Ophelia

by Lisa Klein

  I sit beside Isabel in the chapter house, listening to the daily reading of the monastic rule.

  “Obey the Lord and his laws, and the prioress and her rule, and your every need will be fulfilled, your every fear assuaged,” Mother Ermentrude’s voice intones. “With obedience comes perfect freedom.”

  Isabel nods, a blissful look on her face. But for some reason the lesson vexes me. So I slip away and, despite the cold, make my way to the cemetery, where I know I will be alone with my thoughts. As the damp night descends, I consider how I disobeyed and deceived my father. “Is this my punishment?” I whisper, touching my belly. The babe has been more than five months in my womb, and the burden grows each day. My secrets, too, oppress me. Grief for my losses fills my heart, and I fear being alone. “Is this the bitter fruit of my disobedience?” I cry out, and a flock of startled blackbirds lifts from the snowy ground to merge with the black sky.

  Feeling the cold grip my bones, I continue walking, disputing with myself this question of disobedience and punishment. I discover that my wandering thoughts and steps have brought me to Mother Ermentrude’s lodgings. Isabel tells me her ear is always open to our needs. So I knock and Mother Ermentrude herself opens the door, showing no surprise to see me, though the hour is late. I hold my cloak fast around me, hiding my belly.

  “I am sorry to disturb you at this late hour, Mother Ermentrude, but I am troubled and in need of your wisdom.”

  She opens the door, and I start to kneel before her, but she motions for me to be seated instead. Then she sits beside me, as if we are equals.

  “I have been meditating upon today’s lesson of obedience,” I say. “Help me to understand: What is the virtue in denying one’s own desires to satisfy another’s will?”

  Mother Ermentrude breathes deeply while she fashions her reply.

  “You have seen a vine, how the gardener tames it and makes it cling to a branch or post. It obeys his hand that it may grow upward toward the sun. In the same way, obedience to God’s will frees the soul to reach heaven.”

  This comparison does not satisfy me, for my father was not God. But had I been more obedient, would I in time have become upright and virtuous? I think of Hamlet, who disobeyed the command of his father’s ghost. Had he obeyed at once, perhaps only Claudius would have been slam and Hamlet and I would still be together. But would heaven have been pleased with Hamlet’s deed? Or would hell have rejoiced?

  “What if the gardener’s intention is good, but his hand harms the plant he nurtures?” I ask, thinking of my father, who in seeking my safety would have sacrificed my happiness. “Or what if the gardener’s will is evil?” I consider how I resisted Hamlet’s revenge, repelled by the violent act he had vowed to commit.

  Mother Ermentrude does not try to probe the deeper meaning of my questions. There is no guile in her replies, only sincerity and truth.

  “Every deed and intention calls for careful discernment. An evil will can never be God’s will,” she says simply. “One must resist it.”

  My mind seizes on her words like a prisoner grasping for pardon. I was not wrong to condemn Hamlet’s vengeance, for murder is no godly deed. Nor was I wrong to defy my father when he wished me to betray my queen. My will was just and right, I decide.

  As if she reads my thoughts, Mother Ermentrude continues her lesson, saying, “Our wills, however, are corrupt and often lead us astray. But a will that is holy is a joy to submit to.”

  With these words I am plunged into doubt again. I had my will in marrying Hamlet, but it brought me only brief joys and long sorrows. I must have sinned and hence brought the grief upon myself. Could I atone and be rid of my suffering?

  “Please, teach me to submit and find this joy you speak of. I will obey you!” I am on the verge of confessing everything, laying all my deeds before her to be judged. I fold my hands together and pinch my lips between my fingers to restrain my words.

  “Then go, return to your cell and read the Psalms. Let them do the work of searching your heart, scaling its mountains and descending its dark valleys. Commit them to your memory.”

  Inwardly I groan. What painful, time-wasting study is this? How will it help me? But if I desire contentment, I suppose I must learn to obey. So I read the Psalms, especially the despairing ones, until their words become fixed in my mind, but no peace settles there. A week later I visit Mother Ermentrude again.

  “I have studied the Psalms as you bid me, yet I have questions still. How may I believe, as David tells us, that the Lord opens his hand and satisfies all our desires, when everything has been taken from me?”

  Mother is not disturbed by the challenge in my voice. She fingers the cross around her neck as if it is a token from a lover.

  “You have God’s love always.”

  “I do not feel it,” I say doubtfully. “Rather, I feel like Job railing against God for taking everything from him. I am not sinless like Job. Yet I do not understand my sin!” I cry in confusion. How could there be sin in loving Hamlet in truth and faith?

  “In the end, God restored everything to his servant Job.”

  “It is too late,” I say bitterly, “unless he will raise the dead who are lost to me.”

  “Do not despair, Ophelia. God’s ways are a mystery,” she says, “and our sufferings often blind us to joy.”

  Indeed, I am stumbling blindly along winding paths of loss and sorrow. Hamlet’s love led me into this maze, where he abandoned me. Is there no path that will lead me from this dark tangle?

  Despite my mind’s desolation, reason’s light still flickers there. It comes to me that I might, as the nuns do, put Christ in the place of a husband, and thus exit this labyrinth of worldly love. Christ would not die or abandon me or be untrue. He would forgive my disobedience, and in submitting to him, I might find joy. I begin to see the painful remedy. Once I have given birth, I will give my child to some gentlewoman more fit and more deserving to be a mother than I am. That hard sacrifice will wipe out my sin. Then I will take a new path, join the convent as a nun, and become pure again. But before I reveal my plight to Mother Ermentrude I must receive her assurance. The very picture of humility, I appeal to her on my knees.

  “I believe that Christ alone can rescue me from despair and cleanse me from sin,” I say, tears spilling from my eyes, though I try to stop them. “Please allow me to join this holy sisterhood. Let me begin now to prepare to take my vows. I will obey you in everything.”

  It is not easy, I have heard, to gain entrance to the convent. The Rule calls the nuns to test the supplicant’s spirit, to see if it comes from God. Let them question or reprove me. I will knock without relenting, for the Bible says that the door shall not remain closed to those who persevere. Moreover, I believe that Mother Ermentrude favors me and has been praying for me to make this bid.

  The prioress bids me rise and searches my face. I dare to meet her eyes. Why is she not smiling?

  “I do not doubt your earnest desire to love God, Ophelia. But you come here not in freedom, but bound in spirit.”

  “Obedience will grant me freedom; therefore let me vow it. I will reveal my life’s story and confess my sins if you let me stay among you always!”

  Mother Ermentrude shakes her head slowly.

  “I will not bargain with you. Nor will God. You must run to him freely, looking forward, not encumbered by your past griefs.”

  “Does it matter how one finds God?” I ask, trying to sound meek while my frustration grows. “Are you not glad to receive me?”

  “There are many paths to God,” concedes Mother Ermentrude. Then she fixes me with her calm and knowing gaze, saying softly, “I do not believe God calls you to this life.”

  “I believe I know my will and my way!” I am surprised and shamed that she should reject me. Nothing in this scene is unfolding as I had planned.

  “You are young. Too often the young would rather bend the world to their will than listen and wait to be called.”

  “I cannot wait,”
I wail, thinking of how soon my babe will arrive. I must have her promise of protection. “Why may I not do as I will? I am not as young as you think.” My voice breaks with desperation. “I am free to make this choice, to take Christ as my true love!”

  “Let God’s will, not mine or thine, be done,” says Mother calmly.

  “God’s will! How do you know God’s will? Does he speak to you about me, and not deign to answer my prayers?”

  I am ashamed by my lack of control, but Mother lets me rage. She remains unmoved, like a rock splashed by mere drops of ram.

  “What is God’s will for his servant Therese?” I demand, my mind suddenly leaping from one passion to another. “That she, too, suffer? Do you observe her? She grows weaker each day, doing God’s will. I do not believe that God wants her to die!”

  “Nor do I,” Mother admits, sadness on her face. “But our wills are free even to frustrate God’s intentions.”

  “I cannot stand idly by while she suffers. I have some skill with plants and potions. Let me administer a medicine that might restore balance to her mind,” I plead.

  “It is God who heals and afflicts,” she says, neither refusing nor accepting my offer.

  “Yes, but you say that God gives us freedom. Does he not also give us in nature the means to make ourselves well or ill?”

  “Studying has made you wise, Ophelia.” Mother smiles faintly, as if pleased.

  A sudden image comes to my mind of the garden near the cloisters, blasted by winter’s wrath. I see it turning green again in the spring. What plants are there, buried in the earth? Is there the purgative rhubarb or thyme that cures the long lethargy? In the woods around the convent must be all manner of roots and wild berries and plants unknown in Denmark. No, the dark and tiny cloister garden will not suffice. There must be a field where the sun can shine unhindered. Why have I not considered this before? Was my mind so dulled with grief?

  I choose my words with care to express the idea that is but a germ unfolding in my mind. I go to the arched windows of Mother Ermentrude’s chamber and peer out into the night. There, wooded hills, lit by the moon, slope gently beyond the convent walls. Surely there is land among them suitable for a garden.

  “Is it not true,” I say, “that the nuns are loath to allow the village doctor to examine them when they are ill?”

  “Yes.” She sighs. “Some of the nuns fear that the touch of any man compromises their chastity. Thus Angelina suffers greatly from a boil, for she refuses treatment. And any complaints of the womb go sadly untended.”

  “I am no man, but a woman like them,” I say. I will build this house with care, stone by stone.

  “Indeed, your quiet presence has gained their trust,” she admits.

  “For years I have studied the qualities of all manner of plants and herbs. Books and experience have been my teachers. I have helped in healing many and easing their pains. Let me put my knowledge to use here, and serve you with my skill.” I realize that for the first time since I have come to St. Emilion, I am not dwelling in the past but anticipating, without dread, the future. I have put my pen to the blank page before me.

  Mother Ermentrude smiles and lifts up her hands, their palms facing heaven.

  “Ophelia, my dear, you are hearing God’s call.”

  Chapter 42

  Thus did Mother Ermentrude in her wisdom deter me from my desperate course and guide me to a new path. In my new profession I am like a confessor, for I listen as the nuns reveal their ailments, and I prescribe balms, tonics, and poultices. These they take away and apply with devotion, like a healing penance from a priest. But Sister Lucia, an elderly, corpulent nun, is less trusting than the others.

  “I am troubled with dire thoughts, and then my heart beats too fast. You must bleed these ill humors from me, as the village doctor used to do,” she demands.

  “I do not favor leeches, Sister, for bleeding drains vital spirits along with bad humors, making the patient weaker,” I explain in a soothing voice. “I recommend an infusion of mint leaves and chamomile to calm you.” She purses her lips, dissatisfied. I wish that I had spoken more firmly. After a moment, however, she relents.

  “All right, for the sight of my blood does make me swoon. But surely you will look at my water.”

  I duly inspect Sister Lucia’s urine, though little knowledge can be gained from it, and pronounce her fit.

  My healing methods are simple, the tools of my new profession few. I use wine to cleanse cuts from a kitchen knife. A bit of aqua vitae relieves tooth pains. The store of herbs that Mechtild gave me remedies disorders of the womb, which are common even among nuns. Salts, dissolved in hot water, draw the suppurations from boils. While I examine my patients, I teach them Nature’s laws regarding disease.

  “In the body, the hot and dry humors that make one mad contend with cold and moist humors that cause lethargy. To heal the body is to temper its elements, for Nature herself always seeks a balance.” My prescriptions are simple and usually painless. “Eat foods that are green and wholesome, dress against the cold and damp, and walk every day to aid digestion and stir your blood,” I tell them. My herb and mustard poultices are favored, but my most effective treatment is the firm touch of my hand. I probe sore flesh and rub scented balms into stiff joints. The nuns sigh with contentment as they do when their bellies are full of wholesome food and their souls sated with prayer.

  Therese is my only unwilling patient. She will let me talk with her and assist her work, but she turns to stone when I ply her with food. Daily she grows more infirm, eating only enough to keep her soul from fleeing in the night. Now she suffers from headaches. The pain, which is written on her face, would fell the stoutest soldier, but she does not complain. Every day she is more of an outcast within St. Emilion. I believe I am her only friend.

  Today as we labor in the cold sunshine, Therese pulls her threadbare cloak tight about her thin body. She shivers from excitement as she tells her latest dream.

  “Last night a great wind blew, and I awoke to see a seraph above me,” she says, looking toward heaven at the memory. “The angel touched a burning coal to my forehead, bringing a sharp and blissful sorrow, and I saw before me the shining face of my dear Savior.”

  I see that her eyes are mere slits and that her brow is contracted with pain.

  “I cannot look upon the whiteness of the linen,” she says, covering her face with her hands.

  I know how sunlight can sharpen pains in the head, so I tell her she must go inside. When she obeys, I am surprised. Her pain must be terrible. I collect the frozen garments and carry the bulky pile to the bakery, where the warmth of the ovens will thaw and dry them.

  I believe that once her pain diminishes, she will desire to eat again and then recover her strength. But I also know that Therese treasures her weakness and cares nothing for the simple pleasure of being without pain. What can I do to cure her malady? I will be the proverbial parent who deceives the child by offering medicine laced with sweet syrup.

  “A tincture of bayberry juice and oil of roses may relieve the pain, so that the sensation of Christ’s sweetness becomes even greater,” I say. This promise appeals to her.

  “Then give me some of this divine medicine, and pray do not tell anyone. I am hated already. Marguerite says that my visions are evil and shuns me as if I am a demon,” she says.

  I wonder if Marguerite’s pride makes her despise the lowly Therese, or if she is jealous of her visions.

  “Perhaps you should be more secret and guard your Lord from shame,” I say, for I am learning to speak her pious language. “Do not expose him to the mockery of those who do not believe.”

  “Yes, you are right,” she says, her voice growing desperate with fear and longing. “Count Durufle has a honor of witchcraft. If he hears that my visions do not abate, he may appeal to Bishop Garamond, who will force me to leave, if he does not put me to trial. I have nowhere to go. These visions I share with you���I beg you to be silent about them!”
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  I consider that Therese may be deluded, for who would accuse her of such an evil as witchcraft? Perhaps her fears as well as her faith are a sign of madness. But I, too, am afraid of the power others hold over me. If we are mad, then we are safe, but if our fears prove true, we are both lost.

  “I promise to tell no one about your visions,” I say to calm her.

  In the warm bakery, steam rises from the laundry, and sleeves and skirt folds that were stiff with frost now hang limp. I decide to infuse the headache potion with a poppy seed extract to calm Therese and bring her rest. My aim is to reduce her visions, not to make them more intense. I do not tell Therese, but reveal my treatment and its purpose to Mother Ermentrude.

  May God forgive me for these deceits.

  Chapter 43

  There are no idle hours at St. Emilion. No one, from the youngest novice to the prioress, is excused from kitchen work. According to the rule, all are called to serve each other. Yesterday Mother Ermentrude herself cleaned and dried all the trenchers and spoons. I have even seen her on her knees, scrubbing the floor with rags.

  A tower of strength, she is firm and does not yield, except in loving. When the sisters say the prayer of the Virgin, I am the mother of beautiful love, and of fear, and of greatness, and of holy hope, I picture Mother Ermentrude. Her convent is a place of chaste simplicity, with none of the luxuries whispered of in some nunneries: eating from gold plates, drinking wine, entertaining men, and neglecting the hours for prayer. Mother is not only virtuous and thrifty, but wise. I marvel how she led me to understand that it was not marriage to Christ that I desired, but sisterhood. My work now ties me to the nuns more firmly than a pledge to share their poverty. I am glad to do Mother’s will without a formal vow of obedience. She asks nothing beyond what is just and reasonable, and she waits with patience for me to reveal my secrets.