Obedience (5 page)

She thought of the kitchen knife she had stolen during the war, of another, earlier, autumn night, with the rain on the shutters and the luminous Christ extinguished in the early hours. She had turned the blade over in her palm, stroking it. It had taken the warmth from her flesh and, lodged between the creases on her palm, it was comforting. She had run her free hand over her stomach. She had been ready to die then. It would have been a consolation. But when God had caught her, He had raged and hollered, frightening her; she had leapt from the bed to her knees, the knife slipping from her hand and rattling across the wooden floor towards the window. Trembling, she had pleaded for mercy, begged the Virgin to intercede on her behalf; for the remainder of the night she had wept and
moaned and pleaded, listening to the fury of God. At dawn she had had a nasty headache, but God had been calmer and she had eased herself from her knees to pick up the knife. She had taken it back to the kitchen before breakfast and washed it thoroughly in the sink, letting the tip of it cut her fingers and watching the blood run away, barely pink in the strong flow of water.

She knelt again now, placing the leaflet on the floor beside her. Through the long night of All Souls she prayed and wept, the years undefined and everything new, her fears fresh. The darkness in her cell was as it had always been. Only God was changed, silent now and unknowable. She could not tell if He was there. But still she knelt, her joints stiff and old, until the stippled light of dawn edged round the shutters and everything was past.

A
lthough he had already won the bet, the soldier contrived several more meetings over the following days. It was as if he could not help it. Each time he looked hard at Bernard with something like wonder, nodded slightly and drew away.

While she waited for him, Bernard prayed. During morning prayers, she pressed the closed steeple of her hands hard against her face and was surprised to find them wet with tears. During the brittle spring dusk of the evening office she found herself flushed and breathless, tingling, the voices of the other nuns splaying from her, her hold on things precarious. In the long routine of the cold days, she floated; when God spluttered His fury in her ear, she did not mind Him, taking only to sleeping on the hard floor of her cell in an attempt to appease Him. But when, finally, they talked again, coming together in the dip of land where the stream ran low behind the wash house, Bernard felt it only right to mention that God disapproved of what they were doing.

At first the soldier laughed. He put his sleeve across his face to muffle the noise and looked away towards the orchard where some of his unit were gathered, clustered together, sharing something. Beyond he could see the high blank walls of the convent, ugly and patched with cement, a blot on the honey tones of the village and its shabby French picturesqueness. Everything else was broken-down and decaying, unexpectedly pretty in the brilliant light; the convent's steadfast neatness was a blight.

Bernard thought that he had misunderstood and she explained again, more slowly, telling him how God pestered her about their wickedness. And when he looked back at her, the fear creased old and worn in her face, his laughter slipped away.

‘What does He say?'

He was standing on a flat stone to keep his boots out of the thick wet vegetation that slid down to the water. He shuffled and Bernard, below him, already ankle deep in the marsh, reached out an arm as though to help him.

‘He doesn't speak to you about it?'

She had not thought of this.

‘
Nein
.'

‘How come?'

He shrugged.

‘Doesn't He speak to you about anything?'

‘
Nein
.'

Bernard marvelled. ‘Not even before you were a soldier?'

He stepped off the stone and pulled himself up the slope, turning to rest his elbows on the low wall of the wash house. Bernard tried to imagine the kind of silence
he must live with; she did not dare approach the slouch of his thin back. Instead she bent and picked a thick round leaf from the stream's edge. She chewed it.

The soldier kicked the toe of his boot against the wall while he thought of the words. He did not face her, even when he spoke.

‘Does He say anything about me?'

Bernard swallowed the leaf. ‘All the time.'

‘
Was
?'

He had not understood her. But Bernard answered with another question.

‘Do you think it's right, what we do?'

She was beside him now, her head not even to the height of his shoulder and her hands pressed hard against the stone wall of the wash house to steady herself on the slippery ground.

He tried out the construction of his reply in his head. ‘Does God think it is right?'

‘Oh no.'

As he pulled abruptly away, pushing at her, making her fall back into the wet ground and threatening to go out into the open of the village lanes where she could not follow, Bernard tried to explain about the God she lived with.

‘It doesn't matter. He thinks nothing is right. I can't please Him.' She heard the soldier say something in his own language but she went on speaking. ‘He doesn't understand, that's all. It's not important, what He says.'

He could not make out the contortions of the strange language spoken so quickly. Looking back he saw the nun scrambling up the wet slope to meet him and he dipped back low behind the wall, hiding them again.

‘You are crazy,' he said, when she was close.

‘Because of what He says?'

‘You think you hear God… you are crazy.'

And he stood tall, heading out from the wash house, passing the pillar into the street. As he walked away, a farmer on a cart slowly rounded the bend and rattled across to fill buckets from the water fountain. Bernard went behind the wash house and back along the track, unseen.

But the soldier could not settle. He did not join his colleagues in the orchard, and instead of taking the path to return to his quarters he walked on, a long way, following the lane as far as it would go, until it peeled out into a string of farm tracks and the daylight was fading. He watched flocks of small birds skitter along the hedges and dip into the fields. Walking too fast, he felt his legs strain and took off his uniform jacket, folding it neatly over one arm. And when he returned, coming into the village in the dark, he still could not understand. He could not believe that the moon-faced nun he had corrupted might be genuinely pious, chosen, blessed even by the voice of God. But her certainty was unnerving; it discomfited him. He could no longer pretend it was not serious in some way. It meant there would be consequences, in one life or the other.

The nuns filed into the pews at the front of the church. Bernard felt the cold through her shoes already; when she knelt, a draught from somewhere tugged at her habit. They prayed in neat rows, their heads bowed, as the congregation arrived around them. They were not allowed to talk. The church filled behind them and
Bernard could smell the warm damp of stored clothes and something in the common breath that reminded her of home. She bent further and the priest began the Mass.

She hardly moved. God spoke to her in a drone, weary and undemonstrative, barely audible above the sound of the priest, and the cold closed around her, fixing her stillness. Mostly her eyes were closed. She did not think about anything. Only when the bustle of communion finally broke the order of prayer, suddenly stirring the unlit dust, did Bernard shift, stretching her back and shoulders, as though emerging from sleep.

She took her own communion quickly, trying to hide her splayed gait as she approached the altar, and bowing her head so low that the priest, too, had to bend as he offered her the host. She slid back into her pew, knelt as she was meant to, and waited.

She knew most of the shoes. The scuffed toes and dented heels were learnt now and she watched them file slowly alongside, shuffling on the uneven stone of the floor. She did not look up, not until most of the line had passed and the movement around her was settling. Then, knowing it was time, she lifted her head so that the weight of the veil fell away from her face, and she watched the final communicants as they passed, the quick draw of her breath annoying God.

Her father walked slowly, leaning on her sister's arm, his face small and shrivelled, hardly a part of him. As they came by her pew they were, for a moment, a family, the three of them all that was left now. Bernard could have reached out and touched them, but her hands were clasped
close in front of her, her rosary roped across her fingers, and they carried on without pause, moving up to the altar rail and taking their places there. Bernard watched until Severine came by, clogging the aisle with children, looking down at Bernard as she always did and smiling, their communion made. Then Bernard closed her eyes, drawing the rosary beads sharply into her skin. The rite was ending. The priest led the altar boys away and the congregation followed, beginning already to chatter. Then it was only the nuns left in their pews, swelling the gathering quiet with prayer, and God, abrasive, berating Bernard mercilessly.

Walking along the long corridor from the chapel after morning prayer, Mother Catherine warned Bernard.

‘I want you to be circumspect,' she said, gripping her prayer book more tightly than was necessary.

Bernard did not understand the word. She tried to keep up with the Mother Superior's wide stride, but her feet slipped on the tiles, unbalancing her, and she stumbled into a chair. When she stopped, Mother Catherine spoke again.

‘It's a difficult time, Sister. We need to have our wits about us.'

‘Yes, Mother,' said Bernard, straightening her belt and skirt.

They came into the narrow bend in the corridor and were pushed together. Mother Catherine paused and spoke more quietly, turning to Bernard.

‘It's a time of vigilance, Sister, and of wisdom. God has put us at the heart of the village here – at the heart of His
community, to guide and to protect, to bear witness. We need to be circumspect.'

She raised her hands into a stiff steeple, as though she might be beginning a prayer. Bernard instinctively bowed her head. Then Mother Catherine turned out again into the wide straight of the corridor, her pace quickening.

‘There are things you do not understand, Sister,' she said.

Bernard knew this.

Mother Catherine turned towards her study. She stopped again, waiting for Bernard to catch up with her, her hand already impatient on the door handle.

‘You should let others guide you, Sister Bernard – you should be guided by those who
do
understand.' She was suddenly sharp. ‘Consider, Sister, what you have to lose.'

Bernard saw something was demanded of her. She nodded.

‘Good,' said Mother Catherine. ‘Then we are agreed. I know I can rely on you, Sister.'

Mother Catherine went quickly into her study and shut Bernard out. The other nuns filed past, not seeming to notice. Bernard remained by the study door. She was not sure what had been said, but she did understand, vaguely, that it was about the soldier, and that she risked everything she knew if she continued to love him.

In time the bustle after prayers subsided and the convent was quiet again. Bernard moved away from Mother Catherine's door and went to sit on a stone ledge further along the corridor. She traced the pattern in the tiled floor with the toes of her boots. God pestered her
sharply, pointing out patches where the skirting boards needed washing down. The sunlight from one of the square-paned windows swung towards her, finally settling across her knees. The anger growing in her made her tremble and when she finally went back to the kitchen to take up her chores, she surprised the other nuns with the sharpness of her movements, the way things clattered and rattled about her, the stomp of her feet on the cold floor.

She told the soldier what Mother Catherine had said but, struggling with the mechanics of upright sex, he only grunted. His breath was acid in the chilly air and as he pressed her further against the back wall of the barn, Bernard turned her face from him. Inside, heavy-footed animals – cows or horses – shuffled on the dry ground with a series of reverberating thuds, creating an odd arrhythmic accompaniment that made her nervous and watchful.

The effort left him panting, his thin cheeks flushed. Bernard's back was raw from the rubbing of the rough stone through her habit, and she wanted to feel inside her vest, to check for blood, but she did not dare; she thought he might be offended somehow. So she stood and rubbed her hands instead while he caught his breath.

‘Do you think they understand?' he asked at last.

He had been trying to think of another, better, verb. He knew this was not quite right, but nothing else would come to him.

‘I don't know.'

Bernard did not want to think about them. She looked for a moment at the narrow band of wrist that had slid out of his uniform cuff. She wanted more than anything
to kiss it. The soft, childlike texture of his skin there, the way the blue veins rose up and faded, made her shiver. She forgot the pain of her scrubbed back, but she did not dare to bend and kiss it.

The soldier shivered too. ‘It is cold.' He brushed stone dust from his arm and turned to Bernard; he placed a hand on each of her shoulders, weighting her, dipping his head. ‘Be careful.' He spoke quietly. ‘We don't want trouble. If it is trouble…'

He shook his head. He was weary and his articulation of the strange language was poor. But he left the threat hanging, and Bernard could not help but hear it.

‘It'll be all right. I promise.' She pushed the words at him. ‘It's… nothing. I shouldn't have said. It's just Mother Catherine – she's strict with us. It's nothing.'

He lifted his hands from her shoulders and pulled his jacket tight across him to keep out the cold. He thinned in front of her, disappearing.