Blue Bear_or the Impossibility of Anonymity

by Joseph Grady

  “Good morning,” the nun looked up from her book.

  “Ehm ... well ... I’m not really sure how to say this ... um ... would it be alright if we talked for a moment?”

  “Sure.” The nun didn’t move and continued to look back at Lucy, holding the book open in front of her.

  “Um ... I mean, do you have some time to talk to me about some things? Some issues? I feel like I could really be helped by talking to a sister.”

  “Why not? Come over here.”

  They went into an office with a glass wall behind the reception desk. Lucy sat down in a modern armchair, with her back to the glass. The nun took an identical chair, diagonal to Lucy.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Lucy.”

  “Lucy, I’m sister Gabriela. And what would you like to talk about?”

  “Well ... so I came here on retreat with my friends – ”

  “You must speak slowly,” interrupted the nun. “The American accent is a little difficult for me. All those R’s deep down in the throat. What are they doing down there? Why don’t you bring them forward a bit?”

  “I’ll try to speak slowly, okay?”

  “Very good.”

  “So we’re on this retreat. And, well, just like, a lot of stuff has come up, just being at the retreat center and all ...”

  The nun leaned in and furrowed her eyebrows, trying to keep up with Lucy’s foreign speech patterns. Lucy leaned back and looked at the abstract painting on the opposite wall, a bunch of black and white curves that might be angel wings or might be the hoods of a group of monks. In high school she had learned that police interrogations and court mandated counseling sessions were always two different ball games. The first game, interrogations, involved crafting an alibi, sticking to it, and getting the police to commit a procedural error. The second game, counseling, was trickier, because it involved understanding what sort of image the psychologist has of himself. What sort of problem does the psychologist delight in solving?

  After that first time she got arrested, during her first round of court ordered counseling, Lucy somehow got her hands on the DSM-IV. Throughout the end of middle school and on through high school, she would get passed along from shrinks to counselors, from gurus to pastors. She would spend weeks studying a certain mental disorder, and whenever she would get sent to a new psychologist, she would do her best to manifest certain symptoms. But whenever the psychologist could finally identify the symptoms and send her to a specialist, she would completely change the set of problems, and throw off the new guy by coming up negative on all the tests, and positive for a completely unrelated disorder. Her file became a convoluted mass of misdiagnoses and she especially enjoyed pitting different specialists against each other. It took her six different private schools to make it through four years of high school. She even managed to leave with a diploma that sent her to college – not without the intervention of the CFO of Initech, of course.

  The nun was very attentive, scratching her chin and leaning forward to catch every word. Every once in a while she would stop Lucy and ask her why certain points were relevant. Lucy had learned that whenever she had to sit across a large desk from an upset private school teacher or mustached Jesuit principal, or whenever her parents sent her to some new hotshot evangelical youth pastor, who was finally going to figure her out, it was always enough to speak of her problems in terms of Immanuel Kant’s duty ethics, mixed in with psycho-babble about a father wound. All of this, of course, she disguised in Christian terminology, but at the end of the day, Kantian ethics and pop psychology were the only things most of them were really interested in talking about.

  So Lucy launched into a long tale of woe, the details of which were mostly true, but which her experience had taught her to embellish here and there. Sr. Gabriela was patient enough at first, struggling to pay attention, then grew more and more interested. A nun who works as a receptionist, thought Lucy, she’d probably prefer to be saving poor souls like me. She’s gotta be loving this.

  “Wait. Lucy. Okay, I think this is enough for right now.”

  “Okay...”

  “What were you thinking of doing on this retreat? Will you have time for silence?”

  “I guess.”

  “Do you know anything about Ignatian prayer?”

  “Yeah,” said Lucy. “You’ve got to be the change you want to see in the world. Magis. Be the more. Y’know, making a difference and all that.”

  “Hmm ... okay, that’s definitely a component later on, but for today the first thing you’ll need to do is find a comfortable place where you can spend a few hours in silence – ”

  “A few hours? Sister, I don’t know if I have a few hours.”

  “Well, take twenty minute chunks if you’re a beginner. Now I’m going to write down some meditations on scripture passages. You have a bible with you, right? You can use this one if you understand Italian.”

  “Don’t you want to talk about my problems?”

  “You’ve certainly got problems. I don’t know the answers. Here. Write this down.”

  Sr. Gabriela flipped through a bible. Lucy, however, was completely lost. Hearing the words I don’t know coming from an authority figure was something completely new for her. And so in a moment of panic, knowing she didn’t have time for a few days of retreat, she jettisoned her original plan. She departed completely from reality and came up with a completely artificial sob story, trying to get straight to the point. I should have been there to tell her not to. She was out of her league. “Well, sister, I think there’s still more to the story I was telling you.”

  “I’m sure there is. For now, though, do these meditations, and tomorrow we’ll talk. You can’t attack everything at once. You’ve got to choose the hills you want to die on. You’re here ’til Monday morning, correct?”

  “I think this next part’s important, though.”

  “Alright, alright,” Sister Gabriela smiled and chuckled for the first time, shaking her head. “Tell me. Tell me.”

  “Okay, so where were we?”

  “You were just out of college and trying to understand what your Christian duty is in life with respect to your latent need for a parental figure ... something like that ... can I ask, who taught you to speak like this? Is this a normal American way of speaking? You poor people.”

  “Well let me just skip ahead a few years. So before I came to Italy, I found out that I was adopted.”

  The nun got serious again, and looked Lucy deep in the eyes.

  Lucy looked away from her, at the painting across from her and continued, “Yeah, so I found out I was adopted. In Colorado they just passed this new freedom of information law, so adopted children can find out who their biological parents are. Anyways, my real mom’s a deadbeat in San Francisco now ... but I found out that my dad’s Italian. In ’89 he was very young and on vacation in America. He spent a few nights with my mom, and nine months later I was born. He was back in Italy, and I was given up for adoption before he ever knew anything about me ... but ... but ... I don’t know ... I’m not sure he ever knew I even existed.”

  “And so this explains what you’re doing in Italy.”

  “Right, well, I came here to figure out, you know, who I am, where I come from.”

  “And here we are.”

  “But not just, like, Italy in general,” said Lucy. “I’m here this weekend because I finally found out where my dad grew up. Here. The orphanage.”

  “So you haven’t managed to find him, yet?”

  “No ... but he ... um... he died last month.”

  “I see,” said Sister Gabriela.

  “So I’m here to see what I can see.”

  “You’re not on retreat.”

  “Well, it’s a kind of retreat.”

  “Sure.”

  “So you can help me?”

  “Maybe. What was your father’s name?”

  “Eugenio Galli.”

  “Okay, I remember him.”

&nb
sp; “You do?”

  “Very little, but yes. For some reason the Dutch sisters really loved him. I was only here for two years as a novice, and we did not have much interaction with the children. But I still remember a lot of them. And I remember Eugenio.”

  “And ...”

  “Oh, he was boisterous. Active. Loud. Always trying to get his way. A good kid, though. I’m sorry, though, that’s really all I remember. I was just here for two years as a novice, and didn’t interact much with the children. I’m sorry to hear he’s died already.”

  “Do you remember anything about his parents?”

  “So American. So practical. Now I see why you’re really here.”

  “So you can help?”

  “This is Italy. We have laws. I can’t just hand over confidential records.”

  “Well, can you tell me something about them?”

  “Probably not. Well ... whatever, this isn’t confidential, I don’t think. It’s just rumors from older sisters. Anyways, Eugenio was a great kid, but he never got adopted. They say this was because he was the illegitimate child of a powerful family. Who’s to say, though? I was not here at the time, but the older sisters told me that his mother — your grandmother I suppose — lived for nine months on the grounds here during her pregnancy. A nice lady. At the time she was neither particularly young nor old, they said. She told the rest of her family she was abroad or something. And then, when Eugenio was born, I think she finally did go abroad.”

  “So there is some kind of record?”

  “Sure ... but I doubt she used her real name, anyways. I don’t think it would help you. They said she sounded very southern, said she was from Basilicata, but demonstrated no knowledge of the geography of Basilicata.”

  “Maybe there’re pictures somewhere?”

  “To be honest, if you ask me, you’re better off staying away from that family.”

  “But they’re my family.”

  “Lucy. Look. I came back to Italy two years ago for medical reasons. But I spent the previous forty in Nairobi, running one of the largest pharmacies in the country. After treatment I got better, but they wouldn’t let me go back to Africa. Now I’m mother superior of the retired nuns. Do you know what that means?”

  “What?”

  “It means I used to be very powerful. People needed me. Now half the people I’m in charge of are senile. I’m a receptionist, but you know what, I am happy. But, what am I saying? That’s not my point. The point is, I spent the previous forty years around people who really needed something, and were willing to lie to get what they needed.”

  Lucy sank back in her chair and looked down at her lap.

  “Oftentimes, though,” continued Sr. Gabriela, “I would give people what they needed, even knowing that they were lying. I hope that I’m wrong, but everything about the way you are behaving is telling me that ... at some point along the road ... you are completely full of garbage. You are telling me all kinds of stories. Why don’t you just tell me the truth?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, then. That’s ... that’s the truth.”

  The nun stared her down. Lucy looked back at her lap and suddenly felt like crying, but didn’t.

  “Here’s the thing,” the nun said. “Despite your lies, I think, somehow, your heart’s in the right place. And if I could, I might even help you. But life – both now and in general – would be so much easier if you would just say what you want. Why not do that? Just say what you want.”

  “Say what I want?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want information on Eugenio’s birth family.”

  “Good. That’s obvious. Now tell me why.”

  “I ... I already told you.”

  “Well then you’re not going to get it. Come find me when you’re ready to tell me something that at least resembles the truth.” Sister Gabriela stood up, and left the room. The click of her heels echoed all the way across the lobby and down the hall towards the retirement wing.

  What was left of the morning, Lucy spent pacing back and forth in her room. She was torn. Thinking of Sr. Gabriela’s obstinacy, she felt like breaking something, but knew that wouldn’t help the cause. At the same time, remembering the nun’s penetrating eyes, she felt like balling herself up in bed and crying. So in the end, she neither broke anything, nor cried, but settled for pacing back and forth in her room.

  The security cameras at the facility were too comprehensive. Breaking into the records was off the table. The only way forward was through the nuns – some of whom were mostly senile, and at least one of whom, Sr. Gabriela, was incredibly far from senile. Everything, perhaps, was riding on Natasha, on whether or not she could find a way forward through the old Dutch sisters.

  “Any progress?” Lucy pulled Natasha aside and asked her before lunch in the dining room.

  “Not really.”

  “Did you ask about Eugenio or Ginevra?”

  “I didn’t know if we wanted to be that forward already.”

  “I think we have to be. Go for it. Also ... this is a long shot ... but if you can find out a way to blackmail the nun in reception, Sister Gabriela, that could help us a lot.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  At lunch they were the only four guests at a cramped table. Four overeager, petite, young nuns, who plied them with more food than they wanted, and made sure their water and wine glasses were never empty, served the four-course meal – primo, secondo, insalata, frutta.

  When she had been pacing around her room, Lucy had also spent a great amount of time reflecting on Sr. Gabriela’s words: say what you want. Forgetting the case for a second, Lucy knew what she wanted. Now was the time to act, to say what she wanted. After lunch she let the others leave, then went up to the sisters and told them that only two of them would be at dinner.

  The fog lifted in the afternoon so the four students borrowed bicycles from the nuns and rode the fifteen-mile loop path around Varese’s majestic lake in front of the Alps. Afterwards, Lucy spent more time than she had intended showering and getting ready for the evening, and just barely intercepted Scott on the way to the cafeteria for dinner.

  “Scott. Hey. Natasha and Andrew told me they were bored and went to Milan for dinner.”

  “What? I could’ve sworn I just heard – ”

  “Come on. Are we gonna stay here or go some place fun?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I saw some cool places in town here in Varese. Come on. Let’s go out tonight.”

  “I thought we had plans to have dinner here?”

  “I already signed us out. It’s too late to stay here. Come on. Let’s go.”

  “Well, okay.”

  Walking out the gate of the sisters’ property, and turning towards the city center, Lucy took her right hand and placed it inside Scott’s left arm. He tried to shake her off, but she held firm.

  “Lucy, what are you doing?”

  “You guys are so formal over there at the NAC. Don’t they teach you the proper etiquette for walking a lady to dinner?”

  “We don’t have ladies over there.”

  “Well then I’ll have to teach you tonight.”

  “Oh, and you’re a lady?”

  “And how.”

  “Do you have any idea how much trouble I’d be in, if someone from the NAC were to see me going out to dinner on a Saturday night with a girl like you leeching onto my arm?”

  Lucy leaned closer to him, linked her right elbow with his and grabbed his arm with her left hand. “Well, here let me just grab on tighter, then. Like a leech. It just makes dinner all the more fun doesn’t it? Plus, come on, nobody from the NAC would come to Varese for a travel weekend, would they?”

  “Well, I guess we’ll find out.”

  They smiled at each other and walked into town. That’s as much as Lucy would ever tell me about that evening. She was often an open book on all kinds of things, but every time I plied her for more information on that evening in particular,
she either teared up and stormed off, or got a dreamy look on her face and refused to speak.

  Late that night, just after she and Scott had parted ways, Lucy knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, so she went for a walk around the retreat center grounds. I emerged from the forest and found her in her coat slowly putting one foot in front of the other, and vaguely smiling at the dark trees along the path circling the grounds.

  “Well, well, well,” she finally caught sight of me. “Look who decided to turn up this weekend.”

  “Lucy, we’re right next to the mountains. I’m sorry if I can’t help myself. You do understand I’m a bear, don’t you?”

  “It’s fine. Everything is fine.”

  “How’s it been going?”

  “Great ... really really great. Perfect. Life is great.”

  “Oh good, so you haven’t missed me then. What have you found out?”

  “Well ... no ... the case is terrible. We haven’t found out anything.”

  “So then what’s great? And what is that scent that I smell on you?”

  I sniffed her neck. She was giving off all kinds of pheromones that I hadn’t smelt on her in quite a while. Her hair and clothes were all still in order, so it didn’t look like anything had happened, and the scent suggested that she was still feeling the need to ... well, anyways, she understood that I had figured out what was going on.

  “Your nose is really not fair,” she said.

  “I know. If humans just had a halfway decent sense of smell it would seriously reduce over ninety percent of all the ambiguity in your relationships. Whatever. I don’t need to know about it. But the case? What do we know about the case?”

  “Oh nothing. That’s been terrible. Thanks for all your help, by the way.”

  “What have you tried?”

  She told me all about her long session in spiritual direction, and Natasha’s endless chats with senile Dutch nuns, but nothing about her evening out. “Whatever, though. This place is nice ... and it is ... nice to get out of Rome, I guess.”