Obedience (16 page)

He explained how he had found her, visiting every parish in and around the town, talking after Mass to the priests and the older parishioners, making himself amiable, slightly forlorn. He had kept notes, recording in a small black notebook all the possible clues that might help him track down his mother. He had been thorough. And eventually he had found rumours he could cling to,
half-memories, stunted stories. He had found her out, his mother but not his ‘real' mother, the nun who had given birth one bloody morning in spring, on the floor of the village wash house. He had hesitated, he said, before writing to her, on account of her vocation. She might not, he appreciated, want to rekindle her shame. She might want to forget him. He would understand. He was in any case, he assured her, in all respects other than biological heredity, already a son to someone else. He hoped soon to be a father. This had made him anxious about his own paternity and conception, that was all. It had taken hold of him, the need to know himself. He wasn't sure why. He hoped she didn't mind.

‘Is it bad news, Sister?' asked Mother Catherine, as Bernard crumpled the letter in her fist.

He must have visited Bernard's parish without her ever knowing, sitting perhaps a pew or two behind her habitual place in the second row, listening to the old priest intone the Mass, watching with her the host lifted above the solid stone altar in trembling hands and joining her in the ragged chorus of hosannas.

‘I don't know,' she said.

One Sunday, to Bernard a Sunday like any other, she had shared communion with her son, and God, grumbling in her ear, had never let on.

‘I would like to see the letter. If I may.'

Bernard handed it over. Mother Catherine uncreased it carefully, her bony fingers clawing at the paper, and she read it through with her face close to the page, peering. It took some time.

‘Indeed,' she said. ‘Unexpected.'

There was a pause.

‘You would not want to respond, Sister,' she asked, though not as a question.

Bernard, who could hardly make out anything above the roar of God, shook her head.

‘Our sins find us out – always, in the end. We cannot hide our true nature from God.' Mother Catherine looked hard at Bernard with something like satisfaction. ‘I'll keep the letter, shall I?'

‘If you would, Mother,' said Bernard.

Bernard thought about her son as she went about her chores. She turned over every word of what he had written, finding nothing but stony ground beneath. Then one day, a long time later, from the phone booth by the fountain in the village, during office hours, she rang the finance division at the local town hall where Philippe, in his letter, said he had worked.

‘I have an enquiry about… pensions,' Bernard said.

‘Yes,
madame
. And how old are you?'

‘Fifty-seven.'

‘And do you work?'

‘Not exactly.'

‘Have you ever worked?'

Bernard did not think about the long hours of painful labour she had submitted to the glory of God. ‘Not really,' she said.

‘Very good. Please hold the line while I connect you,' said the voice.

In time Bernard was put through to a young man who knew about pensions. It was not Philippe, and he was
unable to help her with her financial planning once she told him that she was a nun. But he was polite and she had imagined him sitting behind a neat desk in the well-lit offices of the town hall, perhaps only a room or two away from her son.

Over the next few years, irregularly, Bernard made calls to the finance office. Each time she rang she changed the nature of her enquiry so that she was put through to a variety of departments, none of which could ever help her with her imaginary query but all of which were unfailingly polite and cheerful. To her relief she was never able to speak to Philippe himself. But over time she discovered that he was a team leader within the accounts department. This was already a responsible position and from there his career continued to flourish. Bernard's son became a successful man. Sometimes, when she thought about this, she felt the swell of too much breath, but mostly she hated him the more. She imagined him having everything he could wish for – a big house with vines and fruit trees, a car with space for the children, holidays each summer at the coast. She thought of him always in the sunshine.

Hurrying across the kitchen early one morning to reach a pan of foaming milk, rising, almost boiling, Bernard knocked a jar of pickles from the crowded shelves. Disgusted by her clumsiness, God yelled at her, pestering her to go into the storeroom to find some old newspapers in which to wrap the sticky shards of glass. She cleaned the pan and wiped up the worst of the mess before going down the narrow steps into the dark storeroom, the smell of drying onions and hung garlic thrown up in the dust as
she pushed the wooden door. She took two papers from the top of the pile, long stored and fading, and hurried back, flaying them sheet by sheet to wrap the broken jar. She had almost calmed God's wrath, was almost finished and was adding a final layer of paper for extra safety, when she glanced down to see the obituary of Philippe Pourcel, town hall director of finance and victim of lung cancer.

It was the name in bold type that caught Bernard's attention. Pourcel was a local name, common on shop fronts and garage signs, but even so it was enough to suspend Bernard's hand, shaking, over the wrapped pickle jar as she read down the short entry. She read slowly and awkwardly, tripping over words, but nonetheless there was enough to convince her that the dead man was indeed her son. The obituary made much of his long service to the town's finance department. It listed, briefly, some of his professional achievements. She looked hard at the unappealing photograph of the man she had never seen. She was able to come to few conclusions.

Bernard tore off a strip of newspaper including the obituary and used the remainder of the page for the final layer of wrapping. It was almost time for morning prayer and she was hurried. When the bell rang to summon her, she wedged the torn piece of paper deep into her pocket and set the wrapped jar carefully on the refectory table until she could find time to take it to the bins outside. She bustled along the corridors to the chapel and was not late, although all the rest of her sisters were already assembled and on their knees. Kneeling herself, choosing a worn corner of the chilly floor away from the rest of the pews,
Bernard took her rosary into her fingers as usual and was about to begin the morning office with the others when she realized that God was silent. Not pausing, not waiting, inhaling, pondering, choosing a phrase, licking His lips or considering her pleas. Just silent.

This took Bernard's breath away. She fainted.

It was the first time she had ever been to the doctor. In the dark waiting room at the front of the house she sat next to a farmer who advised her pleasantly on the best way to birth a calf. Opposite, perched on a low cane stool, was a boy with a bulging goitre which pushed his head up at a strange cocked angle. He winked at her. But the silence filling her head was so pristine that she was hardly aware of any of this; she did not know where she was.

When her turn came to go through into the surgery at the back, she sucked in so much air so suddenly that she exploded into a coughing fit that she thought was going to kill her. The doctor, less alarmed, sat back in his chair and waited. He found something on his cuff to interest him. When the coughing subsided, he asked her to unbutton the front of her habit so that he could listen to her chest. He came round to her and bent towards her, pressing the side of his face against her bare flesh. The skin of his ear was warm, unexpectedly soft, like summer butter. Bernard wondered if most ears were like his. Her own, as far as she could tell, were more sinewy, like spinach stalks. He asked her to breathe, long and slow.

He pressed her tongue with a stick and examined her throat. He looked closely at her eyes, pulling at the thin skin below them. Finally he shone a light into each of her ears.

‘There's no infection, Sister. Nothing I can see.'

‘No,' said Bernard, unsurprised.

‘Do you have soreness, or discharge, something on your pillow?'

‘No, Doctor.'

‘And ringing? Like bells, all the time?'

‘No.'

The doctor leant back. ‘What is it then? What exactly is your concern?'

‘I used to be able to hear God,' Bernard said. ‘And now I can't.'

The doctor grinned. ‘I'm sure He can still hear you,' he said, breathing a soft laugh through his teeth. But her face was tight and he saw that she was serious. He pushed back his chair with a quick squeak and turned away to the sink in alarm.

There was a difficult pause.

‘Have you spoken to the priest about this perhaps?' he said at last.

‘I thought it best to seek a medical opinion,' said Bernard.

‘But I'm not sure it's a medical matter.'

Bernard nodded quickly, pressing him. ‘Oh yes, I'm sure it is,' she said. ‘I'm sure He's still talking – I just can't hear Him. It'll be a blockage somewhere, I should think, like a drain.'

The doctor steepled his fingers stiffly. ‘No,' he said. ‘There's nothing. I've done a thorough examination.'

‘Perhaps I need an X-ray,' said Bernard, having no idea what such a thing was.

The doctor seemed to be thinking about this.

‘When did this happen? When did you notice it?' he asked.

‘Yesterday,' said Bernard, remembering the moment.

‘You came straight away, then?'

‘As soon as I could.'

‘And it happened suddenly?'

‘Very. Yesterday morning, during morning prayers, I stopped hearing God. I haven't had a word from Him since.'

‘Perhaps you should give Him time,' suggested the doctor.

‘There is no time with God,' Bernard reminded him.

The doctor looked unhappy and baffled. Bernard felt she should explain to him, the way God had been with her, scolding sometimes with terrible fury, but mostly grumbling, His commentary foolish and dull. But she could not think how to begin.

‘It was yesterday,' she said again. ‘There was suddenly nothing.'

‘And you can't remember doing anything unusual,' asked the doctor. ‘Bumping your head, falling, even eating something different?'

Bernard did not want to tell him about fainting at prayers. She thought it might distract him.

‘It was an ordinary morning,' she said.

The doctor twisted in his seat and tapped the dark bound book on his desk.

‘I don't know what to suggest,' he said. ‘It's most unusual. It's not something I've come across before. Not exactly. I normally deal with things that are more… practical.'

Bernard's disappointment creased across her face.

‘I'm sorry,' the doctor said kindly. ‘I wish I could be of more help. You were right to come to me, Sister. Perhaps we could make you another appointment, for a week or so, to see if there's any progress, to see if you can hear Him again.'

He was reaching for his pen, putting an end to the consultation. But the sudden alarm in Bernard's voice made him hesitate; his hand hung in the air.

‘You think He might come back, Doctor?'

The doctor seemed unsure what kind of answer to give.

‘Who can tell in a case of this kind?' he said.

‘But please. Tell me. In your opinion, do you think He might come back?'

‘I don't know.'

Walking from the surgery, Bernard crossed under the dark arcades that surrounded the square. The ground sloped. At the top end, stone steps led up to a row of medieval buildings, their rooflines uneven and their top storeys open, a remnant of old trades. Here and there balconies had been added, mostly rusting now and unused. And planted at the foot of the steps, reaching up almost to the top of the houses, was a massive iron cross, elaborately worked, its Christ figure lean. Bernard went to the foot of the cross and stood there. She was full of the sweating fear that this might only be a temporary lull, a kind of holiday, a balm for her tired hearing, before it all began again, the endless, inane, bad-tempered chatter that was God; she pressed her hands tight against her ears, trapping the sound of her own breathing. She looked up
at the suffering Christ, splattered here and there across the shoulders with white streaks of pigeon droppings. A man came to the balustrade above her, leaning over and watching her for a moment. A slight bird swept across the sky above the cross, disappearing over the maze of streets. She wept.

When she arrived back at the convent she kept noise simmering around her. She put herself in the busiest places, she scraped furniture and clanked dishes and slammed doors. When there was nothing else, she whistled. She could not allow the quiet to settle in case it let Him back in. But when the night came, there were only the faintest of sounds, lingering, and nothing more Bernard could do. She knelt by her bed and waited. She noticed how soft the air of the convent was, coming quietly to her in this way, what comfort there was in the barely perceptible breath of it. And as the night passed, tender and undemanding, blank, bereft of God, Bernard offered praise. The relief was glorious.

Somewhere towards dawn, as the dark lifted very slightly, Bernard felt in her skirt pocket for the torn piece of newspaper. She stared at it hard in the still dense grey, trying to make out something. She wondered what it was about the distorted man in the photo that could silence God. She was newly afraid of him. She threw the cutting away, hard, but heard it flutter to the floor too near to the bed. She felt for it, feeling panicky, but she could not find it and it was not until the first light edged round the hinges of the shutters that she managed to pick out the tone of the newspaper from the flat colour of the floor. With shaking hands she picked up the ragged obituary and put
it with her pile of papers on the top of the dresser, tucking it purposely away from the top so that it might not catch her eye.