Obedience (17 page)

The balm of divine silence soothed Bernard for a while, making the days light and easy, new sounds filling her head with surprise: the birds cackling in the trees by her window and the buzz of insects like music. But before long she found the noise too loose; she could not make it mean anything. When she fumbled a glass one evening, sending it toppling and the water spilling out across the table, the hum of the world continued unabated, unraging. The horror of this magnificent indifference astounded and then terrified her. She wiped the water from the wood with her cloth over and over, pushing at the dark stain, not sure what else to do. In the end, one of the other nuns touched her on the arm, pulling her back from the table. Bernard's face was slack and empty, as though something had been taken from it.

She realized that the absence of God was a loss. She was afraid. For several days she considered what she could do that might make things better, but finally all she could think of was to go to the priest. When Father Raymond came to the convent to lead the nuns in confession, she arrived late so that she would be last to take her turn and she waited until the end of the routine ritual before whispering her concern.

They were tucked into a corner of the chapel, a plain board screen set up to make the recess seem private and a curtain of dark velvet slung between them. Bernard saw the folds of thick material shift.

‘Is this a spiritual crisis, Sister?' Father Raymond asked, drawing back from the absolution he was about to offer her. He was bent with age and his voice came muffled. Things wearied him now; he did not want this.

Bernard did not know.

‘I just wondered if there was something I was doing wrong, Father,' she said. ‘If there is something at fault in me – something that has made God quiet.'

Father Raymond let out a long breath. That Bernard might have been singled out by the Almighty to be a vessel of His utterance, that she might be in any way holy, seemed to him impossible.

‘Sister, I am sure this is not a case of wrongdoing, of specific wrongdoing. I have heard your confession these many years and…' He stopped himself, remembering something that stripped the sheen of cautious sympathy from his usual tone. His next words came bare. ‘You do not hear God, Sister,' he said.

He heard the quick catch of a sob, deadened by the close acoustics of the makeshift box; he could feel the grip of Bernard's distress even through the curtain that hung between them.

‘Calm yourself, Sister. Calm down.' The old priest already felt at fault; he began to understand his sin for the first time. His voice was stern. ‘It's not necessarily a question of wrongdoing, Sister. We all of us do wrong. We are none of us… iniquity is everywhere. Do you think I don't know that? But… but – we cannot hear God, not any of us, not directly. That is our poor human state.'

‘But I
could
hear Him, Father – directly.'

Bernard looked hard at the slice of light that cut
towards her feet from one edge of the curtain. She shuffled on the wooden kneeler and felt her bones shift.

‘But now that I can't, I don't know what to think,' she admitted. ‘It's not… it's not the same. I don't know where I am. I think I'd like Him back.'

Father Raymond hooked his thumbs under his chin, his hands drawn up together towards his nose. He did not say anything. He knew that the casual comfort he was used to bestowing would not do. And while he wanted to dismiss the nun's peculiar belief that she could hear God, he found he could not. His usual ways of judging seemed suddenly unreliable. He blew soft quiet puffs through the steeple of his hands.

‘Can't you help me, Father?'

He nodded quickly to bring himself round and opened his hands in a priestly gesture of authority.

‘Yes, yes, Sister. Of course. It is… it is my duty. But you should have come to me sooner. We could have prayed together.'

‘It seemed so small a thing, I didn't like to mention it.'

‘Having God speak to you is no small thing, Sister.'

‘Doesn't He speak to you, Father?'

The unthinking astonishment of her question confused him.

‘I… it's not… I'm not sure that…' He settled his tone. ‘Sister Bernard, when He stopped talking to you, that's when you should have come to me.'

Bernard could not tell him what a relief it had been at first. So she said nothing at all.

‘Nothing is too small to share, Sister,' prompted the priest again.

‘No, Father.'

There was another pause. Bernard thought she could sense Father Raymond peering through the curtain at her. His breath, as always, smelt of cigarette smoke, the thing she liked best about him.

‘Tell me, Sister,' he said at last. ‘Tell me what it is that you hear – what it's like, this voice.'

‘I don't hear it, Father, not any more.'

He sighed. ‘No, Sister. But before.'

Bernard brushed her face with her fingers while she thought how to describe it.

‘It was the voice of God, Father,' she said, tasting the tobacco.

‘And you can't tell me – exactly – what it was like… how you knew it to be the voice of God.'

‘No.'

The priest sighed again. He could not bear to believe her. He could not allow the conviction that she was consecrated; it would damn him. And yet he was disappointed.

‘And now that I can't hear it,' began Bernard again, animated now, ‘I don't know… I can't tell if God is… how do I know He's still there, Father?'

The stool squeaked as Father Raymond sat back. He was aware suddenly of the damp cold in the chapel and pulled his cardigan more closely across his chest. He felt compelled to produce some theology.

‘Your question,' he began, ‘as I understand it, is how, when we cannot hear or see God, when He cannot communicate with us directly, how then can we be sure that He embraces us with His all-embracing love. Is that right?'

Bernard nodded, uncertain. He could not see this, but he took her silence as an affirmation.

‘It is a question of faith, Sister. We can be sure because we believe.'

There was another pause.

‘It's the same for all believers,' he went on. ‘We are all of us forced to wander in the wilderness sustained only by our belief.'

‘No, but when I could hear Him—'

‘No, Sister.' The priest's voice was sharp. ‘No. That is not so. We do not hear God, not directly. He is alive around us, in our prayers, in the communities in which we live, but He does not speak to us directly, Sister, like an announcer on the wireless.'

He was firm now, sure. He had a picture of Bernard in his mind, of the squat, flat-faced nun, ordinary, unpreferred.

Bernard was trembling at his ferocity. She did not speak. But he could not bear the accusation of her silence.

‘Well, Sister – does that help?'

‘Oh yes, of course, Father. Yes. Thank you.'

Bernard was given her absolution. The penance imposed upon her was the usual one. She passed out into the body of the chapel, pushing the screen to one side, and she knelt in front of the altar to begin her prayers. She wished she had not brought her trouble here.

When she raised herself stiffly from her cold knees she dropped two small coins into the unmarked box by the side of the Virgin statue and lit a candle from one which was spluttering to an end in a pool of wax. She set it in the brass holder, and then she left.

For a long while Father Raymond leant back on his stool, pressing his shoulders against the cold wall and looking into the dark corner of the chapel above him. He did not pull back the curtain.

W
hen they came to execute the three Resistance fighters who had been taken in the ambush, Bernard was summoned to see Mother Catherine. The message was brought to her as she was scrubbing the stone steps which led up to the convent entrance, and it took her some time to rinse down the soap, pour away the grubby water and dry herself. Her hands were numb with cold and God was rattling in her head with an odd complaint about the blueness of the suds that were collecting in puddles in the worn ridges of the stone.

‘You must stop seeing the German, Sister,' said Mother Catherine. She chose to make her reasoning simple. ‘It is wrong.'

Bernard felt the gaze of the Sacred Heart in the niche behind the Mother Superior's desk. Its bright heart was carved in relief over the sculpted folds of the statue's long gown, expertly butchered, inviting admiration. She looked away from it. She was sleepy. Her eyes itched. The thought of the soldier had disturbed her sleep. She felt the bulge of a yawn in her throat.

‘The German?'

‘Sister Bernard, sit down.'

Bernard sat, uncomfortably. Her hands tingled as the feeling came back to them in the warmth of the study.

‘I don't know how we have allowed it to go this far,' said Mother Catherine. ‘I don't know. I think we were confused. But now it must stop. People will talk. This war – it is a thing of gossip, of gossip and noise. If we are not careful, people will involve the convent. That I cannot have.' She glared at Bernard. ‘There are things beyond you, Sister. That you don't understand – that you could never understand. You must respect that. You must be obedient. You have vowed to be obedient.'

Bernard could not suppress the yawn.

‘Sister Bernard, perhaps I can tell you a story?'

Bernard still said nothing.

‘It may be one you know.'

It was not. It was the story of Saint Agnes, who preferred having her throat slit to surrendering the virginity she had consecrated to Christ. It was the story of a miracle. For while the rest of Agnes' body was bruised, burnt, broken and slashed, her vagina remained immaculate, untouched. It was not a story Bernard had heard before, although she had heard many similar.

She felt her ankles tremble. She realized how little Mother Catherine knew.

‘You, too, have consecrated your body to the service of God,' said Mother Catherine.

‘Yes, Mother.'

‘And I know that, when we are young, the devil tempts us in many ways. I know the flesh can be weak. I know
wickedness can put on many disguises. But you would not want to burn for eternity in Hell, would you, Sister?'

The question made Bernard jump. Mother Catherine's tone had not changed, but she was looking directly at her now.

There was no proper response. ‘The German – the soldier?' Bernard said weakly.

Mother Catherine sighed. She would never shake off the idea that Bernard was miraculously stupid.

‘We spoke about this, Sister. We spoke about you being circumspect. I thought we had agreed. But since then you have been seen in the village, in the convent even, with a young man. The same young man. A soldier. When I had already asked for your discretion.'

Mother Catherine knew what Bernard had done, but it was not time for accusation. She did not mention the executions.

‘We are doing the work of God, Sister,' she concluded, smiling unexpectedly.

Bernard's God was urging the counsel of her superior in her ear. But her heart was thumping.

‘What if I love him?' she said at last, after a pause, never knowing where the words came from.

Mother Catherine made a sound like a wail. ‘Mercy upon us.' She was fierce. ‘You cannot. You cannot love him, Sister. It's not possible; it's not… it's not permitted.'

Bernard stepped back, thinking that the Mother Superior might hit her or shake her. It was already as though they were clinched in a fight, but she was unable to see how that could be. She simply shook her head, knowing she could not explain.

‘Sister Bernard, you belong to God, to the convent. You love God. Him only. You are nothing. A simple foot soldier in the battle for righteousness – a… a… you do not even understand what is going on here. You are just… stupid.' Mother Catherine pulled herself tall, forcing her breath to come steadily. ‘There is God's love, Sister, set aside for you. There is no other love – not for you.'

Bernard knew this was not true. ‘But if there
were
someone else…'

There was the slightest of pauses. ‘Then you would have to leave the convent, Sister.'

The Sacred Heart continued to beam down on the two women, barely three yards apart, not looking at each other. Bernard gazed at the floor. Mother Catherine laid her hands flat on the desk and examined her nails. It was so quiet that God needed only to whisper and Bernard wondered if the convent had been emptied somehow.

‘Think about it, Sister,' Mother Catherine said at last. ‘There are some things we cannot change. Think about sin. Think about Sister Jean, who has already trespassed in her folly – her disobedience. She already knows the pain of sin. We must be good, Sister.'

‘So I have to stop seeing him?'

‘Yes. Entirely. You cannot be trusted.'

At the time, Bernard did not understand what this would be like.

‘And then I can stay at the convent?'

‘There is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine who have no need of repentance,' said Mother Catherine, more easily now, not quite believing it. ‘Pray with me, Sister.'

Bernard bent her head and clasped her hands on her lap. The words of the prayer came over her, beating the air softly like mayfly wings. She thought of the buzz of the early summer fields, and the patch of earth that the soldier had flattened under her, dusty and unforgiving, fragrant with the crush of wild mint.

Sister Jean would not come out of her cell for five days. She constructed some kind of barricade behind the door which prevented all their most strenuous efforts, and the other nuns could only pause as they passed by on their way to bed, praying for her, perhaps. No sound came from within, and when she finally emerged she was gaunt and silent. She said nothing about the ambush. When a man with a limp, a young mother and a boy of sixteen were pushed up against a wall in the square and shot, the boy's screams seemed everywhere, shattering the thick air of the village, but it was not clear whether Sister Jean heard them.