Mariette in Ecstasy (17 page)

“We are all special to God.”

“Of course,” Mother Saint-Raphaël says. “And you need not educate me on the catechism.” She heels over to find her walking cane and heaves herself up to her feet just as Sister Anne faintly raps on the door and Père Marriott hurries in. Mariette rises with Sister Marguerite, and all half curtsy to him as Père Marriott heats his hands underneath his arms and smiles at each fawning woman.

“Are we prepared, Reverend Mother?” he asks.

“We are.”

The old priest hitches a green wing chair around until it is just opposite Mariette, and he tentatively settles into it before tilting toward her and admitting, “I have so looked forward to this!”

“Talking?” Mariette asks.

“Certainly! I have become so curious!”

She is embarrassed by his benevolence and grandfatherly interest, and she blushes as she smiles. She hears Mother Saint-Raphaël say, “She is expected for Sext,” but Père Marriott does not turn to the old prioress until a half-second after she’s gone. And then he faces Mariette again and gladly asks, “Shall we begin?”

Mass of the Conversion of Saint Paul.

Méridienne. Sisters Léocadie and Geneviève and Hermance and Claudine are huddling around Mariette and harrying her with talk as they wade through high snow in gutta-percha galoshes. Excitement makes their voices shrill.

Mariette tries not hearing for the hour and she rests her seeing on the whiteness. Haystacks have softened into breasts. The horsetail grass is hooded. Everywhere they walk they are tearing holes in the snow.

She finds the Host in the grieving gray skies overhead and then sees a boy in a green mackinaw coat surging through the high snow at the pasture fence fifty yards away. She sees him using both hands to wave at her when she turns away, and he is shouting phrases that a hard wind tears apart as she walks back to the priory. The sisters stand still for half a minute and then follow Mariette inside.

Septuagesima Sunday.

Méridienne. While Sister Marguerite shares hot barley tea with friends in the chapter room, Mariette sits at a library table in the scriptorium and concentrates on a great variety of holy relics that are arrayed before her like runes.

“Just try,” Sister Hermance says.

She sheepishly smiles and peers at a tooth. “Whose is this?”

“Mine,” Sister Félicité says.

“Whose tooth, I meant.”

“Oh. Saint Valentine.”

She judges it again and says, “I’m sorry, but it isn’t.”

“But is it holy?”

She regards Sister Félicité with regret. “It’s not even human.”

“She might be wrong,” Sister Geneviève says, but Sister Félicité holds the tooth tightly inside her hand for a while and then hurries from the room.

Mariette handles a torn inch of yellowed hem and flatly says, “I have no idea.”

Sister Véronique hints, “
Sainte Jeanne Françoise de Chantal
.”

Mariette shrugs and says in the higher song of French that she just doesn’t know.

Sister Philomène shades that by saying, “
Pêut-etre
.” Perhaps. And Sister Véronique kisses the hem.

Sister Marthe insists, “Touch mine.”

Mariette hears the neediness in Sister Marthe’s voice and gets up from the library table. “Everything else is real.”

Sister Pauline asks skeptically, “Are they truly?”

“Yes,” she says. “I think so.”

Sister Sabine is jubilant. “I have a portion of the true cross!”

Mariette considers the milkmaid with sadness, but says, “Yes. You do.”

Mass of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Hundreds of people have come for Sunday Mass and have put before the high altar horseshoe geraniums, hothouse flowers, a box of parboiled rabbits, green ferns in a Wardian case, a fancy-worked purple table scarf of Java canvas and silesia, a handmade Aeolian harp, ginger biscuits, huckleberry cake, Ottawa root beer, an old Shetland shawl, a blue ornamental hassock, and a harness dressed in glycerine and tallow.

At Holy Communion half the church is huddled up by the front pews and railing to have a glimpse of the postulant in the north choir behind the grille. She is not in her stall, however, but has hidden herself from the public and is getting up from Sister Claudine’s kneeler in the south choir. Tears of shame and penance shiver like hot mercury in her eyes as she finally kneels before Père Marriott, and then there are sighs and talk and great noise from the people until she gets up again and turns away to the oratory without lifting a hand in blessing, and then Père Marriott goes down to his parishoners with the Hosts and a haughty woman squats to reach through the railing and take back her jar of quince marmalade.

Sexagesima Sunday.

Six people in old pelt coats are trying to hide from the bitter cold as they scurry toward the church in the predawn darkness. Another four are a half-mile behind them. And horses are splashing through pasture snow in front of full sleighs and toboggans.

Sister Anne is on the church steps in a gray sweater and galoshes, flirting up fresh snow with a broom and saying nothing even to old friends as she opens the church doors. And Sisters Sabine and Zélie are up on high stepladders inside, just finishing hooking up a great purple theater curtain across the front of the grille as Sister Honoré sings from the Psalter. Some people wait a half hour for the great curtain to part, and then they get up from the pews with irritation and go out into the night again.

Mass of Saint Andrew Corsini, Bishop.

Sister Véronique is a half hour late in joining the novices for their weekly art lesson after Nones, and she finds division is invading them just as it has the older professed. Each sits morosely in a high-backed chair with her sketch pad and pencil and adamant opinion about Mariette, and is hot, solitary, taciturn,
triste
, watchful, high-strung, discontent. Tears flow from Sister Hermance, and Sister Léocadie’s cheeks are as redly blotched as if she’s recently been slapped. And when Mariette walks in from a talk with Père Marriott, Sister Philomène is so overpowered that she rushes up and fleetingly kisses her and temperamentally flees the room, Sister Hermance just behind her.

Mass of Saint Agatha, Virgin, Martyr.

Sister Saint-Estèphe is surprised from her sleep when she hears heavy furniture screech across the flooring not too far away. She rushes out into the hallway in just her white nightgown and a gray robe hanging open and she thinks she’ll be joined by others as she hustles down to Mariette’s cell, but Sister Saint-Estèphe is alone there and her left hand rakes back the graying froth of her hair as she fearfully puts her ear to the door.

She hears flesh smack against a wall. She hears hoarse breathing and heaves and hard, masculine effort. She tries the door latch but can do no more than rattle it.

Wrestling noises seem to roam the room, and the postulant’s tin basin rings as it’s flung against a ceiling joist. And yet Mariette is silent. Every now and then she pants or whimpers with pain, and then Sister Saint-Estèphe hears a greater noise as she imagines the postulant being hurled onto her palliasse and falling onto the floor.

Sister Saint-Estèphe hurriedly crosses herself and prays, “Holy Michael defend us in battle, by our protection against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.” She hears hitting sounds in the cell, and she shouts over the increasing noise, “May God rebuke him we humbly pray! And may the prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls!”

And then there is sudden quiet.

—And you opened the door?

—Sister Marthe did. At first I was afraid to touch it. The Devil and all.

—Sister Marthe heard you yelling?

—And Sister Saint-Luc. Yes.

—But it was only you who went inside.

—Yes, Father. Too scared, the others.

—Well?

—She wasn’t bleeding, but her face was horrible. She’d lost every trace of beauty. Oh, I felt so ill for her! She was kneeling there on the floor all bruised and red like he’d hit her a hundred times. And her clothes were half off her like there’d been hounds tearing at them.

—And you say her window was open?

—Like it was the hottest day in July.

—Anyone there could have got out that way, yes?

—Well, I don’t know.

—Why did you presume that you heard the Devil inside?

—She said so.

—She could have made those noises herself.

—You ought to just live in this cloister for one night, Father. You’d know the Devil’s up to his mischief. You can hear sisters pacing, crying out in their sleep. Everyone’s on edge.

—We thank you, Sister.

—She’s got me so spooked now!

—Of course.

—We never had wildness like that here before.

Mass of Saint Dorothy, Virgin, Martyr.

Père Marriott is holding confessions during meditation and is hunting a page in his breviary when he hears a sister hastily kneel behind the iron grille. Even before he blesses her, though, he hears her talking. “Oh, I am so afraid,” she whispers, and he thinks it’s Sister Zélie, then Sister Saint-Stanislas. “We’re in league together. She said it was just going to be a theatrical, but it’s gotten out of hand. And now she knows that I’ll tell and she’ll hurt me.”

Every sentence slightly changes in tone, as if she were trying to disguise her sultry voice. Sister Geneviève? Sister Claudine? “You’re talking about Mariette?”

“She stole things from the infirmary. Chemicals and instruments. When she was taking care of Mother Céline. And she’s good at science. She got it from her father. Everything else is from the Devil.”