "The Cajun catfish wit Creole seasoning sounds interesting." The petite nun, whose tiny feet just barely touched the rug, folded the menu.

  "That selection isn't for the faint of heart,” the waitress cautioned. “It's seasoned with green onions, jalapenos, garlic pepper, and a sharp Monterey jack cheese."

  "Yes, I'll go with the Cajun catfish." Sister Claudia relinquished her menu and leaned back with a satisfied expression. “What do you have on tap for dark beers?”

  “St. Pauli Girl,” the waitress replied.

  “Yes, bring me a mug.”

  As the waitress was turning away, Rachel said, “On second thought, I’ll have a gin and tonic.”

  "Were you aware that your sister was an animist?” Sister Claudia blurted.

  “Last I heard, she was a practicing Unitarian.”

  “Prior to the circus, Alice spent time on a Blackfoot Indian reservation… got caught up in their mythology and folklore.”

  Yes, that would be just like Alice, the contrarian, the rabble rousing iconoclast. Animists worshiped nature. It wasn't a kinky religion, per se, just a tad gauche. "I'm getting confused. What was she doing at a Catholic retreat center?"

  The nun pursed her lips but had nothing further to add. “This is for you.” She pushed a rather tattered slip of paper across the table. “I found it tucked away among belongings your sister left behind.”

  Sometimes a man stands up during supper

  and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,

  because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.

  And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.

  And another man, who remains inside his own house,

  dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,

  so that his children have to go far out into the world

  toward that same church, which he forgot.

 
Rainer Maria Rilke

  Rachel jutted her chin in disdain as she skimmed the handful of lines. "Alice was always big on just this sort of vapid esoterica. There was another similar snippet by the Persian poet, Rumi she was keen on… something about an invisible door between the two worlds." Rachel snickered disparagingly. "My dopey sister latched on to every cockamamie notion, twisting the metaphysics to suit her own convenience."

  Sister Claudia's eyes brightened noticeably. "The Rilke poem… yes, I think I remember that lovely allegory from the days of my novitiate."

  "Well, I couldn't make any sense of it.

  The air conditioning kicked in sending a wave of chilled air scudding across the room. "What do you do,” Sister Claudia nudged the conversation elsewhere, “for a living in Bangor?".

  "I'm a receptionist for a psychiatric practice."

  As she explained things, Rachel had been with the psychiatrist five years, scheduling appointments and managing the office. “Tell you a funny story,” she confided, leaning halfway across the table and lowering her voice even though nobody was seated close by. "One of the longtime patients was a wife abuser. Got soused every weekend, came home and beat the wife. After three years of therapy he stopped drinking and never laid a violent hand on the woman. "

  "Well that's good," the nun replied."

  "Not really because, once the drinking was under control, the man developed a gambling problem. He just exchanged one vice for another." Rachel tucked the Rilke poem into her breast pocket just as the waitress brought their drinks. Sister Claudia seized the frosty mug in both hands and took a tiny sip - no more than a thimbleful of the brownish liquid - then repositioned the glass on its coaster and wiped her wrinkled lips. Twenty sparing sips later the food arrived, and the dark beer had been reduced by two-thirds. The Cajun Catfish platter looked menacing, but the gray-haired woman with the outlandishly huge cross dangling from her scrawny neck tucked a napkin under her chin and reached for her fork.

  Rachel squeezed the slice of lime into her drink and watched as the oily liquor melded with the fruit and lighter tonic. "My sister was precocious. By the second year of middle school, Alice was already dabbling with sex." She took a sip and was pleased that the gin wasn't overpowering. "By high school she wasn't dabbling anymore."

  "Precocious," Sister Claudia seemed unruffled by the direction the conversation was taking. "Was she precocious or promiscuous… there is a subtle difference?"

  "A bit of both," Rachel replied. "She loved sleeping with men… finding new and innovative ways to fulfill her carnal needs." She waved a hand distractedly in the air. "I saved myself for marriage… church wedding, pearl-colored wedding dress. What a freakin’ joke! The marriage lasted a sum total of two, shitty years."

  Rachel brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and reached for the gin. "My sister once described good sex as a five-star, gourmet meal. By those standards, I’ve been subsisting on stale bread and water since my jackass husband flew the coop."

  "Oh, dear!" With a flick of her eyes, Sister Claudia indicated a party of two entering the dining hall. “My worst nightmare!”

  Rachel immediately recognized the gangly cleric who dropped by the chapel earlier in the day. The man had seemed rather autocratic and full of himself as he commiserated with Sister Claudia. “That’s Father Mahoney,” she whispered under her breath, “and his housekeeper, Miss Walters.”

  Noticing Sister Claudia, Father Mahoney, immediately approached. After exchanging pleasantries, the priest went off to join the housekeeper sitting demurely at a small table in the corner. The waitress approached and the nun waved her empty mug in the air. “Another glass of prune juice, please.” Eyeing her uncertainly, the waitress meandered off in the direction of the bar.

  The hotel dining room had filled up with a steady flow of dinner guests. From a pair of Bose speakers situated near the bar, Chet Baker’s jazzy trumpet was running through the chord changes to My Funny Valentine. In the far corner, portly Miss Walters was tittering at something Father Mahoney was saying.

  “Well at least he isn’t buggering the altar servers,” the nun muttered under her breath reaching for the beer.

  There was no pretense anymore about sensible sips. Sister Claudia's eyes were beginning to glaze over and her speech slur. In addition to the liquor, she was making excellent progress with the catfish, having reduced the platter by half. She raised a potato wedge flecked with orangey chili sauce and pale green chives to her lips. “If I ever found myself stranded on a tropical island with that hellfire and brimstone blowhard, I’d grab a jagged shell and slit my throat rather than listen to his mindless prattle.” Depositing the food on her tongue, she began to chew at an odd angle. Only now did Rachel notice the flawlessly perfect, false teeth.

  Sister Claudia nudged her plate several inches forward indicating that she was finished. Lowering her eyes, she stared at the ravaged platter. “I’m going to order one last beer before heading back to the convent, if you don’t mind.”

  Ten minutes later, the third beer was drained almost to the dregs. "Do you understand the definition of a priori truth?" When there was no immediate response, Sister Claudia continued, "A priori truth emanates from knowledge based on theory rather than observation or experience. You don't have to get up off your couch and go outside to examine how things are in the physical world." The nun tipped the glass at a steep angle, emptying the contents into her gullet. "The tenets of the Catholic religion are based on unassailable, a priori truth. You either believe or choose not to."

  "And what do you believe?"

  "What do I believe?" A glossy sheen enveloped her half-closed eyes. "I believe in Saint Pauli Girl draft beer, Cajun catfish, common decency and little else." There was nothing defiant or argumentative in the nun's tone. She was simply stating an a priori truth of her own choosing.

  “How long did you know my sister?"

  "Three weeks and six days. We became bosom buddies"

  "In the corner of the room Father Mahoney was playing footsie with the corpulent woman who cleaned the rectory and serviced his lascivious instincts. “Three weeks and six days... in the end, you probably got to know Alice quite intimately.”

  The waitress placed the bill on the table along with chocolate breath mints and retreated back to the kitchen. “Yes, we palavered quite a bit toward the end.” Unwrapping her mint, Sister Claudia appeared in no great hurry to return to the convent. The nun leaned back comfortably in the chair. “Let me share my impressions of your sister and her imprudent journey across the doorsill where the two worlds touch.”

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  The Invisible Hand

  Claudia Lanni was stripping the bottom plate from a Hoover WindTunnel II vacuum cleaner when a customer stepped over the threshold of Vacuum World. The man, who was in his late thirties, dangled a smallish rubber belt between a thumb and indexed finger. The band had ripped apart in a jagged line with a shiny black burn mark where it had run off the metal shaft.

  She took the belt, turning it over in her hands. “Orek XL two-thousand?”

  The fellow nodded. Claudia rose from where she was hunkered down with the various parts of the vacuum cleaner splayed out across the floor. She approached a display near the cash register. At six foot one, her torso wasn’t fat so much as doughy. A person standing in front of Claudia didn’t see hips, breasts, shoulders or thighs. They saw a bleary-eyed, thoroughly unremarkable woman with a weak chin and flaccid lips that lacked contour or definition. Makeup might have helped but she never bothered with any – not even a hint of blush to brighten her pallid skin tones. The woman wore lumpy corduroys that hung shapelessly on her skinny waist and flannel shirts that were always clean but seldom ironed. The unfashionable, wire-rimmed granny glasses were a throwback to the hippy-dippy psychedelic sixties.

  “Give me a couple belts,” the man said.

  “Need bags?”

  The man shook his head. “No, I got p
lenty, thanks.”

  She rang up the sale and made change. The customer had already picked his way to the door when she spoke again. “What’s that you’re reading?”

  He pulled a tattered paperback from a back pocket, waving it in the air. “The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.”

  Having just separated the rug beater from the undercarriage, Claudia put the Phillips head screwdriver aside. “Most economists consider that to be his most influential work, but I always preferred Theory of Moral Sentiments.”

  The middle-aged man balked and stood frozen in space. Then he closed the door and came back to where she was sitting on the floor. His dark hair was thinning at the temples, the nose was rather long with a pronounced hump. “You studied economics?”

  “No, not really. I’m a bit of an intellectual dilettante.” In college Claudia pursued an eclectic program, favoring philosophy and business theory. She got a degree in neither. Nothing of a practical nature held her interest for more than two seconds back-to-back. “Theory of Moral Sentiments was where Smith first referred to the ‘invisible hand’.”

  The man was standing directly next to Claudia, who was digging a clot of hairballs, yarn, crumpled paper and assorted debris from the intake hose in the bottom of the machine. “And what exactly is the invisible hand?”

  “The benefits to society of people behaving in their own interest.”

  “That’s strange! A passage describing a similar concept appears in the editor’s preface.” The man thumbed through the first few pages of the paperback until he found the paragraph he was looking for.

  It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.

  “The invisible hand—yes, that’s it!” Claudia reached out with a taut index finger and repositioned the wire-rimmed glasses which had slid down on the bridge of her slender nose. Without bothering to look up from her work, she added “Conscience arises from social relationships.”