Killer in the Cloister

by Camille Minichino

  On the way to the cafeteria, we passed several bulletin boards with business cards, flyers, roommate searches, jobs available, and jobs wanted. I was glad I didn’t need any such help. I’d done my share of babysitting, house sitting, and gardening chores and felt lucky now to be able to concentrate on my studies. I found it amazing how freeing a vow of poverty could be. No money, but no money problems either.

  Sister Ann William and I carried our umbrellas next to the bright maroon and gold bags that held our new textbooks and joined the cafeteria line. The room was noisy, the hot food smells unappetizing. I was happy to be carrying a St. Lucy’s lunch bag, needing only a drink. Aidan Connors, a tall, broad young man whom I’d just met in my department office, was three people ahead of us in the cashier’s line. He offered us his place, and we accepted.

  It had taken me a while to get used to the deference most people afforded anyone in a religious habit. Now I hardly noticed when a woman old enough to be my grandmother held a door for me. When my Sisters and I showed up to teach Sunday School in a parish church, weak old men offered to carry our briefcases and throngs of parishioners parted like the waters of the Red Sea.

  Sister Ann William and I took seats at the back of the cafeteria. As we arranged identical St. Lucy’s sandwiches, apples, and chocolate cookies on green plastic trays, Aidan Connors approached our table.

  “May I join you?” he asked, sitting down at the same time. “I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other this semester.” He introduced himself to Sister Ann William just before pouring ketchup on a large pile of French fries.

  What is this? I asked myself. Less than forty-eight hours away from my Motherhouse I’m sitting in a college cafeteria with a Sister of a different order and a lay man.

  I almost forgot to say grace before picking up my sandwich.

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  The Mary Chapel, the smallest of three on campus, was assigned to those who still preferred the traditional rituals of the church. A pamphlet by the baptismal font at the entrance announced the schedule of services: rosary at one o’clock on weekday afternoons, Latin mass at eight on weekday mornings, and at ten on Sundays. Unlike most churches, which had added free-standing altars in the sanctuary to allow the priest to face his congregation, the only altar in the Mary Chapel was the ornate marble table built into its rear wall.

  Sister Ann William and I were among a dozen people, Aidan Connors included, who were led in the rosary by a bent old priest. His black St. Alban’s cassock, a full-length robe with tiny buttons from top to bottom, was no different from that of a parish priest, except that he wore an over-sized wooden rosary around his waist, much like the one I attached to my apron cord every morning.

  As I fingered my rosary, I looked up at the stained glass windows depicting the joys and sorrows of Our Lady, sending multi-colored sunlight in streaks across the dark walnut pews. Aidan Connors knelt next to me. He held a small rosary, its shiny blue glass beads seeming all the more miniature and delicate in his large hands.

  “From First Communion,” he whispered. “They did pink for girls and blue for boys that year.”

  I smiled at him, hoping I hadn’t stared at his hands so long that he thought he needed to explain.

  As I prayed, Thy will be done, I thought about my naiveté in assuming that once I’d chosen to answer God’s call to religious life, I’d be forever free of worries and decisions. But both had followed me into the cloister.

  Although I put great faith in Saint Paul’s assurance that for those who love God, all things work toward good, I still worried about my family, especially my brother, Timothy. I wondered if he’d try to contact me, which he usually did when he was in trouble. This time, however, I was nearly three hundred miles away.

  And in the last two days I’d had to make decisions at every turn. To study or meditate? Or attend a punch party. At our Motherhouse, I’d consult the enormous bulletin board in our main hall and learn exactly where God wanted me to be at any moment. On scullery duty, at my desk, at my place in chapel, walking around the yard for meditation. I knew I must wear my wool serge cloak outdoors from October 1 to April 1, not a day sooner and not a day later, regardless of the weather. In this blind obedience was God’s will for me.

  Now, in my two-day-old life as a graduate student in the Bronx, even an activity as basic as daily mass presented me with a dilemma—whether to attend a Latin service at the Mary Chapel on campus, or the more convenient English liturgy offered at St. Lucy’s by Father Malbert, our Chaplain in khakis. My upbringing in an Irish Catholic family hadn’t prepared me for a priest I might not be able to respect.

  To top it off, I had a nagging feeling about Mother Ignatius’s death, that it was not completely natural or peaceful, as Sister Felix had intimated. I pictured her dying from the stress of modern life in the Church and thought vaguely that I might have prevented it. Perhaps if I’d sought her out when she didn’t appear for our scheduled meeting, though I couldn’t for the life of me imagine what difference that would have made.

  CHAPTER 5

  When Sister Ann William and I returned to St. Lucy’s, we entered through the foyer at the front of the house where there was a wooden structure, painted green and divided into slots for our mail. I looked for my name and saw that I already had two pieces of mail, one a postcard from my sister Kathleen who was on her honeymoon in Bermuda.

  Kathleen had addressed me in care of the Theology Department at St. Alban’s University. The card had been directly forwarded to me at St. Lucy’s, never passing before the watchful eye of Mother Julia in Potterstown. Another first—uncensored correspondence from the outside world. I briefly considered sending the card, unread, to Mother Julia, but decided she would have instructed me to do so if that’s what she expected.

  A shiver went through my body as I unfolded the second piece of mail, a sheet of white paper folded in thirds, without an envelope—a note from Mother Ignatius. I realized it must have been there since the night before. Sister Ann William and I had left in the morning by the back door, never passing the mail station.

  I looked at the note as if it had come to me from the dead, which, in a way, it had. Like most of us beginning a letter, Mother Ignatius had drawn a small cross at the top of the paper, with the date and time below it: Sunday evening, 8:00 PM.

  “Are you all right, Sister?”

  I’d forgotten Sister Ann William had been standing next to me. Her face had a look of concern that told me I was as pale as I felt. I folded the note and put it in my pocket to read later in my room, and assured her I was fine.

  I hurried up to the third floor, sat on my bed and opened the note again. Mother Ignatius’s handwriting was even and oversized, the few sentences filling the page. I read slowly, as if by doing so I could bring her back, and prolong her life.

  Sister Francesca, I’ve been called to another meeting. When I finish, I’ll look for you in the parlor, then check your room. If I see your light on, I’ll knock; otherwise I’ll see you tomorrow. God bless you, M. Ignatius, A. S.

  The designation of her order, A. S., for Albanite Sister, was larger than her name, as if she were proudest of that part of her identity. I recalled the thrill I’d felt right after first vows when I was able to sign my name, Sister Francesca, S. M. I.

  I stared at the unadorned wall of my room as if the timetable for the past twenty hours were written in broad strokes across the white paint. I’d left chapel at seven forty-five on Sunday evening, after Compline, so I was in my room at eight when Mother Ignatius put the note in my box, perhaps too tired or in too much of a hurry to climb the two flights of stairs to tell me in person. I’d gone back downstairs to the parlor at eight thirty and waited there until after ten.

  My light had been on until at least twelve while I’d finished organizing my belongings and read through some undergraduate texts I’d brought al
ong. If Mother Ignatius did check my room for a light, as she’d said, that would mean her meeting didn’t end until after midnight. We were told of her death at seven o’clock in the morning.

  In between, she died in her sleep.

  A string of questions went through my mind. What had Mother Ignatius wanted to tell me? What had she been afraid of? Something or someone connected to her impromptu meeting? Mother Ignatius hadn’t known about the meeting at five o’clock that evening when she made plans to see me. How can a spontaneous meeting go on for more than four hours?

  And most important, Mother Ignatius had felt energetic and well enough to attend two meetings, and she died soon after. Could someone actually die of stress?

  I needed some answers. Before I could talk myself out of it, I was downstairs knocking on St. Lucy’s office door.

  “Sister Felix, may I speak to you for a moment?”

  “Certainly, Sister . . . Francesca, isn’t it? What can I do for you?”

  Sister Felix’s voice was high and crackly, in keeping with her pointed witch-like features. She was probably not much more than fifty, but her manner was confident and full of authority. She sat tall and straight behind her name plate at the large mahogany desk that dominated the small room. Behind her was a poster-sized photograph of a stern-looking Pope Paul VI.

  The sight was enough to make me abandon my mission. In the midst of my struggle to invent another reason for my appearance at Sister Felix’s door, I heard a sneeze from somewhere in the hallway behind me. I thought of my sister Patty. When she had an allergy attack, Patty needed several pillows on her bed, at times sleeping in an almost upright position.

  “Sister Felix, may I have an extra pillow?” I asked.

  She gave me a quizzical look. For a moment I thought she’d seen through my pretense, but Sister Felix stood and walked to a closet which, to my surprise was stuffed with extra bedding. She pulled a pillow from the shelf and handed it to me without a word.

  Perhaps it was the thick down pressed against my body, serving as armor, that renewed my courage.

  “Do you know who Mother Ignatius had a meeting with last night?” My voice was shaky, a far cry from that of the brave St. Joan of Arc.

  Sister Felix folded her arms across her chest and brought her eyebrows together under her high white wimple.

  “She had no meeting that I’m aware of, Sister. Why do you ask?”

  I took a step back and reached for the rosary hanging at my waist, under the pillow.

  “She was supposed to meet me, and I got a note from her, and I waited until midnight.”

  I realized I had the sequence of events jumbled, as if I were creating a time anagram for Sister Felix to solve.

  “Mother Ignatius was not feeling well. She went to her room right after Compline and died some time in the early morning hours.”

  Sister Felix had come from behind her desk to tell me this. For every step she took toward me, I took one back. Our conversation ended with both of us in the hallway, Sister Felix leaning so close to me that I almost sneezed from the dust in her heavy habit.

  “Thank you, Sister Felix.”

  I turned and hurried back upstairs, as confused as if I’d fallen asleep and awakened in a Protestant church.

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  Strange as it seemed, my first thought as I entered my room was to look in the mirror. I needed to see if I recognized myself. I had approached the acting Superior of my residence and asked unnecessary questions. This is what comes of frivolous talking, I decided. I’d talked more in two days than during a whole Christmas season at the Motherhouse. My tongue was out of control.

  I felt my face flush as I thought of Mother Julia and how she would view my behavior. But even as I reprimanded myself for my audacity and my serious departure from my avowed station as lowest, last, and least of God’s children, I evaluated Sister Felix’s response to my questions. Hard as it was to pronounce the word, even silently, I couldn’t escape the conclusion that Sister Felix had told me a lie—that Mother Ignatius had no meeting last night. Unless Mother Ignatius had lied to Sister Felix. Or to me. None of the options pleased me.

  In any case, I had no right to know anything.

  I shook my head as if to clear it of gratuitous thoughts and wonderings and reached into my pocket for Mother Ignatius’s note. I started to tear it up, but stopped midway, read it once more, then put it at the back of my desk drawer.

  Taking matters into my own hands, I assumed the role of Mother Julia and imposed a severe penance on myself—I’d wear my arm chain for the rest of the week.

  I opened the drawer of the small armoire next to my desk and pulled a ten-inch metal chain from a leather pouch next to a neat pile of handkerchiefs. I held the barbed chain tight in my hand until the tiny spikes hurt enough to bring tears to my eyes. Folding back my wide sleeve, I fastened the chain around my upper arm, then lay down on my bed, the spikes digging into my arm, until I heard the bell for dinner.

  CHAPTER 6

  I was surprised to find another clean napkin in my wooden ring on the table. It was my third meal in St. Lucy’s refectory, and so far there’d been a fresh white cloth at my place for each sitting. At our Motherhouse we changed napkins only on Sunday mornings, adding the soiled ones to the enormous piles of wash for our shifts in the laundry room the next day.

  The most unexpected practices I’d met when I entered the SMI novitiate had to do with hygiene. My mother, Helen Sforzo Wickes, who was half Irish, half Italian, God rest her, had always told us cleanliness is next to Godliness, but that adage held no sway among religious orders.

  “The world gives too much attention to personal appearance,” Mother Julia told us at a lesson early in our training. “Think how much time people waste taking care of clothing and making themselves clean and attractive on the outside. They use soaps and perfumes. They color their faces and adorn their bodies. But what we concentrate on, my dear Sisters, is how pure and pleasing we are on the inside, how our immortal souls appear to Our Lord and Savior. Our spiritual beauty is achieved through prayer and penance and following God’s will.”

  Each Sister had only two habits, one for daily wear and one for Sundays. Our chemises and nightgowns, both white cotton, were washed once a week, as were our thick black stockings. With nearly two hundred Sisters in the novitiate at any given time, there was still always enough laundry to keep the huge machines going all day on Mondays.

  Our underwear consisted of a one-size-fits-all chemise. I remembered looking at the list of clothing and supplies we were told to bring when we entered—our dowry, it was called. I scoured the list for underpants, brassieres, or any similar item of lingerie. Finally—like most Postulants, I realized later—I’d broken down and asked my sponsor, Sister Pauline.

  “What about, uh, underwear, Sister?”

  Sister Pauline had coughed and swallowed elaborately.

  “The list is complete, Susan Marie. Just follow it exactly,” was all she’d said.

  We wore long, thin-boned corsets over our chemises, and these were washed on what seemed like an irregular schedule. Every now and then we’d see a sign at the end of the dormitory hall: CORSET WASH ON WEDNESDAY, and we’d dump them into a huge basket until we’d created a sculpture of stiff flesh-colored fabric and tangled lacings.

  At the end of each year, we turned in our everyday habits, close to threadbare, to be used for patches and smaller parts. The Sunday outfit was cleaned and ratcheted down to everyday wear, and we got a new Sunday habit from Sister Seamstress, as we called her.

  “Did you hear that Jake Driscoll and the Albanites have already signed a new contract?”

  I’d been concentrating so intensely on laundry as a metaphor for holiness that I’d missed grace before dinner, apparently mouthing it automatically and sitting down when everyone
else did.

  The latest news on the St. Lucy’s contract came from Sister Teresa, her department chairman having come through again with a scoop.

  Her chubby neighbor at the table, Sister Veronique, also in the History Department, picked up the story, like a co-anchor on television news shows that I remembered from my college days, except they were always men.

  “Mr. Driscoll was ready with his lawyers this morning. He’s a man of action.”

  “Is everyone happy we’re losing our yard?” I asked.

  “It’s not that we don’t like the nice lawn,” Sister Veronique said, filling her plate with mashed potatoes. “But Mr. Driscoll has done a lot for this neighborhood already. He’s torn down dilapidated buildings and put in housing for people with low incomes. He’s cleaned up vacant lots and made playgrounds.”

  “Yes, thanks to him, it’s much safer to walk around here,” Sister Teresa said.

  “Besides, we do have the entire Botanical Gardens across the street from the University,” added Sister Miriam, near me at the table.

  “Father Malbert says Jake’s being very generous, leaving a large area intact where the shrine to Our Lady is, although that will technically be part of his property.” This official-sounding bit of propaganda came from Sister Teresa.

  “He’s a good Catholic and likes working with the priests,” Sister Veronique said.

  “I wonder if he made one last try to persuade Mother Ignatius last night,” I said, before I could screen my words. Without realizing it, I’d turned my head toward Sister Felix in time to see her reaction to what amounted to an accusation of murder, or at least intimidation, and her complicity in the deed.