“Lyse! Say the blessing, will you, so these poor women can eat.”
Lyse, it turned out, was the youngest of the Dunkel daughters, but the child seemed undaunted by the responsibility. She took a step forward from the line in which she and her sisters had assembled, made the cross, and bowed her head. An audible rustle of veils followed.
“Our Father in heaven,” she began, the echoes of her mother’s strength infusing every word, “we thank thee for the safe journey of these women and ask that the food thou hast provided will replenish the strength they’ve lost and fill them with new strength for a new day. Amen.”
We sisters echoed her amen and, without further instruction, dipped our spoons into the stew, showing obvious restraint not to gobble it directly from the bowl.
I, however, remained still, in awe of the boldness of this child.
“Psst. Kat!” Girt broke into my reverie. She hefted her spoon, smiled, and dove it back into her nearly empty bowl.
“Go on, then,” Frau Dunkel directed to one of the older girls. “Don’t let them see the bottoms.” Then, louder, addressing all in the room, “And don’t you let my bread go stale in front of you. Sweated over the oven on Easter Sunday so’s it would be fresh for you. And if you’re waiting on a knife for making pretty slices, you’ll waste the day here. Tear into it.”
Exhilarated at the invitation, Girt reached for the round brown loaf at the center of the table, picked it up, ripped off an end piece for herself, and continued the process until nothing was left on the trencher and each of the women had a chunk balanced on the edge of her bowl.
“And dunk it in,” little Lyse said over our shoulders. “Just like that, to get up all the broth.”
The room filled with the sounds of slurping and scraping, punctuated by Frau Dunkel’s never-ending stream of commands. More water, here. Get another loaf from the kitchen—two, then. And butter? How could we forget the butter, churned fresh on Friday?
Soon after, my sisters found their voices. Small sounds of appreciation at first, comments on the deliciousness of the food, sincere thanks given to Lyse and the other daughters who served with warm graciousness. Then conversation. Multiple conversations, in fact, with occasional bouts of unchecked laughter. Voices rose to combat each other, to be heard above what had become a veritable din.
I engaged too, confessing to Girt that I’d been sick to my stomach for the better part of the month in fearful anticipation of this day.
“No more of that,” Girt said, swiping the air between us with a piece of sodden bread. “Nothing more of fear. Or secrets. Ever.”
Frau Dunkel instructed the girls to begin clearing the tables, taking away the abandoned, empty bowls and crumb-filled trenchers. For the first time in any memory, my stomach was comfortably full, and a drowsiness threatened to overtake me in this very place. Luther had promised beds, and it took all my strength not to stretch myself out on the table in front of me—or the bench, or the floor; such was my fatigue. From the looks on the faces around me, my fellow refugees felt the same, and I was about to brave Frau Dunkel with my request when a new bustle of activity came with the encore appearance of the Dunkel daughters. Having divested themselves of food and dishes, they reappeared, each carrying a mountain of fabric that threatened to engulf her completely.
“Now,” Frau Dunkel spoke above the curious whispers, “I can’t tell you that any of these are new. Except for the linen—that’s fresh-spun. But the dresses are quality; that I can assure. Our women work hard, and things have to last. You can’t very well go around dressed like a flock of doves, now can you? Never going to catch a gentleman’s eye like that.”
Four tables remained unoccupied at the top of the room, and it was here that the girls dropped their bundles. A single collective sound of awe rose from the sisters.
“So come,” Frau Dunkel said, harsh in her encouragement. “Choose what you like. My little Lyse will close the shutters, so there won’t be any eyes peeping while you dress.”
In an instant, the women pounced on the clothes, grappling through piles of fabric and colors and patterns.
I remember my mother had a dress in just this color.
Look at these! Tiny flowers stitched right in!
Anything red? I’ve always wanted a red dress.
I stood back and watched as they laughed and held the gowns out for scrutiny, plastered them against their chests, and turned to one another. They clucked approval, emitted sounds of delight, and fussed over the choices.
Ave was the first to doff her veil, sending it straight to the floor. Her wimple followed, and she stood bareheaded, her hair cropped to her shoulders. She’d pulled one arm from the sleeve of her robe and appeared ready to yank the entire garment off when a burst of indignation made its way through the stupor brought on by the heartiness of the breakfast.
“Stop it.” I spoke quietly at first, a volume that had served well all these years, and had even proven dangerous at times. Here, though, the noise made no impact.
“Stop!”
The compliance was not immediate, but by the time I repeated the command a third—and again, softer—time, it was complete.
“We made a vow the day we took the veil, a vow that we’ve broken. Do none of you remember the anguish? I cannot be the only one who wrestled in prayer, seeking God’s guidance through my freedom. No matter how the Church would seek to confine us, these garments were meant to set us apart, to show us to be holy women, consecrated to Christ.” Every word of the ceremony spoken as I donned these garments for the first time echoed through my memory as I spoke. “After this moment, you’ll have nothing but your character to act as testament to your faith. Can we please treat these with reverence rather than discarding them like nothing more than turnip tops? And think of the women who acted as our first Christian sisters did, giving of what little they had to those who had less. Can we not take even a moment to pause and give thanks to God the Father for his providence? And to the Holy Ghost who moved within the hearts of these strangers to meet our needs?”
Slowly, silently, Girt picked up the coverings she’d discarded and held them to her breast. The others, too, clutched close whatever they held, and all heads bowed—the covered and the uncovered, including Frau Dunkel and her daughters.
“For your provision, heavenly Father, we are truly grateful. Amen.”
Such a short prayer, given the length of the speech that preceded it, but I knew those words spoken to my sisters were taken as sacred by the Father. Some of the women—those who’d been surprised by the prayer’s abrupt end, or whose hands were too full of overskirts and kirtles—failed to make the sign of the cross upon the prayer’s conclusion. This lapse did not go unnoticed, but neither was it unsettling in any way. Imagine—I’d felt a need to pray, voiced the prayer, and now the activity had resumed, but at a more respectable volume. The women did not appear punished, merely prompted, and they followed Girt’s example in removing veil and wimple with reverence and care, folding each carefully and setting them on the empty tables.
A tug on my sleeve called my attention to the oldest of the Dunkel daughters, Marina. A lovely, healthy girl who looked to be about eighteen years old.
“Here, Sister.” She held up a garment draped over her arm. “Try this one. I think the color would be perfect for you.”
I took the dress and held it at arm’s length. It was dark green, the color of moss in shadow, with narrow, widely spaced black stripes. At her unspoken insistence, I held it up, just below my chin, and looked for her approval.
“Oh, how it brings out your eyes, Sister. Such a beautiful shade of green they are, too.”
“Are they?” My experience with any kind of looking glass had been limited to brief encounters with clean windows and polished tin, and even then not much of an opportunity beyond ensuring that all of my hair was tucked neatly within my wimple.
“There’s a mirror in your room. Look for yourself when you go.”
My room.
>
The fatigue that had been allayed returned, grasping at a place between my shoulder blades and threatening to carry me to a nest in the midst of all those donated dresses.
“Oh, but you must be exhausted,” Marina said. Perceptive girl. “Let me ask Mother if I can show you to your beds. Quite a luxury that will be, won’t it? To sleep through the day?”
I watched her thread her way back to her mother and comprehended the conversation as all five of the girls were summoned and given orders. At Frau Dunkel’s command, they were dispatched and assigned—a daughter or two for each handful of sisters. We were given our final opportunity to pick from among the clothing: linen tunics, a vast array of overshirts and skirts and kirtles. Stockings, caps, headscarves, sleeves, belts, petticoats. So much confusion for a group of women who had been denied such choice for most of their lives.
“Listen here,” Frau Dunkel said, speaking at a volume that rendered the rest of us silent. “You ladies just let the girls take you to your rooms. Rest up, and I mean it. A good sleep for all of you. And you just leave it to my Marina to have something set out for you to wear when you wake up.”
“I know the perfect thing for each of you,” Marina said, eyes bright as she scanned the gathering of ramshackle nuns. “Trust me. You’ll all be beautiful.”
I began to follow suit with the others, returning my green dress to the common pile, but once again she laid an attention-getting hand on my sleeve.
“Oh, no, Sister Katharina. That I’ve already picked out for you. Take it upstairs. Come, follow me.”
She motioned for Girt and Ave and Margitta to follow her specifically, leading us to the narrow staircase at the end of the room.
“You’ll have to share beds,” she spoke over her shoulder, “so you might want to open the window a bit for a breeze. Cool the room down, as it gets stuffy. But there’s a heavy curtain should keep out most of the light.”
“I could sleep on a rock in the middle of the market,” Girt said, dragging herself up the final step.
“I’ll just pretend I’m in morning chapel,” Ave piped up from behind. “After breakfast? Never could stay awake.”
This prompted a few giggles, but also a chastising sound from Margitta.
Our room—Girt’s and mine—was the first at the top of the stairs. Marina closed the door behind us, wishing us a good rest, and went on with the others to their accommodations. It was small, even in comparison to the cell I’d shared with Girt and Therese, but the bed was covered with a colorful quilt, and the pitcher on the washstand was a bright blue and decorated with a delicate pattern of vines and leaves.
Immediately I crossed to the window and opened it to the bustling life below. The sweet smell of roasting pine nuts wafted up on the spring breeze, overcoming less pleasant odors. I heard laughter and singing, shouts of impatient mothers, wails of vendors, profane exclamations from men—all of it culminating in a singular, profoundly discordant music.
“Life,” I said, speaking out loud to all those who wouldn’t hear me.
And then, separate from them all, a solitary, familiar figure. Luther, in his black cloak and worn shoes, stopped in the middle of the path. He placed his hands on his hips, as if posing for a portrait, and lifted his face. The near-afternoon sun caused his eyes to narrow, perhaps blinding him, for I could think of no other reason he would be so bold as to stare directly up at my window. At me.
He showed no reaction as I detached my veil, removed it, followed by my wimple. But then, as I emerged, bareheaded, he smiled. My hair, too, was short—shorter than Girt’s, barely covering my ears and the nape of my neck. I knew it to be dark. Not black, nothing so dramatic as a raven’s wing. But brown. And plain. I brought my fingers up to touch it and found it thick, with the promise of heaviness when allowed to grow, when there would be braids and pins and all those things of which I had no expertise.
“All is well?” Luther inquired, shouting above the din of village life.
“All is well,” I said, just loud enough for my voice to carry. Then I stepped back and closed the curtain.
In the meantime, Girt had divested herself of all clothing, save for the new linen chemise provided by Frau Dunkel.
“It’s the softest thing,” she said, hugging her own body. “Quick, get changed.”
Suddenly my habit felt unbearably heavy, and I took off every piece, folding the panel so that the stitched cross appeared smooth on top and making a neat pile on the bench at the foot of the bed.
“Everything,” Girt said. “Don’t worry. I’ll turn around.”
And so my undergarments followed, leaving me, for the first time in any memory, completely naked. True to Marina’s word, there hung a small looking glass above the nightstand, affording me a view of my bare shoulders and the hollows that made somewhat of a moat around my narrow neck. I dared not look down, never having seen the evidence of flesh that might prove to be the ruinous temptation of a man. So, like a blind woman, arms outstretched, I found the new chemise and dropped it over my head. It settled like a breeze, cool against my skin, stopping just short of my knees. I peeked at my feet and wiggled my toes, amazed that such distant things could be a part of me.
The bed responded with the groan of ropes when Girt lay upon it, and again when I joined her. It was a tight fit for two, but I took instant comfort in the softness of her body beside me.
“We did it,” she whispered.
“We did,” I whispered back.
“And I hope Marina chooses the most beautiful gown of all for me.”
I gave her a gentle nudge with my elbow. “You never struck me as one for vanity.”
“Oh, it’s not for vanity’s sake. It will be my wedding dress. Hans and I are getting married.”
The admission came as no surprise, but the word that followed took my breath.
“Tomorrow.”
We lay flat on our backs, staring up at the beamed ceiling, hands close enough to clasp, but separate.
“Tomorrow?”
I felt her nod. “It’s all arranged. Luther will perform the ceremony. And there will be a grand reception here, at the inn. Hans’s family arranged that, as I don’t have any of my own to host. Oh, Kat!” She took in a deep breath, then expelled it as a yawn, triggering my own.
“And you’ll stand up with me, won’t you?” she asked, once she’d recovered the power of speech.
“Of course I will.” I’d seen plenty of weddings before, in our small chapel at Marienthrone. We sisters were kept to the back rows, as if our solemn faces and hidden figures might sour the joy of the nuptials. “But Luther is an excommunicate. Will your marriage be lawful? Not in the Church, I know, but in God’s eyes?”
Girt raised herself up on one elbow to look at me. “Yes. See how everything’s changed? If we don’t need a priest to confess our sins, why would we need one to profess our love?”
“So you love him, then? That much?”
“With all my heart.” She collapsed back onto the mattress, causing it to groan anew.
“But that isn’t why you chose to leave, is it? Just to marry Hans?”
“I don’t know. Everything happened together, so I get it all mixed up. Nothing seemed truly clear until this morning. When I knew it was real. That it could happen. And I have you to thank for it, Kat.”
“Me? If I recall, you were the one ferrying in all those messages.”
“But I brought them to you because I knew you would know what to do. And see? How you’ve led us all. And all of us will be able to find our own happiness, just like Hans and me.”
“Not all of us have husbands waiting beyond the curtain.” I put the thought of Luther away the moment I said it.
“Some have family.” Her voice grew weaker with sleepiness, the words seeping out of the corner of lips that barely moved. “Parents, brothers. They’re here, or coming here. Waiting.”
“And some have nothing.”
Girt did not respond, as her breath was already even and deep,
the mouselike whistling snore that had been my lullaby for the last twenty years. Tomorrow night, she would be in a very different bed—one neither of us could begin to fathom. With a man, a husband.
And I would be utterly alone.
CHAPTER 15
NOTHING WOULD IDENTIFY the place where Girt and Hans married as anything more than an empty cottage. There were no images of Christ himself, only a swag of velvet with a plain-stitched cross draped across the rough-hewn table functioning as an altar at the front of the room. No place to kneel, the benches little more than split timber, the beveled glass in the windows creating its own prismatic, stainless color.
Luther, dressed in the same clothing he wore the day before, presided over the ceremony. No elaborate robe or sash, his dark coat shabbier after one more day’s wear.
I, on the other hand, standing little more than an arm’s length away, looked like quite the fine lady. Unused to the clothing of the world outside the cloister, I—along with all of my emancipated sisters—had required extensive help from the Dunkel girls. They’d run from room to room, affixing corsets and lacing laces and attaching petticoats. As a result, I stood tall and confined, acutely aware of every inch of my body, unable to stop my hands from running themselves across the textured fabric of my gown, the tiny ridges formed by the stripes. Best of all, having been rescued from its final hiding place, my mother’s locket hung around my neck, suspended by a thin ribbon of black silk. The metal was, at first, cold against my skin, but had now grown warm. I’d taken my own vow to never again conceal it.
If I had any doubt that I gave a pleasing appearance, the look on Luther’s face when I first walked into this simple chapel dispelled it. It was the first I’d known of a man’s appreciation. Nothing lustful, more of what a man might look like having invented some great thing or completed a master work of art. His eyes never left me from the moment I crossed the threshold until the moment he was forced to turn his attention to the bride and groom waiting for his ministerial courtesy.
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