The Divine Economy of Salvation

by Priscila Uppal

  The only thing left before the school hymn was Bella’s rendition of “O Holy Night.” Gabriel’s costume, though also donated by the theatre group, was prettier than ours: a long white dress with ruffles along the hem, a set of wings made of silk. The crowd hushed. Bella’s voice rose steadily, evoking both reverence and mourning. Her silk wings opened as she raised her arms, her voice transforming into triumph. The choir stood motionless behind her. We were instructed to freeze in our positions as she sang, but we didn’t need to be told. The spotlight was hers.

  Hear the Angels Sing.

  O Night Divine, O Night that Christ was Born.

  Illuminated, she was practically transcendent. Father McC. folded his hands in prayer. Sister Aline took out her tissue but delayed wiping her nose. Mother Superior stared fondly upon the school treasure. I was sure each parent in the audience wished Bella were their child. And then I was glad my parents hadn’t come. I knew if they had shown up, they would have shared the same expression as the other parents in the crowd; they would have been stunned at the beauty of Bella’s gift, they would have regarded her mother, who sat beaming though she didn’t understand the English words, with envy. I was grateful to be spared.

  I took the plastic baby from the manger and tried to cradle its stiff body lovingly in my arms as Bella hit her final note, which echoed under the wooden beams of the church. Every single person applauded. Some rose to their feet. When Bella took her humble bow, they sighed with wonder. At the end of the performance, I walked out with a trussed-up baby Jesus dangling by his feet from my hands. Bella, distracted for a second from the glowing appraisals of Sister Aline, stepped backwards in confusion. Take it, it’s yours, I said. And she did.

  KIM WALKS WITH A black leather purse in her hand, a gift from Sister Josie, the string hanging down like a tail between her legs as she exits Mother Superior’s office. I just happen to be near the office door on my way to get lunch. It is Thursday, and I like to have two large helpings at lunch and dinner because on Fridays I fast. I stop and wave to Kim, but she does not address me except to raise her purse slightly in the air. She turns quickly as if to enter the washroom to her right.

  “Wait, Kim,” I say.

  She is not a difficult ward. She obeys her elders when she must and waits for me to catch up to her, fiddling with her purse string, weaving her fingers through it like a cat’s cradle.

  “It’s good for you,” I say. “The doctor will be able to tell you if you’re well. Sister Ursula doesn’t have all the equipment here.”

  Kim pouts. Her lips are puffy and wet from crying. Her pitiful expression makes her condition seem more hopeless. She had built up her energy to appear so healthy to Mother Superior, so well adjusted to her new surroundings, that she hoped a trip to an outside doctor would be deemed unnecessary. It doesn’t surprise her that I am aware of what her meeting with Mother Superior was about; she already knows there are few secrets here.

  “For the baby,” she says. “Yeah, I know. Apparently I’m too skinny. All the weight’s in one place and I’m going to bend out of shape.”

  Her knuckles are white, the purse string wrapped tightly around the skin. She does not wish to speak to me and scales the walls nervously with her eyes, as if she were being expelled from the convent, holding in her breath to keep from crying. It is worse than the day the policemen came.

  “Mother Superior didn’t say you had to leave, did she?”

  “No,” she replies, taking her free hand and wiping her forehead, rubbing it in frustration. “It’s just that . . .”

  She sucks in her lips and I lament how skinny she is, how much pain she might be in from her pregnancy. She has barely enough energy to lift herself out of a chair. The unborn child rides high and directly in front, and she is without any bulk on her obliques or lower back. And her pregnancy is barely half over. A healthy girl might not even look pregnant, just a little bloated, but Kim looks like she’s strapped a ball underneath her shirt. Mother Superior is right to worry, I think. The baby needs more room to grow. Kim needs to build up her muscles or else the child might topple her.

  “Are you afraid?”

  “Yes.”

  I try to put my arm around her but she backs out of my embrace. She must be sick of being touched by us women, continually fussing over her body and trying to coddle her. She pats my elbow to assure me she isn’t angry, she just doesn’t want the comfort I offer. Sister Bernadette strolls by and smiles at us, beaming brightly, one of her many manila folders under her arm, a skip in her step. Kim stares at her backside grudgingly.

  “Is she always so happy?” Kim asks, imitating Sister Bernadette’s stride by moving her arms into a march, an exaggerated smile pinched across her face.

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it?” I reply with a smirk. “She’s a real happy nun.”

  This at least elicits a laugh.

  “She’s got a lot of faith, I guess,” Kim says, dropping both her arms and her smile.

  I point to the end of the hallway, the cafeteria entrance, to indicate she should join me for lunch. We walk together, our steps in unison. “Oh, I don’t know about that. Faith doesn’t mean much if you’ve never had doubts. She’s just sheltered,” I say without thinking who I’m talking to and inwardly scold myself. I do not know Kim well enough to be able to judge whether or not she will repeat this to one of the Sisters. And they think I act strangely enough; being critical of others won’t boost me in their esteem. Putting me at ease, Kim nods and seems to accept my answer. She’s probably seen enough already at her age to be able to understand a bit of these things. She relaxes a little, stops strangling the tips of her fingers with the purse string. The doors are open.

  “I don’t like clinics,” she tells me as we stand in line with the Sisters for our meal. I take two servings of milk from the counter and place one on her tray and one on mine, without checking if she wants one.

  “I don’t think anybody does,” I say, scanning an array of sandwiches wrapped in plastic. “Which one do you want?”

  “Ugh, none thanks. I’m sick in the mornings.”

  “Oh, of course.” I begin to suspect my initial reaction to her lack of appetite might have been wrong. She may care little about her own health, and she still does not voice concern over her baby’s health, but in all the fuss to get her to eat, none of us had bothered to ask if she was throwing it all back up. Has it really been so long since we knew such things? Since we witnessed what women actually suffer through in their pregnancies? Standing side by side, Kim and I are both women, but our bodies are as foreign to each other as opposite sexes. Her body growing, transforming, and connecting with another life. Mine backing up, pulling away, in the beginning stages of menopause. The Change of Life, Sister Ursula calls it. A little early, but nonetheless. For us, it isn’t a change really. Ought to be called The Pull Away from Life. Kim vomits in the mornings because her body is fighting an intruder, while mine is fighting the lack of one.

  “What about some soup, then. Tomato? I’m sure we have it.”

  “Okay,” Kim says, and ventures off to one of the tables. She selects two places for us among the many empty seats. There is no need for a convent of our size to have such a large dining area, so many of us try to spread ourselves out to make the room appear more lived in.

  I choose two tuna sandwiches for myself and a cup of tea.

  “Have you managed to find out who the father is?”

  It’s Sister Gwen. I can recognize the sound of her shoes anywhere. At least I used to think it was her shoes, but it’s just the way she walks, clamping down on her heel while sliding her toe to the side with every step. She also has a distinct smell, like pine, and Sister Sarah told me it is because she uses men’s deodorant. Her sweat glands are overactive.

  “Does it matter?” I say, staring her down.

  “Suppose it wouldn’t to the man,” she replies, ignoring my disapproval, extracting herself a napkin from the dispenser and pushing ahead of me as Sister G
loria retrieves my soup order, setting the hot bowl on a plate with some unsalted crackers. “Good for her stomach,” she adds.

  I am a bit annoyed by their air of familiarity in regards to Kim, although I have no reason to make claims on the girl and her baby either. Many Sisters have been doing their part, spending time with her. She’s like a communal project, the same as our regular church activities: a duty and a mission. Perhaps we hope to see how well we’ve affected her, and think that if she proves to be a good person and the baby a healthy child, it will be due to our intervention. But it’s Kim who’s intervened. Changed our routine, inserted herself. Now more than ever, I too need to know my time has purpose here, that I can help Kim even if I am unable to help myself. I hastily move past the line to sit with her and bump against the table as I do so. I snort and massage my hurt knee.

  “You all right?” asks Kim, reaching for her soup, her black purse perched on the table beside her. I think about suggesting she take it off the table and place it on the bench, but change my mind and ignore her lack of table manners. She slurps, and I notice a space between her front teeth that causes her to whistle when she sips.

  “Yeah. It’s just Sister Gwen. She wanted to know who the father of your baby is.”

  Kim clangs her spoon against the ceramic bowl, spurting soup across the top of her dress, one I kept aside for her that is warm, with a turtleneck collar. She grabs a napkin to wipe at the spillage before it becomes a stain.

  “The baby has no father,” she replies sternly without looking up from her cleaning.

  “Oh, is it a virgin birth then?”

  She refuses to meet my eyes. Returning to her soup, she runs her spoon across the top of it without bringing any to her mouth.

  “If you don’t want to say who the father is, that’s fine,” I tell her. “Just don’t lie to me and say that there isn’t one. You didn’t get that bulge across your waist from sitting on a dirty park bench.”

  I continue to eat my sandwich. It’s got a good texture and must have been made today. Sister Katherine sits down beside us and eats with her arm across her plate as if guarding her food. She chews quickly, dabbing the corners of her mouth between every few mouthfuls. I am weakened by sleeplessness and am not any further along on the issue of who has sent me the candle holder. Four more envelopes have been returned, but to no avail. I’ve stored the cheques in my socks, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do. They are made out to the convent and so I cannot refuse them, but I need to wait until I can concoct a credible story for Mother Superior and Father B. They don’t usually care where church money comes from as long as the cheques don’t bounce, yet it is still a tricky business to lie about why I’ve been secretive collecting it. Maybe I would be better off if I went over the wall. Leave the nunnery for good and start a new life somewhere else, under a different name, become a florist or a secretary or a hostess in a restaurant. At least I’d be free of this. Free of my knowledge, instead of suffocating inside of it. Whoever is tormenting me might merely be waiting for me to do the right thing and end this life of hypocrisy. Belief in God isn’t enough to be a nun. The word Believer originally came from the word meaning Approve. Sister Aline taught me that. One must approve of God and I’m not sure I do. God isn’t a belief anyway. He’s more like a rumour. Especially at this time, so close to Christmas, it is the possibility of His presence that makes us prepare the church for festivity. Hope for mercy. I’ve worked hard here in my repentance. Why am I being disturbed now? Who wants me to pay at a higher rate than I’ve already been paying?

  I look at Sister Katherine suspiciously for a moment, wondering if we might have met at some earlier time. The probability is minimal, practically non-existent. There is no reason to suspect any of the Sisters here. Sister Katherine lifts her face up from her dish and I pretend I am staring past her to the window and the orchard outside. Not Sister Katherine, but perhaps one of the Sisters from St. X. School for Girls might have sent the silver candle holder. Sister Marguerite or Sister Aline or Mother Superior. I encounter Sister Aline once a year; she lives in another convent only twenty miles away, but she has never given me any indication that she knows what happened in Rachel’s room all those years ago. Sister Aline is fragile in her constitution; I imagine she would have broken her silence before now if she had any privileged knowledge. She was particularly distressed at the time, expressed a desire to investigate the circumstances but found very little. In fact, when we do meet at certain church events, she is content to reminisce about the old school, with only a tinge of regret that it is no longer running. Sister Aline adored teaching and the choir. She loved the girls, and her belief in our eternal innocence was unshakeable. I would bet it is not her. Mother Superior would be old if she were alive, but she isn’t; she died of a heart attack eight years ago. Our Mother Superior received a letter and a photocopy of her obituary in The Catholic Monitor. But Sister Marguerite might still be alive. Maybe I can write to her convent and find out. I could pretend to be researching the history of how St. X. School for Girls came to be sold to the separate school system, to hire both male and female teachers and become co-ed. Sister Marguerite was particularly sad when the school shut down, I remember. She had been wary of the tide of feminism carrying off younger women and feared that Sisters were dwindling in numbers. Didn’t I prove her wrong. Maybe she hid the candle holder in hopes of keeping the scandal hidden and only now, in her later years, felt the need to be free of it. Send it back to one of its sinful owners. Maybe she blames us for the loss of the school. That, at least, wasn’t our fault. That ending was out of our control.

  Kim picks up her bowl and drinks the last of the soup. She is about to leave the table and makes a show of it, standing up and whipping her tray off in a dramatic gesture. Suddenly I’m a bit afraid of her, of her power to hurt me. I need her and her baby here. She keeps me focussed. At least I’m sure she knows nothing about me or my past. As I know little about hers. She won’t even reveal to me who the father is. But that doesn’t matter. Right now the child needs only its mother to survive. God could have sent His one and only Son down to earth in any form; He chose Mary for a reason. Even God knows that every child needs a mother.

  “Wait, Kim,” I say, rising with her to stack our trays and dispose of our napkins in the trash bin. “I’ll go to the clinic with you if you like.”

  Her eyes widen in gratitude. She is more fragile than I give her credit for, I realize. I must be kinder to her. There is no need for me to keep forcing her to pay for her pregnancy. She’ll have enough reminders and hard times ahead without any of us making her feel worse. I smile, gesture to her to sit at the table nearest the exit. She obeys.

  “Drink your milk,” I tell her, noticing she hasn’t opened her carton. She drinks, and a white moustache forms across her upper lip. If it wasn’t impossible, I could almost believe she was going to have a virgin birth. I wonder if such things might actually be possible. Could we ever be given gifts instead of burdens? Did Mary herself know which she had been offered the day the angel Gabriel came into her life? The trash beside us needs to be emptied. Crunched up paper napkins stick out the top, and wrappers and food scraps fill the bin. I am reminded of how much we waste. Even us.

  At the clinic, after Kim is examined, the female doctor, hectic and overworked I can tell from her bloodshot eyes and her lab coat buttoned unevenly, comes out of the examination room to inform me Kim is in trouble. Although the existing weight is hard on Kim’s slight frame, she also hasn’t gained enough weight to ensure a healthy pregnancy.

  “By six-and-a-half months she should be at least ten to fifteen pounds heavier,” she says, demonstrating with a picture on a pamphlet, a row of cartoon women at different stages of pregnancy, their hands around their hips, holding up their progressively larger bellies.

  “But she’s only four-and-a-half months,” I reply.

  “No, no. She’s six-and-a-half months along. Maybe closer to seven, but I’m trying to be conservative. Get her
to eat.” The doctor’s tone is curt. She signals a nurse, who inserts a couple of files between her hands as if they were a mail slot.

  “But she has morning sickness,” I tell her.

  “No. That’s only in the first trimester. Get the nurse at the admitting desk to give you some information booklets. If she’s throwing up now, then there’s something else wrong with her. But I don’t think so. I didn’t find anything else out of the ordinary when I examined her. She’s young. They’re all worried about their weight these days. She’s probably trying not to put much on in fear she’ll never take it off. It’s getting harder to get women to put on the weight they need when they need it. And then harder to get them to take it off when they gain too much.”

  “I didn’t know,” I stammer, a bit put off by the amount of noise in the clinic corridor. People pass by in such a hurry, boots stomping on the floors, while the nurses call out names, deliver instructions. There’s the banter of those waiting on chairs, a child in a stroller crying while a tired mother shakes a rattle.

  “That’s all right. I’m sure you didn’t know this surprise was coming months ago. Tell her mother to get her to eat.”

  She returns a folder to the reception area. Her short hair has split ends at the base of her neck, and her nylons have a small run up her calf from behind. A pregnant woman in her thirties and a man who must be the child’s father follow her out. They look equally exhausted but relieved to see the doctor.

  “She doesn’t have a mother,” I say to no one in particular as Kim emerges from the examination room, zipping up her jacket, head down, shuffling her feet across the floor and holding her belly protectively with her hands. She looks so downtrodden; I’m startled by an urge to slap her. I don’t know what she told the doctor about the length of her pregnancy, but I’m sure she knows I won’t be happy. She’s lied to me once already today. She walks bravely over to me in a straight line, anticipating the anger in my face.