Goddess (7 page)

I can’t tell you how I felt. It was very strange. As you know only too well, Father, our chapel looks daunting from the outside—a high building in a narrow street, all the more imposing when you’re a lost soul. It seemed to me then the sort of place from which you might never escape once you entered. I’d seen portals more grand, many a time. After all, I grew up in a place ten times as big. But this convent—for some reason it scared me—then, now. It was as if I could get lost in here, as if the life within was a labyrinth in which a girl, or two girls, might be forgotten, imprisoned, ignored. I felt—what? Fear? Perhaps revulsion? That sensation you get at a crossroads when everything depends on the next action you take—the twitch of the reins, the word of a passing stranger, your hand as it reaches up for the bell-pull.

But I couldn’t let any of that be known. So I was meek. Penitent. Desperate. Part of that was even true.

What else could I do but stand before that gate, haul on the rope and politely ask for acceptance into the fold?

Even as the door was opening, it felt like a fraud, like a trap—like a dreadful error. I could have run. I didn’t.

They took me in. Didn’t cut my hair, thank the Lord, but they took my clothes, my boots, my gloves. I told them my name. I don’t even remember what it was, now. Any old name. It didn’t matter, at that point, who I was—not to me, not to them. My first few days were spent locked in a cell, with the odd hour prostrate on the chapel floor; they called it a spiritual solitude, to allow me to reflect on my past sins and my vocation. Which I truly did. I felt as if my life had been wasted—as if every moment of every day had led me to that perfect hour when I first saw her face—as if my destiny might dwell in that place. As perhaps it did.

I saw her on the fifth day. They released me from my room—not a moment too soon—and sent me out to work in the orchard. It was cold by then and my fingertips ached, but I remember the air on my face and the scent of turned earth.

She was feeding the chickens, calling to them. I’d never heard her voice. I stood there, with dirt on my hands, listening—gazing at her—willing her to look at me.

She turned. Slowly. Saw me. And smiled.

Someone spoke to her and she walked away, not looking back, and it didn’t matter because I knew she would come to me.

T
HEY MEET—SPEAK—FOR THE VERY
first time that night after supper. In the dark. In a corner of the cloister, where even whispers seem to echo off the stone walls, they both talk at once.

‘I knew you would find me—’

‘When they sent you away—’

‘Somehow.’

‘I searched everywhere.’

‘I thought I’d never see you again.’

‘And yet here I am.’

Clara breathes for what feels like the first time in hours. ‘You must be careful.’

‘Clara.’ Julie smiles at the music in it.

‘Please. Say it again. Just like that.’

‘Clara,’ Julie whispers. And then, ‘I love you.’

The breath shivers out of Clara’s body. ‘And I … but it’s ridiculous. Isn’t it?’

‘Not at all. It just is.’

‘Whoever heard of such a thing?’

They’ve never been so close before. They wonder at each other—stripped of jewellery, satins, even hair tucked away, naked under the rough linens. And yet they are glorious, glowing. Julie marvels over every eyelash, the tiny wrinkles in Clara’s lips, the flecks of agate in her brown eyes.

‘You’re trembling.’ She takes Clara’s hand—the skin silky against her own—and trembles a little herself at the touch. ‘Are you scared? Don’t be.’

‘It’s not that. Perhaps a chill.’

‘I’ll warm you.’ Julie presses the precious hand between her own palms. ‘Come with me. We’ll escape.’

‘Impossible.’

‘Not at all.’

‘Where could we go? How will we live?’

‘It doesn’t matter, Clara. I’ll find a way. I always do.’

Clara shakes her head but can’t stop smiling. ‘My father—’

‘He banished you here.’ Julie says it too loudly, as if she’s on stage.

Clara flinches. ‘Shhh.’

‘You owe him nothing.’

‘But God—’

‘God is love, remember?’

‘Yes. But this—’

‘Is perfect. You are perfect. Clara.’

‘And you …’

Julie strokes the soft skin inside Clara’s wrist. She shudders. They both do.

‘I am yours.’

They meet every evening in the poultry house, after Vespers. The chickens snicker and shuffle. The girls sit in the dirty straw, fingers entwined, not speaking, sometimes smiling. They kiss once but it frightens them so they stop.

At other times, in hallways or behind the kitchens, they whisper to each other. There are secrets. Desires that can only be spoken in daylight. Plans that can only be discussed in darkness. Fears. Memories—little things—mere moments.

‘Yesterday, I watched you in the chapel.’

‘Julie, you mustn’t.’

‘I can’t help it.’ Julie’s cheeks hurt from smiling wider than she’s ever smiled.

‘But God will see.’

‘He sees us already. He knows.’

‘Don’t say that!’ Clara glances around to check that nobody’s watching.

‘It’s all right. No need to blush so.’ Julie draws her down onto the stone bench next to the kitchen gate. There are no fathers here to stop them, curse them, beat them. Only Him, and Julie is willing to risk even His wrath. For this. For Clara.

‘There’s a story,’ she says, ‘written down by one of the old Romans, about two girls who are meant for each other. Iphis and Ianthe, they were called. Iphis grew up as a boy, just like me, and they fall in love, by accident almost. I know the poem—every word.’

‘Tell me.’

Their heads are close together, their breath mingles.

‘Love came to both of them together in simple innocence, and filled their hearts with equal longing.’ Julie quotes the old Roman, but leaves out parts of Iphis’s story: the despair, the longing, the excoriation of the soul. Instead she smiles. ‘You see?’

‘So we are not alone?’

Clara’s eyes glitter in the moonlight. Julie wonders if perhaps she is an angel. If perhaps she is crying. She moves a little closer until their thighs touch.

‘Iphis and her mother pray, all night, to one of the pagan goddesses.’

‘Blasphemy.’

‘Never mind,’ says Julie. ‘Let me finish the story.’

‘They are cured?’

‘No, of course not. They don’t want to be cured. Do you?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘That’s not the right answer, Clara.’

‘Forgive me, but it hurts, to think of it all.’

‘Then don’t think. Just hold my hand and listen.’ She does. ‘So they pray all night, Iphis and her mother both.’

‘You can read Latin?’

‘Yes. But I read it in French. In a romance. Some fellow had rewritten it.’

‘You are a wonder.’

‘You’re not concentrating.’

Clara giggles. Julie has never heard such divine music. Her chest aches so much she needs to take a deep breath before she can go on.

‘They pray to Diana or one of those old naked goddesses—’

‘Now you’re being wicked.’

‘She grants their wish so Iphis becomes a boy, after all.’

‘Really?’

‘Would I lie to you?’

Clara leans back against the cold stone wall and stares up at the stars, the outline of the chapel dome, the palm trees.

‘But it’s just a story,’ she says at last. ‘It didn’t really happen.’

‘You never know with those Romans.’

‘We can’t pray to their goddess.’

‘We could try Saint Jude.’ Julie nudges Clara’s shoulder with her own. ‘Or Saint Catherine.’

‘You’re teasing me.’

‘Perhaps.’ She grins.

Silence. The half moon is now high over the convent wall. Clara shivers. She has always been good—even her mother said so, during the violent family tempest that brought her here. She’d always imagined herself godly and pure. But she was wrong. Inside her was a demon—red with black eyes, like those painted in her Book of Hours. She feels it writhe; it warms her skin, makes her breath shudder. Perhaps it’s been there all the time and she had no idea. Perhaps it arrived with the Opéra. Now it claws at her, pinches her cheeks, leaves her aching. She tries to cast it out—with herbs, with prayer, with tears of repentance. It won’t go. She won’t let it.

It’s worse, and much better, when she’s with Julie. She despairs in the demon’s delight, quivers under its touch, nearly weeps with fear. She won’t listen to its whispering, to its promise. She will not let it touch her.

It’s not Julie’s fault. The red demon is hers alone. She will pray for them both, like Iphis, unsure what she’ll do if God answers.

‘Would you like to turn into a boy, Julie?’

‘No, not really. I’d rather be as I am. But somewhere else. With you.’

H
ERE YOU ARE AGAIN
. Well, well. Here we both are—me in the sunlight, bare feet in the grass, for possibly the last time.

Couldn’t stand lying in that room another moment. It smells of death … of me. I never used to smell like this. The stench alone is enough to kill me. And I’m sick of staring at that dying man hanging over the door. I’m sure he’s sick of me, too.

So I had the laundresses carry me out here after morning prayer. Now they’re scrubbing out that foul room, burning sticks of rosemary and changing the bed linen. About time. They grumbled, the Abbess objected, but a few
sous
can buy you almost anything in this place. It’s one of its charms.

Dear God, I’m frail. I didn’t realise how fragile I’d become until they lifted me out of my cot. I’d imagined I’d be able to walk, at least a few steps. But no. As it was, I felt as if all my bones might snap. Or crumble into dust. But not yet. Not quite.

I’m not entirely sure I’ll survive the trip back up the staircase, but it’s worth it, to be out here.

Can you feel that? Winter sun, but it has healing powers, the light, the air. The Provençals understand this. If I was in Paris I’d be locked away in some dark room in a hospice, but here, in the south, people trust the sun. It’s so much more obvious here, after all. There’s always a scent in the breeze—lavender and olive wood burning, the far-off sea—even in the depths of winter.

And look! These palm trees have grown so tall since I was last here. They’re doing better than me, that’s clear. Grown from dates all the way from the Holy Land, so I’m told. The Abbess is terribly proud of them. There she goes now, off on some serious Abbess business, the others in her wake like ducklings. Oh, I do like being out here. There’s Sister Angeline—a bit mad, that one, but so good with the bees and the sick. She’s gentle with my poor bones, too.

Listen to me. I sound like an old woman. That’s how I feel. Incredible, isn’t it? That I should be brought to such an end. From such greatness, such majesty, such sublime beauty. I don’t look it—nobody knows that better than me. I feel this coarse linen against my breasts, all these flaps and folds of wool—it always seems damp with lanolin and the sweat of generations of sisters. I am, once again, clad in someone else’s cast-offs. Shoeless. How did it come to this? Have I sunk or risen? Or are they the same thing?

There was a time, many years in fact, when I never wanted to see another nun in my life. Hilarious, isn’t it? Now all I see from Lauds to Compline are nuns. The only sounds I hear—the only music—nuns.

Until you came.

With your scratching and your questions, your quiet tuttuts, the odd sharp intake of breath at particularly interesting moments in my story. You never look at me. Why is that?

Actually, I don’t want to know. Forget I asked. Just mind your own business and write. Think of your readers. My readers. One day they will marvel at me, at my life. To them you are nothing. A barrier they must overcome. An interference. A cipher. So scribble, little man. Tell them how I was brought out into the courtyard, brave and unrepentant. No, weary but resolved. No. Unravelled. That’s what I am. Unravelling. No. Write this: she was frail but courageous. Yes.

Now we go on. Now we come to it. The telling. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To find out the truth of that night? The Abbess knows, of course she does. She’s no fool, not like you. It may even be that she genuinely fears for my soul, hopes for the best—thinks that if I unburden myself to you, the better fragments of my soul will be free to ascend.

I doubt it.

I had hoped for a clear blue sky today, for this moment, but any sky will do. God makes the clouds, too, after all. God and that lovely little man with the red hair—what’s his name again? A painter, one day to be famous or so he tells us. In the meantime, he makes the sets and the machines for the Académie. Such clouds as you never saw. I know—I have soared among them. Such details. When I played Pallas Athéna—a triumph, naturally—he painted tiny suns all across my chariot, so small that only I could see them, but he knew, and I knew, and God knew, they were there. He wants to paint for the King, desires nothing more than a little room at Versailles and a stretch of ceiling to decorate. He doesn’t realise there isn’t a square inch left bare in the entire chateau. But he lives in hope and will never be content. Odd, isn’t it? Yet he paints skies and clouds almost as beautiful as God’s own.

Contentment. Life. That’s what you see before you, here in this courtyard. The fruit trees. Fallen leaves. Ants in the lawn. Sister Marguerite’s herbal garden—hear the bees? Even the wasps are singing for us today, or so it seems. I can watch everyone coming and going, instead of merely marking the passing hours by the bells and the sound of feet on gravel.

These are not the words, you may feel, of a woman preparing to leave this world. You’re right. I’m not. I may be leaving—we will know soon enough—but I’m not prepared. Why should I be? How is that even possible?

I’ve read of people making peace with the world before they die. I’ve seen it on stage, sung the eulogy over their sprawled bodies and grieving lovers. But seriously, you can’t tell me it happens in real life. People are struck down, fall dead. People waste away. Death stinks. It hurts. There’s no peace in it. So I prefer to sit out here in the world, in the light, even in the cold, as long as I can.

Hear that? The choir—in the chapel. Funny thing, in this city of convents—you wouldn’t think of it this way unless you lived here, behind the walls, but it’s a city of music. The air is full of it. It floats on the silence. How many choirs must there be? Dozens. Bells. Organs. Even the odd cornet from the guards’ barracks. I think of the Mass as music, too, of tone and repetition, recitative and chorus.

Yes, yes, I’m getting to it. In my way. Patience. It’s the choir that takes me back, more often than not. To this place, in another time—to other places, sacred places, moments, lives. To the day, so many years ago now, I took the first steps to becoming a sister of the Visitandines.

I didn’t receive much of a greeting. In fact, you could say I was grudgingly accepted into the service of our Lord. Lay sisters were plentiful at that time, but only those who bring with them a handsome legacy are truly welcomed. Poor girls like me, with a mere calling to God and no other assets, are a burden on any convent, even here, where the sisters’ hearts are unusually kind. I understand that.

It was a different story this time round, let me tell you. Over the years, I’ve donated hundreds of
louis
to the coffers and it paid off handsomely. This time, when I turned up, coughing and retching, you never saw such a welcome. That’s why they put up with me here. We are old friends. Or, at least, my penance for previous sins—heinous as they were, I’ll confess that now, before you start with your sermonising—has been lavish and willingly received.

But in those days—nearly twenty years ago—I had no worldly goods to renounce, besides my sword, and I wasn’t silly enough to offer that up to the Abbess. I would have sung in the choir, but that’s only for the real nuns. Still, I was strong and they needed an extra pair of hands in the orchard—let’s not pretend it was anything else. I didn’t care.

Look around us. This is a place of peace. I didn’t realise that until now. Then, I thought it was a prison—of course, I’d never actually been in prison at that stage; there’s no comparison, in reality. But freedom had come to me so suddenly, so completely, I despaired that I might never feel it again.

I confess, I felt its loss like a knife between my shoulder blades at times, or the ache of a rotten tooth. All of my romantic ideas of following Clara, of finding her, hadn’t included early mornings in a dim chapel and autumn harvest until my arms felt like they might break and homespun wool scratching the back of my neck. Or, in fact, spending my entire life in a convent. But there I was. Here. Then. Fighting for breath, for air. Failing. Before I got here, before I found her, all I wanted was Clara. After a week or so, all I wanted was to run.

It’s not like that now.

There are worse places to live, let me tell you. Here there are berries and peaches every summer, mushrooms and roast boar in the autumn. Jasmine in the air. The worst of the Mistral passes us by. The old bishops don’t bother us much, nor the city fathers. We mind our own business. The choir is mostly tuneful, the Abbess kind in her own rough way. The sisters are serene without being silent, devout without boring the crap out of you. They look after me even though, God knows, I give them no reason to love me. Apart from the gold.

There are only a few who are old enough to remember the last time I was here—my perfidy, my crimes. A splendid place to die. Lucky it doesn’t burn easily, eh?