The Divine Economy of Salvation

by Priscila Uppal

  “You should love me!” she howled, turning back towards the girls, poking her head out of the elbows and hands pushing her forward. “Me! Not him! Me!”

  The last thing Mrs. M. did before leaving the cafeteria was to claim two party favours from the table closest to the door. “Mine!” she yelled again, the yellow tongues rolling out limp between her fingers. Another flash went off. Rachel’s face was pressed up against the glass of the window. I thought I glimpsed Esperanza outside. I secretly hoped she was leaving the school for good.

  Rachel finally opened her presents. A few minutes after Mr. M. and the nuns’ return, the oppressive air lifted and the festivity resumed. Most of the girls forgot about Mrs. M. lying upstairs, forced out of the birthday party she had supplied. Attentions strayed back to bows and wrapping and the joy of opening presents: books and clothes, jewellery and paint sets, ornaments and treats. Rachel thanked each person, especially her father, who had bought her, through her mother’s money, a new winter jacket and bright purple leather gloves, which she handed to me to caress. Besides Rachel’s hair, they were the smoothest things I had ever felt on my hands. Rachel was like a princess holding court, her father, the king, presiding over all. The nuns, if they felt it at all extravagant, did not display their feelings. They watched over the proceedings with rare contentment. Sister Aline kept a list of each gift bearer, instructing Rachel to write thank-you notes to the girls and their parents. Mr. M. collected all the gifts in a large garbage bag to be taken upstairs to Rachel’s room.

  The outside courtyard lights now on, we ran back to our rooms to don our warmest jackets, wrap scarves around faces, and secure mittens on hands. We tumbled out the doors to enjoy the fresh snow of the new year. Girls in the grade just under ours built a lopsided fort in the corner of the lot, while Caroline and I rolled a snowball back and forth until we could no longer budge it, Francine and Rachel then joining our mission to make it as large as possible. Mr. M. made snow angels with the girls, a few of them dumping snow into his collar. He got up, laughing and brushing himself off, then caught them in his arms in the twilight. A couple of the nuns perched on the grey stone steps leading up to the school entrance, chatting and drinking coffee, the steam from their cups rising into the air and evaporating like our frosty breath.

  Only when Mr. M. left us to give a taxi driver specific instructions and carry Mrs. M., groggy and disoriented, to the car, did I remember to remember her. Mrs. M.’s anger had calmed into a childlike uncertainty, and her flesh was limp in Mr. M.’s strong arms. She did look sick.

  Bella had not joined us outside. “I’ve got studying to do. And I don’t like getting wet anyway,” she said to me when I asked her. But when the cab arrived, she ran out, her jacket unzipped. She held Mrs. M.’s handkerchief.

  “You dropped this earlier,” Bella said, and when Mrs. M.’s hand reached out the window to retrieve it, she held onto Bella’s affectionately while we watched.

  “Did you enjoy your party, dear?” Mrs. M. asked her, the blue-shadowed eyes foggy and dazed.

  “Yes, I did. Thank you,” replied Bella before retreating inside, not in the slightest embarrassed at being mistaken for Rachel by Rachel’s own mother.

  Rachel kept aloof in the background, patting dense snow between her new smooth purple gloves. She said she was aiming at the street light when she hit the side window of her mother’s cab.

  CHRISTINE IS COMING TO visit. “It’s time I came and stayed with you,” she said the day after Christmas over the phone. She knew I’d be busy making candles for Midnight Mass and then busy with my silent worship of the birth of Christ on the blessed day, so she had waited to call. My hands were still raw from moulding the wax and I wanted to get off the phone. I wasn’t interested in hearing about the presents she and her husband had bought for their children or how tall their tree was this year. But she didn’t mention it. She was the one who ended our conversation by announcing she’d like to come to Ottawa in a few weeks for a visit, but just for a night or two. My past is coming to get me, I thought with exasperation. She is my sister and I do love her, but I don’t need more people around me. I’d even made a promise to myself about Kim: not to care too much for her, to concentrate solely on the health of her baby. As the Sisters made candles in the cafeteria space, converting the extra tables into workbenches and bubbling the wax in metal pots on the stove, then pouring it into moulds, I did my best to keep Kim at a distance, to instruct her in the craft and not engage in conversation outside of our duties.

  “Is there something wrong?” she asked.

  “I’m working,” I told her. “We work here, just like any job.”

  She got the hint and offered to cut the wicks, sitting at the end of the table where the wax was brought out by Sister Katherine to be poured.

  When Midnight Mass came and a hundred and fifty or so parishioners entered the church, the entrance was lit with white candles, imitating the night sky. I felt pride in our accomplishment and a sense of purpose in being so hard on Kim. It is essential for her to know we work here. Goods and services. I am employed in goods and services, like any retail industry. Kim was invited to sit at the front of the church with the Sisters but declined, seating herself in the back pew, out of sight. Father B. approved, said it was not right to make a spectacle of her baby on such a holy occasion. She went undetected, most of our parishioners excited by the prospect of gifts and food for the next day, the lonely ones comforted by the crowd. After the long service, I returned quickly to the solace of my room and have not been out much since. But today Christine arrives, and I am pleased to have Kim to present to her. To prove we contribute to the welfare of society.

  I know how difficult it is for Christine to come visit me. She doesn’t go to church, not on Christmas, nor at Easter. Her husband and his family are also Catholic, but she offers excuses about decorating and entertaining for the holidays, tells his side of the family she received Eucharist the night before. Her husband doesn’t care whether or not she goes, and the children are enrolled in public school, attending church only when her in-laws are around. After I took my sacred vows she would only meet me at a restaurant or coffee house, or in a national park. “I don’t dare go in there,” she said about my convent. Sister or no sister. After a couple of years and many letters from me describing some of the Sisters and our activities in the community, she decided to give it a chance. Her old habits, however, persist. Although she visits at least once a year and converses with the Sisters, she moves through the convent’s hallways as if it were a hospital and she feared contamination. She has outright refused to spend the night here before now, claiming the indulgence of hotel room service is too large a temptation to resist when she’s away from home.

  When she is due to arrive, I ask Kim to accompany me. I think she knows she is being used to some purpose, but cannot imagine what that purpose is. She is dressed up, having showered in the middle of the afternoon and asking Sister Josie to pull her bangs off her face. But she is still weak, barely supporting her skinny frame.

  “You look nice,” I tell her.

  “You’re wearing your habit?” she asks, a little taken aback to see me in it when we aren’t supposed to be going anywhere outside of our gates. I told her that we’d have tea with Christine in the cafeteria but that I wanted them to meet beforehand.

  “She likes to see me in costume,” I reply, picking lint off my chest. “It makes her feel superior.”

  Kim stares at her shoes, shifting uncomfortably. She must suspect the reunion between sisters will not be an ordinary one.

  I thought I was prepared, but even Christine has proven to be unpredictable this time. Her hair is dyed a strawberry blonde and pinned up in a twist, and even though she is covered up by a bulky coat, it is clear she has gained more weight since I last saw her in the summer. When she comes closer, I notice her eyes are heavily laden with mascara, which must be waterproof, because her lashes are impeccably defined, while her eyes themselves look bloodshot and
irritated. She nearly trips over a piece of loose cement on the stairs, checking her sole to see if she’s harmed the heel of her boot.

  “God!” she exclaims and then waves her hand in front of her mouth in a sign of apology. “I’m just not used to you in that yet.”

  I am about to remind Christine that I’ve been a nun for twenty years, but decide against it. Kim just stands there with her hand extended, until Christine shakes it. She does not register Kim’s pregnancy, her eyes stuck on me. She must assume Kim is a Sister she has simply never met.

  “Well,” Christine says as I take her bag from her and she circles her arm around the tops of my shoulders in an awkward embrace, “it’s still good to see you.”

  Deep in my stomach, I feel a tightness. I sniff her freshly shampooed hair, so much like Kim’s, and wrap my arms around her suddenly with the urge not to let go. She squeezes harder in return. I have the desire to run my fingers through her hair but refrain.

  “This is Kim,” I say finally. “She’s going to have a baby soon. Maybe you could give her some advice.”

  Kim accepts her shame, closing her eyes intently and waiting for Christine to respond. She does not move away from the entrance or make an excuse to leave. She does not lower her face.

  “First of all, don’t have a baby on an empty stomach,” Christine replies, patting Kim gently on the shoulder. “Let’s get something to eat. Does that Sister Monica still make those wonderful shortbread cookies?”

  “We ate them all over Christmas,” Kim giggles, tucking her dark hair behind her ears, eager to press on to the cafeteria for the promised tea.

  “Oh well,” Christine says in my direction. “I’m sure Sister Angela has some hidden treats somewhere, don’t you?”

  I shift the weight of Christine’s bag to my other shoulder and tell them to go on without me, that I’ll catch up after storing Christine’s luggage in my room. Several other Sisters are already waiting in the cafeteria to welcome her. They heard she’s staying the night. Christine and Kim walk briskly away as if old acquaintances. I can even see Kim pointing to the various rooms on the way and telling her which Sister lives where. Damn you, Christine, I think, taking the stairs down one at a time.

  Later in the evening, we retire to my room. Christine has been kind to Kim, has not made her feel the least uncomfortable for being in her condition. She treated her like any other Sister, and I could tell Kim enjoyed her jokes about the way we fought over toys when we were young, and her anecdotes about travelling overseas with her husband and children. “I didn’t know you went to Russia,” I interrupted. “I haven’t sorted the pictures to send you yet,” she replied.

  She’s sent me many over the years, tucked inside her letters. Aside from the wooden crucifix over my bed and the statue of Mary on the dresser, the only souvenirs I own are her photographs. In anticipation of her visit, I replaced them on my dresser, putting the candle holder away. One was taken on her wedding day. She married at City Hall and the reception was held on an upper floor of a fancy restaurant in downtown Toronto, where Christine and Father both live. In the picture we are facing each other, our eyes meeting and our hands touching, somewhat tentatively for sisters, but lovingly nonetheless. Christine is dressed in a long silk turquoise wrap, exotic against her white skin, and I have my hair curled and am wearing a white corsage on a plain grey dress. Although Christine’s dark brown hair is tinted with blonde highlights and her eyebrows are dyed, it is apparent from our father’s low cheekbones and our long thin noses that we are family. I placed the photograph prominently at the front of the dresser after deliberately smudging my fingerprints over it to prove I handled it often.

  Another is of my parents on their wedding day, my mother with her white veil lifted, sitting prettily beside my father, who is dressed in a tweed suit with a lilac in his lapel; they are both smiling, a little nervousness betrayed by their stiff hand-holding. To the left of that is a photograph of our family before we moved to Ottawa, which Christine found and sent to me two years ago. Christine and I are standing beside our mother and father on our old property with the acres of land and miles of forest to the north. My father’s nails, though he is trying to hide them in the photograph, are lined with dirt. My mother holds his hand tenderly and without shame. To the left of this I display a photograph of my father in the Caribbean with Christine and her children; my father has his arm around the oldest boy, proud and content, the blue ocean rushing in behind them.

  Christine’s boys, Peter and Leonardo, have only met me once, when I attended Leonardo’s welcoming party after his birth. Christine asked me to refrain from calling myself Sister Angela in Peter’s presence. She said it confused him. She told him I am his Aunt Angela, and when she tried to explain I am known by the name Sister Angela, he couldn’t make sense of the relationships. Finally Christine told him people call me Sister Angela because I am her sister. I sometimes wonder if I would have made more of an effort with Christine over the last few years if she had given birth to girls instead of boys. Certainly, Christine and I would still have our problems, but I might have been more inclined to visit her in Toronto if I were going to visit nieces. A girl might have understood. And I might have needed her too. They are my nephews, but do not belong to me in any way. There is still a chance with these boys, I know, but the fact is I do not love them enough to make the effort. Without checking the photograph, I could not tell you the colour of their eyes.

  Christine fingers the edge of our parents’ wedding photo. It is strange to look at pictures after a person has died, I’ve always thought. Put a finger up to the photograph of our old property, for example, one single finger, let’s say the thumb, and the forest is still as deep and dark and awesome, the trees producing leaves and growing taller, the wind still bending the treetops. But my mother is gone. She is no longer a part of that property. Unless you remove your finger, you could easily be convinced she’d never existed there at all.

  “I know this is a hard time for you,” Christine says, backing away from the dresser.

  “I know you loved Mother,” I reply, wondering when she’ll leave to change into her nightgown so I can get into mine in private.

  “Mother’s been dead a long time, Angela. Someone like Kim needs your prayers more than she does.” She unzips the top of her bag and I’m surprised to discover she’s barely packed any clothes or toiletries. Her luggage is filled with food. She places a large bag of potato chips, two cans of pop, and a package of Swiss-chocolate rolls on the bed and then quickly closes the bag. But not before I notice a package of red licorice, assorted candy bars, and a box of Fig Newtons.

  With her coat and blazer off, her body relaxed as she settles herself on the bed, the weight gain is even more noticeable now. Her legs have grown round and stubby, loose flesh hangs at her elbows, and her torso has two separate bulges, from her breasts down to her waist and from her hips to her thighs. I try not to stare but I’ve never witnessed such a drastic shift in her appearance. The striking new dye job must be intended to divert the eye as much as to cover up intruding grey. She must have put on fifty pounds since the birth of Leonardo. She should get her blood pressure checked. Maybe her family doctor has already mentioned something. I noticed she was out of breath after coming down the stairs.

  She has a point about Kim, but I don’t want to admit it. Kim is a welcome distraction, but she will be gone soon enough and will probably never think of me again. I figure the teenagers of today are like that, so what is the point of feeling something for her, something so close to love? The other Sisters might think I have regrets about my childlessness, that because I am heading into the barren territory of menopause, my unused eggs spent, I might be prone to delusions. They are already talking about my moodiness, my further withdrawal from them, my obvious anxiety. Christine’s visit has enabled them to attribute my behaviour to the simple and common stress of family friction (which many of them also experience over their choice of vocation), but directing so much attention to Ki
m could be interpreted as excessive. The Sisters might jump to the wrong conclusions. Yet I do wish to be with her, this girl and her bastard child. They need protection. There is mercy for such children now, I know. Unwed mothers are everywhere, people live together outside of marriage, stepmothers and stepfathers abound, yet underneath there is still scorn for young teenage mothers. Girls who make grave mistakes.

  “Don’t you want to remember Mother?” I ask as Christine opens the bag of chips and flips the tabs off the cans of pop.

  “What good does it do to remember? Why remember all the painful stuff? It’s what I really can’t stand about your religion, you know,” she replies, shoving a few chips into her mouth.

  “Please don’t get crumbs in the bed,” I say sheepishly, not wanting to acknowledge her insult, knowing how hard it is for her to sleep in the same room as me, let alone the same bed.

  “OK, sure. I’ll clean it, don’t worry. Angela, I didn’t come here to visit Mother, I came here to visit you. And I know it’s a big anniversary coming up, but I don’t want to be a part of it. And don’t phone Dad to remind him either, OK? He’s had it hard enough. Here,” she says, handing over a cola, and I sip the sugary liquid, enjoying the fizz in my mouth despite myself. “Be bad for once.”

  I grab the package of Swiss-chocolate rolls, ripping open the plastic in a grand gesture. “Is that better, Christine? Is that what you want to see me do, be bad?” My voice begins to rise, and the little civility we have established in each other’s presence vanishes. “You have no right to judge me and my decisions. You have no right to tell me what I can and cannot do.”

  She takes a bite out of a roll, and then another, devouring the dessert from end to end. The action is routine, although I do not recall her having a sweet tooth when we were younger. It was Mother and me who liked sweets; she and my father loved salt.