Blue Moon (8 page)

“You are not to be at all concerned about the money, Evelyn. You must simply strive to do your best at your studies. “Then, she changed her tone considerably and quickly: “So buck up, my girl! The nuns will assist me in keeping your wanton ways in check. I hope you will use your time at the school profitably. Perhaps you will attract the attention of a young man of your own age from Cathedral Boys' School.” The issuing of marching orders always signalled the end of any conversation with Mother.

Lady MacLean's money covered the tuition at the square, squat building that was Loretto Academy, but it did not extend to an appropriate wardrobe. Visually, Rosie and I were very much out of place in the company of the wealthy Catholic girls. We were shunned and, later, ostracized. The nuns, who came from wealthy families, were also snobbish, but, at least, they were moderately civil to the two foreigners in their midst.

Although my mother had no deep sympathy for the Romans, she shared with the nuns a rigidity of outlook that made them, despite their differences, sisters. Since I had never been exposed to religious belief before, I was startled by the representations of Jesus. The
Sacred Heart was the most fascinating case in point. How could he have a heart exterior to his body? I wondered. Did he have two hearts: one inner, one outer? The denial of basic biology offended me.

Even more worrying were the crucifixes that adorned every single classroom. I was perturbed that Christ was almost naked, his private parts covered with a loin cloth. In some of these representations, the pain that filled his face seemed to be touched with a glimmer of pleasure. I sensed that those small sculptures mixed death, pain and sex perfectly: in some cases, a powerfully built Jesus had an athlete's body and the hint of a penis could be seen in the folds of the covering around his middle.

I must confess that the frequent references to Christ as the bridegroom of the nuns were extremely confusing. As we were walking home from school one day, Rosie said to me: “I don't know how he can be their bridegroom.”

“What do you mean? They say they're married to him, spiritually.”

“Yes. But the bridegroom does 'it' with the bride.”

I pretended ignorance. “I don't know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. The groom gets his 'thing' big and then puts it into the bride.”

“No, they don't mean it in that way. It's not about sex for them.”

“It is so! They ask him to fill them.”

“With grace”

“Yes, that's what they say. Really, they want his 'thing' in them, pushing in and out.”

I told Rosie to hush, not to be stupid. She was, as usual, playing the clown to my Miss Priss. But, in her own way, she was, of course, quite correct.

With one exception, the nuns were ghastly teachers, much more interested in imparting their religious beliefs than instructing us in mathematics or history. The references to chastity and purity were constant. Sometimes the emphasis was on the opposite sex. Boys were ferocious beasts who preyed on innocent young girls. They could not help themselves. It was their nature to be out of control; it was the girl's responsibility to keep them under control. Sometimes, the talk was at this very elemental, psychological level. At other
times, the euphemisms were slightly less pronounced. Boys were more outer than girls, who were inner.

Our biology teacher, however, refused to teach the chapter on the sexual reproduction of tapeworms. She told us the material was disgusting and would not, therefore, discuss it. But, since it might appear on the provincially regulated examinations, we should study it by ourselves. Once, when I asked my mother about such matters, she took it as an offence that such an enquiry would be made.

“Well, my dear, men always want to plant their seeds in women. It's their nature.”

Surprised by her botanical turn of phrase, I asked her how the man planted his seeds. At the time, I did not remember that my father had been attempting to sowr his seed in me.

“Eve-e-lyn, you are becoming too inquisitive and literal-minded. It's simply a fact of life, one of the chief facts of life. You are too young to think about such things. Do the nuns talk about such things? Why have you become interested in such matters all of a sudden?” She looked at me very suspiciously, obviously wondering if I was referring to my father's behaviour.

No, I assured her, the nuns did not talk of such matters. I could hardly tell her—I suppose I did not realize it at the time—that my new school was a hotbed of ripe sexuality. In a very strange way, it was a breeding ground for the vices the nuns ostensibly wanted to stomp on. My classmates even those who did spectacularly well in catechism class—often spoke of what it would be like to be “eaten” by their boyfriends, many of whom seemed to be exceptionally well experienced in the pleasures of “ringer fucking.” Such was the contrast between the language of the nuns and the words of even their most devoted pupils.

Many of the nuns were mustachioed and a corresponding male brutality invaded their behaviour. If you forgot how to conjugate an irregular French verb or did not know the proper plural of goose, your outstretched hands could be subjected to brutal lashes from a thick ruler or strap. If you were unable to remember something assigned for homework, you were automatically assumed to be guilty of slovenliness and had to be punished accordingly.

Mother Patricia Francis was the epitome of the brides of Christ. Every morning, she lurched herself into the classroom like some
huntsman certain that his prey was on the point of evading him. A member of a family whose considerable fortune was derived from Hamilton's steel works, this nun had absolutely no interest in us as young women. She would have preferred teaching at Cathedral Boys'. Her limited imagination, fixated on football players, was excited by the idea of manliness, qualities which her students were forever excluded from possessing and thus pleasing her. And, paradoxically, she seemed genuinely hurt and angry that we did not display such attributes. At the time, I had no comprehension of how her strange notions—especially for a girls' school—had come into being. Now, I am certain that she was sexually repressed and envied those of us who might, in time, receive the manly caresses from which her vow of chastity permanently disenfranchised her. As a child, she made me feel there was something inherently wrong with me because I was born female.

I was fortunate enough to have one excellent teacher during my eight years at Loretto. Mother St. John was small, thin, and pale. Her complexion was splotchy, her nose overly pointed, and she suffered so dreadfully from eczema that she always wore thin white gloves. That there was something exceptional about this awkward young woman could be first glimpsed in the majestic way she carried herself.

“Why do we read?” That was the first question she posed to the assemblage of sixteen-year-olds gathered before her. Without waiting for anyone to venture a response, she proceeded to answer her own query. Enjoyment was the first item on her list, although she passed over it quickly. Moral and spiritual enlightenment were mentioned but not dwelt upon. “To see into the creative spirit, the heart of the imagination?” she suggested. The tone in her voice revealed that, as far as she was concerned, this was the only real answer.

When she taught us, Mother stood still, at the dead centre of the front of the room. She spoke quietly but with great authority. If she were to offer a particularly new or startling insight, she would move to her far right and position herself by the window. “Emily Dickinson lived what from the outside seemed a humdrum existence. She was isolated in that large house in Amherst, Massachusetts. She knew first-hand the dreariness of so much of daily life, its essential emptiness. And yet she wrote her strange, contorted fragments of poems as protests against dreariness. They were tiny, isolated little screams, celebrating the radiance one can find in the everyday. Those lyrics
were wrenched from her solitary heart.” When delivering herself of such observations, Mother's voice became quieter than ever. With every fibre of my being, I longed to hear more, to find some entry into the mysteries of my own humdrum existence.

In those days, that irrepressible wild girl Emily Brontö was my ideal rather than her more careful elder sister, Charlotte. I knew that Emily's excess of life led to her early demise, but I could not help but be overcome with Catherine's devotion to Heathcliff, the way in which the lovers mirrored each other. At some level of my being, I understood the cruel sadism of Heathcliff, the many ways in which he is an outcast and a reprobate. In contrast, the gothic romance of Jane and Rochester seemed tame, too irrevocably adult. The explosive language of Emily spoke to my heart, already one filled with bitterness.

Later, it would be maintained by various investigators of my early life that I was little better than an idiot. Proof of this could be found, it was hinted, in my academic record at Loretto. This is not true. To be sure, my performance there was mediocre. There were extenuating circumstances, the indifferent teaching and snobbery of the nuns being the chief claim I can make to excuse myself. Yet, there was the afternoon Mother St. John called me aside.

This was the only time I ever saw her hands, beautifully shaped but marred by a myriad of tiny bright pink eruptions that had permanently invaded them. She was exchanging one pair of gloves—covered with chalk dust—for the much cleaner pair she kept in reserve. She was seated at her desk and motioned for me to sit down at the student desk closest to hers. For once, she seemed lost for words.

Hesitantly, she began. “Your academic work is not very good, Evelyn. Do you study at home? I know you do the work assigned, but do you actually study?” I assured her I did my best to comply with everything I was asked to do.

“Yes, yes. I thought that was the case. You are one of the strangest girls I have ever taught. You write like an angel, and in your essays you show considerable understanding of what you read.” She stopped a bit abruptly, looking into my face to see if she could discover its secrets. “And yet, your exams display none of that talent. Do you have any idea why this is so?”

I, too, was puzzled by the discrepancy. Quite often, I was simply bored when I did my assigned tasks. At other times, they seemed
futile pursuits, as if I were trying to catch trains that always pulled out of stations just as I arrived to board them. If I wrote an essay, I could bring my entire consciousness to bear, actually get lost in the enterprise. If I had to memorize something, I became easily and often permanently distracted. It was not simply, I increasingly realized, that I could not do the work: I did not wish to do the work. I shrugged my shoulders, unable to muster a suitable response to the kindly concern bestowed upon me.

The nun did not seem offended by my perfunctory response. In fact, a small, bright smile crossed her face. “Never mind, my dear, you possess some wonderful gifts. Eventually, they will see you through.”

My mother and the Mothers. At times, this seemed the sum total of my teenage world. How could I be any kind of success when I frustrated all their expectations? None of the few Catholic boys I encountered had the slightest interest in me. I obviously was not a worthy niece of the great Lady MacLean, who must have been both baffled and aggrieved, the nuns imagined, when she read my school reports.

Towards the end of my time at Loretto, my mother became increasingly worried that I had not met a good Catholic boy whom I could marry. One day, she summarily informed me: “You're a very attractive young woman, Evelyn. I have no idea why you do not have streams of boyfriends in attendance.”

My large, dark doe eyes gave me the look, Mother told me, of a young Bette Davis. This may have been so, but Rosie and I were segregated from the other students at Loretto—and from the young men who courted them. There was an invisible line that placed the two of us into a limbo of unacceptableness. We looked and acted like our peers, but there was something different. We did not take riding
lessons, we could not afford to go to Europe during the summer. Our clothing was not from the finest shops in Toronto. Moreover, we were Protestants, the sworn enemies of Papists. Rosie, anxious to please, finally found a male friend. I did not.

Not someone to say no to adversity, my mother tried to find a way around a difficult situation. I was not invited to any events at the Catholic homes in Hamilton, and we certainly could not invite my schoolmates to our drab little house with its drab furnishings. The drapes and carpet were in shades of olive green, and the guts of the dark brown chesterfield were spilling to the floor. So Mother decided to hold a cotillion in Toronto. Such events had become a part of the social scene there. Large, first-floor rooms were rented out by various hotels for such events, which were often elegantly catered; small orchestras would play—melodies by Rogers and Hart and Cole Porter. In arranging such an event, my mother was placing herself in the forefront of modernity. The costs were high but, once again, Lady MacLean was summoned to the rescue. Only the best would do. In this case, the monumental chateau-like fa9ade of the Royal York prompted Mother's choice: “Real class that is.”

The small orchestra, the precision-cut sandwiches, the prim waiters, the austere gothic beauty of the hotel. They were perfect, but no one except Rosie, her boyfriend Stephen and her parents showed up at the appointed time. My mother, surveying the enormous room she had rented, gulped in astonishment but said little. She spoke in flat, unenunciated tones to Rosie's parents. My father helped himself to copious amounts of liquor. Rosie and Stephen took a few turns on the floor while the remainder of the small assembly watched. At Rosie's prodding, Stephen asked me to dance. After about an hour, the seven of us left.

The Bauer s were quietly pleased by Rosie's acquisition of the Catholic boyfriend she had met at a Loretto dance. Stephen's parents were among the city's wealthy; their huge mock-Tudor home on Bay Street was an appropriate monument to their grand status. Unbeknownst to them, Stephen, who looked a very ordinary boy next door (mouse-brown hair, average height, unexceptional build) had the reputation among his peers of being an extremely successful sex fiend. His mild, unassuming exterior concealed a warped heart. On their first date, Stephen had been, according to
Rosie, a model gentleman. On the second, he stuck his tongue down her throat as soon as they began kissing. On the third, he ordered her to give him a hand job. On the fourth, he told her he would only see her again if she agreed to allow him to have anal intercourse with her: he wanted to take no chances of her becoming pregnant. So, this was the substance of their relationship, a meagre bowl of porridge.