The Guineveres (18 page)

“Look, they haven't woken up yet. We're running out of options,” Gwen said. “And time. Do you want to wait until you're eighteen? Do you really want to waste away here? I, for one, am not willing to sacrifice my youth.”

“Go home with them as nurses?” Ginny asked. “We're altar girls now.”

“We're practically nurses. You're missing the point. None of the other girls have been trained in the Sick Ward. They wouldn't know the first thing about a blood pressure gauge or how to change sheets with a patient still in the bed without tossing them over the side. We didn't just forget those skills because we became altar girls, you know. You can be more than one thing at once.”

“Sister Connie was right. Nursing skills are mighty useful,” Win said.

“We're part of the War Effort,” I added.

“And there's a great need for nurses during wartime,” Gwen said.

“Even if we can figure out who they are, it doesn't mean their parents will let us come home,” Ginny said. “Especially if Our Boys haven't woken up yet.” She stirred and restirred the contents of her bowl, even though by now it had gone cold.

Gwen plucked a stray hair from between her eyebrows with her fingernails. “Just look at the Drexels,” she said. “Do those seem like people who would turn away the very individuals who located their son for them? Wouldn't the parents of missing soldiers, more than anyone, understand the plight of a poor orphan so far from home?” We thought of Mrs. Drexel in the front pew of the church. She looked gaunt from worry, haggard, unkempt. Her hair was matted, unwashed for days. Her nose was red, raw from crying. Her prayer hands were clasped bone-white tight. Mr. Drexel, too, with his sunken cheeks, with his eyes that screwed into slits of grief, as though the world didn't pain him as much if he took in only a little bit at a time. “They're desperate,” Gwen said again. “And desperate people do all sorts of things you wouldn't expect. How do you think we wound up here in the first place?”

“But how will we do it?” I asked. “How will we find out their identities when we don't know anything about them?”

“I have an idea,” Gwen said. She pinched her cheeks for blush, then grinned.

The Guineveres didn't say a word. We didn't have to. By now we could communicate through blinks and nods and raised eyebrows—through telepathy. Gwen brought her pinky to the center of the table, and we all hooked fingers.

“I'm still counting on them to wake up,” Ginny said.

“They will,” Gwen said, “but at least we have a secondary plan. God helps those who help themselves.”

We agreed.

Then we slurped our lentil soup breathlessly. The world was opening up for us. We felt sharp. We felt focused. We'd never been hungrier in our lives.

 

Communion

The Guineveres woke up Monday morning groggy from restlessness. It seemed a dry, hazy murk had settled around us. We clamored to the Wash Room and took sips from the faucets, pausing between breaths to splash water on our faces. But even the water couldn't wake us completely. At breakfast we fidgeted in our skirts, scratching our dry skin, leaving white marks like the trail of an airplane in the sky. We buttoned and unbuttoned the cuffs of our sleeves just to have something to do. Poor Ginny fared worse than the rest of us, the lack of sleep manifesting itself as nausea that hit her each time she attempted to raise a bite of squash casserole to her mouth.

“You should eat something,” Win said. The Guineveres handed Ginny our bread.

“Two more days,” Ginny said, articulating what nobody had yet spoken, perhaps the real reason for our uneasiness. She pinched off a small piece of bread and allowed it to dissolve in her mouth. Two more days until the Wednesday mass in the Sick Ward. Two more days until we could see Our Boys.

“We'd better get used to waiting as military wives,” Ginny said.

“Who said anything about being a military wife?” Win said.

In the classroom the next day during Morning Instruction, we stared up at Sister Fran's nativity scene mobile that, when it shifted unbalanced, twirled the wise men like they were pirouetting. We hunched in our desks, pretending to take notes. Sister Fran's heels clicked as she paced the front of the chalkboard. She pointed with her ruler to the name of the day's saint: Saint Bibiana.

“She endured her suffering joyously, as should we all,” Sister Fran explained, slowing her strides. She sometimes lectured with her eyes closed, the faintest hint of a grin sweeping across her face. We swore in these moments that Sister Fran was the happiest we'd ever seen her, that if the Rapture came, she'd be sucked right into the sky, her arms and legs pumping with jubilation. Saint Bibiana's father was tortured to death, her mother beheaded. Her sister died at the feet of the ruler who'd persecuted them, and Bibiana, upon whom forced starvation had no effect, was put under the care of a wicked woman who tried to seduce her. “Eventually, they tied her to a pillar. She was beaten to death. And with each blow of the executioner's lead pummel, she cried out in ecstasy. Isn't that wonderful, girls? That she could endure the pains of this life with such elation? That she turned her despair into euphoria, knowing what awaited her in heaven? That is the true beauty of Saint Bibiana, a quality we must strive to emulate. How might we all endeavor to do the same?” This was not posed as a rhetorical question. Sister Fran opened her eyes and examined her bored pupils for an answer. Only Lottie raised a hand.

“Could we give up our Sunday supper and instead have a dance lesson?” she said in all earnestness. A few of The Specials clapped in agreement, but the rest of us groused. If anyone could suffer joyously, it was Lottie, and I often thought of this later, when I learned that she'd died. I imagined her smiling as she careened off the road. Perhaps she moaned in ecstasy as she was thrown through her windshield, landing in a gravel pit a few yards away. Lottie would never fully grow out of her baby-fatted cheeks; she'd never marry; she'd never have kids. Instead, she'd remain in our memories a young, earnest, and faithful girl. Although Lottie and I never became close—not like The Guineveres—I still suffered a loss when she died. We all did. Call it the camaraderie of heartbreak or the shared trauma of growing up. I was sad to learn the news.

“We could consider that a possibility,” Sister Fran said. “But I don't see much usefulness in dancing. Perhaps knitting instead. Let there be utility even in our recreation, and besides, the War Effort can always use socks.” Soon the bell sounded, but we remained in our seats because it was Mail Distribution.

The radiator hummed while we waited. Sister Fran removed a stack of mail from a satchel beneath her desk. With three weeks till Christmas, we were anxious—guardedly hopeful—for some word from home. Even a card signed only with our parents' names.

“Anything?” Ginny asked Sister Fran when she paused beside her desk. Sister Fran pretended to shuffle through envelopes, scrutinizing the names of addressees. Her nose wiggled. She clicked her tongue for show.

“It doesn't look like anything has arrived this week, dear.” She patted the top of Ginny's head. “I'm sorry.”

“For me?” I asked. I already knew the answer, and Sister Fran didn't even pretend.

“Not this time,” she said. “Perhaps you should write another letter,” she suggested, then placed her arm warmly around my shoulder. “Better to give than receive. That's an excellent policy to remember, don't you think? Something therapeutic in letter writing, like baring one's soul. The benefit is yours just by writing it.” She walked ahead to finish doling out the mail. That week, Shirley received a box of Christmas decorations that she promised to hang in the Bunk Room. Dorrie Sue opened her envelope to discover a silk handkerchief, folded into a tiny square. Nan got a Christmas card that, to her delight, chimed “Silent Night” when she opened it. The Sads cried again into their short, apologetic letters. The Delinquents and the older girls held their notebooks to their chests, ready for Sister Fran to dismiss them. The Guineveres, we bit the inside of our lips. We blinked. We swallowed. We tried to act nonchalant, like secretaries on a smoke break.

Later that day, we traced the perimeter of the courtyard during our constitutional walk. The geraniums had long since died inside the shoe planters, their purple heads languishing over the laces. The cold stung our eyeballs; our noses leaked. We could hear the strained warbles of birds overhead.

“I bet Our Boys' parents would write them letters,” Ginny said.

“If they knew where they were,” Win said.

“Do you think their parents assume that they're dead?” I asked.

“Do you think our parents assume we are?” Gwen said.

“I'm not sure they'd care,” Win said.

“Look at the Drexels. They care,” Ginny said.

“They care too much,” Win said. “And it's killing them.”

“There's a danger in caring too much,” Gwen said. She was looking toward the sky, the way Ebbie used to do, but there were no planes up there today. Only gray.

To our great relief, Wednesday finally arrived. The mass in the Sick Ward overlapped with Morning Instruction, so Sister Fran made us dittos of the day's lesson so we wouldn't fall behind. We tucked these papers inside our notebooks, stored them beneath our desks, then tried to hide our pure giddiness as we excused ourselves. Father James waited for us in the Sick Ward, still dressed in his lay clothes. He directed us to relocate all the tables to the side of the room, so the old folks could line up in rows facing the makeshift altar at the front. Win carried the chairs two at a time over her head while Gwen leaned up against the wall, counting.

“We need three more,” she said.

“Don't worry about helping,” Win said and rolled her eyes.

“I won't.”

Ginny pushed the tables with her arms in front of her, so she looked like Sisyphus, minus the hill. I lined the chairs up into rows and lowered the window shades to prevent the sun from directly hitting the room.

After we were finished, Father James provided us with robes he said we could keep in the Sick Ward, for future use, and Sister Connie instructed us to change in the storage room. The storage room itself was dimly lit with one overhead bulb, and it was lined with shelves packed with linens and bed shirts, stacks of metal bedpans, glass jars filled with medicine, huge rolls of gauze and boxes of cotton balls, and other medical supplies. She cleared a space on the shelf for us to store our cassocks, next to a Bible and a small processional cross. As we pulled the stiff robes over our heads, we spotted Our Boys' duffels wedged beneath the bottom-most shelf. The numbers, written in white, were facing out, so we could make out whose was whose. “There's My Boy's,” Ginny said, pointing.

Once we were ready, we met Father James at the entrance to the Front Room. Those old folks who could walk with the help of a cane or a walker ambled toward the chairs now lined in rows. The Guineveres passed out hymnals while Sister Magda widened the door to the Back Room so that those who were too weak or unable—Our Boys included in this number—could hear the service from their beds.

Although we had already served our first mass as altar girls, we didn't feel much more confident in what we were doing. Our muscle memories had not kicked in yet, plus the process was different here in the Sick Ward. First, it wasn't a church. Second, there was no official processional; we simply walked from the back of the room to the front. Father James asked Ginny to carry the Bible and Win to carry the small cross, and the rest of us walked with our hands folded at our stomachs. No organ music played, there was no tabernacle, and Father James had already blessed the host, so we skipped the bearing of the gifts. Father James kept mass short: only the first reading, then the Gospel, then the homily. No second reading. No petitions. The old folks sang hymns in muffled, unenthused voices; some slumped forward in their chairs, their muscles tired from sitting so long. During communion, Father James walked from person to person, and the old folks opened their mouths as though a doctor had instructed them, “Say ahhhh.” A few looked like wrinkled children forced to take medicine, and others chewed the host with their dentures, despite the fact that they were supposed to let it dissolve on their tongues. Once Father James had administered to everyone in the Front Room, he motioned for us to follow him to the Back Room. Our eyes scanned the dimness for Our Boys, and when we saw them a wave of warmth washed over us.

Father James walked to the bedside of the closest patient, Mrs. Martin. Mrs. Martin had what Sister Connie had told us was a terminal illness. Some days she was awake, and other days she was not. Thin tufts of hair grew out of her freckled head, and her chin melted into her neck. Win held what we called the Holy Crumb Tray beneath her wilting mouth; Ginny held the bowl of hosts; Gwen stood by with the chalice of wine. Father James picked up a wafer from the bowl, broke off a small piece, dipped it into the chalice, then motioned to me to pry open the mouth of Mrs. Martin. I pinched her nose and squeezed her chin, then tugged just gently enough so her lips parted. Father James muttered his blessing, then rested the host atop her tongue.

“Amen,” The Guineveres said without prompting.

Next we moved over to Miss Oatley, whose dentures rested on her bedside table. Her mouth hung ajar, revealing oversized baby gums, so thankfully I didn't have to pry it open in order for her to receive communion. Touching the old folks' faces, even to feed them the host, twisted my stomach, which is exactly what guilt feels like: heavy, as if one had eaten a handful of pebbles, swallowed them whole.

Father James administered communion to every old person in the room, but he did not offer it to Our Boys. Instead, he stopped at the side of each of their beds and prayed a blessing, extending his hand close to their heads like a cook checking the temperature of a stove burner. We asked him about it at the conclusion of the service.