The Divine Economy of Salvation (16 page)

One of my letters has been returned. Sister Bernadette slipped it under my door this morning, because I did not wish to get up. I'm feeling under the weather, I said. With the stamped and addressed return envelope now back in front of me, I cannot believe it. I had visited the City Archives to filter through the papers from St. X. School for Girls that ended up there after the school went bankrupt. There had been talk before the school filed for bankruptcy about allowing boys into the school, as a way to increase
enrolment and revenue. But it was decided that the income generated wouldn't outweigh the income lost from those parents who desired a same-sex education for their girls. The school was sold to the Catholic school board of the city two years after I left it. The nuns were relocated, the rent being too high to remain there, and new teachers were hired through the school board system. Although the more sensitive material in the files of the school is with the diocese, public archival material, such as school yearbooks, was given to the city. I made do with what was available there.

Organized by year, the yearbooks were in boxes marked with faded labels. The crest we used to wear on our uniforms was copied on each cover, but the rest of the cover was bland—nothing but a white, blue, or black background and the years it covered. Black-and-white photos of girls from age eleven to sixteen, nuns, and teachers filled the more recent editions. The older yearbooks were more like pamphlets, with a few pages listing various events and transcribed snippets from church services, a Psalm or a quotation from a poet, plus a group photo of the graduating class all dressed in their uniforms, which didn't change much over the years except that the skirts became slightly shorter. After World War II, instead of a single group photograph there were separate shots of each student and beside each, a name. Checking the yearbooks against some of the school enrolment records, I was able to link names with addresses.

I told the gentleman who helped me track down the boxes from the archives basement that I was searching out the alumnae of the old school for a reunion. Since the school is now defunct, I said
we needed the records in order to make the event happen, and that we planned on holding it at our convent. I told him I realized many of the addresses would be old ones, but it was sometimes surprising the number of people who don't abandon a place once they've put down roots. Perhaps parents, if alive, would forward current information. The post office might be able to track others down. I wore my habit to gain credibility, and it seemed to work. The gentleman, who had a handlebar moustache, quite rare for these times, responded to me with quick attention and an endearing manner. He brought me a cup of coffee and told me not to tell anyone, because they didn't like food or drink in the archives, then he stopped on his own coffee break to see if I'd made any progress. I wondered if he was Catholic, since my habit hadn't unnerved him at all. He seemed lonely; there was only one other person on the floor, a city official checking on some blueprints in another room. Although it's been a while since a stranger flirted with me, I think he might have been as he brushed against my arm, turning the pages of my own year's yearbook with me.

My picture wasn't in it, because the photographs had been taken the first week of classes. I did, however, find Rachel and Francine and Caroline, as well as other classmates whose names and faces had almost vanished from my memory. It is amazing how you can simply forget another human being if she hasn't affected your life in any significant way. Yet I was also surprised by the accuracy of my memory; like first love, I had not forgotten a detail of Rachel's face. Her green eyes held my attention even in the black-and-white photograph in the book, taunting me to take things further.
I longed for her, for the girl she was, my only comfort being the proof she and I had lived for a time together. At the outset, I noted down each name and address because the gentleman was looking over my shoulder and I was unwilling to blow my cover for being there. I continued because it occurred to me that even if I had forgotten someone, they might not have forgotten me. How could I tell what knowledge someone else possessed? How could I tell whether someone in a photograph had witnessed a key part of the events on that winter night in Room 313? So I took down all the addresses. The gentleman said he hoped I'd return if I needed anything else. I admired his moustache once again, dark brown with straggling red and white hairs, before I signed out, thankfully giving my first name only, as Sisters do, and left.

I typed the letter in Sister Irene's room while she nodded off in her regular drug-induced sleep, snoring with huge gasps. I used to panic when she'd fall asleep, her chest rising and falling with an energetic frequency she can no longer display while awake, and call for Sister Ursula. Then I'd stay an extra hour, checking her pulse, putting my finger against her nose to see if I could readjust her breathing, laying my head against her chest to make sure the heartbeat sounded healthy. Now I know this is just what her body does and it is easy to ignore. On the day I typed my letter, Sister Irene received a double dose of her sleeping pills.

I mailed the form letter to each person on my list and included a self-addressed stamped return envelope. The letter stated we were searching for donations for our Catholic Convent-sponsored charities. It described some of the causes we have
supported over the years, including the diabetes foundation, cancer research, drug and addiction counselling, homeless shelters, and our local humane society. Also enclosed was a donation card with a list of possible amounts under the headings Gold, Silver, and Bronze sponsorship, plus a blank amount for a lower donation under the title Friendship Sponsor. My name typed and signed was at the bottom of both the letter and card as the Head of the Donation Committee for the convent. Even though there is free use of the photocopier at the church, donated by one of our parishioners to help with the costs of making a newsletter and posters for upcoming events, I decided not to take my chances there. I used the photocopier at a corner store run by an elderly Polish couple and their adolescent grandchildren. How I would explain what I was doing to Mother Superior or Father B., I didn't know. I figured if someone was searching for me, this was the only way to offer myself up to them in surrender; they'd know I'd received the silver candle holder and was asking for my accuser to present herself. I also secretly hoped listing the good works that I'd been involved in might work in my favour for mercy. But I didn't expect to receive any real donations. Perhaps I've grown too cynical. I didn't expect anyone to care about our convent. I wasn't thinking ahead.

With my first returned envelope in front of me, it is difficult not to let my mind race with fear as I get up the nerve to slice it open, even though I know the chances are slim that the addresses have proven to be the correct ones. The donation card is filled out at the Silver level. A cheque is included and a note:
My address has changed. I just happened to be visiting my mother for the weekend. Your
causes are very worthwhile and I applaud the church for sponsoring them. I work with deaf children myself. I ask you kindly for a receipt for tax purposes. Send it to the address indicated on the cheque. Best Wishes, Francine L.

She didn't recognize my name, but I can cross her off my list. I recognize hers.

THE VIRGIN MARY WAS
a silent role. I got the part. Sister Aline was pleased I wouldn't be singing a single note through the entire Christmas pageant, I'm sure. Honestly, so was I. My voice was nothing less than a disgrace. After endlessly tormenting me by striking the organ keys and then asking me to mimic the sound emitted, Sister Aline soon advised me to hum bars instead of singing them, and eventually to simply mouth the words. The thought of humiliating myself in front of the nuns and students' parents, or opening myself up to endless taunting and teasing from the girls themselves as I croaked lines of music wearing makeshift wings or a wise man's robe was enough to make me sigh with relief as Sister Aline announced I would be playing the Virgin Mary and I realized I wouldn't have to sing at all. What I didn't think about in that instant was how I would be tormented in another fashion until the play was over. Now I was The Virgin of the school. Named and fitted for the costume. A blue and white frock made out of felt and a tablecloth. The girls laughed as Sister Aline squealed that the powder-blue robe and white veil were a perfect fit from last year's
pageant. I cringed under the mark of The Virgin, although her role in the Bible had intrigued me; Mary was a teenager herself, ostracized by her own family and community. Who could believe her strange story? The news of her pregnancy both a blessing and a curse. Who was the man who had come for her in the middle of the night and left her pregnant? An angel? How could she stand the ridicule of those who were sure she had tricked her dense husband and made him the fool of the town? And now I was named after her, and the nickname stuck until the winter term, until the catastrophe. I couldn't shake it off as easily as the light snow falling to blanket the outside world.

Bella was Gabriel, the part with the most singing. She would be present in nearly every scene, joining the choir in their hymns of praise and providing the solos when Gabriel flies in through Mary's window to tell her the sacred news and when Jesus Christ is born. She practised a version of “O Holy Night” that gave the girls chills and brought tears to Sister Aline's eyes. Even Mother Superior, at the back of the church, stood mesmerized upon hearing Bella's voice. She said she needed to speak to Sister Aline in private and to continue on with our practice, but she had really come to check on the pageant's progress, making sure that her paying parents and patrons would be thoroughly pleased with the education their daughters and the daughters of the community were receiving. When Bella sang, we were directed to watch, to appreciate her carriage as well as her voice, how she projected by bringing the air in through her nose and out through her mouth. Sister Aline used her as one might use a textbook in class, to demonstrate how the songs ought to be sung, how
we might strive to be like her. It was the same way my father sometimes spoke of my mother to Christine and me. “Look at the way she accepts all life with grace,” he said once as she bent over in our garden to admire a nest of ants. “Look at her face, children. It is the face of someone absolutely blessed by life.” Bella's face radiated when she sang; she accepted her gift with the same humility with which my mother accepted my father's compliments. “Grace can be learned,” my mother said. “You're not born with it.” But it was difficult to see how Bella might have learned so much more quickly than the rest of us; we were sure her singing voice had been given to her, and sure that there was nothing we could do about it either.

We knew the pageant was important. The school wasn't as popular as it had been in the past. Most girls went to public school and to the co-ed separate schools. A private school, taught mostly by nuns in a convent, was a dying breed, and we sensed this, even if we were not acutely aware of it. Rachel said if it weren't for her father, the school would have closed long ago. But that was a lie, or at least an exaggeration. His money wasn't enough to cover the expenses. The school was in massive debt, although the nuns tried not to show it. Mother Superior acted as if the school would be under her jurisdiction for another fifty years, rallying us with the claim that one day we would be proud to send our own children there. But Sister Marguerite slipped one day as she supervised recess. She took a long, forlorn look at the entrance of the school building and said, “I'll regret the day the gates close for good.” It was only a matter of time.

“If there are angels,” Sister Aline stated proudly at the bottom
of the altar steps while Bella let out a final high note until the organ went silent, “she is certainly one of them here on earth.”

Mother Superior applauded. The rest of us were aware that we were merely earth dwellers, Bella's celestial graces out of common reach. Bella didn't need us to convince her she was worthy or special. Her mother and father picked her up every Friday, her father speaking briefly to the nuns, who always commented on Bella's studious nature, excellent grades, and singing talent. Her mother, who spoke almost no English, had Bella translate to her in Portuguese. In pride, her mother would flatten her hands against Bella's cheeks, then place a kiss inside her palm and bestow it upon Bella as they left the school. At the end of practice, Bella's mother came to collect her. They crossed themselves at the holy water as they left. That was the moment I knew I hated her. Bella was Gabriel delivering a great message. All I could do, as a mortal, was step out of her way.

On the day of the pageant, what we called “Opening Night” although there would only be one performance, Sister Aline rallied us around her like an athletic coach—the girls in costume, jittery about performing in front of their parents and friends—to recite the Our Father prayer. Rachel tugged on my blue tunic. When I turned around to greet her, the other girls' chins bent to their chests, Rachel, her eyes sparkling with mischief above her silly fake beard and moustache, opened her wise-man robe and flashed me. She was wearing the red bra I had stolen from the department store, her
breasts cupped in its delicate lace and satin. I felt myself blush, and she had to shoot me a stern look to stop me from gawking at her newly re-covered bosom and return to the prayer. Virgin, she mouthed, shoving out her chest as if it weren't hidden in a formless yellow and navy blue blanket turned cloak for the night. We're too old for this, I thought. Dressing up in costumes and makeup, pretending to be religious characters riding into cities on donkeys to pay our taxes, the wise men with breasts bunching up their robes. Still, I couldn't believe Rachel's nerve in flaunting her contempt for the whole affair. Her shamelessness.