God's Callgirl (32 page)

I complained to my sisters at a meeting that they weren’t accepting me. The superior headed off the psychological equivalent of a lynch party. The storm of angry comments only confirmed my belief.

I received letters from various superiors who had known me in the past. ‘Be patient and kind, Sister,’ was the tone of every one of them. But my heart hardened. I replied in plain language: ‘No one wants to listen to me; and all you want is to sweet-talk me into being a “good girl”, to be quiet and stop being a nuisance.’ It did not go down very well at all. This was not the FCJ spirit I had been brought up in.

I lived with a bunch of people who were emotionally more stable than I was, but not necessarily more mature. They were able to sacrifice themselves for the common good, weathering the storms while they resented those who rocked their boat.

A NEW CONCESSION
allowed nuns to choose their own priest as confessor and mentor, which meant they were no longer reliant on the likes of the local parish priest for confession and guidance and also less dependent on their Mother Superior.

Father Doherty, who had led our seven-day retreat that year, became my mentor. I liked him because of his admiration for Teilhard de Chardin, the excommunicated heretic with a scientific and lyrical passion for God. Father Doherty was stationed in Melbourne, so our communication was by correspondence. I poured out my frustrations to him and he replied with soothing letters, offering understanding and dispassionate good advice.

‘I trust that you will not forget,’ he wrote, ‘that it was the patience of men like Congar, de Lubac and Karl Rahner that eventually made possible the great work of Vatican II.’ Well, that made me feel so humble and insignificant! I was no great brain compared to these famous characters; he was gently pointing out that I was just a nun (not terribly well informed) and shouldn’t take on too much responsibility for changing anything. ‘Do try to be patient, Sister. Try to see the others’ points of view. The way ahead is a gradual one, which means we all have to move together, in mutual respect and charity.’

I did try. But I was on fire, and didn’t understand the hesitation of my sisters. ‘Father,’ I replied, ‘my sisters are deliberately obstructing change, and they are doing it to obstruct
me
!’ He did not reply to that. What can you say to a young nun who is developing the first signs of paranoia?

I was not the only headache in the order. If I wanted to go too fast, some did not want to move at all. The suffering of some of the older, very faithful sisters was intense. These nuns inwardly endured the crumbling of the whole premise
of their holiness. The changes ‘proved’ that the foundation of the rules had been shaky all along—like the church’s doctrine of limbo, for instance. They had given themselves up to what they thought was righteousness and were now faced with having been wrong. Had they been living a life of foolishness instead of ultimate perfection?

The minds of a few turned to jelly at this destruction of their inner security; they became senile. One such nun spent all her remaining days in the top storey of her convent, among the linen. She was always carrying parcels of linen from one place to put them somewhere else. With her very fine face, large staring eyes and tight mouth, she became the living ghost of the convent.

THE NEW REGULATIONS
allowed nuns to spend time away from the convent, to visit their families. In the past we had been told over and over that to be a nun was to ‘leave your father and your mother and brothers and sisters and come, follow me’—words attributed to Jesus. Now we were allowed to return to our relatives and even spend several days with them.

Our families were delighted and a little embarrassed, not least of all my parents. The daughter once so far removed had suddenly come among them again!

We went to the movies together, my mother, my sister Liesbet and me. We saw
Far From the Madding Crowd
and
The Sound of Music.

We nuns were still heavily obliged not to divulge any ‘religious community matters’ out of loyalty to the order and the community we belonged to. I was completely loyal and never uttered a word of complaint or blame to my family. I reinforced their picture of me as a happy nun, the
same picture they knew from the regular letters I sent them. For their part, they didn’t share any of their own worries, thinking it their duty to entertain me.

NEW THINKING SOON
inspired more new thought. It occurred to me to ask to learn to play the piano. I had always been attracted to the piano but there wasn’t one at home, and when the Billingses from across the road had offered to let me use theirs, I was thought by the music mistress at Vaucluse to be too old to start learning at sixteen.

So here I was at the age of twenty-eight, feeling the urge to train my long fingers for the piano. I knelt by my superior’s chair and put my request to her. She busied herself with some papers while she considered it. She didn’t seem particularly inclined to refuse, but she couldn’t feel any enthusiasm for the idea. Then she came up with a suggestion. ‘I shall ask Sister Cecilia to give you an audition,’ she said, ‘to gauge your ability.’

I was happy with her answer and confident, because I knew one thing for certain: I had rhythm and pitch in my blood; I could sing both alto and soprano. The day came, and Sister Cecilia, who had won a prize at some time in her life for brushing her teeth correctly, demonstrated a few musical phrases for me to imitate, then a few more, and a few more. She said nothing, but her verdict came about a week later, when I asked my superior.

‘I’m afraid you don’t have any talent for music at all,’ came the cool reply. ‘Sister Cecilia is very sorry, but in her opinion that is so. I can’t afford to give lessons to someone who has no aptitude, Sister.’

My heart didn’t want to accept this. It was one thing to be refused, but quite another to be told I had no musical
talent whatsoever. This wasn’t true, but there was nothing I could do about it. The insidious snake of anger injected some of its venom inside me; another drop into the poisonous pit.

Soon after, something else occurred to me: this time I wanted to learn to drive. Since the introduction of the reforms the convent had acquired a car, and nuns could now visit the doctor and dentist, instead of them having to drag their gear along to the convent. The car was also used for shopping and for outings. At first, however, no one knew how to drive! When necessary, we had always been chauffeured by a lay teacher or a friend of the convent. It was considered a favour to the community to learn to drive and so be of service. I offered with a great deal of enthusiasm and was surprised by the total lack of appreciation for my offer. An immediate flat refusal came, with no thanks, not even a lift of the head this time.

If the hierarchy had no control over the way I discussed our vows and religious life, they certainly had the power to frustrate my desires to grow into a more useful and expanded human being, or to ask for anything out of the ordinary. My heart thumped in desperate frustration, but what right had I to assume that I would be allowed to drive? I so much wanted to spread my wings, but others might be better at it.

A week or so later I noticed Sister Madeleine with a sling around her arm. ‘I caught my arm in the steering,’ she said honestly. I smiled wryly. It wouldn’t have happened to me, I said to myself. The hot feeling of having been denied was still with me, but it was funny to see my superior’s choice walking about with a broken arm. Yet I knew that if all the nuns in the convent broke an arm, I would still not be chosen.

If I was not to play the piano, I could still choose to play records at recreation time, under the new regulations. I stood up so everyone could hear what I had to say. ‘Does anyone want to come with me to the concert hall to listen to music and to dance?’

There was a silence so that all might consider my suggestion, but no one wanted to come with me. I didn’t really expect anyone to. Waltzes, minuets and ballet music—I danced to all of it, magnificently and totally alone, with the music resounding so loudly that it must have reached the ears of my sisters in the common room. I thought that maybe if they heard the music they would feel like dancing, but it never happened, and from week to week my dance became more lonesome and poignant. Self-pity beckoned seductively; the lid of Pandora’s box of hidden emotions was slowly opening.

THE NEXT TIME
I went for my weekly private session with Reverend Mother, I asked her if she would be a mother to me for a little while. What did I have in mind, she asked, her tone cool as her cheeks took on a deeper colour and her eyes glinted in her attempt not to look at me too closely.

‘I want you to hold me,’ I said, ‘like a mother.’ And she did, God bless her kindness, while I cried helpless tears.

My sobs spoke to Mother Clare’s heart, and she held me patiently against her bosom, so I could smell the special soap she used and feel her softness. Neither she nor I had any idea what these tears were about, but they seemed endless, coming from a pit of sorrow she hoped I would soon see the bottom of. Instead, my need grew bigger. Sometimes I wouldn’t be able to function at all unless I was first held like a child, kneeling beside her on the floor, wetting her habit shawl and taking up her valuable time.

The schoolchildren were exposed to the fact that their nun teacher was human: she came to class with red eyes and nose. They might have talked about it among themselves, but took no further notice. I was more a function and utility to them than a person, and what they couldn’t understand they easily dismissed. Nuns were supposed to suffer.

The changes hadn’t done away with penances; they were still very much in vogue. This was an area of convent life I did not challenge. Instead, I adopted a new penance that was particularly painful for me, which was to stand up in the classroom when my legs were tired, until I could hardly stand up any more. My legs had varicose veins, and they hurt.

Even more painful, and unplanned, were the premenstrual cramps that had begun to attack me, sometimes in the middle of a lesson. The blood would leave my head, I would turn pale as death and become unsteady on my feet. I stumbled out of class one day, asking a girl to run and tell the headmistress. I didn’t know that it was premenstrual tension; I just thought I had a bellyache. The infirmarian wisely gave me a hot water bottle to hold against my stomach as I lay curled up on the bed.

During that year a host of emerging energies—forbidden and dangerous—leapt up within me. I used all my desperate willpower to suppress them in order to stay functional, but the volcanoes inside clamoured to erupt. I became more and more confused, and would have happily buried myself in my superior’s bosom to cry myself to death.

One of the older nuns accosted me and said she was worried about Mother Clare. ‘You are taking up too much of her time,’ she said, ‘and your behaviour worries her. I beg you to be more considerate.’

Sister Antoinette managed to cheer me up. She would lift her eyes to me and whisper words of comfort from her hare-lipped mouth. As a virtual outsider to the process of renewal—she was a lay sister and therefore hardly counted—she had plenty of time to reflect, and was able to assess better than most what was going on.

‘Don’t take any notice of them,’ she’d say with her lovely little rabbit smile. ‘They can’t hurt you if you don’t take any notice of them.’ Such simple, wise words. That is exactly what
she
was doing: letting every new thing wash over her. Sister Antoinette knew that it was important to love God and keep your mouth shut, but secretly she admired me for my vocal stance. She agreed with my views, but wisely knew her limits.

MOTHER WINIFRED WAS
now a well-recognised resident of Broadstairs and was sent on an official visit to the convent of Our Lady of the Angels. We prepared a musical concert for her. Along with all the others, I sang my heart’s devotion to God, to the Society and to her. I earnestly wanted her to know, from my singing, that my intentions were good; that I had ‘the right spirit’ after all. But, alas, Mother Winifred seemed not to notice me. Her eyes went everywhere as she smiled with that full set of good teeth in her broad, ruddy face, but they never met mine. I felt I was shouting into a vacuum.

The purpose of her visit was to gauge our progress and report back to Broadstairs. She saw each of us, one by one. When it came to my turn, as soon as I knelt by her side I was warned not to be critical of authority. ‘Sister Carla, it is my duty to remind you of the spirit of our society, and to beg you to honour it.’

Her bushy eyebrows frowned as first she pleaded with me, then commanded me, to toe the line. She would have preferred it if I never opened my mouth again on any subject, instead waiting mutely for improvements to develop in their own time.

I knew it wasn’t any use opening my heart to her and asking for her understanding, never mind her support. She wasn’t unkind, but she obviously had a preconceived agenda on that visit to Benalla. She did not make any effort to befriend me or to make me understand that she appreciated anything about me whatsoever. There might have been overarching changes, but nothing had happened to change her attitude towards me; nor did she show any sign of respect for those who, like me, wanted to throw their energies into suggesting and making improvements.

Upon her departure, she did not say an individual goodbye and left me with a deep pain in my heart.

I WAS CALLED
to Mother Clare’s side once more.‘Sister,’ she said, ‘you are no longer to write to your sister at Genazzano. I have it from her superior that you are influencing her the wrong way. This is an order, and I expect you to obey.’

This was very painful, because my letters to my sister were a sort of catharsis. I tried to obey, but I needed
someone
to listen to me. So that no one would see me, I wrote to her on toilet paper, while sitting on the toilet. I stole an envelope and stamp from my superior’s desk and watched what happened to letters left in the vestibule for collection. I got to know the regular time and surreptitiously added my letter in among the others just before collection time. Genazzano was a big convent. My sister received my letters and no one noticed that they were from Benalla.