Sacred Hearts (40 page)

But how much does Zuana really want the role? It is not a question she can answer now. She bows her head.

“If it is the will of the convent, I would be honored to do so.”

The abbess smooths her skirts and turns to the audience.

“So. Let us put it to the vote. The motion before the sisters of Santa Caterina today is whether to move our aged and beloved Suora Magdalena from her cell into the infirmary, where we may ease her passage into God’s hands.”

The novices watch as the choir nuns come up one by one to the front and, with their backs to the rest of the room to ensure anonymity, pick out a small wooden ball from the bucket— white for yes, black for no—and drop it through a hole into the voting box.

When everyone has voted, the box is emptied and the balls are counted by the sacristan and witnessed by the gate mistress; the motion is declared duly carried. It is noticeable, however, that among the winning white balls are a greater than usual number of black.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

SHE IS EMPTY
. Quiet. Still. Maybe stiller than she has ever been in her life. It must be the aftermath of the poison. During her time in the dispensary, she had wondered about the drama of the hellebore: what it might feel like to have one’s insides ripped apart, scraped out nigh unto death. To be so purged, so emptied out. Almost as if one might be able to start again. Another Serafina. Newer, lighter, cleaner, with no hand gripping her heart and twisting her guts. No man to love and yearn for anymore. Because it seems, after all, that he never loved her.

He does not care, you see
.

He does not care. Yet how could that be? What of all the poetry? The music? The harmony of voices, the starburst sweetness of mouth on mouth, skin on skin, the mingling of souls that made them for that instant pure, afraid of nothing? Ah, now—now it is too late, she knows that she did really love him; that, amid all the rebellion and hot blood, the very exhilaration of being alive, separately and together, Jacopo had been a man worth loving, himself generous, filled with song and no malice.

Except, it seems, he wasn’t. Instead, he, like she, had been a master of deception. Yet how could that be?

At any other time these thoughts would have been like hooks in her flesh, but there is nothing left to lacerate. She is so tired, too tired to think properly. Certainly this new cleansed Serafina cannot hold on to anything for very long. Her head feels as light and empty as her body. It is not so awful; more like dizziness, like holding a high note for longer even than your longest breath allows, hearing it vibrate, shimmering inside your head.

Perhaps this sensation is the result of her confession? The scouring of her soul as well as her stomach. She has told the old priest everything. With the screams of the pierced and the sliced still inside her, how could she not? Everything—the bliss, the rage, the terror, the disobedience, even the self-destruction—such a fast-flowing river of sin. How much of it he heard she has no idea, for both their eyes were closed as she spoke. But at the end he had prayed for her, imposed a penance of confinement with bread-and-water fasting for two weeks, and given her absolution.

Two weeks’ confinement and fasting. It is not such a torment. In fact she welcomes it. In the time since she opened her eyes on the cell full of nuns, she has relished the solitude. How can she bear to face people again? As for the fasting, well, her hunger is so familiar to her now that even when she does feel the need to eat, she feels a greater sense of triumph when she overcomes it. Her gut has been full of undigested rage and panic for so long that to be without anything inside her seems a marvel in itself.

Whether it comes from the quiet or the exhaustion, she prays more: simple prayers held inside simple phrases.
I am sorry. Help me. Forgive me
. Childish, almost. Each time she sleeps she wakes to the sight of the crucifix on the wall, but often when she looks at it she sees instead the figure of the man in the marshland, walking toward her with the sun as a radiating halo behind him. The moment when he first came she had thought it might have been Jacopo, because his hair also fell curling around his shoulders and he, too, walked with a long stride. But she knows now that it was not Jacopo but Christ Himself and that He came to her through Suora Magdalena. Why and how this happened she does not know. She is certainly not deserving. Yet, oh—He brought her such comfort then! And now. For He also is generous, filled with song and no malice.

As for the future, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow …well, she does not think of that. How could she?

•    •    •

“
SERAFINA.
”

She knows Zuana is in the room. She heard her come in and registered the noise of something being placed on the table. But once she opens her eyes she will have to speak to her, and of all people she is the one who will surely make it all begin again. Nevertheless …

“Serafina.”

She turns her head and blinks.

Zuana is sitting on a small chair close to the bed. Next to her is a wooden plate with bread and cheese and a bowl of hot soup. She had forgotten how familiar this face is: the broad open forehead with its furrowed lines of thought and those clean clear eyes, smiling now along with the mouth. No malice here, either. Despite everything, she is pleased to see her.

“Praise be to God for your recovery. Do you still have pain in your stomach?”

“No.”

“Any nausea?” She leans over and takes the girl’s pulse, red-stained fingers on the thin pale wrist.

The smell of the cooked food brings a rush of saliva into Serafina’s mouth, but she swallows it down again. Only when I imagine eating, she thinks. “No.”

“What about dreams? Are you having bad dreams?”

“No.” She sees the man in the mist striding toward her. “No, not anymore.”

“Good. Here, I have brought you some cheese and fresh soup and bread.”

“I am not hungry.”

“Still, you should eat.”

“I can’t.” She shakes her head. “I am given penance.”

“Penance?”

“Father Romero. He heard my confession. My penance is confinement and bread and water for two weeks.”

A frown moves across Zuana’s face. “Did no one tell him you had been ill?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you sit up?”

She attempts to pull herself up, but it is an effort.

Zuana goes to help, and as her hands touch her, for an instant Serafina is pulled back into the maelstrom of that night— hanging suspended in strong arms as her bowels open and her stomach screams. Such intimacy makes her embarrassed now, almost ashamed. She moves away, pulling the blanket around her.

“I am sorry”—she keeps her eyes on the blanket—“if what I did got you into trouble.”

Zuana shakes her head. “There is nothing to be sorry for. You have confessed your sins. And you are forgiven.”

“I told him everything,” she says, looking straight at her now, the words thrown down like a gauntlet. “All of it.”

“I am glad,” Zuana says gently.

“Do you think it a fair penance?”

“I can’t say. Though it is not healthy to starve yourself after such violent purging.”

“It doesn’t matter, I am not hungry,” she says again. Then: “Suora Magdalena has not eaten for years.”

“That is not true. She just eats exceedingly little, so that over the years her body has grown used to it. I think she is not someone to emulate in this regard. Not at this moment.”

“That is not what Suora Umiliana says.”

I wonder what else Umiliana says, Zuana thinks to herself, though no doubt some of it she can guess. “Who else has visited you?”

“Suora Federica came. She brought me a pear—look, here.” She pulls it out from under her pillow, the green marzipan coated in particles of dust. “I don’t want it. You take it.”

Zuana shakes her head. “Keep it until the end of your penance. It will be something to look forward to.”

To look forward. Such a simple idea, like waiting for the sun to rise again in the morning. It is a grave sin for any novice to try to escape the convent and an equally grave one to aid or abet her. Serafina has confessed and been forgiven. Zuana should be looking to her own soul now. There is nothing more she can do for the girl. Still …

“Serafina, listen to me. The hellebore along with the poppy is a poisonous evacuator, and the dose that I gave you was not small. You will feel strange for a while. There will be lethargy and sadness, some confusion in your mind, even.”

“I don’t feel anything,” she says flatly.

“That will be part of it. But it will pass.”

She stops because she does not know what else to say.

The girl puts her head back against the wall. “I did see things,” she says quietly. “Terrible things.”

“It was the potion. Remember that: only the visions of the potion.”

“Have you ever seen such things?”

As she looks at Zuana her eyes are huge in her face. And black, black as lumps of charcoal.

“Yes, I have.”

“And wondrous ones, too?”

“I …yes, in a way.”

“But you have never seen Him?”

Zuana does not wait long on this. “No.”

“Why not? You are a good nun.”

“No. I …I am—”

“Yes, yes, you are. I know.”

“Well, I …I think there are many levels of goodness. And only the fewest of the few are given such an honor.”

“But
she
is given it.
She
sees Him.”

They do not need to give her a name. We are not allowed to speak of this, Zuana thinks. It is forbidden territory. But then so much has changed over these last weeks. The list of secrets inside the convent is growing ever longer and there seems no point in denying this one, especially since this young woman has been witness to it more profoundly than anyone else.

“Yes. She does.”

“She has always seen Him, hasn’t she?”

“It appears so.”

“Why her? One of the novices told me she was just a peasant girl from a village whom the old duke found somewhere. No family, no study, nothing. Was she born holy? Is it how she prayed? Or was it the fasting? Is that how she did it?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think I saw Him, too.” She shakes her head. “Just for a moment.”

The poppy: it can show you anything and everything. “It is possible that this, too, was the potion, Serafina,” she says softly.

“How do you know?” Her voice has a tremble in it. “If we all saw Him maybe it would be all right to live and die here.”

Yes, something has changed in her, Zuana thinks. But then how could it not have? Please God, let it bring her to peace. “I think Our Lord is always here, even if one does not see Him directly.”

Serafina is silent for a moment, as if considering this idea.

“She was wrong about him, you know,” she says at last, and her voice remains small, with none of the edge or energy from before. “The abbess said he didn’t care. But it’s not true. He did love me.”

She should eat something, a little bread at least. That much is permitted. Zuana breaks off a small chunk, dips it in the water, and holds it out to her. “Here.”

The girl stares at it and shakes her head.

“I am not hungry.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

THE BELL FOR
work hour is beginning to sound as Zuana comes out of the girl’s cell and moves along the cloister. Directly in front of her she sees Suora Umiliana walking toward her. She drops her head, intending that they should pass without words— the novice mistress practices silence even when it is not called for—but instead the elder woman meets her eye. Her manner is welcoming, almost joyful.

“You have come from the novice? How do you find her? The change is powerful, yes?”

“I …yes, yes, she is different.”

“Praise be to God, He has seen fit to cleanse her of her anger and pretense and plant in their place a seed of humility. Thanks be to Him. And also to you for the care within your remedy.”

Zuana stares at her. Since their encounter in chapter she has expected hostility, even prepared herself for it, but there seems none here. She wonders what the novice mistress would say if she knew why the “remedy” had been administered in the first place. Of course Zuana cannot tell her that. Just as she cannot tell her what went on in Suora Magdalena’s cell all those weeks ago. Secrets within secrets—they grow like mold in a badly run storeroom. But does that also make it a badly run convent? How much deception is permitted in the pursuit of peace? She realizes that she does not know anymore.