The Guineveres (13 page)

“What should we confess this time?” Ginny asked as we sprawled on the floor before Lights Out, our toes all touching. Dredging up another confession was a tedious task. Once Ginny confessed that she scratched herself across the face and blamed Shirley for doing it; Gwen confessed that she hid the key to the sanitary closet because she knew it was Irene's time of the month, and she wanted to embarrass her. Win once confessed to peeking through the curtains in the bathroom during bath time, “just to see what Noreen looked like.” I confessed to calling Reggie a liar when she told me her dad was a general in the War.

“Let's all confess the same thing,” Gwen said.

“What?”

“We covet our neighbors' wives,” Win said. And we all laughed, lying there on the cold floor of the Bunk Room, draped across one another so we couldn't tell whose limbs were whose, even though we were scolded by Sister Fran when she caught us lying like this.

“The Flesh, girls. The Flesh,” Sister Fran would say, lightly slapping us.

“It's comfortable,” we'd say.

“Heaven is comfortable,” she'd reply.

The Guineveres wanted to confess something that was true—this was our undoing. We were na
ï
ve enough to think that, all else aside, confessions must come from our hearts, and as soon as we uttered our penances, we'd be absolved of our sins. We still believed in a world that was honest and fair. If there really was a God above us, he'd know we were lying, and we didn't want to chance it. Convent life had made us superstitious that way, suspicious even of our doubts. Afraid.

“Let's say we don't honor our mothers and fathers,” I said.

“Boring,” they sang.

“We'll have to
do
something first so we have something to confess,” Gwen said.

It was then determined that we'd kiss Our Boys.

This was Gwen's idea. After all, she was the one who claimed Her Boy made smooching faces toward her as she sat at his bedside. Win reasoned that it might stir a biological reaction that would wake them once and for all, and Ginny held the romantic notion that perhaps all they needed was a kiss, like in
Snow White
or
Sleeping Beauty.
“Both those fairy tales are about comatose women, if you really stop to think about it. And don't both those stories end with the princess going home with the man who kissed her? We're not reinventing the wheel, my friends.”

After lunch the next day, we raced to the Sick Ward. We claimed Our Boys and then our Bibles from the Holy Cabinet, registered vitals, sat with ankles crossed, and pretended to be reading from the Good Book. When Sisters Connie and Magda both exited the room, that's when we were supposed to go through with it—offer our lips up to Our Boys.

During the penance service Sister Lucrecia's organ wailed again, signaling the start of confession. The chapel itself was a small space with a high, slanted ceiling that came to a point. Rows of pews extended from the altar, set so close together we felt cramped, overwarm. It wasn't unusual for a girl to pass out during mass from the heat, and if she did, Sister Fran would have her sit in the last row of pews and hang her head between her knees. The only way one could leave chapel during service was if she vomited, as Irene had done several times in the past year alone. She was known for her weak stomach.

About midway through the penance ritual, The Guineveres lined up, circled the chapel, and selected the priests to whom we would confess. The priests motioned the sign of the cross over our heads, then detail by detail we told our Fathers we had sinned.

“I kissed a boy,” Ginny confessed. I knew she had gone through with it—knew they all leaned over the beds of Their Boys with puckered lips. But their kisses held no fairy tale magic; none of Our Boys awoke.

“I made out with a boy,” Gwen confessed.

“I tried to kiss a boy,” Win confessed. She had told us about it in the Bunk Room, how his lips felt too cold to go on with it for very long.

“I thought about kissing a boy,” I confessed.

“Chicken,” The Guineveres said when we shared our confessions. I tried. I really did. I hovered over him for a good five minutes, just watching him breathe in and out. I touched his face. I squeezed his warm hands. I composed myself, took short, nervous breaths. His eyes fluttered; his nose wiggled, just barely, as though he were lightly sniffing flowers. And when I scanned the length of his body, tucked beneath covers, right where his legs met his torso, the sheet was tented. A thick, ghostly finger pointed toward the ceiling. My face grew hot; my whole body, too. I felt like a match, struck, like Saint Agnes of Rome, who was burned alive, fire lapping her skin as she prayed for salvation. I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them again, and there it still was, a phoenix trying to rise from his groin.

It's not that I didn't know what it was.
I knew.
But I'd never seen it before—
this.
Not up close. Not from a distance, either. I wondered if My Boy was having a wet dream, and if it was called a wet dream because you should throw water on it to douse it. I thought maybe I should try to push it down, but I couldn't will myself to touch it. Every time I got close to the bed my hands shook like one of the old men in the Sick Ward who had the tremors. In the end, I did what I thought best, what My Boy would have wanted from me: I walked away. I gave My Boy some privacy.

But I didn't tell The Guineveres about this. Not then, and not when they grilled me on the floor of the Bunk Room about why I didn't kiss My Boy. I was nervous, I explained to them. That was the truth.

“Don't you want him to wake up?” Ginny asked. “Don't you want to get out of this place?” Oh, I did. I did. He was moving closer to me, to wakefulness. I'd be the first to go home. I wanted to tell them about the sign from My Boy, about how his body reacted, but I was embarrassed. For myself. For him.

“Of course,” I said. Then I changed the subject. “What does it feel like?” I asked. I had never kissed a boy before, never had the opportunity, really. The few boys I knew in my Unholy Life knew who my mother was, and they stayed away.

“It felt like pressing my lips against two dead slugs, to be honest,” Win said. “I've kissed someone before, and it didn't feel like that. Of course, the person I kissed wasn't in a coma.”

“I liked it enough, but his lips were dry. He's not the best kisser,” said Ginny. “But that's not the point.”

Gwen claimed Her Boy kissed her back. She said they locked in a passionate embrace; she'd felt his tongue on her own, and his hand just barely moved to the small of her back, reaching for the bottom of her uniform skirt.

“Thou shall not lie,” I muttered.

“Thou shall not neglect Thy Boy,” Gwen said. “Men are snakes.” She smiled with lips that she'd reddened with raspberries. I could smell them on her breath.

“I … I just don't know how,” I admitted. We were still sitting on the floor of the Bunk Room, the cold stinging our bare skin.

“Practice makes perfect,” Gwen said. She pulled her hand into a fist and began kissing it with dramatic smacking noises. “Mmmmwah! Mmmmmwah!”

“Don't be stupid,” Ginny said. “It's not the same.”

“Okay,” Gwen said, and she leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth, a strong, quick kiss that left my lips vibrating.

“Stop,” I said, pulling away. Gwen leaned back on her hands and laughed, her face to the ceiling so I could see the ridges on the roof of her mouth and the little mounds on the undersides of her teeth.

“Now you've got your first kiss out of the way. Your second won't make you feel as nervous,” she said.

“Leave her alone,” Win said. She was always defending me—still would, to this day.

“What? I was just trying to help. Do you want one, too?” Gwen said. “I've got plenty to go around.” At this, she perched on all fours and crawled toward Win, moving in close till their noses were practically touching. “Is this what you want?” Gwen asked.

“Stop it,” I said. This time I was defending Win.

Gwen ignored me, kept her eyes fixed on Win. “Why didn't you like kissing Your Boy?” She puckered her lips, made a series of kissing noises. “Is something wrong with you?”

“I'm not afraid of you,” Win said.

“Then prove it,” Gwen said. Nobody said anything, but then again, nobody knew what to say. Gwen came to her knees, placed her arms on Win's shoulders, squared herself. “Just one little kiss.”

“Fine,” Win said. She squinted her eyes just barely, just enough to show a subtle hint of anger, and to let Gwen know that she wasn't going to back down. She unballed her fists, then wrapped her arms around Gwen's neck and, squeezing her hard, planted a kiss smack on her mouth. “Oh, Gwen, Gwen!” Win said, dramatically, her voice three octaves higher than normal. “I've never felt this way in my entire life. Thank you. Thank you. I will never wash these lips again.” And at this, The Guineveres all began to laugh until our flanks ached.

A few days later, with The Guineveres prodding me on, I bent over My Boy, squeezed my eyes tight, and presented my kiss-shaped lips as an offering. He didn't wake up.

But I felt guilty after that, and I thought of confessing what I'd done to Sister Fran or Father James. It's not that I didn't want to kiss him—I did. More than anything I wanted him to awake. I remember how my head buzzed as we made contact. I felt his body twitch, as if a shock of electricity had run up his spine. His lips were warm, damp. My Boy took my breath away, sucked it right into his dream world, his sleep world, where it radiated light, illuminating beams of fire like a sacred heart.

 

Thanksgiving

We awoke to the sound of rain on Thanksgiving Day. After breakfast, we shuffled to the chapel, through the corridor with its windows so drafty we felt damp. Outside, the rain fell in bars; the whole world was a prison cell. During the service, incense rose up to the rafters, then hung there like a mist. Saints stared at us through the stained-glass windows with sober downturned faces, clutching books or staffs or hands to their chests. Sister Lucrecia's organ howled, as if the keys lamented being touched. The Guineveres sat in the fifth pew, worrying the hems of our skirts. Our JUG in the Sick Ward would be over the next day, and we felt sick ourselves. No miracles. No reviving Boys. No hope for a better life on the outside.

We turned our thoughts to Thanksgivings past, to our memories of sitting around white-clothed tables, some of us at least, the way we ate too much turkey and dressing and corn pudding and pearled onions and creamed spinach, then sat around talking about how much we had eaten. Inside the convent, gluttony was a sin, but outside, gluttony was the purpose of the holiday, the whole point. Didn't the Sisters understand how the world operated? We looked to Sister Fran, whose head was bent, whose eyes winced as though prayer were painful. This was a woman who had not known excess. Her skin was too tight around the bones of her cheeks, giving her a skeletal appearance. When we knelt, the cushioned kneelers made soft flatulent noises, which sometimes made us laugh—but today was not a laughing kind of day. Today we were reminded of home.

During the sermon, Father James addressed us from the pulpit. He steadied himself with his hands as he leaned forward. He blinked hard, clicked his tongue, then paused for several moments before he spoke.

“Girls,” he finally said. “Today is Thanksgiving. We celebrate. We celebrate you.” Father James slurred his words and tottered a bit from side to side as he aimed his index finger in our direction. Spit bubbles formed at the corners of his mouth, and his cheeks flushed red, but not from embarrassment or cold. Packed inside the pew, The Guineveres nudged each other with our knees.

“He's in his cups,” Win mouthed. We nodded.

“For everything there is a season, girls. A time for every matter under heaven. A time to be born and a time not to be born. A time to plant and a time to … pull up weeds. You must get rid of weeds or they'll choke the garden. Have you ever seen tomatoes grown among dandelions? There's a reason for that. There's a time for cleaning and preening and succeeding. A season for loving. A season for baseball and a season for … uh…” Father James paused, swallowed. Sister Fran puckered her lips, twisted her neck in concern, but her expression remained placid because she was not one to emote. Father James sidestepped away from the pulpit but lost his balance a bit and, thinking better of it, returned to his position, the pulpit between him and the rest of us. He composed himself and continued. “A time to keep quiet and a time to keep very quiet,” he whispered. “A time for war.” Here he lowered his head, and we thought he might have fallen asleep.

But after a minute of awkward silence, he jolted and peered up. “Girls, I want you to know that today we celebrate all that we have and all that we don't. And sometimes it's the not having that serves us best. Sometimes, in fact, it's exactly what God wants and exactly what we need. We need to be protected so we can protect others. This is not a weakness, girls,” and here, Father James seemed to draw out the
s
's like
z
's, but he didn't stop. “You are lucky to be here. You think life's hard, but it's not. There is hell and there is war. The two are difficult to distinguish, but hopefully you'll never know the sting of either. That's why you need to be good girls. The world is a mysterious place, full of times. An abundance of times. Times. War times. Peace times. Sometimes it is difficult to figure out exactly what time. As you sit here today, ask yourself: What time is it?”

Father James paused and checked his watch, his eyes drooping as if on the cusp of a nap, and Sister Lucrecia took this as her cue to sound the organ. The Guineveres snorted under our breaths, trying to withhold our laughter. But really we were thinking this: What was the plan for us? What was the plan for Our Boys? Did our families miss us this Thanksgiving? Did their families miss them? We tried to imagine ourselves sitting beside them, a banquet of food splayed out in front of us. Their mothers wore pearls; their fathers smoked pipes; their grandparents had kind, warm faces, the way grandparents did. We all sat together, crowded around one enormous table decorated with flowers and gourds, with dripping candles lit just for the occasion. It was Thanksgiving, and all eyes turned to us in thanks. We'd taken such good care of Their Boys during a difficult stretch. The War. The injuries. They were so far from home. Thank goodness for us.