by James Reese
I jumped to my feet. “What is it? Is someone coming?” I ran about the room fanning away the telltale cloud of blue smoke, throwing back the last of the wine in our glasses…. But I stopped when I saw that Peronette was taking off her clothes.
Her back was toward me. I watched in absolute wonderment. My jaw was slack; so too were my arms at my sides. I had never seen anyone naked before. Never. All those years of avoiding the crowded washroom and bathing in the night-stilled kitchen, or in the pantry proper. It was then, at that very moment, that I realized I did not know what a woman looked like. I knew even less of men, of course. And there before me stood a beautiful near-naked woman, for Peronette was no longer a girl.
She stripped down to nothing; she let her simple day uniform fall at her feet and stepped from the gray puddle of wool and tulle. She giggled, amused by whatever idea she had, but she did not speak. I stood staring as she moved to the huge armoire.
“Is the rain falling yet?” Peronette asked. “Look and see. Go!” I did not turn from her; I could not. Instead, I looked her over top to toe. It’s a wonder I remained upright. I said, “Yes. It is.” It might have been raining holy water and hosts, the pope might have been dancing with the Devil in the garden, I had no idea what the weather was.
Peronette ran to the window. Clearly, her plan, whatever it was, hinged on the weather. “Splendid,” said she. “It’s falling fast now.” I watched as she leaned over the casement. I saw her small conical breasts; I marveled at their rosy tips. I drank in the smooth and supple curves that spread down the entire length of her body, from her beautiful brow to her delicate instep.
“What is it?” I managed, my heart skipping like a stone thrown across a still and shallow pond. “What will you do?”
“Just a little fun,” said Peronette, tripping lightly across the room. The armoire to which she returned was so large she could have crawled inside it. Instead, she bent at the waist and riffled through its store. Muffled, her voice came back to me: “This will be great fun. Get ready. And watch the rain.”
“I am,” I said. “I will…. But what for?”
Peronette did not respond. I watched as she bent deeper into the armoire. I stood directly behind her. I grew weak, physically weak; I sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. I was still behind Peronette, but now I saw her from a lower angle, an even more revealing angle. I learned then what I had always, somehow, known: I was different. For as I looked at the naked woman before me, as she bent over, distracted by her plan and the contents of the armoire, I saw the wide curves of her hips, her weighty, shapely buttocks, and…and the darkly furred cleft of her sex, there, there, and nestled within the darkness I saw the easy folds of her lips.
But I…I am different. I don’t look…My…I could not think. It was as though the breath had been sucked from my lungs. I began to cry. Tears of confusion. Tears for the kernel of knowledge ripening, ever faster, at the core of that confusion.
And then Peronette turned around to face me. I could not look at her: I was afraid. She held up a dress, not from modesty but rather as an introduction to her plan. “What do you think?” she asked breathlessly. And then she realized I was crying.
She let fall the dress—it was then I saw, saw the truth I already knew: just how different I was—and she came to me, knelt before me. “Silly, don’t cry. This is all harmless, just a bit of fun.” Her nipples were erect. Her skin was flushed. Her hands on mine were hot.
I was thankful she’d misunderstood my tears.
“And we won’t get caught, if that is what’s worrying you.” She stood again, picked up the dress, which was in fact one of her aunt’s habits—a simple shift of brown wool favored by the sisters in winter—and went to the window. “Splendid! The rain is letting up. Soon they’ll venture out for a bit of sun. Splendid!”
Still I’d no idea what Peronette’s plan was. Neither did I ask. Rather, I watched as the pieces of the puzzle came quickly together.
Peronette dressed in the shift. She took from the wall a large crucifix and threw it on the bed. She powdered her face. A red woolen skirt, drawn from the depths of the armoire, was wrapped around her head: hair, of a sort. And then she handed me her aunt’s violin, swathed in blue velvet; she drew it from its snug fit within a specially-carved case, which she then set atop the table in the center of the room. The burnished wood shone; the dried bow was bent.
I protested, said I hadn’t the requisite skill, that I knew nothing of the violin.
“All the better,” said she. And here she turned back from the window, where she stood sentinel over the courtyard below. “This is no recital we are preparing for.”
“What is it then?” I asked. “What are we preparing for?”
“We are preparing for the arrival of Satan. We are preparing to dance Satan’s Dance upon this sill!”
“Peronette, no,” I said. “You mustn’t.” I don’t know if she heard me; certainly, she did not heed me. She hung out over the casement, gazing three stories down into the courtyard, waiting for the first of the girls to arrive outside. “It’s always the youngest ones who scurry out first after the rain,” said she. “The little puddle-hunters.”
I was still stunned by what I’d seen of her…undressed; and, in truth, it did not matter what she had planned. Whatever she did, I would follow. We each of us knew it.
“There!” said Peronette, excitedly; the word came quiet and quick as an exhalation. “They are outside, the first of them….” She smiled broadly at me, and gestured to where I should stand, violin in hand. She scampered up onto the wide sill. She edged out, out…dangerously far. Beyond her I could see the tops of the distant trees; through their thinnest branches, I saw the deep green of the sea marry the summer sky. I hurried to grab a fistful of the shift; I held to it as tightly as I could. I asked her, begged her to reconsider. She wheeled around, yanking the fistful of material from me. “Get ready, fool!…Now stand back!” Her face was contorted; whatever it was that came over her in that moment masked her beauty. She scared me. I recoiled…. Moments later I stood sawing a dissonant song on that violin; one to which Peronette—with the aspect of a snake charmed from its basket—danced, lasciviously.
“Faster! Faster!” she said; and I played on though the dried horsehair of the bow snapped, strand after strand.
Peronette had the crucifix in her left hand. “Play,” I heard her say. “Play!” I brought that warped bow down upon the strings again and again. I held so tightly to the violin I feared I might snap its thin neck. “Louder!” The bow scratched and slid over the strings. A horrible sound, well suited to a devil’s jig! “Yes! Yes!…Louder, and again!” Peronette gyrated upon the sill, swayed to the infernal tune. All the while I remained hidden behind a heavy drape. Her movements were so broad, so lewd, I was certain she’d fall from the sill. Frenzied, she swung her wig of red wool around and around. I flushed with shame at what she did with the crucifix, using it as an instrument of self-abuse; she held its bottom and, through the shift, verily throttled her sex with it. It was all I could do to keep the bow upon the strings! But I dared not stop. I dared not disobey.
Rising above the din, there came a scream. Sharp and shrill, it clawed its way up the stone walls to our ears. Peronette leapt down from the window and snatched the bow from my hands. “That’ll do,” said she, smiling; and then she added, rather ominously, “I got one.”
Moments later, the crucifix was back upon the wall, the violin was returned to its case atop the table, and the rooms were back in order. Peronette scrubbed the powder from her cheeks, and quickly lifted the shift over her head; once again, she stood before me naked. She stuffed the shift and the red skirt into the armoire. She dressed, not bothering with her undergarments, which she kicked under the bed; their buttons and laces would take far too long, and we hadn’t the time. We had to hurry—to where, or from what? I’d no idea.
“Go!” directed Peronette, pointing to the casement. “See what is happening down there?” I move
d too quickly toward the window; I would have stuck my head out had she not stopped me with a hiss. “Arrête, fool! From behind the drape. You mustn’t be seen.”
“Yes, of course,” I muttered. “Of course…mustn’t be seen…” And I slipped behind the dark drape to peer down into the courtyard. Only later was I able to describe what I saw; at that moment, as I pulled back from within the folds of the drape, Peronette had but my horrified expression as testament to her success. She surveyed the room a final time. Deeming the scene satisfactory, she said, “Come, and quickly!” I obeyed.
This is what I had witnessed, down in the unpaved courtyard, puddled, muddied by the just-passed storm:
A group of girls, most of them young, encircled a figure prostrated on the ground. It was a girl, of course, lying motionless; she looked so small and lifeless, I wondered if she might be dead. Absurd, of course. A nun—Sister Claire, I think, though I cannot be sure—tended to the fallen girl. Someone had quickly produced salts and Sister Claire (it must have been Sister Claire) was trying to revive the girl. The girl had merely fainted. I would soon learn that it was young Elizaveta, of whom we knew nothing. Then, as I spied from the folds of the drape, Elizaveta, shocked or startled—no doubt they were very strong salts—Elizaveta sat straight up, screamed, and pointed to the very window at which I stood! I fell back, quick as I could. Had I been seen? Had any of the girls followed Elizaveta’s accusing finger? I dared not look out again. But I had an answer when there came a chorus of screams from below. I heard then one distinct word: “Satan.” It was repeated, passed from girl to girl. It was then I heard Peronette speak: “Come, and quickly!”
Had it not been for Peronette’s command I would have stayed in that very spot, would have been standing there, dumbstruck, in that drape, when the crowd—surely rushing up the main stairs at that very moment!—arrived at Mother Marie’s rooms.
Peronette took me by the hand, as one does a child. She opened the door to the corridor; immediately we heard the scuffling and shuffling of a corps of girls ascending the stairs. Others were coming fast from the dormitory.
Peronette shut and locked the door.
“They’ll send me away for sure, and I’ll—”
“Stop!” said Peronette. “And let me think.” She cupped her hands over her face. Was she crying? Would she admit that her charade had gone too far, and…No. When those hands fell a moment later it was to show a broad smile. “Yes,” she said, rather dreamily, “yes, of course.”
She directed me to retrieve the violin from its case atop the table. This I did. “What now?” I asked, turning to see that Peronette was gone and that the door to the hall now stood open; through it I could hear the oncoming girls.
I crossed quickly to the armoire, but I could not open it. Then I heard that familiar laughter, muffled, and knew: Peronette held the door fast from within.
A voice. “What is happening here?” I turned and watched with relief as Mother Marie slipped into the room, shutting the door behind her. She locked it against the girls massed on the landing, awaiting Sister Claire, no doubt, and against the braver girls who’d soon arrive from the dormitory to rap on the oaken door. “What is happening here?” repeated the Mother Superior, in hurried yet hushed tones.
“I…We…” I stood stupefied, both violin and bow in hand. “I…We…”
“Where is she?” asked Mother Marie; and in involuntary response I must have cast my gaze upon the armoire, for she moved to try its door, without success.
More rapping at the door. Ten, perhaps twenty girls buzzing hive-like behind it. And then the command of Sister Claire de Sazilly: “In Christ’s name, open this door!”
Mother Marie took me roughly by the shoulders. “Did I not warn you?” she asked. And she said that we knew not what we’d done. Finally, she called over her shoulder: “Coming! One moment, Sister.”
“Sister Claire!” said I. “Please, Mother, no!” I shook my head in supplication. “Please, no.”
Mother Marie let go my shoulders. “Go then,” said she, “into the folds of the drape. There! And not a breath from you!”
It was from within those drapes, those folds of chocolate damask—not nearly as prime a hiding spot as my companion had secured—that I heard Mother Marie open her door to the sorority. The rush of bodies into the room warmed it and set the heavy drapes to rustling. Quickly, bodies gathered near me; they leaned over the sill; one girl pressed into me but mistook the mass of my body for pleated fabric. I stood flush against the cold stone wall, certain I’d be discovered.
“What is happening here?” asked the Mother Superior, feigning indignation. “I am passing by my rooms when suddenly I see a rush of pupils to my door. Who can explain? Can you?”
I marveled at what I heard: “It’s Elizaveta,” said the questioned girl. “She’s had a vision.”
“A vision?” mocked the Mother Superior. “And what of?”
“Satan Himself,” said another girl. She spat the salinized words.
The girls were afire with tales, growing ever taller, of what Elizaveta had seen. The Prince of Darkness…One of his minions…. The Devil dancing with a possessed sister…Sex acts. The Dance of Death. Horrible curses…against the house, against Christ and the good people of C——…The music of the Dark One’s fiddle. Mother Marie dismissed every claim.
It was then, judging from the sudden silence, that I knew Sister Claire de Sazilly had come forward. I knew too—for it was just like her—that she had Elizaveta in her arms; yes, Sister Claire would have climbed the stairs with the stricken, the “sighted” Elizaveta in her arms. I heard the mention of salts; and soon Elizaveta spoke, incessantly, nonsensically. The other girls cried out at her words, her testimony. When she fainted away, the Head ordered another wave of those salts, and Elizaveta burst back into consciousness, screaming, her horror bright and fresh.
Poor Elizaveta. Not nine years old, and she’d believe in the bad—her sighting of Satan—as ardently as she believed in the good, perhaps more so.
“What do you, Claire, make of this? Surely—”
“No untaught child lies, Mother.”
“Do you mean to affirm this child’s vision?”
“Do you mean to deny it?” Sister Claire must have turned to the girls, for it was then that one asked of Mother Marie:
“Is she lying, Mother? Or was it Dark Work that she witnessed?”
“I do not say she is lying, no.”
“What then? If it was not—”
That the girls would question the Mother Superior so, that they would shout out in her presence…these were peculiar circumstances indeed. And all the while Sister Claire stood silently, ominously by.
“I say only that this child, after some orange water and rum, will rest through the night and wake in fine shape, no worse for her…her ‘vision.’” Clearly, to use the word pained the Mother Superior. “And you, especially the senior among you, will apply your faith and maturity and conclude that certainly no such thing has occurred.”
“She is lying then!”
“But I saw the fire-haired fiddler, too. I swear it!” And all eyes were thus directed to the violin case, empty now atop the table.
“Girls, girls,” began the Mother Superior; but she was interrupted by Sister Claire, who said simply:
“We must pray. We must pray against this.” And tens of voices set to rumbling in fervid prayer. That the Head would interrupt the Mother Superior, and to direct the girls to action no less: this did not bode well. Sister Claire, in leading these prayers, invoked the “Darkness”; and at this a second girl fainted away. Now the prayers grew more fervid; and I was distressed to recognize the voices of several of the most senior girls. In the confusion a vial of holy water slipped from its holder near the door, cracking on the floor: proof positive of Satan’s presence. And it was this shattering glass that set the flock of girls to rising up, noisily, and flying from the room—no doubt to spread their devilish stories. It seemed the room was sudden
ly empty, save for Sister Claire, the lifeless Elizaveta, and Mother Marie; and yes, my coconspirator.
Sister Claire came dangerously near the drape. I could feel her heat. “Are those not scuff marks upon the sill?” she asked of Mother Marie. “And what, among your worldly goods, is missing, if not your violin?”
“Take that child to the infirmarian,” replied Mother Marie. “And put a stop to this madness.”
“Madness, is it?” asked the Head. “Madness is your ruling over a House of one hundred girls when you cannot control that one, your pet.”
“Do you threaten me, Sister?”
“I do, yes…. Indeed, I have long been attendant upon your ruin.” With these words—and a whispered “Adieu, ma mère”—Sister Claire turned to leave, Elizaveta in her arms; and in so doing, the girl’s slippered foot—like a hook at the end of her lifeless, lank leg—caught the drape and pulled it back just enough to show the very end of the bow I held.
Sister Claire, fast handing off the unconscious child to Mother Marie, pulled back the dark folds of fabric, its rings screeching along their iron rod. There I stood, bow and violin in hand.
“Of course,” said Sister Claire, snatching the instrument from me. “I should have known. The accomplice.” She slammed the violin down on the table. She brandished the bow. I raised my hands to my face as a shield: she would slash me as though the bow were a riding crop and I the slow or stubborn beast.
“Stop!” shouted Mother Marie; and she stepped between the Head and myself. “Go from here, you…you animal!…Go from my sight.”
There was silence. In the Mother Superior’s arms the girl groaned; she was coming around. “I will go,” said Sister Claire; “but this one,” and she pulled me to her, roughly, “this one comes with me.”
4
The Passion
I PASSED THAT long, punitive afternoon in the smithy, planing the boards of rough-hewn pine that were to be installed in the pantry, my former room. Shortly after being discovered, and after being dragged rather indelicately to my sentence by a seething Sister Claire, a storm settled over C——, persistent and at times severe.