Gibbon's Decline and Fall (26 page)

She stared at the shower curtain, water running down her face. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she'd call Lotte Epstein.

No, damn it. Tonight.

Dripping wet, she went into the bedroom, burrowed in her purse for Lotte's card, found it, punched in the number. It rang a dozen times before it was picked up.

“Lotte? This is Ophy Gheist, we met this morning at the meeting? Right. Listen, can you get data on battered women and child abuse? Can you find out if the rates have changed any over the past couple of years?”

“You expect them to have risen?” Lotte asked. “They've been rising steadily for the past thirty years.”

“Oh.”

“That is, through 1997. We don't have complete ninety-eight or ninety-nine yet.”

“So they could have gone down in ninety-eight and ninety-nine?”

“Down! Down?”

Ophy laughed uncomfortably. “I don't know, Lotte. Just look at what you've got, even if it's partial data, will you?”

“You must have some idea what you're looking for. Or why you're looking for it.”

“Oh, I have an idea. But it's so strange, I don't want to talk about it until I know for sure.”

The place was a hospital ward, obviously. Ophy couldn't remember how she got there, but there she was, walking down the aisle between the rows of beds, rows that stretched so far away she couldn't see the end of them. All of the patients were asleep. At the foot of each bed was a rack for the record, and she lifted a record as she went by, one here, one there, realizing as she read them that it was a women's ward. These patients all had the same illness.

“What is this?” she asked the nurse who was following her, pointing at the diagnosis scrawled on the record. “I can't read this. Not on any of them.”

“I can't tell you,” whispered the nurse. “I'm not allowed to tell you. You'll have to ask the doctor.”

“But I am a doctor,” Ophy said. “I am a doctor.…”

“No.” The nurse shook her head. “I mean a real doctor.”

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” Mother Agnes knelt in the confessional, eyes downcast, determined this time to tell the whole story, get it all out. “Father, I have been troubled by.…” She stopped, blinked, cleared her throat.

“By impure thoughts,” Father Girard finished for her. “Predictable, Mother Agnes. Your sins are at least predictable.”

“No, Father.” She frowned, annoyed. She hadn't confessed to erotic dreams for weeks. Strange. She hadn't had them, or at least didn't remember any. Well! What a blessing. God had answered her prayers! She almost chuckled but was returned to herself by the sound of Father Girard clearing his throat. “No, Father, it's something else. It's this … vision I've had, am having.”

“A vision?” His voice sharpened, tightened, and Aggie's lips turned up in wry amusement. Sins of the flesh didn't bother the old man a bit, but just a hint of visions and he'd be calling the archdiocese for instructions. God forbid a nun should have visions! “What vision?”

“One I had a couple of years ago, Father, plus something that's going on now. I keep seeing … seeing this young nun. She's dressed in the old habit, the one our order used to wear. She's always in motion, going somewhere. I see her out of the corner of my eye. Whenever I see her, I think she is Sophy.”

Long silence. Then that terribly gentle voice that betrayed patience under duress: “I thought we had agreed, Reverend Mother, that you were to forget Sophy.”

“We did agree, Father. I have tried.”

“Is there some constraint? Willful lack of obedience, perhaps? Or is it something you haven't told me? Something you should have told me?”

“Something I'm trying to tell you now, Father.”

“Then tell me, and we'll decide once and for all.”

“This vision I've been having … it isn't the first time I've had a vision associated with Sophy.”

“Go on.”

How could she go on? How put it into simple words? She swallowed deeply and tried: “It was in 1997, Father. I was visiting friends in San Francisco. I entered a room and saw Sophy.… There was an effulgence. I thought she was an angel. There were wings, and she was surrounded by this dazzling light. Everything was confused, as though the light was broken by a prism, a shattering glory, so vivid …” Her voice trailed off. The image never left her mind: Sophy poised in glory, her lips curved in a smile.

Another long silence. “What did your friend do or say?”

“She looked into my face and put her finger to her lips.”

“And now you're saying you remember this image frequently?”

“Yes.”

“And this memory prevents your spiritual growth, or, let us say, your spiritual peace?”

How could she say yes? How could she say no? The words came out in an anguished howl. “But I don't know, Father! It seems to be connected to this other vision, this continuing one.…” She gasped, horrified at the sound of her own voice.

A long silence. “Over the years I have come to know you rather well, Reverend Mother. I have never found you to be an imaginative person. For that reason, if no other, I would think it unlikely you merely imagined what you saw. On the other hand, you should accept that what you saw may have been something as simple as sun-dazzle reflected from a windshield in the street.”

“A harmless mistake,” she whispered. Had she been worrying herself sick over a simple optical illusion?

“It could be that. Considering your distress, however, I
would be remiss not to consider something more sinister. Your friend, you have said, was not Catholic, was not even Christian, yet you always regarded her as a good person. Your thinking of an angel is evidence of this regard. I, however, considering the long-term effect this friendship has had on you—the guilt and pain you feel and have felt—must consider that what you saw may have been the very antithesis of angelic.”

She had thought of this herself. She had rejected the idea, but she had thought of it. “You think she may have been … satanic? That what I saw was diabolical? But it was beautiful, Father!”

“Evil can be very beautiful, Reverend Mother. How otherwise would it seduce so many? And how many times have you confessed that you found your friend seductive? Is she not the source of much of your guilt?”

He waited, as though for a response, but she couldn't make one. “You've told me everything?” he prodded.

“I think so, Father.”

“We've talked about obedience before. You have trouble with that, Reverend Mother. Those nuns who become leaders in their orders do tend to be strong-willed, which means they do have troubles of this kind. You must set this memory aside. You must forget Sophy. You must make it a test of your obedience to do so. When you find yourself remembering it, do not turn it over in your mind, questioning and worrying. You have confessed it. You have turned it over to God. You do not need to trouble yourself over what it was or why it was, because God knows the truth of the matter. So put it out of your mind as you would put away any other temptation from Satan himself.”

“Sophy never acted seductive, Father.”

“That, too, may have been part of her glamour.” He sighed, letting her hear the sigh. “You're being evasive. You must set these equivocations aside, Reverend Mother. Accept that you were mistaken, that the matter is of no further concern to you. It's time to make a choice as to where your soul lies. You must affirm the totality of your commitment.”

She drew a breath, so deep that it hurt. “Yes, Father.”

“Also, Reverend Mother … use the meeting with the archbishop as a test of your obedience.”

Her breath caught in her throat. So the archbishop had
already told Father Girard what he was there for. “Yes, Father.”

“… in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

“Amen.”

She came out of the confessional behind the row of massive pillars and iron grills that walled off this portion of the cavernous nave. The chapel in the abbey proper was cozier, more hospitable, than this great stone barn. She felt adrift and not at all cleansed. She felt wrung out, beaten, battered. Was she guilty of seeing what she'd wanted to see? Had she turned a bit of sun-dazzle into a revelation? Or had Sophy really … really been … something other than what they had all thought?

She went through the heavy door into the long glassed-in cloister that extended from church to abbey, used as a promenade for exercise in rainy weather, opening on the east into the sisters' cemetery and on the west into the abbey garden. Death on the one hand, life on the other, with a sheltered prayerful journey between. The symbolism was not accidental. It had been arranged long ago that the sun would set over the garden and rise over the grave. Not this life, but the next. The last and best excuse for pain and suffering, explaining everything, insusceptible to proof.

Beyond the cemetery were the poultry houses, and beyond them the silver sheen of the shellfish ponds with the pump houses and the packinghouse nearby. Oysters from the Abbey of St. Clare were featured on the menus of half the restaurants in New Orleans and more than a few in Boston and New York. Not to mention their own kitchen, which had served oysters last night to Father Girard and to the archbishop. That's probably when Father had learned what the visit was about.

She glanced at her watch; ten minutes left before her appointment, but the archbishop was no doubt stamping his feet and chewing at the bit, annoyed at her even though she wasn't late. She could have been there, waiting, but she'd figured she'd need all the help she could get, physical and spiritual. Being in a state of grace had seemed a good idea, but she felt worse, not better! Gritting her teeth, she headed for the parlor. No point in making the man more restive than he already was.

He was waiting, as she had known he would be, a dour
man with blue jowls and mistrusting eyes. He gave her barely enough time to sit down with a murmured pleasantry before launching his obviously prepared speech:

“After long and prayerful consideration, Reverend Mother, I must tell you of my concern that the work the sisters are doing in the shellfish farm is not appropriate for nuns.” His voice was as smoothly melting as butter, his lips as gently curved as a plaster saint's.

She sat like one graven in stone, denying she had heard what he had said.

“Pardon me, Your Excellency, but I don't understand.”

“As you know, several years ago the Holy Father directed us to assess the work of the various religious and lay groups in each archdiocese in terms of spirituality. To have a convent that is totally self-supporting, almost profit making, casts in an awkward light the vow of poverty taken by the members of your order.”

She drew in a deep breath. “Forgive me, I still don't understand. The sisters get nothing from the proceeds aside from a modest diet, much-mended habits, and a Spartan level of heat in winter. Our efforts have been directed toward the support of the church and the school. Everything we earn goes into one or the other, Your Excellency.”

“I'm not accusing you of making improper use of the funds, Reverend Mother. I am saying there are higher duties even than a school. A school that is, by the way, educating women far above their special position in life.”

Far above their what? What special position? The girls would have to work. How were they to live unless they worked? They had to eat! They had to clothe themselves! Even if they were lucky enough to marry a “good provider,” they would have to work at some time during their lives if only to provide medical care or education for their children! She felt herself swaying, losing her resolution. She had promised to obey!

“They need to be able to support themselves, Your Excellency.”

“Consider the lilies of the field,” he purred. “God will provide, will he not?” He put on his counseling face, an expression of grave though kindly concern. “Don't you think your efforts have been too successful? You are able to support the church and school from your fisheries. Thus the parents of the children in the school are required to pay very little tuition.
The parishioners provide very little support for the church.”

“They are not well-to-do people, Your Excellency. Many of them could not possibly afford tuition, and the best efforts of the entire congregation could not possibly support the church. It's a monstrous edifice.” In Aggie's opinion it should have been razed a century ago instead of being rebuilt bit by bit through a century's effort by the Abbey of St. Clare.

He stared at the ceiling, fingers pointed together, thumbs rotating. “For the sake of their souls, they should be making a greater effort.”

“You wish us to stop the fisheries project for the sake of their souls? We are to tell them this?”

He looked only momentarily startled, like a man who has suddenly put a foot in a hole. “No … not precisely. We simply feel the management of such a very large business by an order of nuns undermines the special role of women in the Church. It was Adam, after all, who was directed by God to bring forth food by the sweat of his brow. And it was Eve who was told to obey. I remind you of that, Reverend Mother. You, too, are expected to obey. You took a vow of obedience. The young women currently occupied in the fisheries might be better, more spiritually, occupied elsewhere.”

Father Girard had already reminded her of the vow of obedience, she reminded herself. The vow had not been to obey the archbishop, particularly—but set that aside. She gritted her teeth, kept her voice calm: “Each sister is fully involved in our life of prayer whether she teaches in the school or harvests oysters from the ponds.”

“Having sisters doing physical labor is not appropriate.”

“Several of the disciples were fishermen.”

“They were men.”

She swallowed deeply, trying desperately for control. “Since we are highly mechanized, the work done at the ponds is somewhat less laborious than the work done in the laundry, which is traditionally women's work. Scrubbing floors, also women's work, is even more laborious, as is the annual digging up of the flower and vegetable beds.”