Andrea closed the door behind her and swiftly took the single step between herself and Rodica before the young nun could turn around. She fell to her knees behind the sister and embraced her. She cupped the sister’s breasts from that position, feeling their scared thumping like trapped birds. Sister Rodica’s heart beat so furiously that both women thought it might burst. But then, Andrea’s heart also thumped out a mad rhythm on the skin of Rodica’s back.
They knelt like this for a million years. Then Sister Rodica broke away and asked plaintively, “What are you doing to me, Andrea?”
Rising to her feet, Andrea pointed to the naked man on the crucifix, identical to the one in her room.
“Loving you,” she answered.
Sister Rodica whispered through tears, “Do you love me like yourself?”
Andrea kissed her on the lips. She moved her hand under the nun’s nightshirt, stroking the shivering skin until she reached the soft pelt covering her pubis. With her other hand, she pulled up her sweater and guided Sister Rodica’s hand to her breast. Andrea traced lightly the girl’s moist, thin squiggle with her index finger.
“This is how I love myself,” Andrea said, holding Rodica’s eyes with her own.
Rodica looked into Andrea’s eyes and gave herself over to the fire. She had seen pictures of burning martyrs, and she was sure that her turn had come. She would combust spontaneously before the beauty of this shameless orphan. A new millennium would begin tomorrow, but the promise of redemption no longer applied to her. She would belong wholly to her time. Sister Rodica surrendered to the flame and took Andrea in her arms.
Chapter Nineteen
Wherein we discover Felicity in a strange place of worship, where syncretic experiments are conducted
Felicity knew neither where she came from nor where she was. Still, what she could see of the outside was familiar. Through the barred window she could see palms and banana trees growing untrimmed over the oval of an empty swimming pool. Bunches of small black bananas lay at the bottom of the pool under giant spiderwebs. She could also see a gallery that ran the length of this courtyard, festooned with pink and blue flowers. Night jasmine twined itself around the aging grillwork. Here and there glinted strands of Mardi Gras beads caught years ago on the rusted spikes that topped the brick walls.
She remembered being driven for a long, viscous, thoughtless time. A soldierly man with a crew cut had blindfolded her from the backseat. She had tried to concentrate during the drive, bring herself back. When the car finally stopped, she had succeded at last in remembering her name: Scheherazade. She said it softly under her breath several times and liked the sound of it. She resolved to hold on to her name no matter what they were going to do to her.
The young soldier type, who smelled like pine deodorant, helped her out of the Cadillac and removed her blindfold. Her eyes were smarting. She rubbed them with the back of her hand before she could see anything. They climbed a rickety staircase. Another young man walked in front of them, leading the way. Cute ass, she thought through her trance. It was an observation without context because she could not think of any other example of such a thing. Who else has a cute ass? she asked herself. But her store of images was empty; it returned nothing.
Still—she stubbornly reasoned in the emptiness—I know enough to describe the young man’s behind as cute, therefore I must be able to construct a familiar situation. The cute ass before her was tied to her understanding by a slender thread of feeling. She could not recall the name of this thread, but she became certain that it led the way out of her submerged state. The thread had a name, she was sure of it, but it was more important now as a feeling that led from the young man’s cute ass to the world outside.
The men led her to a room filled with school desks. The room also looked familiar, and Felicity was even more hopeful. She could not remember any specific schoolroom in her own past, but school and school desks were, generally, known to her. She knew what they were and she realized that they, too, were linked by the thread of a nameless feeling. This thread was different from the thread of the cute ass; it was more unpleasant, more anxious. She imagined twining both threads around each other to make a bracelet. She imagined it around her left wrist. There were two other bracelets there, one ebony, one gold, but she didn’t know what they were doing there. She removed them just as a large man came toward her with an extended hand.
“Welcome to the School for Messiah Development.”
This struck her as funny for some reason, like an inside joke. She couldn’t remember whose inside joke, though. She did recall, however, that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. In that case, she asked herself quite logically, how could he be “developed”? What kind of school would Jesus need in order to become Jesus? What absurd place was this?
As if in answer to her question, the teacher put out his hand in a kind of blessing.
Felicity thought that he wanted her bracelets, so she handed them to him. He took them and smiled. “I merely wanted to bless you, young woman. But thanks, anyway.” He put the bracelets on a desk in front of the room and asked her her name.
“Scheherazade,” she replied, and immediately regretted it. She ought to have kept her name secret, like the two threads twined about her wrist. She no longer had her bracelets, but she still had the gold hoops in her ears, her nipple rings, and her belly-button ring. Her breasts felt hot under the thin black turtleneck sweater. The rings burned but they also anchored her, as if they were part of an armor.
The man did not introduce himself, but Felicity was certain she knew him. He had a pale forehead with burning black eyes. A globe lit from within by cherry-colored light sat on the desk.
Felicity squeezed into one of the seats and looked around. Several bewildered young women in various stages of disarray sat awkwardly at the school desks. They looked as if they had come from very far away. Some had mud on their clothes and dirty faces. Very far away: here was another thread of feeling, different from the other two. It had a taste that squeezed her tongue and a color she couldn’t name. She twined it with the others.
Felicity could smell the redhead in the wrinkled velveteen miniskirt in the adjoining seat. Whiskey flavored, she thought. And below that flavor was another, a rich womanly musk. As if she has just been opened and made to release her essence. These phrases came to her unbidden and presented her with yet more threads for her bracelet.
The redhead whispered, “And to think that there are so many real problems in the world. Like where the hell is my drink?”
“Very far away,” whispered Felicity.
“You can say that again. I flew twenty hours straight before I landed here. Where is my fucking bag? My Prozac’s in there.”
Of course. “Aviatrix!” exclaimed Felicity. “What a clever disguise!”
“Whatever.” The redhead turned to the man at the desk. “Nightcap, teacher man?”
Another girl, on her other side, had doubtless been more girlish the night before, but a five o’clock shadow and smeared mascara were quickly dissolving the illusion. She had taken off her stiletto heels and set them on the desk in front of her. She now regarded them sadly, as if they were the last remnant of her youth. “I don’t think this is going to be very amusing,” she said, attempting to smile.
It touched Felicity. Even disguised and without armor, the Maid of Orléans was recognizable. She had been temporarily defeated, but not for long. Felicity felt that, even though Joan’s story ended badly, history had vindicated her. Perhaps Felicity had been destined to bring the good news to the French saint. It made her dizzy to suddenly know so much about the two women on either side of her. Felicity didn’t know how she knew or where she had learned them, but here were their histories, vivid and complete. The threads of feeling that they radiated were leather-thick thongs. Felicity twined them like the tails of a whip and wound them around her arms all the way to her shoulders. She was sure that any moment now she would recognize everyone, that her world would come flooding back
to her with everything, including the elusive memory of her own life.
“Joan,” she addressed the sad one in a voice she did not recognize, “fear nothing. You are going to triumph.”
“You’re a dear,” said Joan in a man’s voice, and patted her head with a rather large hand.
Now that she had begun threading her way back to reality, Felicity no longer felt that she was in any imminent danger. On the contrary. Not knowing where she was or what was going to happen felt oddly liberating. If she allowed herself to be still, without fretting for answers, she could recognize everyone around her. It was only when she moved her arms and legs that anxiety overcame her. Her body felt adrift as if the steel cable of her identity had snapped, leaving it unmoored. But when she practiced stillness, whole stories came rushing in.
The teacher said: “The School for Messiah Development is dedicated to bringing to fruition the messiah potential in each and every one of you. Within you lies the power to save the world. Some of you have only a little messiah power, others have more. But a few of you have great power, one hundred percent messiah power, and those will lead us to glory. As you divest yourself bit by bit of your physical selves and your earthly memories, you will uncover the radiance of the truth.”
Felicity felt lulled by the man’s words. She was floating on a calm blue mountain lake.
“Ladies, allow yourself the luxury of rest. We will play a lovely game together,” the man said. “Imagine that the world has just ended. You’re a survivor. Your life depends on one thing, one thing only. You must try to imagine a pink elephant. If you can imagine a pink elephant, you’ll live. The city’s burning. The charred bodies pile up. A leprous man grabs your ankle. The water is poisoned. Your loved ones are all dead. You are dying. Unless, unless, you can … imagine … a … pink … elephant.”
The man paused to wipe his sweaty forehead with a yellow bandana, then shouted so loudly everybody jumped: “Imagine a pink elephant!” He hit the cherry globe, making it spin fast.
Felicity did not want to play this game. It was not amusing. And this shouting was unpleasant. She did not want to imagine a pink elephant. It didn’t look to her as if her fellow students needed to imagine pink elephants; they had seen plenty of pink elephants. The teacher man was being disrespectful; did he know whom he was addressing? She realized that he did not. The teacher had no idea that this small room contained some of history’s best-known women. She couldn’t help smiling. Here was another secret means of resistance to whatever was being prepared for them. The man had to remain ignorant. Strengthened by this knowledge, Felicity allowed herself to play the game. She couldn’t help it; the suggestion had already taken hold. A huge pink elephant filled her mind. It was like a stuffed toy, a piñata full of hidden things. She understood that she must not look inside this elephant because it contained false memories. Yes, Felicity thought, this is a Trojan elephant full of somebody else’s stories; if it breaks I will be filled with memories of a life that is not mine.
After a sufficient time had passed, time that was either a pregnant pause or a wave of nausea, depending on how much pink elephant one was actually imagining, the teacher shouted: “Now try not to imagine a pink elephant!” He set his palm on top of the globe and it ceased spinning.
Felicity rolled her eyes and thought, I hate this class. The man hissed triumphantly: “See? You cannot not imagine a pink elephant! This is called your reactive mind! Your reactive mind has been with you all your sorry life. It has prevented you from seeing the truth. It has prevented you from letting in the light. It has obscured your soul like a big pink elephant. Jesus will free you from it!”
The teacher was a middle-aged man dressed in black with heart-shaped pink eyeglasses. When he said “Jesus” his hands went up in the air and his voice broke as if he were about to cry. Felicity finally banished the pink elephant from her mind. But then she saw what the elephant had been concealing: a scene of utter destruction. A building was burning and a child was running from it with her wings on fire. Felicity grabbed the child and blew on the fire, which, amazingly enough, went out like a candle. She stroked gently the child’s charred feathers. Stop, she willed herself. This is his game; this is what he wants you to think. The world isn’t ending; you just can’t remember it. She concentrated hard on keeping from this man the secret of who the women in the room were, but she kept slipping into a lazy, dreamy trance that drained her of will. She kept hugging the child with the singed wings. What had they done to her?
She raised her hand. “I can’t seem to remember anything,” she protested. “Have I been given some sort of drug?”
“Not at all,” the teacher replied somewhat indignantly. “You are simply an American. You are amnesiac by definition. We Americans are people without memory. Don’t need it. Everything we need to know is available on-line. You are simply a secular-humanist citizen. Relax. Soon you will know your Savior, and your heart will be filled with longing for Paradise.”
“Fuck that,” she shrieked, “What have you done with me?”
The teacher spun the globe again. It had an oddly calming effect on Felicity, and she felt as though she slept for a while, submerged again beneath the waters.
The man passed out a questionnaire and pencils. She raised her hand again and the teacher pointed to her. She stood with some effort and addressed him: “Sir, if I may, I believe I am grown up. Judging from my size. And I don’t want to be in school.” There were murmurs of agreement from the other women.
The teacher looked stern. “Sit down, young lady, and answer the questions. You are disrupting the class.”
To her amazement, Felicity sat down and examined the questionnaire.
FIVE QUESTIONS YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON
1. Have you ever seen an angel?
2. Has an angel ever told you things you feel that you must share with the rest of the world?
3. Are you psychic? Can you tell, for instance, what the radio will say before the radio says it?
4. Are you angry about the evil in the world?
5. When you speak, does everyone listen?
She answered yes to all except the last one, though honestly she didn’t know if she’d ever seen or talked to an angel, or if she was angry and psychic. The child she had saved from the flames was not an angel. She put her head down on her desk and closed her eyes. She felt extremely tired. She was taking a test and didn’t know why, though she knew that asking would have been useless. She was small, a schoolchild at Our Lady of Perpetual Succor Ursuline Elementary, and the teacher was a nun, a white cloud, a ruler in her hand. Felicity touched her breasts through her thin white shirt. They felt small, young, unripe. She couldn’t wait to be a woman.
“Now you can go to your assigned rooms to change, and then it’s time for the music lesson,” the teacher said. “After the music lesson you will go to the Bible lesson. Tonight you have electronics workshop.”
It sounded like a nice plan.
“I think we’re slaves,” Joan of Arc whispered in Felicity’s ear as they trooped down a narrow hallway with doors on each side. “I think that they are going to sell us.”
Felicity was led to her quarters by a petite woman clad in a white gown, who gestured but did not speak. She opened a door above which was written, The Lord’s Hands Apartment No. 3. Felicity was shown to a lower bunk in the far left corner. The dormitory had twelve beds. The walls were bare but for a black crucifix between two bricked-in windows. An ashen light from an unknown source filled the place. Like a rainy day, thought Felicity. She wove that tender thread around her arm with the others.
Lying on her bunk was a white robe and a pair of white Chinese slippers. The woman gestured to her to change. Obediently, Felicity took off her boots, her sweater, and her fuchsia jeans. She kept on her black panties and slipped into the robe. It was a little too big, but soft and quite comfortable. She felt free and unencumbered in it. The sleeves fell below her hands. She was warm. The slippers felt better than her boots, which
had weighed her down.
A long time ago, thought Felicity, I was clad like this as I stood by the side of a tomb. She saw herself among a group of silent women dressed like her, in white robes, looking into the open door of a small mausoleum. Light came from within. Someone very dear to her had just abandoned the tomb, leaving it empty. He rolled away the stone, came to her, and then she knew what she was seeing. She was among those who’d come to look at the empty tomb of Joseph of Arimathea after Jesus had risen from the dead. The picture was bright and vivid, but Felicity knew that it did not come from her own experience but from the pink elephant, who still crouched in a corner of her mind, sending pictures into her head.
The woman led her to a small theater. The other girls were walking in at the same time. Felicity smiled at them. Amelia Earhart, still disguised as a redhead, whispered, “We are fucking nuns now!”
On the stage was a tiny man in a tailcoat, who shouted at them to hurry up and take their places on the risers facing him. There were already other girls there, who looked without curiosity at the newcomers. They were dressed in loose white robes. The conductor inspected each girl as she climbed into place. When he saw Felicity’s jewelry he shouted: “The rings must go! The rings must go!”
Felicity felt suddenly a sharp pang of fury that nearly returned her to herself. She had already surrendered her visible bracelets, but she would give them nothing else. She felt the threads of her secret bracelet, wound around her arms. She doubted if the conductor could see this, but nobody fucked with her rings. This she knew. Let the little penguin try. She’d tear his head off.
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