by Marele Day
‘Excuse me,’ he said during a lull in the slurps, ‘would you have a fork?’ He knew very well they had forks, they’d been on the table the first night. The nuns, although at the moment he was finding it more and more difficult to think of them as such, had even made desultory attempts to use them.
‘Fork,’ repeated Carla, letting a mouthful of green drop onto the table. She ran off and returned with a fork.
He plucked it out of her fist, like an arrow from a quiver. It was encrusted with bits of food and gritty with dirt. Was it the fork he had used or the one she had thrown on the ground? That had been in her mouth. When he took out his handkerchief to wipe it clean they stopped eating and watched intently, as if expecting him to perform a magic trick.
He was quite conscious of the way he placed his fingers around the fork and observed that it was very similar to holding a pen. He brought the edge of the fork down into a piece of swede, cleaving it in two, slowly, deliberately, showing them how it was done.
He speared a cold flaccid lump and popped it into his mouth, smiling and nodding as if savouring deliciously cooked meat. In the privacy of his mouth, his tongue squashed it against his palate, rounded it up into a soft glob, then swallowed. He repeated this process several times. When he’d finished his meal, he lay the fork neatly across the plate.
‘I was wondering,’ he began, ‘I was wondering if you could give me a hand with the car in the morning. I’m sure the four of us could budge it. If I had the mobile I could get someone from the mainland to come over but …’ he shrugged and lifted his palms up. It was a pity about the phone but he could call the Bishop from the nearest garage, then his holiday would begin in earnest. The nuns were looking at him blankly. ‘An outing would be nice, wouldn’t it?’ he went on. ‘You could make a day of it. There’s a nice little beach down there. We could have a picnic. I’ve got some scones in the car, biscuits.’
It slowly started to dawn. He wanted them to go out.
We command by this present constitution, whose validity is eternal and can never be questioned, that all nuns, collectively and individually, present and to come, of whatsoever order of religion, in whatever part of the world they may be, shall henceforth remain in their monasteries in perpetual enclosure.
‘We are enclosed,’ Margarita finally found her tongue.
They ate like pigs, they walked around dressed like God knows what, surely they weren’t going to stand on ceremony on the matter of enclosure.
Iphigenia pulled herself up to her full height, lifted her head so that she looked down on him. ‘Why are you here?’ she asked.
‘To do an assessment,’ he said.
‘To what purpose?’
It would be easy just to leave without saying anything, to let the Bishop notify them officially. But that was the coward’s way.
‘How would you like soft beds, sheets, complete plumbing with running hot water?’
Iphigenia could feel herself turning to stone. He came dressed like a priest but he did not behave as a priest. He had blasphemed in their house, he had tried to engage them in idle chat at meal times, he had suggested they go outside for a picnic. And now he was offering them worldly comforts.
He looked from one to the other. The only one showing a glimmer of interest was Carla. ‘Clean clothes,’ he said, ‘good food, shops, companionship, an on-duty nurse.’
‘A nurse?’ asked Margarita.
‘Forgive me for saying so, but you’re getting to an age, well … it’s just in case, you understand. You can live out your old age in comfort. No more nettles and swedes. You can have beds with proper mattresses, roofs that don’t leak. Everything here needs fixing.’
‘We don’t need a nurse,’ said Margarita. ‘And nothing needs fixing.’ It was enough trying to cope with him, she didn’t want nurses and builders here as well. Their life wouldn’t be their own. Nettles and swedes were appropriate fare—nourishing without overexciting the appetite.
‘Retirement homes are very enlightened nowadays,’ he said. ‘They’re just like village living. You have your independence and you are part of a community as well.’
It would have been simpler if the place had been unoccupied as they had all assumed. Now certain steps needed to be taken. Relocation of the nuns was one of them. Of course their presence here didn’t alter the overall plan. The property ultimately belonged to the diocese, to do with as the Bishop saw fit. There was no question of them staying, the three of them in these vast grounds, it was a criminal waste of real estate. They could build housing for four hundred on this property. Not that the Church intended building housing for the poor. The rich too needed spiritual sustenance, a place of retreat from the pressures of their lives.
Now Iphigenia understood. He didn’t want to improve their life, he wanted to shut it down.
‘You want us to leave.’ The words were almost spat out.
‘You can’t very well stay here.’
‘But we have been very well staying here,’ Iphigenia pointed out.
‘It’s too big for the three of you to manage.’
‘But the sheep. They need to graze. What do you have in mind for them?’
Relocating the women was one thing but he doubted there was a house that would take sheep. It would be a nightmare just trying to get them down the hill. ‘Probably be best to slaughter them. We would arrange for you to have the meat, of course.’
Iphigenia stood up violently, pushing the table and rattling the plates. ‘You have been received into our community, you have been our guest. And now you want us to slaughter the Agnes sisters?’ She leant so close into his face he could feel her breath. ‘Begone!’ she shouted as if she were exorcising the Devil.
Then it was Iphigenia who was begone, taking herself off to her cell. Margarita looked anxiously around, felt the huge gap Iphigenia’s sudden departure had made. She stood up, waving her hand in front of her face as if to clear the air, then she too hurried off to the security of her cell.
Carla grinned merrily. Iphigenia rattling the table, Iphigenia rattled. Carla had never seen the like. And all the talk the man had brought. She had so much to think about, so much material for the escapecoat. The man leant towards her, a conciliatory gesture but Carla too was moving away, giving him a little wave as she went.
Ignatius sat there alone at a table that wasn’t his. Oh dear. He knew it would be a big change for them but he hadn’t anticipated quite such a violent reaction. Perhaps he had overdone it a bit, perhaps it hadn’t been altogether necessary to mention slaughtering the sheep.
Iphigenia leant against the door of her cell breathing heavily. It wouldn’t happen. It simply wouldn’t happen. They would not be moved from their home. As for the wholesale slaughter of the Agnes sisters, the annihilation of the flock, it was unthinkable. It was one thing making a ritual offering to God, but as for doing it for the sake of expediency!
The man was a fool, a toad, an insensitive; bombastic, impolite, a dandy, a blunderer. Iphigenia went through a whole string of insults trying to ward him off, the expulsion of air like sobs, as if his announcement had got stuck in her throat and she was trying to dislodge it.
He was not a creature that had strayed innocently into their midst; he had come with purpose and intention. His initial darts of nervousness had disappeared and self-importance had taken their place. She remembered the previous visits of priests, when the flagstones and tables had to be scrubbed extra clean, when the abbess and novice mistress moved more quickly, felt their wimples, checked that their veils were perfectly in place, when ‘best behaviour’ rippled through the convent body. The abbess would show the priest around, and he would smile assuredly and let his gaze sweep across the sea of faces, not looking at any one in particular but seeing them en masse.
Afterwards, the priest and abbess in conversation, she with her head bent, he looking at some records or listening to a request, writing it down in a little notebook, finishing with a flourishing full stop that bounced the pen of
f the page, then tucking the notebook away in his pocket and never referring to it again.
Iphigenia couldn’t remember when the priestly visits had ceased. Before or after the last abbess had gone to God? It must have been before, the numbers were already dwindling in the time of the last abbess. Iphigenia, Margarita, Carla and the handful of others who remained let the days go by without officially electing a replacement. The daily round continued, the months turned to years without an election.
She missed the last abbess. For the first time in many years Iphigenia wanted to seek the advice and counsel of a higher human authority. The abbess was strict but unwavering in her ability to listen to the members of her flock. While she rarely gave the very practical advice that would solve the immediate problem, after a moment of silent prayer with her the supplicant felt her burden lighten.
As the years went by it fell to Iphigenia to make decisions on the rare occasion a decision had to be made.
It was impossible. They could not leave and go to another place. Under the pads of her fingers she felt the comfort of the old timber, worn smooth by the years and by her touch; the slight ridge and density of a knot in the wood. She ran her hand along the wall, felt the rougher texture of stone. She had rubbed up against this stone to relieve the annoyance of an itch, the minuscule creatures she was host to, like a bear rubbing its back against a rough-barked tree. Bathing was an extravagance, the community had lived and worked and slept in their habits until they had become a second skin.
It was more than an itch that Iphigenia had now and it would take more than the old stones to relieve it. She wrapped the woolly blanket around herself and moved to the window, standing in the shaft of cold night, the walls so thick that the window space made a cube of air. Had anyone been wandering outside they would have seen Iphigenia framed in the glassless window, a proud face with a band of worry encircling the eyes like a blindfold. Iphigenia’s eyes were staring into mid-air. Out there were the archways yawning like mouths and the sleeping sheep, but Iphigenia was staring at fog. If there was any movement it floated through her field of vision untracked.
There was a disturbance, a screech, a flutter, a night bird killing its prey, tearing a rent into the Great Silence.
Iphigenia’s eyelids came down, a film of moisture to relieve the dryness of her eyes. God was far away and silent. Iphigenia needed the community. She unlatched the door and went outside, drifting silently along the cloisters. The moon was waning, almost half of it obscured by shadow. She came out into the field. Now that the bird was sated, night had folded over it like lava, pressing everything in its wash to sleep.
Except for Iphigenia. A wakeful shepherd watching her flock by night. Watching for the wolf that might enter their midst and steal a lamb away. She squatted down amongst the rise and fall of newly thin bodies. The sheep shifted a little, like sleeping children rolling over and making room for another. She lay down with them, curved her body into the sleeping Agnes Teresa, a troubled child seeking the warm solace of the mother. Agnes Teresa, whose fleece warmed Iphigenia, whose lamb had so recently been sacrificed.
Teresa snuffled, chomped her jaws in sleep, the dreams of prancing across the sunlit plains momentarily suspended. Instinctively Teresa took this lamb unto herself, the coarse curly head lying on her softly heaving body. The night hung low over Iphigenia, the jagged stars like splinters of ice. If she opened her mouth they would drop right in. Under her ear Teresa’s body was warm and rhythmic, oblivious as were all the other members of the flock to the pronouncement of their slaughter.
Iphigenia sat up, the sheep around her like a flowing white skirt. She saw their bellies and throats exposed and vulnerable even though their ovine instincts herded them together. There were no predators in these pastures, except for the occasional swooping bird searching for nesting material. She put her arms out and stroked those within reach. No wolves entered here. Unless they entered slyly and with maps.
They murmured and twitched, taking her outpouring love into their dreams. Iphigenia stood up, her mouth determined and set, her nostrils flared, glittering eyes reflecting the ice of stars. What a snorting irony that a lamb had been slaughtered in preparation for his coming. The guilt of error hung above Iphigenia like the carcass dripping over the altar, as if somehow in offering the lamb she herself had given him the idea for slaughter.
The darkness was thinning. Iphigenia stepped carefully over the sleeping bodies, went back along the cloisters into the chapel. Margarita and Carla were already there, on their knees in front of the Blessed Virgin who looked beatifically down on them, the tangle of vines sprouting from her head not quite covering the crack left by the priest’s handiwork. The faces of Carla and Margarita were firmly pressed into the stone of her garment, like frightened children hiding in their mother’s skirts. They did not turn at the sound of Iphigenia’s feet padding across the stones and sprigs of grass, but they made way for her when she came to take her place among them. They pressed prayers and urgencies into the gown of the Queen of Heaven, kneeling in unison like on nights of vigilance before an important feast day.
And this is the way he found them. The three nuns kneeling in a semicircle, locked together in holy trinity.
He was not totally oblivious to the fact that something was awry. He had not slept soundly. There had been movement in the night, a disturbed atmosphere. He needed to get back to a proper bed, not this meagre straw offering. He had seen more comfortable beds in prison. He was sleeping in his clothes, which never pleased him, he needed a shave, and his teeth were furry. Running his finger along them made a squeaking sound but didn’t really clean away the grime. Stupid to have left all his gear in the car. But then he hadn’t expected to spend more than a few hours on the property. He was feeling decidedly uncomfortable now. He wanted to leave as soon as possible. If he couldn’t get the car going by himself he’d walk over to the mainland and get help. If he had to wait for the tide, he’d wait by the car. From his vantage point in the doorway it looked as if the Virgin Mary had cloned herself. The three of them, heads bowed, around the base of the statue like smaller bulbs forming around the parent one. If they had heard him they showed no signs of recognition. He would wait till their prayers ended before he said goodbye. But it seemed the prayer would never end. Even when it did they remained there, silent, immutable as the statue herself.
What he wants is for them to disappear, to have never been here in the first place. But he cannot in all good faith continue treating this as terra inoccupata. He must deal with their presence and their removal as efficiently as possible. Difficult to onsell the property with tenants and besides, the old women have to see the nonsense of their remaining here. He will let them say their prayers, he will have a cup of tea and then he will be off. He won’t mention the slaughter of the lambs. He will assure the nuns that they will be cared for and their wishes taken into consideration. And then things will proceed.
Forever and forever has existed the pattern of light and dark, the earth rolling through day and night. Come to the mount and ye shall be washed in the light of the Lord. It was morning now but they could not start the day. They kept their eyes closed, trying to make him disappear. He had ripped a gash in the silk of their lives. He was not a slow nibbling moth fraying the fabric away, but a quick precise snip of scissors. Through their thin papery eyelids they noticed a lightening of the atmosphere when he vacated his post at the door. But he hadn’t gone far. They prayed for guidance, a sign, their whispered prayers rustling like leaves in the chapel.
And a sign would come, before the morning was out.
The hiss of steam, the acrid woody smell of wet ashes. Their eyes sprang open.
Light streamed into the chapel through all the orifices, awakening everything. Even the Queen of Heaven wore a sudden look of surprise, as if she’d just woken from a long sleep to discover them kneeling at her robe.
‘Damn.’ A sharp intake of breath then, ‘Damn, damn, damn!’
How could he
? How could he let the blasphemy enter the sanctity of the chapel? Margarita looked across to St Anne, Mother of Mary, Holy Grandmother of Christ. Wise Sibyl who had foreseen the Birth and had raised her daughter to be the Saviour’s mother, teaching her from the Book in which the Child’s destiny was written. Her kindliness was wrinkled with disapproval.
Even Carla was taken aback. Carla who normally delighted in disruption, who herself had taken scissors and snipped threads, who held her breath in surprised pleasure when she first heard the word coming from the four-legged creature in the brambles, knew that it should never enter the ears of the Blessed Virgin or the Blessed Grandmother. She glanced at them quickly, hoping their stone veils muffled the sound.
The nuns hastily wound up their long vigil and marched into the courtyard. He was flicking his hand back and forward trying to cool it. The kettle was on the ground and there was white steam hissing off the coals.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, truly sorry and annoyed that he had to apologise to them. ‘I was just trying to make a cup of tea before I went. I’m afraid I may have put your fire out.’
Iphigenia looked straight through him, marched over to the fire and got down on the ground. She sniffed around for the aroma of salvageable wood, gathered up unburnt twigs from the periphery of the fire and made a little pile on top of the remaining embers. She rounded her mouth till the opening was no bigger than a pea then sent into the smoulder of red a flow of air so gentle it would not disturb the flame of a candle. The red grew rounder, fuller. Then there was a glimmer of flame. She coaxed it up. When she knew that the twigs had caught she put on branches, filled her cheeks and blew gusts of breath into the fire till the flames sang and danced merrily off the blackening wood.
Benign fire was a constant companion. They gazed at it in the long winter nights and drew stories from it. It warmed their bodies and kindled their imagination. There were cities and castles in the embers, forests; fairies and monsters leapt out of the flames, wicked stepmothers and beasts.