The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows (34 page)

One of the two last engagements I had was a very happy luncheon with my Malden family. The second was the baptism of Gigi and Frank Gallo’s firstborn, Gina. It was a bittersweet occasion for me. When Gigi had asked me to be Gina’s godmother, I accepted even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to fulfill my obligations as a godparent. What could I do for the child when I’m in a monastery
?

Two weeks before her entrance, Dolores surprised her publicist, Frank Liberman, with her decision to leave Hollywood. It would be Frank’s task to make the official announcement to the press—but only after she was inside the enclosure.

Frank’s plan was to plant the story of her entering religious life with Associated Press rather than give one journalist an exclusive. But Hedda Hopper almost sabotaged his plans. Hopper called him a few days before Dolores was scheduled to leave to check on a whispered rumor that she was planning to give up her career for the Church. Press agents who lied to Hedda Hopper courted disaster, but Frank denied the story.

On her last day in Los Angeles, Don came to her apartment to say goodbye. “During the weeks following the end of the engagement, I had to be alone”, he related. “I felt it was important for both of us in order to begin to reconstruct our lives.” The farewell was not easy. “In the future there would be a lot to say, but not at that moment. We embraced. It was quick. It was difficult.”

In New York, Dolores was able to unwind in the Park Avenue apartment Maria shared with her mother. “I already felt a terrible sense of loss”, Maria said. “Dolores had been the instigator in my life, the avenue to activity, the one to say let’s do something—let’s go to the park, read this book. And she wasn’t going to be around anymore.”

The parting from Maria clarified for me that I was going to miss her as much as I was going to miss Don, but strange as this may sound, this realization did not make me sad. When we were alone, Maria and I commemorated the winding down of the conspiracy with a celebration on the terrace. Giddy as teenagers, we devoured chunks of ice cream cake as we laughed away the nervous tension of the past weeks. We even began throwing gobs of ice cream at one another and then down onto Park Avenue, twenty-one floors below
.

Refreshed by our childish outburst, we faced the real world again and took a cab to JFK to meet Mom’s plane. That evening the three of us dined together as we had many times in the past, Mom referring to us as “my two daughters”. It was such a pleasant evening that I was almost able to ignore completely that I was keeping a secret. The next morning, Mom and I took the bus to Connecticut
.

The road to Bethlehem was a familiar one by now, but this was the last trip I would be making on the bus. Mom seemed content and quickly settled down to enjoy the New England countryside whizzing past us. She didn’t know she would be returning alone
.

—How about you? As D-day grew closer, were you at all fearful? Did you experience any angst?

I did not fear the completely different life I was heading into, nor did I feel a sense of loss for the life I was leaving. I simply didn’t have the feeling of pain that might surround the kind of step I was taking. I felt quite excited, in fact, not unlike what I felt on opening night of the play. It was a time full of love. So no, Dick, there was no angst. I was surprisingly lighthearted. As I understand it now, where there is a true sign of the Spirit, there is peace and joy. There may have been an underlying sense of anxiety about entering into a new cycle. I didn’t know exactly what the feeling was, but it wasn’t bad or ugly—it didn’t have those qualities about it. There was a fundamental happiness
.

One of the nuns met us at the new bus depot—in Southbury. It wasn’t actually a depot—we were deposited in a vacant lot near a gas station. The short drive took us up Flanders Road toward Bethlehem. I couldn’t help but remember—“If you get to Bethlehem, you’ve gone too far
.”

Mother Mary Aline directed us to Saint Gregory’s, where Mom and I would spend the night. I was grateful there were other guests. I hoped they might serve to inhibit an outburst from Mom
.

There was a box waiting in our room. It held my postulant’s tunic. Made of the most expensive-looking material I had ever seen, it had a sheen that almost sparkled. I could have worn it to any Hollywood party. The problem was that I had to wear it as a lowly postulant in a cloister. I had been so careful about the movie-star bit, and now I was going to look as if I were flaunting it. I was embarrassed to wear it
.

Mom looked at the garment and said, in a very matter-of-fact tone, “When are you going in
?”

“
Tomorrow,” I answered, “before Vespers
.”

She took my hands in hers and said, “That doesn’t give us much time
.”

This was the moment I had been dreading. “Mom, you mustn’t refuse me the freedom of pursuing life on my own terms. We’re all searching in this life to fill the void in us. That void is the absence of love, and I’ve found it in God
.”

“
It’s my fault, isn’t it?” she asked
.

“
There’s no fault in this. I am not running away from anything. I am running
toward something
—with all my heart. I’m counting on you to understand. I have given myself up to all kinds of pursuits, and they have led to only a glimpse of the happiness I now feel. I can find no substitute for the love that has brought me to this place. So please don’t be sad. Be glad that I have found my true home
.”

I don’t know what I expected—an argument, tears, hysterics? But she simply said, “Dolores, I can’t take back what I’ve always told you. You have to do what you know in your heart is right and true
.”

As I unpacked I discovered an opened envelope in the pocket of a jacket I hadn’t worn for a long time. I recognized Reverend Mother’s unmistakable script and realized it was the note I had stuffed into my pocket back in December of 1959—and had neglected to read
.

Reverend Mother had written: “Dear Dolores: I know you are knocking, but you have a lot to do before you’ll be ready. You’ll have to wait.”

The entrance ceremony took place at three o’clock in front of the Great Gate—the lower entrance to the monastery. Harriett, sad but composed—after all, nuns do sometimes leave orders—stood beside Dolores, as did Maria.

I wore the shiny, showy new tunic, and I felt as if there were a spotlight on me. I was close to tears. Mother Anselm, recognizing my discomfort, told me not to worry, that the tunic would not be noticed or commented upon
.

Father Paul Callens, then the monastery chaplain, escorted Dolores to the gate and gave her his blessing. Dolores knocked at the gate. Reverend Mother Benedict opened the small grille and asked, “What do you seek?” Dolores spoke from her heart.

“
I seek the face of God through the Lord Jesus Christ in your Community, Reverend Mother
.”

Reverend Mother opened the gate. I knelt on the ground before her and received her prayer and blessing. Then she invited me inside, and I walked into the enclosure alone. The Great Gate closed behind me
.

Inside, the members of the council were lined up on either side of the road to the monastery building. I walked with the nuns in procession to the chapel, where the entire Community was waiting. I was shown my place in the choir and knelt again while the Community sang Psalm 47: “Receive me, O Lord, in the midst of Your temple according to Your name.” Then I was escorted from the choir to Reverend Mother’s office, where I was officially greeted by the members of the council. I signed a formal paper requesting acceptance as a postulant, which was then affirmed by each member as she introduced herself. I was sure I would never remember all the names
.

“
We live by the
Rule of Saint Benedict”,
Reverend Mother said to me. “Do you respond to the Rule
?”

“
Oh yes,” I replied, “I greatly respond to the Rule. Saint Benedict thinks like I do
.”

The silence in the room was deafening, broken only when one of the nuns berated me: “Saint Benedict, young lady, does not think the way you do. Don’t you think you should have said
you
think like Saint Benedict
?”

Reverend Mother Benedict stepped up. “Wait a minute”, she said. “This is a new era, and we should listen to what the new generation is saying. I think Dolores said it right. Saint Benedict thinks like she does.”

In the
Rule of Saint Benedict
, the abbot hears the counsel and opinions of all of the brothers and then follows what he judges to be the wisest course. The reason he calls on all, from the oldest to the youngest, according to the Rule, is that “the Lord often reveals what is better to the younger.”

Mother Miriam then took me to the refectory where I was assigned my stool, at the rear. Nuns move up nearer the prioress with seniority. Mother Miriam showed me how I was to sit on the stool, how to place my napkin, where to wash my dishes and silverware and where they were kept
.

The napkin placement was unusual. One corner of the napkin is pinned to your tunic collar, and the opposite corner is placed on the table. Your plate then sits on the napkin, which conveniently catches the crumbs. How functional, I thought. After the meal, the napkin is unpinned and folded—first in thirds and then in half—and then the plate is removed
.

Finally I got my first look at my new home. Saint Anthony’s, which was formerly a barn, housed the three parlors in which the nuns met with guests, including myself when I had been a visitor. Above the parlors, on the second floor, were the cells for the novitiate
.

My cell was tiny—about eight-by-five feet—and wasn’t painted. It contained a cot-size wooden bed—no bedsprings, just a three-inch mattress on a wood platform—with drawers beneath for blankets and personal items. There was one table with a small lamp and one chair, a shelf with a wash bowl and towel rack, no closet but three hooks on the door to hang clothing. The cell had a window, very small, from which I could see the top of a tree. I would soon discover, to my dismay, that the tree was home to a noisy frog
.

The door to my cell had a number—47—coincidentally the same number as the psalm sung at my greeting. I would be expected to embroider that number on all my clothing and mark or scratch it on everything else, such as buckets and garden tools and the like
.

—I can’t tell you how happy I was when felt-tip pens were invented
.

June in Connecticut was already hot and humid, and there was no air conditioning—there still isn’t—but there was a fan in the corridor. The cells had no running water. I had to fetch water from the sink in the bathroom to fill my washbowl. The first time I walked into the bathroom, I almost cried at the barrenness of it
.

Vespers was the first Office I attended as a postulant. After Vespers, there is a half hour put aside for personal pursuits—meditation or perhaps a walk. Mother Miriam shepherded me back to the novitiate quarters, where I was finally able to meet the five women I would be living with—Mary Misrahi, whom I had met during an early visit and who was now Sister Rachel; the novices Sister Mary Peter, Sister Patricia and Sister Gratia; and Julia, the other postulant. Of the six women in the novitiate, I would be the only one to remain
.

We went back to the common room, where I was once more assigned a place that would be mine. This was the time that the Community heard the news of the day, mostly about monastery events. Some world news was included, courtesy of Mother Ida Hurkins, a tiny Dutch woman in her seventies, who was the Community’s bell ringer and the only nun with access to the single monastery radio. The news was the news that Mother Ida judged was news
.

—
I remember that evening we were saddened to learn that human rights activist Medgar Evers had been murdered in Mississippi
.