Blood Rubies

by McDowell, Michael

  Katherine had been on her knees somewhat more than an hour when Sister Henrica appeared in the doorway and quietly told her that she was required directly in Mother Celestine’s office.

  She wiped the perspiration from her cheeks with the corner of her apron, undid her sleeves, and removed the apron. She shot a look of apology to Sister Alfred because she must walk across the space just waxed by the nun.

  On her way to Mother Celestine’s study, Katherine inwardly prepared herself for more bad news. She suspected that, in some unforeseeable manner, her mother was going to reach from beyond the grave to trouble her. Mother Celestine nodded silently to Katherine and motioned her to take a chair.

  Katherine sat and did not return Mother Celestine’s comforting, forced smile. Mother Celestine, correctly interpreting the postulant’s despairing dread, then said quickly, in a level voice, “Sister Katherine, I will come directly to the point.”

  Katherine nodded her thanks for this kindness.

  “I have conferred with my superiors at the Mother House in Worcester, and after some difficult debate we have decided that it will not be . . . expedient for you to finish your trial of postulancy at Saint Luke’s.”

  Katherine drew in her breath sharply and stiffened.

  Seeing Katherine recoil, Mother Celestine rose, stood behind Katherine’s chair, and placed an arm gently about the young woman’s shoulder. Katherine did not move, and would not look at Mother Celestine.

  “In a week or so, you will be transferred from Hingham to the Mother House in Worcester, and there—”

  “You’re not going to let me take my final vows!” cried Katherine grimly.

  Mother Celestine’s grip tightened on Katherine’s shoulder. Then she let go and came around to face her. “How could you think such a thing! No, child, you will certainly remain a blessed Slave. That is your chosen life, and you have consistently demonstrated your love of it. There are few young women more suited to the conventual life than you, Sister Katherine, we would—”

  Katherine, flushed with relief, pressed her burning cheek against the back of the leather chair, crushing her starched wimple. In a few moments she turned back to Mother Celestine. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I thought—”

  “No,” smiled Mother Celestine, “we were thinking only of you. No young woman in our memory has undergone so difficult a postulancy as you, Sister Katherine. I needn’t remind you why. We had thought that removal from Somerville would be sufficient, but we fear that you are still too close to the scenes of your unhappiness—”

  “Yes,” said Katherine quickly, “I am. I’m too close . . .”

  “And for that reason, you are being transferred to Worcester—”

  “But what about my work at BC? I’ve only got one semester to go, and then—”

  “Sister Katherine,” said Mother Celestine, “please don’t interrupt, or I shall never be able to finish.”

  Katherine bowed her head.

  “Both Holy Cross and Clark are very good schools, and with your grades, I think you will have no difficulty in signing up—even at this late date. The order does not intend to deprive you of your teacher’s certificate.”

  “Thank you, Reverend Mother. I apologize. It’s just that—”

  “I know, dear: it’s sudden. Now, Sister Katherine, you have spoken to me several times with real interest, I think, of our missions—”

  Katherine looked up sharply.

  “Yes,” smiled Mother Celestine. “You were interested, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, very,” she whispered.

  “We have decided that as soon as you have taken your vows, we will give you the opportunity to assume a post at one of the mission schools. In most cases, the teacher’s certificate will not be necessary. The BA that you already possess will be sufficient for the purpose. Now these are almost always difficult positions, and our charges there are often most unfortunate, but our missions’ work in these places is doubly blest of God for its very difficulty. It is, moreover, far removed from anything you’ve ever known; you have never travelled, have you, Sister Katherine?”

  “I’ve been to Worcester, Reverend Mother, when I visited the Mother House with Sister Mary Claire. And once I went to Springfield, to a play.”

  Mother Celestine smiled. “Our missions are farther removed than that, I fear. In any case, the matter will be left up to you. You can always return to school after a few years and pick up your certificate. This, after all, should be a spiritual and not a secular decision. And you need not—”

  “I’ve already made up my mind,” said Katherine hurriedly.

  “Yes?”

  “I want to teach at one of the missions.”

  Mother Celestine cocked her head as she smiled. “All right, Sister Katherine. You must know that I’m pleased with your answer, but for now, we’ll have to consider this a conditional decision. You should not hesitate to change your mind.”

  “There is nothing that I want more, Reverend Mother, nothing!”

  After the lights were extinguished that night, Katherine stood a long while at her window and gazed fixedly at the fresh blanket of snow on the back lawn and the frozen grass at the edge of the marsh. At last she slipped beneath the blankets of her cot, and her slumber was not disturbed in the least by unwelcome dreams.

  35

  Several nuns stood cleaning and chopping vegetables at the enormous butcher’s table in the center of the basement kitchen. Sister Prudentia stood at the counter, brutally kneading one of several large bowls of bread dough. Eighteen greased bread pans were lined up ready to bake the two-day supply for the house. As had been the custom at the Convent of St. Agnes, there was a radio playing here, but Sister Prudentia, complaining of the depressing news, had turned to easy-listening music. This was technically an infraction of rules, but no one made any objection.

  Nodding cordially to Sister Katherine when she came down the stairs, Sister Prudentia flicked a drop of perspiration from her cheek and left a streak of dough behind to mark the place. Sister Katherine smiled, but said nothing. Often she came to the kitchen in the late mornings, although she was rarely assigned to duty there. She enjoyed the warmth—the convent was kept very cool, for reasons of economy and self-denial alike—as well as the smell of fresh fruit and vegetables and rich chicory coffee. Katherine poured herself a mug of that coffee and sat on a stool at the far end of the counter, near the window that overlooked the withered herb garden and the salt marsh. It was the second day of the new year, and although St. Luke’s school was back in session, Sister Katherine was no longer required to attend to her former duties there. This might have been a lazy time for her, but that her mind, at least, was always busy with the future—the future as she had always imagined it, free from the restraints of her family, free to accept entirely the strong bonds of the church. Soon she would be in Worcester; in another month she would have joined the Order; and a month after that might well see her heading up a classroom at one of the far-flung missions maintained by the Slaves of the Immaculate Conception. The steam of the coffee began to fog the windowpanes, and Katherine felt wisps of cold air over the backs of her hands. She blinked and turned from the glass.

  The morning’s edition of the Herald-American lay nearby. Idly, Katherine drew it over. The front page recorded rumors of a new Middle East War, the vandalism of a Rembrandt portrait, and a graft scandal in the Boston police department. At the bottom, however, was the headline “Weston Couple Slain New Year’s Eve.”

  Katherine closed her eyes and breathed a quick “Hail Mary” for their souls. Below the headline was a photograph of the murdered pair: Vittoria Marie and Cosmo Antonio LoPonti—the copy of a photograph taken in a hotel bar in Quebec City, Canada.

  Katherine sipped her coffee and read the story.

  An electrical contractor and city
alderman for the town of Weston, Cosmo LoPonti and his wife Vittoria spent the days between Christmas and New Year’s attending a convention in Quebec City, Canada. They left at home their only child, Andrea, a senior honor-student at Wenham College. Returning on New Year’s Eve, about 4 p.m., they were surprised not to find their daughter to meet them at the airport, as she had promised. They took a taxi home, and from there telephoned several of their daughter’s friends, who however could give no indication of Miss LoPonti’s whereabouts, or any reason for her failure to appear at the airport.

  What occurred over the next twelve hours is unknown. The following morning, about nine o’clock, a friend of Andrea LoPonti’s, Marsha Liberman, also a senior at Wenham, telephoned the LoPontis in order to ascertain whether her friend had returned. There was no answer, and after an hour or so, Miss Liberman drove over to the LoPontis’ house. Finding the front door unlocked and ajar, she went inside and discovered the body of Mr. LoPonti. He had been shot twice in the chest. Miss Liberman found the body on the floor beside the bed in the master bedroom. She telephoned the police immediately, and waited for them in the kitchen. The body of Vittoria LoPonti, with a single bullet fired at close range through the back of her neck, was later found by the police, wedged between the wall and the toilet in the small bathroom off the daughter’s room.

  Neighbors questioned said they heard nothing unusual that night.

  Drawers in the bedrooms had been gone through, and jewelry and some cash had evidently been taken. Police speculate that the couple were murdered by burglars. Preliminary medical reports place the time of death at around midnight, New Year’s Eve.

  The whereabouts of Andrea LoPonti are unknown. It is also not known whether she returned to her home before the robbery took place. If she did, the police fear that she may have been abducted by the killers.

  The story had been continued on the third page. When she finished reading it, Katherine realized that there was a second picture accompanying it—a photograph of the dead couple’s only child—with the caption “Daughter sought.”

  Katherine stared at the photograph of Andrea LoPonti. “Dear God . . .” she whispered. A nun shredding carrots looked over at her. Katherine fumbled for her canvas book bag and drew out a black marking pen. She uncapped it and gripped it violently over the photograph. Then, holding her breath, Katherine ran the pen over the photograph in a definite pattern of lines and blackened spaces.

  Around the shoulders and head of Andrea LoPonti, Katherine drew a crude version of the habit of the Slaves of the Immaculate Conception—the same habit she wore now. The photograph had become a portrait of herself.

  Katherine crossed herself feverishly as she thought of the fire in the North End on New Year’s Eve, 1960. The newspaper account swam before her, and for the first time it possessed immediacy and importance. When she had read it off the microfilm, she had not felt that she was actually part of that terrible story. Katherine was the twin who was saved, the twin who was thrown from the window.

  But had her sister really died? Their mother, Mary Lodesco, was unquestionably dead; Katherine had seen her picture, flames behind, her belly pierced with a shard of glass. But the corpse of the other child had never been found. And if Andrea LoPonti were that missing sister, then all of their adoptive parents were dead. And all of them, Katherine’s and Andrea’s, had died violently.

  Katherine looked about the kitchen. Sister Prudentia was dividing the dough into the pans. The nuns at the butcher block were putting together a carrot salad for luncheon. Andrea folded the newspaper and slipped it into her canvas bag; she murmured an excuse that she must write some letters, and left the kitchen.

  In the sanctuary of the Church of St. Luke, Sister Lazarus and the sixth-grade choir were in rehearsal for Sunday’s mass. Katherine had hoped to find a place alone, but resigned herself to the music. She dropped her bag onto a pew near the front and knelt on the velvet cushion. She rubbed her eyes, feeling suddenly weary and drained. In the loft a dozen unsteady soprano voices sang “Ave Maria.” Late morning sunlight streamed through the stained glass behind the altar, showering Katherine in gold and scarlet.

  Katherine thought about Andrea LoPonti. She had become convinced that Andrea was her twin sister, although there was, and could be, no final proof of this. And what did it matter? She could never see the young woman again, never have the opportunity to reveal their strange, unexpected kinship. Katherine would be in the Hingham convent for no more than another two weeks. Then she would leave Boston, very possibly forever. Her life would be devoted wholly to God and to the Church. And now, to God and to the Church she commended her spirit, her life—and her past. She would have no roots now but those that struck deep into the soil of the conventual life; she would have no parent but the Mother Superior; she would have no loved ones but the children and the unfortunates who were placed under her care.

  Katherine knelt in thankfulness. The sunlight burned brightly into her forehead, like a benediction from God’s searing hand. Behind her in the loft, Sister Lazarus led her choristers in one of the youthful anthems that would be sung on Sunday:

  O blessed souls are they,

  Whose sins are covered o’er!

  Divinely blest, to whom the Lord

  Imputes their guilt no more!

  They mourn their follies past.

  And keep their hearts with care;

  Their lips and lives, without deceit.

  Shall prove their faith sincere.

  While I concealed my guilt,

  I felt the festering wound;

  Till I confessed my sins to thee.

  And ready pardon found.

  Katherine’s elation remained with her through the day; she did not write in her diary for fear of betraying too much even to that silent conspirator. That night, her sleep was fitful. Stylized images of the day she would celebrate her final vows shimmered in her taxed brain, and she experienced the ceremony in its modest splendor. She sensed a double line of nuns behind her as she knelt before the altar of an imagined church. Katherine raised her eyes, but not to the attending mother superior. It was Andrea LoPonti who stood there, smiling, uttering words Katherine could hear but could not understand. Katherine lifted her hands to her twin sister and discovered they glistened brightly with fresh blood. She would have wiped the blood away on her new black garments, but Andrea LoPonti, still smiling, descended the steps of the altar and took Katherine’s hands in her own.

  The blood spilled into a thick crimson pool in Katherine’s black lap. And although she pleaded, Andrea LoPonti would not let go her hands.

  Sister Katherine received permission from Mother Celestine to go into Boston that next afternoon in order to return several volumes to the Boston Public Library. This was a request not much out of the ordinary, and it excited no comment either from the mother superior or from the other sisters whom Katherine informed of her destination and purpose.

  In the ladies’ room of South Station terminal, Katherine stood at a sink, splashed water on her face, and dabbed her cheeks dry with a paper towel until the two women already there had left. She took the vinyl jacket, the dress, and the scarf from her book bag and stuffed them into the trash receptacle farthest from the door. Retrieving from the bottom of the bag the newspaper containing the story of the LoPontis’ murder and the altered photograph of Andrea LoPonti, she placed it in another can at the opposite end of the room. She had not dared dispose of these items in Hingham, and now that she had destroyed the last link with her former life, Katherine was dizzy with relief. She crossed herself, following in the mirror the movement of her fingers against her scapular. She adjusted her wool cape and walked resolutely out of the room.

  In the main waiting room, Katherine could see a tall, slender man with dark, tanned skin and shining black eyes. He had turned at the sound of her heels on the granite steps. Katherine
was used to being closely observed: all nuns were objects of interest when they appeared in their robes in public. Katherine put on her face of inconsequentially and passed him by without looking again.

  He grabbed her arm.

  “Hey, little Wenham girl,” he said in an insinuating, Spanish-accented voice that made Katherine tremble, “you in mourning for somebody?”

  She was too startled to withdraw her arm immediately, but then she resolutely yanked herself free.

  “Little Wenham girl got all dressed up to go out of town, didn’t she? Stay awhile, little Wenham girl,” he whispered, and his smile was a leer.

  Katherine kept walking toward the front doors. The man followed closely, his hand tight about her elbow. Katherine looked out for a policeman from whom she might claim protection.

  “Little Wenham girl—” the man whispered in her ear.

  “No!” cried Katherine. She again jerked away from him, hurried through the front doors of the station, and fled into the back of a taxi.

  The man who had so evidently mistaken her, or who was perhaps just crazy, stood on the sidewalk and made a halting attempt to reach for the handle of the taxi door.