Obedience (10 page)

‘Sister?'

Bernard heard the plea and knew there was something she should be making of the moment. But she could think only of the soldier, everything about him coming clear and close; the pain of her longing was so new to her then, and so keen, that she staggered, reaching out for the wall to steady herself, the sunlight lurching around her.

Severine put out a hand and Bernard grabbed at it. And they stood together, with the wall between them, the
meadow stretching away towards the village and Severine's children nudging at their mother's legs, impatient in the heat.

‘They will let you come to the burial,' said Severine at last.

Bernard shook her head. ‘I don't think it's permitted,' she said.

She looked down at their clasped hands, as though surprised to find herself held there. She heard God, cheerless.

‘I'm late,' she said. ‘I've been too long.'

And she pulled away, dragging the mattock over the ground behind her, on her way to wash her hands at the butt. Severine stood and watched for as long as she could, seeing Bernard store her tools in the shed and leave her clogs at the back door before disappearing into the convent, its windows milky in the high sun. Then there was the sound of a vehicle strident in the lane below, distracting her, and Severine stood back to watch a small German truck as it rattled along by the wash house, turning out of the village, fumes puttering from its exhaust and hanging in the quiet air. She frowned at it, and scratched hard at something on the bare flesh of her arm. Then she pushed at the children, starting them down the hill, sniffing viciously at the caustic smell of diesel, out of place there.

B
ernard's cell bore very few traces of her. There were unfilled holes along one wall, inexplicable now, and sinister. Here and there were the blots that sticky tack had left on the paint when she had taken down faded church rotas and diocesan calendars. And around the ceiling line were one or two stains where she had reached up to crush mosquitoes with her shoe. Otherwise there was only the luminous Christ and the dints in the wooden floor made over time by the wheels of her bed rocking backwards and forwards during the night.

She did not look around. She concentrated on her task, shaking out her sparse collection of clothes, sliding them from the two drawers in the boxwood chest under the window, and refolding everything into a saggy kitbag which someone had provided for the move. She ran a clean tissue over her one spare pair of shoes, her best, which were kept in a clear plastic bag. These she also transferred to the bottom of the kitbag. The personal wash things which she was permitted to take to Les Cèdres fitted into another plastic freezer bag which slipped into a side pocket without filling it.

Finally, Bernard sorted through the square tin biscuit box. She had used it mostly as a step for reaching the top of the door and window frames when she needed to clean. Its lid had buckled slightly under her weight, the pink and gold Alpine landscape distorted and worn away in places by the rub of her shoes, the dull gleam of the tin pushing through. She had to lever it off at the corners with a key. Inside was a small uneven stack of papers. She lifted them out gently and put them on top of the chest. The cell filled for a moment with the smell of damp ink, like incense. Underneath, at the bottom of the tin, was her mother's wedding ring; four obsolete coins; a single pearl earring; a button from a German military uniform; a plastic pencil sharpener souvenir from Lourdes; a tiny wooden crucifix, split across the grain; six paper clips and a glass marble, the captured twists of its undimmed colours marvellous. There was nothing of any value, and nothing that matched the list of Les Cèdres permissibles. It could all be left behind. The only thing that Bernard took from the tin, to keep, was the dark brown knot of old umbilical cord, so desiccated and small now, so archaeological, that its past seemed long beyond her. She could hardly recall it or how it had come to her, the memory stuttering and fearful. But she prized it, nonetheless, instinctively, and she held it tightly for a moment as though it might still connect her to something. She put it into the kitbag with care.

The village clock sounded ten. Bernard counted the chimes and almost immediately afterwards heard the clatter of the doorbell. She could not imagine who it could be; the unexpectedness of it alarmed her. She pushed the tin box away across the bed and tried to hurry, looking
around in the dormitory corridor as though the sound of the bell might have disturbed something there. When she was halfway down the long stairs, she saw a green beret below in the hall, bobbing, and then Sister Thérèse coming forwards in her best black coat. The beret slipped backwards and Bernard saw Corinne's upturned face, smiling.

‘There's no hurry, Sister Bernard. We have plenty of time.'

Bernard stopped on the stairs and peered at the visitor.

‘It's only five minutes in the car, after all.'

Thérèse was fastening her buttons. She did not look at Bernard. And in the end, because they seemed to be waiting for her, Bernard made her way to the end of the staircase, but slowly now, as if the descent pained her. In the hall she stretched.

‘I haven't had a chance to tell Sister Bernard of your plan,' said Thérèse, smiling lightly at Bernard. ‘You see, Corinne rang just after breakfast to suggest she drive us to the Armistice service in the village,' she went on. ‘For a change. To save us walking.'

‘I didn't hear the telephone,' said Bernard. ‘How did you hear the telephone, Sister?'

‘You were upstairs. You were packing. I was right there. It was chance,' explained Thérèse, still seeming somehow uneasy about the way her buttons were fastened.

Corinne grinned. ‘I just thought of it,' she said. ‘It was just an idea.'

Bernard noticed a tiny tear in the green beret, and threads hanging loose around it.

‘I think your beret—' she began.

Corinne put her hand to her head. ‘I know. Isn't it lovely? I love it.'

Bernard nodded. ‘Yes,' she said.

‘Even for Armistice,' added Corinne. ‘No one'll mind.'

‘Corinne said it was a shame that you'd never been, because we had to walk usually, and stand around in the cold.' Thérèse was suddenly loud. ‘She thought it would be better with the car, Sister Bernard. She was thinking of you.'

‘It's true. I never go to the village for Armistice,' said Bernard.

‘You're shouting, Sister,' said Corinne, laughing and taking Thérèse by the arm. She turned then to Bernard. ‘But you'll come today, won't you? I've told everyone we're coming.'

She looked hard at Bernard, and Bernard guessed it was a test of some kind. But she could not quite understand it. Her thoughts were still fractured by the moments of unmeaning memory in her tin box. She stared at the tear in the beret.

‘You'll need your coat, Sister,' said Thérèse.

The day was bright and clear; the early winter sky a wide flat blue. A donkey bellowed somewhere, far away. Waiting for Corinne to turn the car, Bernard could feel a breeze that reminded her of an old summer.

Corinne had music playing on the radio.

‘Music is so good for the health, don't you think, Sister? It's so relaxing,' she said, as she pulled down the drive. But Thérèse did not hear the question, and Bernard, sitting in the back, did not think it could have been for her.

‘We should start a choir. At church. It's a shame there's no choir,' Corinne went on, raising her voice this time. ‘If a few of us began I'm sure there'd soon be others. A small choir to begin with, doing simple things. Hymns. You would join us, wouldn't you, Sister?'

Again, the question went unclaimed.

‘You're not in our parish,' said Bernard instead.

‘No. But at La Collegiale we already have a choir. A good choir. I sing every week.'

‘She sings very well. I've heard her,' said Thérèse, although really she had seen the way the choir lined itself up around the altar, regimented, and had caught bursts of the music, undefined and slippery.

‘Well, I'm not musical,' said Bernard.

Corinne looked at Bernard in the rear-view mirror. ‘But of course you can sing?' she said, and she hummed a few bars of a bright tune as encouragement.

‘No,' said Bernard. ‘I don't think I can.'

Corinne tutted, as though this was ridiculous, and narrowed her eyes at Bernard in the mirror. On the radio, a boy band replaced a girl band, and an upbeat tune turned to a ballad. Bernard squeezed her hands and legs together. Her fear was suddenly unshakeable.

There were other elderly drivers parking their cars where the streets narrowed and beginning the slow climb up the hill towards the square. The skeletal plane trees, knobbled and bulky, made the village seem bare. Only the photocopied yellow posters were bright, advertising a dance to celebrate the end of the chestnut season. There were few other distractions. And Bernard could not help seeing the people gathering around her, recognizing the
faces without meaning to. Everything was enduring and familiar. She recognized the turn of the common nose and the usual earthy hair colour. The roll of gravelly voices had been always known. And yet she did not belong here, with these people. Her memories had never been the same as theirs.

Preparations for the event were still under way. As they emerged into the square, Corinne walking steadily between the nuns, someone was trying to reattach a decorative bow to the mound of flowers which would act as a wreath. A young woman was connecting a portable cassette player to a long extension lead which snaked out of sight down an alley, and broken glass was being swept from between two bare flowerbeds. A ribbon of onlookers was gradually thickening behind the small raised wall which fronted the church.

The limestone memorial glistened in the sun. The names were stacked on it, each one cramped above the next. Bernard looked for her old name, a relic of the family she had given up. The tug of it was warm, a belonging; she read it over and over. But she could not be sure now whether she had ever known the brothers whose deaths were carved into the stone, and she turned aside in the end, letting the name fall away. It was too long past.

‘You see,' said Corinne brightly. ‘It was worth the effort, wasn't it, Sister?'

She seemed to bear down on Bernard, who stepped back.

‘We could have walked,' said Thérèse. ‘It's an extravagance really, taking the car.'

Corinne winked at her, Bernard was sure. ‘It might have rained,' she said.

And all three of them glanced up at the divine blue of the sky.

‘Anyway,' Corinne added quietly, after a moment, ‘I wanted to come with you.'

Thérèse bent close to try to hear. ‘It's true,' she said. ‘It seems special. When we're at Les Cèdres we might not be able to do this kind of thing any more. We won't even come to this church any more. To this village.'

‘You can come to La Collegiale with me, and sing,' said Corinne.

‘Not from Les Cèdres – it's too far.'

‘From my apartment,' said Corinne.

Thérèse's sudden anger was loud and out of place. People nearby turned to look at the thin nun.

‘Enough, Corinne. I have already said. I'm not coming to you, to your apartment. I can't come. Sister Bernard and I are going to Les Cèdres.'

Corinne flapped her hands at Thérèse. ‘All right. All right. It was nothing. We'll talk about it.'

‘We will not talk about it, not again,' said Thérèse.

Something with the taste of clay swelled in Bernard's stomach. She found it difficult to breathe. She began to recite the well-known rhythms of the rosary in her head, repeating them meaninglessly, but they did not soothe her and could not distract her from what was going on. She edged away from the squabble. She could see how Thérèse avoided looking at her. She knew she was not wanted, and she was drawn to the shadow down the side of the church where no one was standing. She understood that Corinne
and Thérèse were hurling accusations at her, silent, camouflaging them with the noise of their argument; she could not bear their anger.

The small crowd continued to gather. One or two people noticed Bernard as she stood apart. No one spoke to her. Corinne watched where she was going and threw her a little wave. A heavy red four-by-four was parked in front of the village memorial. All the other cars had been moved for the ceremony, but no one could find the owner of the jeep. Straddling the stone plinth, it made the memorial all but invisible from one side of the square. There was a last effort to find the owner; doors were knocked on for a second time, questions asked, but no one knew where it had come from. It had an unfamiliar number plate. There was nothing to be done but to work around it. The young woman lifted the cassette player onto the bonnet and, after finding her place on the tape, stepped to one side. A crocodile of children, holding hands in twos and threes, arrived at a trot from the school, but was not late. The children seemed baffled by the solemnity of the occasion and were quiet.

Just before eleven, the mayor emerged from the crowd and made his way to the four-by-four. He stood with his back to the driver's door and thanked everyone for coming. There was a short pause and then church bells rang the hour. The young woman stepped forwards and pressed the button to start the tape. ‘The Last Post' wailed out into the late autumn air followed by a jolly but scratchy rendition of ‘The Marseillaise'. The crowd stood solemnly, arms crossed or tucked behind their backs, looking sadly at the four-by-four as a young boy took the flowers, edged
around the back of the vehicle, and laid the tribute out of sight.

The opening bars of ‘The Marseillaise' struck up again as the tape automatically rewound. The mayor reached over the bonnet to stop it. There was, for a moment, unsmudged silence. Then he spoke briefly about the futility of war and the debt owed to those who had given their lives for freedom. He invited all those present to join him in a glass of wine and a slice of sweet cake to honour the fallen. He encouraged them to attend a concert the following Saturday at which dinner would be served. There would be dancing, he promised, and the view of the stage would not be obscured by mystery off-road vehicles. There was a trickle of laughter. The war was nearly forgotten. Only the ceremonies remained, faint and unreal, and occasional stirrings of emotion, bubbling briefly to the surface of contaminated lives.