Nun (9781609459109) (16 page)

 

My Dear Mr. Garson,

I beg your pardon if I bother you after nearly four years. I'm not sure you'll remember me, but I've taken up the first novel you gave me again: I reread it with new eyes. It gave me hope. I wish you and your family the greatest happiness. From here I pray for you.

 

His only reply was to send her a new book.

A
t the end of November 1844, Donna Gesuela sent Sandra to inform the abbess, without any further explanation, that she would have no objection to her daughter becoming a nun: she couldn't guarantee payment of the monastic dowry, but she would do her level best. The abbess decided that the following year, once she'd turned nineteen, Agata would study for the admission examinations for simple profession. Then, after her year of novitiate, at the age of twenty-one, Agata could study for her solemn profession.

 

Agata did not welcome her mother's decision with anything resembling relief. Since turning eighteen, she had felt like an adult, a different person. She was no longer happy to remain in the safety of the convent; now she was restless and curious. She wanted to return to ordinary life and work. She had persuaded herself that sooner or later her mother would let her do so. After all, she had the qualifications to do the same work that Miss Wainwright did. But now Agata wanted something different, something more. In response to every note that she sent thanking him for a book and expressing her observations, Garson would send her another book—poetry and novels, at first in English and then in Italian and even French, some modern, others not, romantic, adventuresome, and melodramatic—these books only increased her restlessness. She dreamed of emulating the heroines of the novels and she desired the love of a man. Very much. Oh, so very much. Then reality swept over her: she was penniless and unwanted by her family, with her back to the wall. So she set about trying to “want” her vocation, but all too soon she succumbed again to the siren call of the world outside. She asked Sandra to hide something for her to read in the basket of personal linen that she sent home to wash, and she avidly listened to everything the other nuns reported after visits from their relations. From Sandra's newspapers she received a hodgepodge of information about current world events, but she couldn't seem to put it into any order: in Germany there had been an uprising among the weavers against the owners of the spinning mills in a bid to improve salaries and working conditions; in the Antilles, there was the insurrection of the people of Santo Domingo against the Republic of Haiti, which had in turn won its independence by rebelling against French colonization; in English, labor organizations were demanding more inclusive electoral reforms and universal suffrage; in the Holy Land, the Ottoman Empire, in response to internal and external pressure, had allowed the return of the Jews; in Calabria the royal army had drowned in blood the revolt instigated by the Bandiera brothers, two adherents of the Giovine Italia, a revolutionary sect that was calling for the creation of an Italian republic instead of a unified Kingdom of Italy. She had also learned, both through Sandra and from other nuns, that a book written by Vincenzo Gioberti, a Piedmontese priest living in exile in Brussels,
Del primato morale e civile degli italiani—The Moral
and Political Primacy of the Italians
, called for the unity of Italy in a confederation under the leadership of the pope.

 

Agata understood that, beneath the apparent calm of the kingdom and of the rest of the world, social tensions were rumbling like the magma under Mt. Etna, ready to erupt. No longer certain she'd always enjoy the protection of the convent, she was afraid of an uncertain future.

 

She turned to the teacher of the novices, Donna Maria Giovanna della Croce, who became for her an example and an informal spiritual guide. With her help, she came to appreciate silence as one of the paths that lead to God, and she attained the level of self-awareness whereby every action becomes prayer, and prayer becomes contemplation, in turn transcending reality and leading to the vastness of the Divine. Agata told her that she felt isolated in her cloistered life. “Our life is stable, but it is neither repetitive nor monotonous: we operate on liturgical time, our working day is not punctuated only by our praise of God and the personal dimension of solitude. There is not a single day that is identical to another day. We are not isolated,” she replied. Agata told her that she wanted to do good and alleviate the sufferings of others, of children, of the sick. “Prayer joins us with the outside world and, like a thurible full of incense, it purifies that which surrounds us as it burns.” The suffering and the calvary of Christ, upon which the monastic day was modeled, was nothing other than a way of growing. They talked about the renunciations implicit in the condition of nunhood. “It's normal for there to be critical moments, they form part of our process of spiritual growth and they help us to ripen our decision to choose the cloistered life. You must not be afraid of change; you must accept with docility the surprises that life holds in store for us, and savor them to the fullest.” Agata revealed to her the secret of her intense desire to fall in love, be fecund, bear children. Donna Maria Giovanna della Croce encouraged her with her usual sweet smile. “Renouncing children is not necessarily the same as renouncing fecundity. We must remain virgins in order to be fecund and to live every second of our lives with Love for the universe. I am in love with silence, through love of God and God alone. Like Mary the sister of Martha, I want to sit at Jesus's feet and listen to His words. You should do the same.”

 

Agata tried.

But, in her conversations with God, Agata revealed to Him the indestructible certainty—which she was forced to smother during the day—that she wasn't suited to seclusion. Every night the truth revealed itself forcefully, and she, by candlelight, immersed herself in books of poetry and the tragic, heartbreaking love stories of the novels concealed under the false bottom of her trunk, all the while yearning for those things to happen to her. By day, she once again believed the persuasive words of Donna Maria Giovanna della Croce. “Wait. You love God. Knowing how to wait teaches you how to enjoy,” she told Agata. “The calling will come. Trust me and do your best to see things through my eyes.”

 

Before being admitted to the simple profession of vows and formally becoming a novice, the postulant was required to pass a colloquium with her spiritual father and with the abbess.

Agata did not lie; she told both her spiritual father and the abbess that while she was happy to take the vows of chastity and poverty, she did not feel the calling; she would do her best to find it. She believed that she had passed her colloquia. Instead the cardinal in person wished to speak with her.

 

They were in the abbess's drawing room, alone and standing face to face.

They looked at one another in silence. Agata was the first to turn her gaze away: from the round window above the door, the light that came filtering through from the cloister fell on the floor in an oval that reminded her of the shape of the
pastenove
that she carved out of the puff pastry dough. “I've heard that you believe that you lack the calling, and that you're worried about it,” the cardinal began. Agata lowered her head in assent. “I don't see why you should be worried,” he went on, with a hint of annoyance in his voice. “St. Teresa of Ávila was obliged to wait many years for her vocation. You are committing the sin of pride, if you try to hasten the process. The calling will come, your spiritual father is certain of it. You have completed fine periods of work in the infirmary and your pastries are selling like hotcakes. But why don't you tell me what you like best about the cloistered life.” And he stepped toward her.

Agata looked up—she hadn't forgotten that many years before he had touched her face—and answered in a rush, to put an end to the conversation: “Listening to the choir and singing.”.

“Explain why.”

“It brings me closer to God.”

At that moment, the bells rang None. A gentle, insistent chiming. He stood looking at her. Then he moved, and strode past her in a rustle of purple fabric, without coming near her. He threw open both panels of the door that led into the hall where the abbess and her secretary were waiting.

“Let's go to the choir together. All of us. From this day forth, Agata Padellani, our future novice, will sing with the choristers.”

 

The nuns were moving through the Chapter Hall and walking down the corridors toward the choir with downcast gazes, occasionally casting sidelong glances at the fluttering hems of the cardinal's cassock; followed by his altar boys, the cardinal was leading the way, walking briskly, erect and proud, by Agata's side.

Agata slipped into the choir and made for the seats in the back. Decisively, the cardinal seized her arm: “I want to see you. Here, next to the mother abbess.” And beneath the astonished eyes of the choristers, the aspiring novice was forced to go over to the abbess and remain there, in full view, blushing from head to foot. When the abbess gave the signal, Agata began the Lauds. It was Psalm 119, the longest in the entire Book of Psalms.

Alone in the sight of God, Agata sang. Like David. And a great feeling of calm spread through her.

O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!

Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments.

I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.

I will keep thy statutes: O forsake me not utterly.

 

Every so often, the abbess looked sidelong at the cardinal. He was on the threshold of the choir, lips compressed, with eyes only for Agata.

 

H
er mother had not replied to the letter the abbess sent her to inform her that Agata, after a conversation with the cardinal, had been accepted for her simple profession and, at the same time, to urge her to bring to conclusion the negotiations for the payment of the monastic dowry.

But when Aunt Orsola heard the good news, she went to the convent to congratulate Agata, accompanied by her brother the admiral. Not only did he renew his offer of a thousand ducats towards Agata's monastic dowry, he declared that he was willing to contribute seven hundred ducats more for the reception. Agata's aunt told her that her mother had not only set aside money for the dowry, but now she fully approved her decision to become a nun—once again, and without providing explanations, on one condition. Agata's simple profession was no longer in doubt.

 

In the long years of cloistered life, Agata had regressed to the world of her childhood—preordained by adults, in which obedience is an absolute requirement—and she had gained access to a spiritual world in which prayer was a step leading upward toward peace. She had diligently read everything available to her, from medical science to theology, and she had been scrupulous in her sacred readings. Outside of that scrupulous devotion, Agata wavered between the hope that she would be visited by her calling—and in that hope she was greatly aided by
The Imitation of Christ
, four slim books by a medieval monk, Thomas à Kempis–and the certainty that she wanted to live in the outside world and find love, like the Bennet sisters.

 

It was in fact over love that Agata was tormenting herself. She loved God. But she also wanted the love of a man, she wanted to have children, she wanted a love made up of the kisses, caresses, and thrills that culminated in the union of two bodies. The closer the moment of her simple profession drew, the more it broke her heart to say farewell to her hope for a love that might lead to motherhood. The ineluctable nature of her monastic fate was, however, softened by her fondness for her aunt the abbess. It was for her that Agata was agreeing to become a nun. She darkened at the thought of what would become of her after her aunt's death.

 

Agata was walking in the cloister. Regular steps, head bowed, hands crossed in front of her—apparently untroubled; but inside, tangled in the throes of turmoil over her mother's unexpected demand: after ignoring her for all these years, now she wanted Agata to spent the last two weeks before her simple profession with her.

She was terrified at the thought of leaving the convent to go to stay at Sandra's house, meet her relatives, see her mother and sisters again—things she'd yearned for over the years. She was afraid of the streets, the carriages, the crowds, the horses, the dogs, the cats, the ungrated windows, the sounds of the city. She thought about all she'd lose during those two weeks. She would be disoriented by days not punctuated by the canonical hours, she'd miss singing in the choir. As she had gradually reduced her expectations, she'd become accustomed to the tiny yet great pleasures of the cloistered life—waiting in expectation: would the eggs in the swallow's nest in the rain gutter hatch? would the clusters of oleander flowers bloom? at dinner, would they serve the soup blended with tomatoes or plain? would the white butterfly fluttering over the castor-oil plant land on the back of her right hand or in the palm of her left hand? She'd learned to love the small things. She'd become accustomed to solitude. She trembled at the thought of chatty women and the idea that she would be forced to answer the inevitable questions. And the thought of being once again tempted by what she had so painfully learned to renounce—when she thought of that, Agata truly desired to be a nun, in full.

 

And so it happened. Agata began thinking of Sandra's comfortable home, full of books and prints of Pompeii. And the pianoforte, which she'd missed so much and would probably no longer know how to play. And music. The harp, the violin, the oboe. The mandolin. And then dance. Now she slipped into her memory of the waltz, unforgettable. There she was again, in the alcove off the drawing room in the home of the Tozzis, dancing with James Garson; together they were pirouetting, beating time, following the rhythm as if they were a single body. She was ready for life. Just as during a lesson, when with a few vigorous strokes of the sponge she erased all the writing on the chalkboard, so too, with just a few sharp blows, Agata had wiped out all the years she'd spent at San Giorgio Stilita. And that wasn't all. Giacomo Lepre no longer existed for her. It was James she desired now, excruciatingly.

In the pharmacy, Agata had just finished preserving a batch of white willow bark. An entire cartload had just come in from some of the convent's farmland. It was a very painstaking operation. Once the bark had been rinsed and dried, she had to chop and dry it a second time to prevent mold. Then she put it into little sacks, carefully noting the dosage on each one: the sacks were sent to other convents and monasteries, in exchange for other medicinal herbs. The willow bark decoction was given to nuns with fevers or for the pain of rheumatism, but it was also given to young nuns suffering from carnal desires, as a sedative.

One evening Agata was so taken with her thoughts of James that she had to run back to the pharmacy to make herself a decoction of white willow bark. The sacks of bark had already been sent out and for the first time in her life, Agata found herself stealing. She took chasteberry to calm her nerves, a remedy that had been handed down by Armenian nuns. Then, curled up in her bed, she broke into sobs of shame and relief.

 

The peace of the cloister, so hard-won, became more of a burden day by day. Then, a yoke to bear. She avoided Donna Maria Giovanna della Croce. She psalmodized in the choir—and was burning to be somewhere else. She was in the middle of doing needlepoint, and she set it aside without even finishing the needleful. They gave her silver paper for her
paperoles
, and she rumpled it in her pocket. Everything that she'd always liked about the cloistered life she suddenly couldn't stand. Agata only wanted to love and be loved by a man.

 

She spent her nights reading by candlelight, like a madwoman: first, the love story by Madame de Staël, the story of Corinne and an Englishman, in which the heroine was admired and feared by men, and therefore destined to a life of solitude. The novel explained Italy and the essence of Italians, and not just to foreigners. Then she read the books of Giuseppe Mazzini, which Tommaso had concealed in her clean laundry, for fear of police searches. The visionary thinking of this man opened a new world to her, a world that gradually became attainable and real; the world she'd always known receded before these unfamiliar images.

By day, Agata was the dutiful future novice, ready for the solemn moment in which she would pledge herself as a bride of Christ, but by night she was a clandestine reader of books outlawed by the king and placed on the Index by the Church. Every morning, she woke up with the taste of forbidden dreams. She was fixated with James Garson and the books he sent her. Agata felt a strange affinity with certain nuns that she'd always avoided till then or had chosen to ignore: each of them had found their own form of forbidden love, there, in seclusion. But she didn't want to wind up like them.

 

Her simple profession was drawing closer. This lie she was living had become an intolerable burden. Agata couldn't become a nun, she could no longer ignore it. She had to tell her aunt the abbess.

Donna Maria Crocifissa was indisposed. She sent for Agata as soon as Angiola Maria told her that her niece wished to speak to her. She was sitting on the terrace, which had been transformed into a veritable little hanging garden, filled as it was with the round and rectangular terracotta pots in which Angiola Maria was capable of getting anything to grow. In that period, both oregano—which was particularly difficult to cultivate in a pot—and mint were flowering, in great profusion. A potted Japanese camellia, the
Oki no Nami
, “waves of the sea,” was at the height of its blooms. Against the background of the blistery foliage—a periwig of glistening green hair—there stood out, as if they'd been pinned in place, the full-bodied flowers with their pink petals, with white striations and edges; from the center of each projected, erect, a dense topknot of yellow pistils. Hypnotized by the opulence and the perfume of the
Oki no Namis
, Agata stood speechless. The abbess coughed to attract her attention. Agata hesitated, then spat out the words, brutally: “I don't have the vocation, I don't want to become a nun.” And she waited, in fear.

Her aunt covered her face with her emaciated hands and sat there, her chest heaving with sobs, her shoulders hunched forward, her head bowed. Her hands resembled the small, feminine hands of Agata's father.

She would become a nun. And that was that.