The Divine Economy of Salvation

by Priscila Uppal

  “Sister Aline says it’s not Christian to gamble,” mumbled Francine as she sipped on her straw, her front teeth holding it in place.

  “Who cares?” Rachel snapped back. “My father says that since they won so much money, they should have donated some to the school like he does. But they went to live in France instead. Bought a vineyard or something ridiculous.”

  “I’d go live somewhere else if I had all that money,” Caroline said wistfully, her elbows on the table. She’d finished her cake and her drink. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I’ve never thought about it.”

  “Nobody likes to be broke,” she continued.

  “No, I guess not,” I replied.

  The cakes were expensive when buying for four and with a milkshake each, but I didn’t care. We were out on the town and I felt grown-up sitting at the table being served without being chaperoned. We were eating in a place that had tablecloths and candles and where I would receive the bill from the waitress. The double-chocolate cheesecake melted in my mouth deliciously. I can still taste its sweetness if I concentrate hard enough.

  LATER THE SAME EVENING I found my opening. Although the girls were treating me well, I was painfully aware it was due largely to the fact that I was treating them all. Since it was the emergency money my father had given me, and because I’d never received an allowance and didn’t know how long it would be before my father or mother would give me any more, I knew I couldn’t count on money to keep me in their company. For the night, however, I enjoyed being able to provide for our short-term happiness. We went from the café to the Hudson’s Bay Company, the largest store in the city, located near the Market where the canal passed. Boats lined the sides of the canal, some with their lights on, others dark, attached by ropes and buoys to the concrete shore. With winter approaching, their residents would soon need to vacate their temporary homes. I wondered where those people went and where the boats were taken when the canal froze over. I bought the girls Cokes and plastic bags filled with candy to take home. I also bought them each a fashion magazine from the newsstand near the store exit. This way we could all trade after reading them and enviously admiring the glamorous women on the covers and in the layouts, their bodies thin and attractive to men, not much unlike our own except that they were comfortable in them. The male clerk gave us a wink and we amused ourselves by speculating on what his girlfriend might be like, whether she resembled any of the women in the magazines we had just purchased.

  By the time we browsed the clothing, I hadn’t much left in my pocket, and we resigned ourselves to window-shopping. We touched the alluring fabrics on mannequins and tried on some of the complimentary perfume at a stand. I picked a lily scent, knowing it was my mother’s favourite flower, spraying the liquid on my wrists and under my ears as I had watched her do before her skin became so sensitive she no longer could. Rachel managed to get us samples from a clerk she knew because her father bought perfume for her mother there. “She doesn’t leave her room in the morning without it,” said Rachel, flinching at the sight of the bottle, one of the most expensive brands, kept in a glass case with a key. The clerk gave us each a small tube of skin lotion and explained how to brush it in an upward motion on our cheeks to avoid lines and wrinkles. “They come sooner than you think,” she said. We practised in the mirror, taking her directions as seriously as if she were explaining procedures to follow during a medical emergency or a fire. I circled the cream around my eyes, aging myself in the process, imagining what I would look like when I started to get wrinkles like my mother. Whether I might end up with skin as sensitive as hers.

  I was thinking about using the last of my money to buy Rachel the cheap perfume in a cute yellow glass sitting on the counter until we saw the red satin bra. Rachel was the first to notice it. She had rushed ahead to the women’s underwear section and was pointing at the skinny mannequin with the large breasts who was wearing it when we caught up to her. We were pinched with envy at how elegant and beyond us it was.

  The bra was bright red and the cups only covered half the plastic breasts, the cloth stopping just above the nipple line. There were two layers, one of satin and one of lace, both the exact same shade of fire hydrant red. Rachel stood behind the mannequin cupping its breasts with her hands.

  “Could you imagine wearing that to a club?” she cooed, fingering the material.

  Caroline, Francine, and I were speechless. It seems a bit ridiculous now, the fuss we made over a bra in the department store. Even if it was red. We were wearing bras; my mother had bought me two, although mine were white and completely cotton, and because of my late development the cups were flat as doilies. The other girls, from what I could gather through their white blouses in the washroom in the morning and the changing rooms for gym class, were sporting bras of similar practicality. But the red bra attracted us with more than just its exotic fabric and flashy colour. You would need to be a woman to wear a bra like that; you would need to wear it for a man. When a middle-aged saleslady with feathered hair walked by, eyeing us suspiciously, Rachel took her hands off the mannequin and smiled.

  “It’s so pretty,” she said to her.

  “It is, isn’t it?” the saleslady replied, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose and herself examining the cloth between her fingers. “It’s new.”

  She left us, her hand lingering on Rachel’s shoulder as she turned to adjust a display on the other side of the racks. She had decided we were harmless.

  Rachel grabbed the price tag.

  “Twenty-five dollars,” she read, the exact amount I had started the evening with. There were duplicates of the bra on the table beside the mannequin, and she sorted through them. “I don’t think they have my size,” Rachel said.

  “They probably don’t make them that small,” Caroline replied.

  “Who asked you?”

  “It should be here for a while if it’s new,” Francine offered.

  Rachel let go of the price tag and pouted. The saleslady glanced at her sympathetically and then went back to work. Rachel fumbled through the bras on the table with a fierceness that made us all silent. Then she pushed Caroline aside as she went to the other racks. But she flipped the underwear on the hangers with disinterest. She even checked her watch. Our good time was threatened by the simple knowledge that we were not old enough and didn’t have enough money to wear a red satin bra.

  “My dad will never buy me one of those,” she said to me, walking back over to the table with the red bras. “Look.” She grabbed one with cups that were barely curved. “I know this would fit me.” She held it up against her chest, pressing the cups against her shirt and prancing in front of the display mirror. Then she handed it over to Caroline, who stroked it a little, folded it, and returned it to the table. Rachel made her way to the exit, buttoning up her jacket.

  “Well, are you coming? We don’t have any more money, so we might as well go back.”

  Caroline exchanged an annoyed expression with Francine. Then she whispered to me, “She can’t stand not having something she wants. Her father spoils her rotten.” But they followed her command nonetheless, edging towards her.

  “I’ll meet you in front,” I said. “I’ve got to use the washroom.” I followed the sign that directed me left of the women’s underwear section.

  When we returned to the school, the large iron gates closing behind us as we held our magazines and candy, I was bursting with pride. Although Rachel was disappointed by not getting what she wanted, Caroline and Francine had warmed up to me, and they thanked me for the stuff I’d bought them before they settled in their rooms for bed. Sister Marguerite was monitoring the dormitory building, but she was barely alert. She perused a newspaper and didn’t speak to us as we passed. The girls shut their doors and turned off the lights, but they had flashlights hidden in their beds so they could read after hours, and I was sure Caroline and Francine would do just that, flipping through their new magazines, s
hoving toffees and mints into their mouths until their teeth hurt.

  I waited a few minutes, getting up my nerve, then left my room still wearing my jacket. Rachel’s door was closed, so I knocked as silently as possible. She opened the door.

  “What do you want?” she said, already changed into a pink cotton nightgown, her body blocking my view of her room. Her bed was all I could make out, with a matching pastel pink afghan on top, waiting for her to slip inside. She placed one of her hands on her hip and sighed, as if we had returned hours ago and I had interrupted her sleep.

  “I have something for you,” I replied.

  I’d never stolen anything before. I couldn’t believe how easy it had been, how natural when I set my mind to it, when there was a reason for doing so. When I left for the washroom, I zipped open the large right-hand pocket on my jacket. The thought crossed my mind that with Rachel’s foul mood the girls might leave without me, but I decided to risk that too. The timing was perfect. As I exited the washroom, the saleslady had her glasses off and was intent on cleaning them, wetting her fingers across her lips and rubbing them over the lenses. She didn’t see me as I snatched the bra from the table and shoved it into my pocket. The bra had a wire, but Rachel’s size was small enough that it fit snugly, without a bulge poking out to give me away. I kept a Kleenex hidden in my palm, which I planned to use to wipe my nose in case the saleslady became alarmed by the movement of my hands digging into my pocket. But she didn’t register me at all.

  When I met the girls outside the store near the canal, waiting for the bus back to St. X. School for Girls, Caroline eyed me strangely.

  “Your face is all red,” she said.

  Rachel scowled but led us home. It would be all right, I told myself. I began to relax. I had something Rachel wanted.

  “It’s yours,” I said now. “I . . . stole it.”

  I extracted the bra from my jacket and handed it gently to her, as if it might tear. She received my offering, darting her eyes up at me and then back down at the bra with amazement.

  “I never would have thought that you . . .”

  She didn’t finish. She pulled me inside her room, which I could see now was larger than mine, but cleaner than I thought it would be. She had movie posters on the wall. Aside from a few trinkets on her dresser, her school books piled on a wooden desk, the silver candle holder displayed on one of the bookshelves, most of her personal items were in her drawers and in her closet. Her plastic bag with the candy and magazine were already out of sight.

  She lifted her pink nightgown, tossing it on the afghan on the bed. Even though I knew she was pleased, I shook with nervousness. Her body was bare except for her full-brief white underwear. She fastened the red bra to her chest and faced me. It was out of place with her ordinary cotton underwear, and it was still a size too large, but she was beaming, adjusting the straps and twisting her hips from side to side. To me, she looked like a young movie star from one of her posters, her white skin striking against the bold red.

  The plan worked. Rachel slapped my back and tried to hold back giggles so as not to attract attention to her room. I told her how beautiful she looked. She told me the bra was the best gift she’d ever received. I had to resist the urge to touch the satin fabric while she was wearing it, the lace against her budding breasts. Rachel was thankful, but she knew there now existed a debt on her side. My gesture was genuine, yet nothing comes without a price.

  There is nothing like a pregnancy to get a bunch of childless women stirring. The Sisters try to entice Kim to eat fresh berries and other fruit bought at the local market or the organic food store a few blocks farther away. They ply her with cartons of two-percent, homogenized, and lactose-free milk, and different kinds of rye, honey-grain, and cinnamon breads. “Have just a bite,” Sister Josie says, holding up a Granny Smith apple, bright green and round. “Please, for the baby’s sake.” And Sister Sarah, directly behind her, nods her approval like a mother. They are going about this business all wrong. Kim flinches at the word “baby,” is keeping thin, I believe, on purpose. The skinnier she stays, the less likely to accept the inevitable. At lunch, as we sit in the cafeteria, she rests her head on her folded arms, her eyes red with sleeplessness, the olive skin around her cheeks pinched and uneven in tone. Besides, I think, when has an apple ever brought a woman any good? It’s not going to save her.

  She fingers the slices of tangerine on her plate, rearranging them into indistinct patterns, and replaces the green apple in the fruit bowl set in front of her on the table. She smiles politely at the Sisters, her teeth unusually white, like a newly painted wall, but it is clear she cannot bear the attention. She seeks to melt into the surroundings: her chair, the long cafeteria tables, the windowsills where there is a view of a corner of the orchard and the street outside. Times have changed. Two women walk side by side holding hands when I look over. A young man with piercings in his nose and eyebrows stops to point at the rhododendrons in a planter near the entrance to our convent. I wonder if he knows what he’s pointing at. The building is frequently mistaken for a school, a hotel, or an old-age home, depending on who happens to be visible from the windows or sitting outside the entrance, depending on what they’re wearing. Possibly because of our penchant for black, the most frequent assumption is that it’s a funeral home, though I remember once a woman stopping to ask me if our convent was the battered-women’s shelter rumoured to be going up in the area. “No,” I replied. “We’ve been here forever.” “Funny, I never noticed what this place was,” she said and kept on her way. We have a sign on the entrance doors like those on office buildings, but we have no sign on our gates. You must enter to know where you are. Returning home from an errand or from church, I’ve often thought that our convent could be mistaken for a mental-health group home where patients reintegrate slowly into society. Mr. Q., who is Father B. and Mother Superior’s favourite social worker, took us on a field trip to one located in the west end of the city, and it seems similarly set up. There is a fence there too, dormitory rooms and a cafeteria, as well as a recreation room and a garden outside for the patients. We had tea there, and apart from a few of the patients’ odd demeanours, and the time required to instruct them on how to perform the most ordinary tasks (how to use a bus transfer or how to clean up the coffee machine after use), the home was a somewhat familiar place. They live closely together too, grow accustomed to the particular habits of their peers. The only major difference was the men. We rarely house visiting male relatives, only when there is really nowhere else to board them. Otherwise, it’s women only.

  Kim scrunches herself into as tiny a space as she can manage, her elbows tight against her rib cage as she eats, her posture hunchbacked. Talking about her past is out of the question. There is little about her any of us have been able to discover in these couple of weeks. She’s a smart young lady, the way she hoards her memories. She converses with us, but she skilfully avoids the Sisters’ questions.

  “Where is your family?” I overheard Sister Claire ask her, suspiciously taking a trip to the other side of our dining hall, pretending to admire the orchard through the window behind Kim, after commenting, as many of us have, on the lateness of the snow.

  Kim simply took up her fork and replied, “Not sure. What about yours?” Most Sisters, eager to speak about themselves to someone new, answer her and forget about their initial question. Sister Claire went on about her grandfather’s piano business and how her mother was a schoolteacher, her father a dentist. About ten years ago he successfully urged one of his colleagues to furnish her with braces for free. Sister Claire had been a comical sight with her metallic smile and her dark habit, but her teeth were perfectly straight afterwards, unlike mine, with their small gaps. When a few of us accused her of vanity, she claimed she needed braces for medical purposes, but I’ve seen her smiling into the mirror in the cafeteria washroom at her new set of teeth. Kim feigns interest in the Sisters’ histories, asks a follow-up question to keep them talking. Backgroun
d noise for her silence here. Within a short time, she has it down to a routine. Many of the Sisters will tell her about how they entered the convent and the reaction their parents had when they did. Sister Katherine’s brothers disowned her immediately, as did her mother. “The gates in convents,” she explained to Kim, “were originally set up not to keep us in, but to keep others out. I heard of one woman back in my country who had broken ribs because her father had tried to drag her out against her will before she took her vows.” “You’d think they’d be happy that they wouldn’t have to worry about you,” Kim had responded, genuinely intrigued. “Worry? They were worried we wouldn’t be under the control of men. Allowed to just be ourselves under God. A lot of women here were made to feel ashamed for their calling. Not wanting to get pregnant was seen as unnatural. You were supposed to have babies. You weren’t supposed to give up your father’s name until you found another father’s name to claim you,” she said. “Under the sanctions of marriage, of course.” “Of course,” Kim replied and got up to get some juice.

  Kim has also managed to keep Mr. Q. at bay. Generally, Mr. Q. is quick as an eagle, swooping down to collect the unfortunate in his claws. “That man,” Father B. says, “is a miracle worker.” He finds shelter for the battered, food for the homeless, and Christian counselling for the mentally ill or distraught. He signs them up for programs: Get Well Get Work, Fear of Failure Group, Alcoholics Anonymous, Incest Survivors. He comes regularly to church, sits attentively in the first-row pew, has tea with the parishioners after Mass, and homes in upon his subjects. Of course, he doesn’t attend on weekends, doesn’t seem to mind losing that demographic. But he tells us that those in need of help tend to arrive when you least expect them, during the days, not at peak hours of worship. They are self-conscious of their problems and don’t like to be watched, he claims. Sunday Mass is for those who have their act together. He reminds me of a medical doctor, the way he tries to diagnose a soul in trouble, ascertain the problem within an hour or two, then sign them up for tests. He has his own office, in a room in the back of the church for confidentiality. Father B. gave it to him three years ago. He has a phone in there and a picture of his wife and two kids smiling in front of their two-storey home. He thinks the photograph sets a good example. I think he’s rubbing it in their faces. Kim has threatened to run away if she is sent to see him, says she distrusts men, and Father B. bends to her will, but he tells her she will soon have to think of the future. Mr. Q. advised Father B. that Kim would begin to open up if her self-confidence was raised, that he should assign her some light responsibilities to make her feel useful and integral to the community. Father B. immediately gave her work. She is going to help with the rummage sale, the proceeds from which will pay for the turkey dinners we send to the Catholic food bank at Christmas. She will be paired up with me, though really I’ve been rather unsociable since the arrival of my package. I’ve been spending my nights with a notebook and a copy of the telephone book, trying to remember the full names of the girls I went to school with. It must be one of them trying to expose me. Someone else must have witnessed what happened that night in Room 313. Someone who must have been scared all these years to confront us, but has finally found the strength or else can’t handle the stress of keeping secrets any longer. The telephone book has offered few clues. People move so often these days. And those who were girls then are now women in their early forties with maiden names changed to married names and plane tickets and careers that might have uprooted them from here. I wonder how it is that I was located, without a last name. Two weeks of nightly searching under any lead I could think of has turned up nothing solid, nothing I’d want to act upon by phoning or staking out an address. Plus I’ve found it exceedingly difficult to remember family names, since in my profession we use them so rarely.