The Divine Economy of Salvation

by Priscila Uppal

  “They’re called God’s Eyes,” she said. “Those are the empty spaces.” She held up her original piece and poked the air with her slender fingers. “His eyes.”

  Father got up from his chair to put some Christmas carols on the record player. “I think the name’s strange,” he said with a mischievous glance in my mother’s direction. “Making God’s Eyes. How about God’s Legs or God’s Hair or God’s Lungs or God’s Toes . . .”

  Christine and I started giggling. I thought of what God’s legs might look like. I tried to imagine them with hair like my father’s, dense as mesh.

  “You’re not making the empty spaces,” he continued.

  “Joe, you’re so silly. Don’t encourage him, girls,” said my mother, and she tilted her head back to chastise him. “We are making the empty spaces. That’s what the threads are for. You can’t create the space without the yarn. But the yarn’s not the creation. The creation is something unseen. God’s Eyes. It’s a perfect name.” Her explanation was so sincere in her belief that she reminded me of Sister Aline.

  “How come I’ve never heard of them before?” asked Christine, who had inherited Mother and Father’s love of working with their hands. She was almost finished her first piece, albeit a bit clumsily, while I was still trying to get the rhythm of the turning.

  “They’re Mexican, I think the neighbour told me. They just hadn’t been imported here yet.” She said the last part with authority, directing a smirk at my father, who shrugged his shoulders and poured her a glass of eggnog from the jug.

  The word “imported,” brought from another land to ours, made me remember how Sister Aline had told us the Apostles travelled from land to land bringing their new customs with them, converting people to their beliefs. I envisioned thousands upon thousands of Mexicans in the heat on the equator, which Sister Marguerite had pointed to on her map in Geography class, running in the sands on the beach collecting branches and twigs in little baskets, picking up their sewing thread, and weaving their way into heaven. Conversion, Sister Aline had taught us, came when one spoke the Word of God. Becoming a witness, as in court. You had to speak for it to count, in front of everyone. The way we needed to speak at Confession or Confirmation to the priest. Yet performing an act of conversion instead of speaking thrilled me. Speaking with one’s hands, as these faraway Mexicans might be doing, was better than studying catechism and reciting prayers, memorizing the words and writing them out ten or twenty times in lined notebooks, the nuns upset with any error. Conversion was a word I could use to make sense of what I had seen between Mr. M. and Esperanza in her room beside the furnace. Conversion by speaking through one’s hands. But then, as my mother held up Christine’s newly finished God’s Eye, the empty spaces filled me with dread. Why were God’s Eyes empty? Why did we need to frame them in order to see their emptiness? Earlier I had worried God was watching us twenty-four hours a day, but now I thought it must be the other way around. We were looking for Him. And He, instead of clearly showing us the way to follow Him, was showing us holes.

  My mother continued to curl the yarn around the wood, sliding her glasses down her nose and then back up again to shield her eyes from the harsh sunlight, her motions monotonous. Christine was well equipped to follow suit. Being with my mother was what I’d wanted, and I didn’t care for God or anyone else to share in what we as a family were enjoying together. My mother hummed, and I was determined to believe her song was for me and for me alone. She had lost her hair; she took pills and wore her glasses as she was told; she did everything as she was told, and she wasn’t getting any better. At least she was spared the pain in her hands that day, weaving with serenity. I was slower with my craft, and I aimed to fill in the entire surface of my cross with the thread. Determined not to leave a single hair’s breadth space open for anyone to see through.

  The memories of that Christmas you would think should comfort me. My mother in such high spirits, my father’s extreme tenderness towards her and her every need, his own laughter back and double in force. The whole family under the same roof during the holidays, making crafts and singing carols, eating and drinking seasonal treats, playing in the snow, staying up late, and the lights, the decorations, the smells designed intentionally to enchant the senses—pine, cinnamon, peppermint, chocolate, nutmeg. We played games and went sliding down the hill in the park in our snowsuits, pushing our bodies into the coldness. Throwing up the snow or packing it into our palms. Waving our arms and legs, making snow angels. Snow Angelas, my mother said when we returned, and I laughed at the thought of my own imprint in the snow, a snow fossil of me.

  As one who believes in ghosts, it isn’t surprising that I also believe in magic. Yet whose magic transformed those few weeks for us into normalcy and comfort, I do not know. Maybe my father did, with his wishes and his dreams, his love for my mother and for us. He bathed the house in light and warmth, keeping the fireplace burning day and night, the flames like pillars. He kept us busy making cookies, getting our hands sticky and sweet in the dough and chocolate chips, icing and sprinkles; or going outside to throw snowballs, stroll up and down the street peeking in at the holiday decorations in other people’s homes, or walk down to the mini-mall to buy little gifts for each other. Maybe it was my mother or us kids, unwilling to give up on the holidays, bent on creating a foundation of happiness stronger than the frame of the weather-beaten bungalow on Ashbrook Crescent. My mother capable of moving from one room to the other with little fuss, up in the mornings bright and early, her wig washed and brushed, her clothes ironed. She may have watched television when she got tired, or asked us to read the newspaper to her when her eyes were sore, but she was with us, alive and full of conversation, her world re-energized. Maybe it was simply an act of faith, unnerving, unspectacular, but miraculous all the same. It almost had a sound to it—the sound of a quiet, humble joy. Not the noisy joy from Christmas trumpets or carollers, but the sound of paper crackling in a hearth or a child sleeping in a manger of hay.

  Still, for those of us who love magic, but lack the skill to perform it, underneath all such joy lingers frustration. Magic comes in small doses. Someone else holds on to its secret, so you can never force it to materialize at will. And Christ was the master magician of them all. Coming back in the flesh. Not in a memory, or in a vision, but in the flesh. Come to earth, where his adopted family lived. He was not content with His spirit alone. He wanted a body. As I desperately wanted my mother to have another body, to be rewarded for her belief in God by Him transforming the sickness inside her into health. I knew the day I left, back on the bus to St. X. School for Girls downtown, that my mother’s body was very weak. She could barely put her arms around me to hug me goodbye for another term. She removed her glasses. Her eyes were unable to focus. She said she hadn’t slept the night before, because she wanted to remember this holiday forever. There was some part of her that was already floating away. But I loved her then more than I believe I’ve ever loved her. For a moment, I even loved her God for making her so beautiful, while I also cursed Him for making her so sick. I held her tightly. I caressed her fake hair and kissed her cheeks, and I was full of hope for the possibility of a cure, for a new life she could almost make me believe existed. “I’ll see you soon, Angela,” she promised. “And when I see you again, I will be better. I don’t think I’ll be allowed to suffer much longer. Have faith.” Regardless of the evidence before me, telling me it wouldn’t be, I did have faith in her words, until I reached the iron gates of St. X. School for Girls and realized my mother could no longer do anything for me. But for a single moment, daughter in her mother’s arms, I knew faith. And I tell you, I can barely contain the memory of the happiness I felt on that Christmas as I have contained the guilt of my youth, hoarding it for all this time from others. The happiness is harder to forgive myself. Without her, the happiness has lost its meaning. Suffering ends; Christ on the cross rises again. But tell me, how do we forgive ourselves, O Lord, for the times we’ve been happy?
/>   ∼ WINTER ∼

  white birds are rare, except for doves

  and those who have lived out the winter

  hanging against the sky like crosses

  —PAUL-MARIE LAPOINTE, “Poem for Winter”

  WHEN THE GIRLS RETURNED for the winter term at St. X. School for Girls, the festivity continued. Mr. M. organized an elaborate party for Rachel’s fifteenth birthday. The party was held on her actual birthday, a school day, so every girl in the school could attend. The nuns were more than happy to oblige, and all the girls in the school, whether friendly with Rachel or not, were excited and made a point of mentioning the party to her, asking numerous questions about what activities were planned and what they were going to eat. The younger girls were particularly thrilled to be invited to a party with the older girls. “I asked for an ice cream cake,” was all Rachel could say. “The rest is supposed to be a surprise.”

  Classes ended early so we would still keep curfew and have lights out at a decent hour. Mr. M. managed to enlist the cafeteria staff and Esperanza to help out with decorations. When we entered the cafeteria, it was as if we had been transported to another world. Blue and green streamers hung from the ceiling the entire length of the hall, twisted into spirals and merged at the centre of the room, where yellow, green, pink, and purple balloons formed a cluster like enormous multicoloured grapes. Yellow bristol board cutouts of stars were attached to the walls, high and low, in no apparent pattern, creating the picture of a night sky. The lights were dimmed. An area to the left of the cafeteria was cleared of tables and chairs to provide a space for games. There were presents with shiny wrapping and bows on the table beside it, which weren’t for Rachel as we first supposed, but were for the winners of each of the games.

  Mr. M. stood at the door, waving and calling to the girls as they approached the cafeteria. He was boisterous and energetic in his delight, laughing and teasing the girls as they arrived with presents for Rachel in their arms. He wore a three-piece blue suit, but tonight the formal dress didn’t belong to the same world as his banking. Here in the makeshift party of our dreams, he was like the ringmaster of a circus, elegant and in control. The smell of his familiar musk cologne permeated the air around him.

  Even the nuns were impressed. I noticed Sister Aline staring at the stars in the dimmed light with a reverence generally reserved for Bella. Sister Marguerite was gathering the girls together into groups, handing out the name tags Mr. M. said his wife had made for the party. He had requested a list of all the girls in the school, and the tags were cut out of yellow cardboard into stars to match the decorations, the names printed in blue ink. Safety pins were used to pin them on our chests. Mother Superior, walking around the perimeter and between the tables, inspected the table settings: the paper plates and napkins with “Happy Birthday” on them and a smiley-faced clown, the matching paper cups, the party favours—little whistles and horns, long paper tongues that rolled out and made bleating noises—and the pretty pink and yellow carnations that were centre-pieces on each table. Every detail was ordered, perfected. Between Mr. M.’s vision and the nuns’ work, what I would have believed impossible had been accomplished. An aura of joy and wonder surrounded us.

  “You’re going to spoil them, Mr. M.,” Mother Superior remarked after taking it all in. “I’m not sure we should have agreed to all this.”

  “Oh, Reverend Mother, it’s only once in a girl’s life she turns fifteen.” Mr. M. could have mentioned he’d paid for the party, but he didn’t. “You all did a wonderful job here,” he said instead.

  “I suppose,” she replied distantly, as if remembering something, maybe making concessions for the fact she had been fifteen once with dreams of her own. The deep furrow across her brow relaxed, and she picked up one of the decorative cups, admiring it. “It is amazing all the things you can buy nowadays, isn’t it?”

  She then turned her attentions to the staff, who were working on our dinner: fried chicken legs and potato salad with vegetables, and white bread rolls with butter. Plastic cutlery was being laid out on the tables as we waited for everyone. The aroma of chicken wafted around me, seeping down through the vents circulating air from the kitchen in the back, the fans chortling.

  Rachel wore a bright orange dress of tightly knit wool and black shoes with a slight heel. She showed off to Caroline and me how well she could walk in them, although she teetered every five steps or so. Her father even allowed her to wear a light-orange lipstick, but not so much as to offend the tastes of the nuns. A thin leather belt encircled her waist, and the cuffs of her sleeves were a darker brownish-orange. Her hair was in a ponytail held up with a black barrette. Two blonde curls wove around her ears. On Francine, the orange would have made her freckles all the more visible and startling, but on Rachel, the dress brought out the sunny shade of her hair, the wildness of her green eyes, and the whiteness of her skin. Caroline and I could only admit that she was as beautiful as the decorations.

  “You look like a movie star,” Caroline teased.

  “The good girl or the bad girl?” Rachel inquired.

  “I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Did you invite any of your boyfriends here tonight?”

  Boys, of course, were not invited and Caroline knew this. Other girls were crowding around us now, fawning over Rachel’s dress and shoes, giddy with excitement. We all began to talk quickly about how much we liked the decorations and how wonderful the food smelled. Most of the girls, like me, wore dresses to the party, but a few day girls did not have clothes at school besides their uniforms and wore them in default. Their outfits hampered the fantasy of being away from the school, but didn’t destroy it. Francine, in a pastel pink dress, was the last of The Sisterhood to arrive. Her mother had sent some homemade chocolate chip cookies, which Francine had kept hidden in her room. She held the tray out in front of her like a badge of honour as we walked over to greet her. Rachel was thrilled.

  “Let the games begin!” announced Mr. M. to the hall. A couple of the nuns turned, unaccustomed to hearing a strong male voice that wasn’t a priest’s. He instructed all the girls to group together according to their grades. Those not involved in a game could sit and chat, snack on cookies, or help themselves to some orange punch from a large bowl on a table at the entrance of the cafeteria, slices of fresh lemon and orange peels floating on the orange-red water.

  We played pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and plastic horseshoes, and the top three winners of each game were presented with clip-on earrings or a fake moonstone or a bag of jellybeans and lollipops.

  “It’s absurd!” Rachel said to me as we drank punch, waiting our turn to play. “You’d think I was turning five, not fifteen!” But the truth of the matter was we loved it. Rachel loved it too. There was a glorious freedom in playing the games of childhood we knew we’d probably never play again. And Mr. M. supplied us with the pleasures of both worlds. The presents weren’t toys or plastic bubble pipes, but things young women did enjoy. Rachel spun around with the blindfold on her head and laughed so hard she could barely stand, her father trying to steady her in the direction of the donkey. We ate cookies and stuffed our faces with candy. Caroline showed us her bright blue tongue after winning a bunch of blue jellybeans in a guess-the-number-in-the-jar game. I won a pink bracelet bobbing for apples, the wet hair on my forehead plastered to my skin from dunking. Mother Superior and Sister Marguerite joined us in a boiled-egg-on-a-spoon race, and when they finished last, unable to manoeuvre properly in their constrictive habits, Mr. M. rallied us to cheer their valiant effort. The few girls who hadn’t been wearing the paper hats handed to them at the door, upset at the possibility of messing their hair, were found sporting them before dinner was served. Our bellies ached, our jaws hurt, and we couldn’t wait to eat more.

  The kitchen staff and the nuns presented the trays of food. Instead of waiting in line, on this night we were being served. We asked the staff to pile the potato salad as high as they could. I ate four drumsticks. Caroline beat us all b
y eating six. Gluttony had no power to shame us that day. We licked the grease and crumbs off our fingers and asked for more. Francine’s fork didn’t touch the table until she’d finished eating everything on her plate. Caroline talked with her mouth full, and Rachel disgusted us by pouring punch over her potatoes and eating them. The nuns and Mr. M. ate at a separate table. He told them knock-knock jokes and complimented them on how well they’d done raising all these young ladies of tomorrow. Although by dinner some of the streamers were falling and a couple of the balloons had burst, the darling illusion remained intact.

  When the ice cream cake Rachel had requested, three layers high and the length of a small window, was brought out with all of its candles alight, a darker underbelly was revealed.

  “Make a wish, Rachel,” Mr. M. said.

  Rachel closed her eyes and concentrated for what seemed like an unduly long time, then puckered her lips to meet the candles. She left two burning, which Mr. M. and I blew out, already clapping along with the others. Some girls crowded around the table to watch and were slicing the air with their hands to indicate the size of the piece they wanted. The icing was pink and blue, spelling out “Rachel” across the top of the cake. While Mr. M. clapped furiously, Mother Superior approached from behind, tapping him on the shoulder, an apologetic and confused expression on her face.

  “Mr. M.,” she stated as confidentially as she could amidst all the people. “Your wife has arrived.”