The Divine Economy of Salvation

by Priscila Uppal

  Rachel was in a nightgown too, of yellow cotton, and from her emanated a glow, a bright haze. She stood at one of the candle altars, and at her feet lay a green paper shopping bag, the kind we would buy for a dime at the department store in the Market when we went to browse for clothes and purchase candies and treats at the confection stands. One by one she lifted a coin with her right hand from the palm of her left, and slipped it in the locked copper deposit box. Clink. Clink. Clink. Each coin inserted through the small slot. Then she removed a long wooden stick from the jar to the left of the altar and lit a candle.

  I watched her from the back of the church, kneeling in the last pew, my head peeking out from behind the backs of the benches for probably an hour. She moved in an orderly fashion and, as far as I could hear, she herself uttered no sound. Clink. Clink. Clink. Coins from the paper rolls in her hands into the deposit box. Then the wooden stick. The votive candle. She made her way, lighting the back row, wick by wick, then attacking the row in front of it, and so on until she conquered the entire altar. The section aglow, she would pick up her paper bag and shuffle down to the next stand, lay the bag at her feet, and begin again. As the box filled up, the sound of clinking was muffled. She had finished the altar on the far left side of the church pews before I entered. Her bag, however, was still full, her body revealing strain as she hoisted it.

  She didn’t pause between her movements, which was unusual. We were taught you paid to light a candle for someone and then stood still or kneeled to say a prayer in his or her favour. When my father remembered to send me money for the collection plate, I would keep a quarter aside and light one of the votive candles at the end of Sunday Mass for my mother. I generally said the Hail Mary after lighting it. But Rachel’s lips were shut and she stared at the deposit box, not at the candles.

  I could not bring myself to tell her I was there. I thought about the story Sister Marguerite had told us: Jesus in the temple denouncing the money lenders. Rachel’s actions were not being obstructed. She was not hit with a thunderbolt or drowned in a flood. She was free to do as she pleased, alone by all appearances and her rolls of money plentiful. Her father’s money, it seemed, was always welcome at the church. As she progressed, the church filling steadily with light, the stained-glass pictures glorious as the brightness grew, Rachel’s actions were, against my will, pleasing me. The beauty of the serene church, a young woman in her nightgown, the dozens upon dozens of candles gave me a flicker of hope I hadn’t felt since holding my mother at Christmas. The two-dimensional figures came alive in the light. Pictures of suffering and dying, yes, but the ecstasy of uplifted arms in Resurrection shone. The church breathed.

  IT WAS UTTERLY STUPID of me. I can’t believe it has come to this. I have completely lost even a tenuous control over myself. The convent walls, though made of stone, might as well be made of paper. I am exposing myself under the eyes of this place. The child I was is running around screaming murder. She is scared the walls and floors are going to crumble and bury her alive. In her nostrils is the stench of smoke. Her hands are stained with red. The women here can smell it, like strong perfume. There is nothing concrete separating my present from my past. My guilt spills over like water.

  If I hadn’t gone to see Father B. in the afternoon to discuss the accounts for the last quarter, it would have happened sooner or later. It was only a matter of time before I would be sent to Sister Ursula’s office for a medical checkup, if not a strongly suggested psychological evaluation. It has happened to others. The confines of the convent can be suffocating for some. Sister Jessica, twelve years ago, was handed over to the Centre of Mental Illness near the same hospital where my mother was admitted when she was physically ill. Sister Jessica is still there. She believed she saw the Devil one day eating her dessert. She stopped eating. She withered away until there was nothing left. The gardener found her striking the heads off tulips with a kitchen knife, chanting Thou be gone, Thou be gone! But aside from her, no one has deteriorated that far since I’ve been here. Whenever someone starts to act strangely, one might hear the expression We could have a Devil eating dessert on our hands. It’s a way to monitor, keep ourselves in check. They might already be saying such things about me. Father B. at least opted for the former, a medical checkup, after the incident with the wine. He chalks the entire episode up to nerves and the amount of time and energy I’ve spent helping Kim with her pregnancy. He should know about nerves, if not babies. Since the Bishop visited again, he’s had his share of them. He’s been unable to sit still or talk sensibly, paces around the church pews as if he will uncover a hidden stash of money or a great and revolutionary idea on how to sustain his traditional beliefs and still bring in more parishioners to the diminishing fold. I was intending to discuss possible changes to the rental of the church basement that might bring in extra revenue, although it still wouldn’t add up to very much in the end. The accountant tells me it’s not the make-it-or-break-it solution to our financial troubles. Neither are the cheques I’ve been stashing away until an appropriate moment to hand them over. Yet I felt the discussion might perk us both up, keep us focussed on the tasks at hand. A little more revenue is better than more debt, that’s for sure. Father B. had been sneaking a drink of the said wine anyway, and probably felt a bit shamed about being caught in the act. Two guilty subjects we were, but I was the one who lost control.

  I had also been planning to inform him about Kim’s inability to decide on the future of her baby, to seek his opinion on what we should do about her, her delivery date being closer than we had at first expected. I didn’t tell him about what happened at the hospital myself, but I’m sure Sister Ursula has informed him about Kim’s lie. I figured the issue could be brought up at the end, after we’d made some progress, as a small aside. I don’t trust talking to the Sisters about it; at least a man can keep a certain distance. The Sisters have plans for her I find ridiculous. Sister Humilita talks about sending her to live with her cousin, an eccentric woman who brings in broken toys at Christmas as charity gifts for poor children and bakes a single turkey at Easter, about five pounds, that she claims can feed the lot of us. She sits in the back at Mass, signing hymns with her eyes closed. Sister Bernadette has suggested that Kim might like to do tours of local schools speaking about planned parenthood. At least Sister Josie nipped that one in the bud, reminding Sister Bernadette of the humiliation Kim would feel. Besides, there has been no indication Kim can speak in public. She might find the thought of standing in a room of girls her own age, on display for her sin, abhorrent. Sister Maria says Kim should be on a strict regime of prayer, from morning until night, under her guidance. Father B. told her you couldn’t force belief down the girl’s throat. He says the same to the Bishop about the decline in conversions. Religion isn’t about answers, he says, it’s about helping people ask the right questions. But Father B. suspected all along Kim was lying about being a Catholic, a Christian even, and he let her stay with us regardless. It probably didn’t surprise him to discover her pregnancy was further along than she led us to believe. He’s probably known since before Christmas. He has a good heart, cares about the child in the abstract if not in practice, still wishing she’d arrange her affairs with Mr. Q. so we don’t have to take responsibility for her baby entirely upon ourselves. But I think it might be good for us, for me, to take responsibility for that baby. Kim’s baby. She was brought to our home, after all.

  Father B. was the one who spilled the wine. He had gone to get the mop and pail out of the janitorial closet. He couldn’t have been away for more than a couple of minutes. The office door open, I knocked lightly beside the doorknob and walked in expecting to find him huddled in his chair, papers around him and staring listlessly. Instead, I found blood. Blood in the shapes of water flowers, wet and glistening across the floor towards the doorway. A trail of blood from the top of his pine desk, staining it, penetrating the wood, drops pattering onto the tiled floor, following the stream. Everywhere I looked, there was blood. On the
crucifix above his window, the gold cross dripping with blood, Christ’s head pricked with thorns, his side weeping its own blood. The missal pages steeped in blood. The plastic container of pens and pencils filled with blood. The smiling face in the picture frame, Father B.’s brother who lives by the shore in Nova Scotia, gums releasing blood.

  As I fainted to the floor, Father B. returned just in time to save me from banging my head against the door frame. He caught me in the same arm that held the dirty mop. Its skeleton-like body sent me into further hysterics as I snapped back into consciousness. I wept with fear. I clutched onto Father B. as to a ladder. I told him, between tears, it was my fault.

  “It is my fault,” he said, holding me upright in his arms, trying to stop me from covering my eyes.

  “No, no,” I said, beating against his chest, trying to get him to unhand me so I could run out of the church and down the street, far away from this place that could read my heart like a book. Father B. held me, pinned, his arms wrapped around my shoulders like a straitjacket.

  “No, it is. Sister Angela, I spilled the wine. That’s why I went to fetch the mop.” He was wearing his regular clothes, not his robes, at least. I could imagine he was a regular man and not the priest I had worked with and only exchanged a hug or a peck on the cheek with on holy occasions such as Christmas or Easter. His body was against mine and he was trying to calm me down. I fought him. I hit his cheek with my fist, nearly causing a black eye.

  I don’t remember much else. He had to wait for me to stop crying. I couldn’t contain my fear, cringing each time I opened my eyes to see three decanters of wine toppled on the dresser. All I remember is his assurance that I hadn’t done anything and he wasn’t sure why I was so upset. He said I was stronger than he’d imagined, laughing self-consciously as he adjusted his white shirt and black pants after convincing me to sit still in his office chair. There was a stain on one sleeve. He wanted me to make an appointment to see Sister Ursula. He assured me the wine had not cost much, that it hadn’t even been blessed yet.

  Sister Ursula talks a great deal about the need for sleep. She is fifty, and her hair is white, though she dyes it a shade of ash blonde and forgets to have it touched up for six months at a time. The wrinkles around her eyes are veinlike and pronounced. Sometimes she has trouble with her knees, and you can see her wince when she kneels during Mass. Besides the yearly physical we are all required to take, I’ve come to her only sporadically over the years. She’s examined us all. Besides looking after us, she relieves doctors at the medical clinic near the church three afternoons a week, more if any are on holidays. She says sleeplessness is one of the most serious problems of our age. People are so busy trying to accomplish the impossible, to juggle the various worlds they wish to exist in or are forced to exist in, that they don’t take care of the most basic need of the human body: its need to sleep. Because they can keep their eyes open twenty-four hours a day, she explained once, people think they’re fine and healthy. Maybe just a little tired, but nothing that can’t be put off to a later date, because there are more pressing issues that need to be addressed: errands to run, money to make, kids to take care of, ways to get ahead of the competition at work. It’s disgraceful, she reiterates. They don’t see straight. The brain doesn’t work the way it should. Everything in its proper place. The membranes become mutable. Facts are mixed up. Day is interpreted as night. You can see it in the body, she says. In brain waves. People are sleeping, dreaming, while they believe themselves to be awake.

  I must try to sleep. This is her point. She does not push to know why I can’t, but I offer her an explanation anyway, because I don’t want her to listen to any of the rumours. I tell her it is because of the news. I can’t tolerate reading another newspaper or watching another news report on television. The world is full of violence and disease and war and hypocrisy and hatred. I go on about the situation in Los Angeles between Hispanic and Black gangs, a news report by a doctor claiming sexually transmitted diseases are not only sexually transmitted any more and everyone is at risk for a massive infection from antibodies in the air, the investigation of a cover-up regarding a small town’s water supply contaminated on purpose, the latest poll in the Living section stating that children of divorce are growing up angry and hostile. As I hear myself rant on in this manner, I wonder if I’ve gone too far. Maybe Sister Ursula suspects I’ve developed an unhealthy obsession or I can’t distinguish between fact and speculation. She nods her head as she fills out a prescription for sleeping pills, assuring me they are very mild and many of the Sisters take them.

  “Oh, yes,” she says. “You’d be surprised. Often they complain of noises here. Do you hear noises?” She lifts her pen, poised to record my answer.

  “I guess,” I tell her uneasily. “My room’s in the basement. I hear footsteps.”

  “But voices?”

  “Not exactly,” I say, a bit offended. “Not voices. I’m not crazy.”

  “I didn’t say you were,” she continues, checking my blood pressure and reflexes on the off chance my sleeplessness is an indication of a more serious medical condition. My knees and elbows react appropriately. My blood pressure is a tad high but within the normal range for my age. She cautions me to lay off the salt.

  “Tell me more about what you hear,” she says, after examining my ears and checking my throat, the wooden stick held uncomfortably against my tongue and then removed.

  “Noise. Jumbled noise. Like my thoughts aren’t letting me rest. I just can’t seem to relax.” I take a deep breath as she massages my breasts, my body spread out on the table. I know she is doing her job, but it feels strange to have anyone touch my body, which hasn’t been touched in a non-medical way in over twenty years. I had one boyfriend before taking my vows. The Sisters in fact recommend it. They like the acolytes to have had relationships with men and sexual experience of some sort, so the choice to leave a life outside for one with God is not based on ignorance. We had talked of marriage and my father adored him because his family was tightly knit, had money, and was sending him to university to become an engineer. He ended up getting a scholarship too. He used to touch my breasts when we’d lie together on his bed. His fingers would linger over my nipples and circle them. And it felt warm and good. But there was something about his face that reminded me of my mother. His eyes squinted if the light was too bright in a room, and he couldn’t handle any harsh noise, his fingers pressing against his eardrum to minimize his discomfort. The last time he spoke of marriage and of me taking classes if not a degree at a university, I told him it was over and I had decided to become a nun. It devastated him. My father refused to speak to me for months and thought I should see a doctor. My boyfriend thought I just had cold feet and waited a year before dating someone else. He was the last man to touch my body.

  Sister Ursula finds no lumps in my breasts. I concentrate on my breathing and try to ignore her fingers on my flesh.

  “Is there something in particular? I mean, in the news, that’s getting you down? You talk about a lot of things, but is there a single one that’s worse for you? That you think of right before bed, maybe?”

  Sister Ursula is not my friend. She’s too busy and I’m too quiet. But I’ve respected her the entire time I’ve lived here. She has performed good solid work for the last twenty years, having entered the convent only a few months before I did. The Sisters were ecstatic at the time, because interest in the holy life had already declined significantly from a stream of feminism unsympathetic to nunneries. Because we took our vows so close together in time, Sister Ursula and I were expected to become close friends. We didn’t. She has her job and I have mine. She deals with people and I deal with things. But I feel her current inquiries are genuine and deserve a response. She works here. Mother Superior, who for years has suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, finds her only comfort in Sister Ursula’s regular treatments. She calls her a lifesaver.

  “I’ve been thinking about those high school kids in Colorado who kil
led their peers,” I say, and find myself incredibly concerned about it once I bring it up. I thought I would use the news reports, always so horrible, filled with violence and amorality, to distract her from my own personal situation, but my stomach practically churns with nausea as I begin to speak about these children. Their faces on the news have haunted me, I now realize, as they surface in my mind. There is nothing in the set of their jaws or the glint of their eyes to foretell the future they would write. Although I do not mention it to Sister Ursula, in the year following my time at St. X. School for Girls, there had been a similar incident. An eighteen-year-old boy at St. P. High School sprayed his senior class with shotgun pellets, killing a classmate. Earlier he had raped and stabbed a woman, then set fire to his parents’ home. The city of Ottawa grieved. The Catholic school was at a loss to explain the brutal violence.

  “Yes,” Sister Ursula says gravely. “That was particularly horrible.” She brings the paper sheet I have been wearing over my half-naked body up to my chest to examine around my stomach. I imagine Kim must hate these kinds of examinations too. Although in her case the doctor is checking for life and how to help it grow, and in me for sickness and how to make it stop. Sister Ursula’s hands press firmly on a spot that aches.

  “Oh.”

  “Here?” She presses again, her hands spread against the skin, flattening my belly. “It hurts here?”

  “Uh-huh.” A spasm shudders through me. I grab my stomach and rub away the immediate pain. Sister Ursula prods a bit more before pulling the curtain for me to get dressed.