Sacred Hearts (37 page)

Inside, on the floor by the mattress, a figure is crouched, so small and bowed it looks more goblin than human, the head larger than the body and naked, save for a covering of white stubble over scabby skin.

For a moment Zuana stands transfixed in the doorway. Then as she goes closer the keening turns into words.

“See—oh, yes, you can see Him. Yes, yes, I know you can. He is come to welcome you back. Oh, see how He bleeds for you, Serafina. Feel His breath on your face. If you open your eyes He will be there. He has been waiting for you to find Him. He has been waiting so long for you.”

“Suora Magdalena.” Zuana tries to keep her own voice gentle.

The old woman does not turn but simply tilts her head to one side, like a beady-eyed bird detecting a sound. “Not yet, not yet. I am with the child. See—she is better.” She gives a sudden girlish giggle. “See what He has done for her?”

And as she comes closer, Zuana does indeed see. For the girl, lying on her side on the mattress, is awake, her eyes open and blinking.

Zuana takes a sharp breath and moves toward her, dropping to her knees next to the old woman.

“Serafina!” she says urgently.

The eyes are huge in her thin face, and there is a strange blankness to them, as if she has woken to something she does not yet understand. Three months ago she had been so young. Well, she is not young anymore. But she is alive.

“Welcome, welcome.” Zuana cannot stop smiling. The girl stares at her, then seems to give a small nod.

“What happened?” Zuana’s question is directed at the old woman, but she is not listening, simply rocking to and fro, singing to herself, the holy goblin returned.

Behind, out in the courtyard, Zuana can hear people moving. She must get up and close the door.

It is already too late.

“Oh, Sweet Lord Jesus, she is alive!” Suora Umiliana is standing in the doorway, a few brave souls willing to risk disobedience gathered behind her. “Suora Magdalena has brought her back to us.”

But Magdalena is not listening to her either. She has taken hold of the girl’s hand, thin claw on soft flesh, and is stroking the skin. “See, see, I said He would come.”

The girl tries to pull herself up on the mattress but does not have the strength. Zuana supports her until she is almost sitting.

Umiliana is inside the cell now, others crowding in behind her.

Serafina opens her mouth a little, moving her tongue around her blistered lips. She looks at Zuana, then out across the room.

“I saw Him,” she says—and though hers is a sad little voice, its silky beauty all burned out, it reaches everyone in the room. “Yes, I do think I saw Him.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

IN THE BEGINNING
there was nothing. Just darkness, blessed darkness, deep and soft, like being wrapped in swaths of black velvet and held within the silence of an eternal night sky. No past. No future. No present. And it was good, this nothingness, an oblivion of mercy with no pain.

It had descended upon her as she moved across the gardens. She did not have to do anything. After all that had been done, nothing more was asked of her. She was not even scared. Zuana’s arms were around her, her voice was in her ears, and she was safe.

“Help me, Serafina. Walk a little, yes? Oh, sweet child, I am so sorry.”

She wants to tell her it is all right. It doesn’t matter anymore. She wants to say she is the one who should be sorry, not Zuana. To thank her for what she has done, and to ask forgiveness, for she is not yet so lost that she doesn’t know that what took place on the dock between them will bring trouble on her head.

“No, no, don’t try to speak. Save your strength. Just a little farther. We can talk later.”

Only there will be no
later
. Because when the drowsiness comes it is not to be argued with. Behind it she feels the pull of the darkness, with its deep rich velvet touch.

“We are nearly there. Keep walking, keep walking.”

And she does walk, because she does not want to disappoint Zuana, not again. But after a while she has to stop, because the nothingness wraps itself around her and takes her away. And, just as she hoped, there is no pain.

•    •    •

EXCEPT, EXCEPT—
how can this be?—it does not last. How long she floats in the velvet black she has no idea. But she knows when it ends. Knows when the dark is torn apart by scorching white pain. Someone is hammering a long nail into the center of her stomach. After the first there is another, then another. Once inside, the nails become scissors, slicing and chopping her innards into pieces small enough to be able to come out of her mouth. It happens so fast that she barely registers the nausea before the stuff is already up in her throat. The force of it sends her reeling so powerfully that if something or someone had not been holding her she would have fallen over. She watches in horror as her insides explode out of her mouth. The shock is almost worse than the pain. The next time the hammer hits, the nail goes through her stomach into the bowels beneath. The sound of her groans and the smell of her own decay are everywhere.

She tries to breathe, to find her way back to the blessed darkness, but when she gets there it isn’t blessed at all. She sees herself suspended, arms and legs dangling uselessly on either side, a spiked pole rammed through her, anus to mouth, like an animal on a spit ready for roasting. And when she looks around she is not alone. There are hundreds, even thousands, like her, figures stretching into the darkness as far as she can see, their bodies eviscerated, roasted, grilled, sliced, and diced into bleeding bits by an army of squat, grinning torturers, black as the night they are born out of. There is flesh and pulp everywhere, and the terrible emptiness of silent screams, each soul locked forever in its own suffering.

“Oh, but we did not sin like this,” she hears herself say. “It was love, not lust, I swear. Bodies singing together, that was all …Oh, Jacopo.” But even as the words form, her offending lips are wrenched open and another stream of bile pours out.

Now as she looks around, instead of devils in the darkness she sees a water rat, sleek wet fur like a black veil around its head, face pale and twitching, teeth drawn, ready to sink into her insides. It looks up at her and smiles.

“Sometimes one must use a poison to cure a poison. Don’t be frightened, Serafina. It will not last forever,” it says, before the fangs go back in and the agony returns.

Farther into eternity, when her guts are on the floor and there is nothing more to lose, she comes far enough out of the pain to open her eyes onto the inside of her cell. She knows it must be her cell from the crucifix on the wall.

She fixes her gaze on it to keep from sliding back into hell. She studies how He hangs there, slumped forward against the nails, ribs pushing out against His skin, each muscle singing in agony. Oh, yes, He understands pain. He knows what it is to be consumed by suffering, the terror and the terrible aloneness of it. Oh, no one should be so alone. She keeps Him in her mind after her eyes close: His bloodied face, His lacerated body. He would be so beautiful were He not in agony. She sees a young man standing tall, hair falling and curling over broad shoulders, the smooth unblemished skin of his chest and the fine, fine face: high forehead, full lips, and clean clear gaze. If one loves him broken, how much would one love him whole? Oh, Jacopo, where were you? A good savior. Such strength, such goodness.

He does not really care for you. You are not worth the trouble you would cause him
.

No. No. No. But He cares. Look at Him—oh, yes, He cares. Always. Whatever the trouble, He cares enough to climb up the stairs onto His own cross and hang there in agony for an eternity waiting for her.

“I’m sorry. I am sorry…”

She tries to say the words loud enough for Him to hear but the slicing starts again, and all that is there is the long groan of her own voice.

The darkness returns, changed again. No bodies now but also no velvet. Instead parched stone, hard, unforgiving, stretching up and out all around her, and she must lie on it forever and ever. At least she has no bones. They have been ground up and vomited out or melted in the furnace of her insides. Her limbs are filled with sand, so heavy it means she cannot move at all unless the pain does the moving for her. And everywhere is so dry—no moisture anywhere, only sand. In her body, in her mouth. She cannot swallow. She is so thirsty. So thirsty.

Now someone lifts her head and puts a finger across her lips, moving droplets of water inside her mouth. How it stings! After so much agony it is wonderful to be able to feel such a small, distinct pain. Then there is more water. It dribbles into her mouth, burns down the back of her neck. She chokes. It hurts, but not enough to stop. She takes more, would be greedy if the hand did not gently resist her. Her insides start to groan and heave as it hits, and she feels herself retching, but nothing comes out.

Later—is it days or only hours?—she realizes that the pain has stopped.

She is flooded with relief, the utter joy of feeling nothing. Serenity like a flat surface of water: no ripple, no wind, nothing, just the wonder of being still. How is it possible for it to have gone? For there to have been so much of it and now none at all? How does that happen? How much care does it take? What kind of miracle?

“Dominussalvedeigratias.”

The singing is high and thin. She moves her eyes up from the still surface of the water to see a bank of reeds moving in the wind. And there is light now, she thinks. Surely it must be the sun, because she can feel warmth on her skin. In the distance there is a heat haze across the world, and inside it something— a figure?—walking toward her.

“See? Oh, yes, can you see Him, Serafina? Oh, He cares so much. He sent me to wake you.”

It is a strange voice, childish except for the cracks of age in it. She knows it immediately, feels it inside as a familiar hollowness. She concentrates on the image ahead of her. The air is so warm. No wonder everything shimmers so. Within the shimmer a figure forms, tall flowing hair, then seems to unform again, as if stumbling, and is engulfed in haze again.

“See how His poor hands and feet bleed. But He smiles for you. He has been waiting for you. He is come to welcome you back.”

Back. She feels a sudden terrible ache inside her, as if after her innards they have scooped out her womb. But she keeps on looking and He is closer now. Yes, yes, she sees Him: that beautiful broad forehead pierced by a line of fat little wounds, the eyes clear, filled with so much understanding.
He
cares.
He
would not leave.
He
loves me.

“If you open your eyes He will be there.”

She lets out a slight cry. She knows she must wake now. Knows that is what He wants her to do.

She opens her eyes. It is gray in the cell. No shimmer or light here. The smell is foul and stale. On the wall Christ hangs forlornly off the cross. Next to her the shriveled figure of Magdalena, her face like a pickled walnut, is rocking and laughing with girlish delight.

“Serafina?” And now Suora Zuana is on the floor next to her, her face close to hers, tired but smiling, smiling like the sun. “Oh, welcome, welcome.”

Beyond, in the doorway, she sees Suora Umiliana, with Eugenia, Perseveranza, Apollonia, Felicità, and others peering in around her.

“Sweet Jesus! She is alive! Suora Magdalena has brought her back to us.”

The novice mistress’s happiness is so complete, so infectious, that a few of the nuns behind her start to laugh, too.

The room fills up as she tries to move, but of course her bones are weak and she cannot raise herself off the bed.

The old woman puts out her hand. “See?” she says, with a toothless grin. “See? I said He would come.”

She opens her mouth a little, moving her tongue around her blistered lips. No, she did not escape, did not find a way to get free after all. She looks at Zuana, then out across the room. They are all here, this family with whom she must now live until she dies, until the white hairs grow on her chin and her skin shrivels up like old leather, each and every drop of juice squeezed out of her.

Except she is not dead yet.

“I saw Him,” she says, so softly that the voice barely reaches those inside the room. “Yes, I do think I saw Him.”

“Oh, but it is a miracle.” In contrast, Suora Umiliana’s voice carries far out into the courtyard beyond.