The Convent: A Novel (11 page)

T
he killing of the dogs plunged the convent into gloom. Even Sister Teresa, who did not like animals and considered them responsible for the spread of all kinds of disease, was stunned by the cruel act and feared for the future. She had no doubt that there would be repercussions but could not guess what they might be. When the nuns had walked out of the chapel, they had seen the dogs lying in the courtyard and had realised to their horror that they were dying and there was nothing that they could do. They had simply stood there, horrified, listening to the dogs yowling until Sister Carlota, always the last out of the door because of her old age, had come up behind them. Then the other women had emerged from their trance but had had no courage to tell her. They stood aside and let her pass without a word, and she, still unaware of the tragedy, thanked them for their good manners, lifted her habit a little, so as not to trip, and climbed down the steps to the courtyard. At the bottom of the steps her weak eyes finally alerted her to the fact that something strange was happening. When she understood what it was, she let out a loud cry and dropped to the ground. The sisters carried her to her room, put her in bed and stayed with her for the rest of the day, not leaving her even to go to the chapel but praying in the room instead.

In the morning the yowling stopped and the nuns knew that the dogs were finally dead. They used a wheelbarrow to carry them, a few at a time, to a clearing in the woods far from any stream, so as not to contaminate the water, and took turns digging a pit several feet deep where they threw them in and covered them with quicklime. Back in the convent they poured water over the dusty courtyard, which was stained with vomit and blood, and swept away the remains of the abominable act which the sun had not yet dried.

All that time Sister María Inés watched them from her room. She had done her duty, but it did not stop her from feeling sorry for Sister Carlota. She wanted to see her and explain the reasons for her action, but put it off for several days, afraid her visit might upset the woman even more. She gave the nuns a bottle of valerian pills with the instruction to give Carlota one every few hours, and enquired after her health every morning and afternoon until the old woman began to recover. Only then did she go to see her.

Dressed in her habit, Sister Carlota was lying in bed. Her eyes were fixed on the wall, her hands were holding the rosary and she was so still that for a moment Sister María Inés feared with a pang of guilt that the old woman was dead. Finally, Sister Carlota turned her head and gave her a glance that calmed the Mother Superior’s fears but also made her regret having come. ‘Ah, Carlota,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

The nun stared at her.

‘I am glad you are feeling better, Carlota. I was worried about you. Did the valerian help?’

‘You are not welcome here,’ the old nun said.

‘You should start coming to prayer again. It will do you good to leave your room.’

‘I won’t join one who worships the Devil.’

‘Be careful, Carlota. Do not let your feelings for those dogs cloud your reason.’

‘Sister Ana was right. You are possessed. Only God can help us now.’

The Mother Superior went crimson. She said: ‘I tolerated your love of animals because it seemed harmless to me. But I was proved wrong.’

The nun’s mouth set in a sneer and she turned her back to Sister María Inés. Facing the wall, she said: ‘All these years I served you with love and obedience. But what you did was horrible. May God have mercy on you.’

Sister María Inés checked her anger. ‘You may rest another day. Then I expect you in the chapel.’

In the days that followed Sister María Inés avoided the nuns. She led the daily prayers in the chapel but did not speak to them unless it was to give them instructions for their duties. She did not greet them when she came across them or acknowledge their presence even with a glance. In the refectory, she ate quickly and then returned to her room, where she spent most of her time, caring for the child and reading the books she fetched from the library. A few times she was seen in the shed working on the Ford. She began to mistrust everyone and became suspicious of the slightest sound: the rats in the corners of the room, the owls in the roof, the footsteps outside her door, the clanking of the pans in the kitchen. It was not an unreasonable fear. Sister Beatriz had told her that Sister Ana had been to the city and spoken to the Bishop.

At least Sister Beatriz was still her ally and helped her with the child, despite being as shocked by her actions as the other nuns. Sister Beatriz knocked on her door, in fact, more often than ever, making Sister María Inés suspect that it was because she no longer trusted her with the child. To prove the young woman wrong, Sister María Inés was even more attentive to him. She still allowed Sister Beatriz to prepare his milk but mostly fed him herself. Having long forgotten the songs of her childhood, which in itself had become an implausible memory at her age, she had to invent her own lullabies and nursery rhymes for the child. She sang them only if she was certain that there was no one within earshot, not so much because she knew that she was contradicting herself when she had reprimanded Sister Teresa for her singing (she no longer cared whether or not the sisters respected her decisions so long as they obeyed them), but because she was aware of the limitations of her own voice. In one of the abandoned buildings of the convent, she found, under thick cobwebs, the sewing machine a seamstress had used to make the habits of the new arrivals in the former days of glory, when the convent was home to tens of nuns. Sister María Inés asked Sister Beatriz to help her carry it to her room and fix it so that she could sew clothes for the child, which she then dyed in bright colours and embroidered with figures of cherubs, birds and flowers in gold.

One day, taking a break from her sewing, she wrapped the child in a blanket and went for a walk. She came across nobody on her way out. Outside the convent she stood on the steps and tried to recall the day they had found the child a few weeks earlier. It had still been warm then, while now, even though it was a bright day, she was shivering inside her habit. She carefully climbed down the slippery steps; there was still some morning dew on the stone. There was no wind at all, the pine trees did not move and the only sounds that she could hear were the chirping of the birds and her hobnailed boots on the stones. She followed the road for some time before entering the wood at a place where the tree growth was not dense, and walked sure-footed on the rough ground carpeted with pine needles and twigs that snapped pleasantly under her feet. Very few rays of sun passed through the canopy of the trees. She stopped and listened. When she had first joined the convent, silence used to make her ill at ease, for she had grown up in a house dominated by the din of human voices, the music from the Edison phonograph and the songs of caged birds, but over time she had come to terms with silence.

She knew her way around the woods and walked deeper in, not forgetting that soon it would be time for the midday prayer–she could return quickly if she had to. The child in her arms was awake. She now knew that she was sincere when she had promised to defend him with her life: she had kept her word. There was little doubt in her mind that the attack by the dog had been a deliberate test of her dedication. She said softly: ‘
Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart
.’ She was a mother at last even if she had not given birth herself–only God could make such a miracle.

She thought she heard something–something that sounded out of place. She spent a lot of time in the woods and her ears were able to pick out the slightest sound that did not belong to nature. She stopped and listened but it was gone. She took a few cautious steps and there the sound was again. It would have been imperceptible to anyone else, but Sister María Inés had no doubt that it was the sound of footsteps on the dry needles: someone or something was following her. After so much talk about the Devil, his image flashed through her mind and she shuddered: the cloven hooves, the twisted horns, the bat-like wings. She squeezed the child in her arms and began a short prayer. When she came to a very old tree, she hid behind its trunk and waited, cradling the child in her arms to keep him silent.

Her stalker was coming. He was taking a few slow steps, then stopping, then moving cautiously again. Sister María Inés continued to pray silently:
Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos, qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo
…The footsteps came closer. Whoever it was, he was now only a few trees away. Sister María Inés looked at the child. He was falling asleep from her rocking. A moment later a shadow went past only a few feet away. The Mother Superior studied it from behind and then asked in a stern voice: ‘What exactly are you doing here?’

Sister Beatriz let out a shriek and turned round. ‘You gave me the fright of my life, Reverend Mother. I thought perhaps you wanted company.’

The child had fallen asleep, and the Mother Superior lowered her voice. ‘Stop following me around,’ she said. ‘Are you against me too, Beatriz?’

‘No, I am with you, Mother.’

‘Do you want them to take the child and put him away in an orphanage?’

‘No, Mother.’

‘Because no one will take this child away. God brought him to me for a reason.’

The nun stood obediently, not daring to say anything. The Mother Superior slowly calmed down. She asked: ‘Don’t you believe in miracles, Beatriz? No matter how rare, they still happen. You see…’

But she stopped because she felt that what she wanted to say about God and Divine Providence was too important to be said out there in the woods. She thought: ‘Why is it that only I can see the truth?’ Perhaps it was because she was the only one in the convent who truly believed in God. All of them of course obeyed the rules of the Order and did good acts, but true faith was something altogether different. If only she could explain it to the young woman…

They started to head back to the convent, as it was almost time for prayers. They went through the woods, their feet sinking into the thick carpet of pine needles. The fear was gone now and Sister María Inés was thinking about her miraculous motherhood again. With every step some form of life stirred round her–in the trees, in the air, under the earth. She felt love not just for the child in her arms but also for the young woman who followed behind her. It was good to have company. She promised to be good to Beatriz from then on. The air smelled of pine, and she felt her boots getting wet from the dew that had not dried under the shade of the trees. They had almost reached the edge of the woods when she woke up from her ecstasy and recognised, with a ripple of unease, the sound of the Bishop’s car coming fast up the road.

T
he Bishop shut the car door and took off his leather helmet. Powdered with dust, his face had the pallor of a dead man. Travelling was the least favourite part of his duties but it was necessary. Moreover, his suffering after an hour at the wheel was not a bad way of reminding himself that in the eyes of God he was not as important as his high rank led people to believe. He shook his coat and disappeared in a cloud of dust that made him cough. ‘
In wisdom hast Thou made them all
,’ he murmured. ‘But there was no need for so much dust.’

He took a bottle of eau de cologne out of his pocket, sprinkled a little on his handkerchief and cleaned his face until it recovered its splendour and the tenacity of a Roman emperor. When the Mother Superior came forward to kiss his ring, Bishop Estrada spoke to her as if she had asked him a question: ‘I am afraid I cannot stay the night. I have lots of work back at the see.’

‘We are so pleased to see you, Your Excellency,’ the Mother Superior said.

‘It is nice to see you again, Sister. I wish I did not have to come, though. Oh, I only mean
today
. You know how much I enjoy visiting you. I wish this were one of our blessed Sundays. Alas, it is not a very happy occasion.’

‘Since you are here, Your Excellency, you might be so kind as to say Mass this evening.’

The Bishop hesitated for a moment, but then said: ‘By all means, Sister. I always have time for that.’

The nuns came to kiss his ring too, and he blessed them, staring silently at each woman who bowed in front of him. Even Sister Carlota had come out of her room, for the first time since the poisoning of the dogs. After the Bishop had blessed all the nuns, he turned to the Mother Superior again and spoke to her in a low voice. ‘Let me first of all say how much I dislike these things. A complaint was made about you and I am obliged to investigate because I consider this place to be under my personal care. Besides, we would not want this matter to reach ears that stand higher from the ground than ours.’

The Mother Superior bowed. ‘We are grateful for your discretion, Your Excellency.’

‘I do not consider it a serious matter. But admittedly, it is unusual,’ the Bishop said. They were still standing at the entrance to the convent, where his diplomat’s instinct told him to wait a moment longer. He asked in a louder voice that had lost its earlier formality: ‘And how are you, Sister?’

‘The Blessed Virgin is looking after us, Your Excellency.’

‘Is she also looking after the car?’

‘Yes, Your Excellency. Only little things now and then, but they are easily fixed.’

‘I wish I could have made you a better gift, Sister.’

‘Oh no, it has made a great difference, Your Excellency. You have been very generous to us as it is.’

Now the two of them entered the convent, followed by the nuns. The Mother Superior turned towards the guesthouse but the Bishop stopped her. ‘No, Sister. Thank you. Let us go straight to your office.’

‘You do not need to rest at all, Your Excellency?’

‘Later–if there is time left. I would rather get this over with.’

They turned back and took the stairs to the Mother Superior’s room. Beside the bed, just beyond the reach of the daylight coming through the narrow windows, was the cradle where the child lay sleeping. The Mother Superior followed the Bishop inside and the other nuns squeezed in behind them. Without hurrying, the Bishop took off his coat, hung it on the wall and made to go towards the cradle. The Mother Superior stopped him with a respectful reminder: ‘Your
shoes
, Your Excellency. The poor thing has just gone to sleep.’

Bishop Estrada looked at his feet and his eyebrows arched. Trying to make as little noise as possible on the wooden floor, he approached the cradle. ‘So this is your latest recruit,’ he whispered, making the sign of the Cross over the child. ‘The arrival of a new life is always a happy occasion, no matter the circumstances.’

‘I believe so too, Your Excellency,’ the Mother Superior said.

The other nuns received his words with silence. The Bishop was quick to understand that it was not what they had expected from him. He added with a sigh: ‘Whoever abandoned this child committed a grave sin. And now we are left to deal with the consequences.’ The windows were closed to keep the room warm for the child and the air smelled of regurgitated milk. The Bishop recognised the smell from his January visits to the city orphanage, where he gave the children presents, dressed in a gold-threaded robe and with his face blackened by charcoal to look like Balthasar, the magus from the East. He looked at the child again and thought of the Old Testament story of Solomon and the baby with two mothers. Then he turned to the nuns and said that he would like to speak to all of them.

‘Please wait outside to be called in one at a time.’

‘Do you wish me to be present at the interviews, Your Excellency?’ the Mother Superior asked.

No, he did not because he should not be seen to favour her over the other nuns. Sister María Inés understood. ‘Then allow me to take the child to another room,’ she said.

‘Find somewhere quiet for him.’

When the Bishop was left alone, he experienced the familiar discomfort that had been plaguing him recently every time he visited the convent. Once he used to like to sit in this room with the Mother Superior and discuss the affairs of the convent. He liked the arched windows that seemed to let in the same amount of light no matter how bright the day was, the modesty of the furniture, the smell of incense, the sound of his feet on the wooden floor, the cool fortress walls which had withstood the repeated attacks of Hayreddin Barbarossa and his corsairs. But today the room seemed to him stifling and steeped in grief.

For some time now he had been dreading his visits to the convent despite the peaceful countryside, the beautiful garden, the long lunch under the vine in the company of the sisters who adored him. He wished, in fact, to appoint another confessor to them, a decision he was in no doubt was the right one, even though he had not told the Mother Superior or anyone else yet and did not intend to until he had found the appropriate person to replace him.

He went to the door and asked to see first the nun who had found the baby on the steps of the convent. Sister Lucía entered the room. Bishop Estrada said in a calm voice: ‘Do not be afraid. I am not here to accuse anyone. I only want to know the facts.’ He was aware that his manner and his long black cassock with the purple sash made people stand in awe of him. If sometimes he did nothing to put them at ease, he liked to think that he did it not out of vanity but because he considered it necessary to inspire his flock with obedience. On this occasion, however, it was obvious to him that such an approach would hinder his investigation and he smiled. ‘You ought to be proud of what you did, Sister,’ he said. ‘You saved a human life. Tell me about it.’ As soon as the nun began to speak, he stopped her by raising his hand. ‘Start from the moment you opened your eyes that morning,’ he said. Sister Lucía tried to remember what she had done that fateful day, from the time she had got out of bed for dawn prayer until she had walked out of the convent to go to the car.

‘The car you so kindly gave us, Your Excellency,’ she said.

The Bishop asked: ‘Where do you keep it?’

‘In the donkey’s shed behind the chapel. One has to go out of the convent to get there.’

‘Isn’t Sister Beatriz responsible for buying the provisions in the city?’

‘The Reverend Mother had been sending me in her place, Your Excellency.’

She said that until she had left the convent she had heard nothing suspicious, noticed nothing strange and had carried out her tasks as usual. Then she described how she had seen the suitcase at the bottom of the steps, looked through the holes cut in it and what she had seen inside. ‘It was unbelievable. At first I thought it was a doll.’

Bishop Estrada asked where the suitcase was.

‘It’s in the Reverend Mother’s wardrobe, Your Excellency.’

‘Bring it to me, please.’

He examined the old suitcase inside and out but it gave him no clues to the mystery and he asked the nun to put it back. When he had no more questions to ask her, he thanked her for her help and told her to send in the next nun. He saw Sister Teresa briefly and then Sister Carlota, who stayed with him for some time telling him about the poisoning of the dogs and insisting that the Mother Superior was possessed. Feeling sorry for her grief, the Bishop did not contradict her. When she came out of the room leaning on his arm, she raised her head, dried her eyes and pointed at the Mother Superior. ‘It’s her fault,’ she said. ‘God help us.’ Bishop Estrada smiled at the Mother Superior with understanding and beckoned to Sister Beatriz.

‘I understand you no longer drive the car,’ the Bishop said when they were alone in the room.

‘I will start again soon. I had asked to be excused, Your Excellency.’

He asked her to sit and stared at her while his fingers played with his ring. The room continued to depress him. The matter with the child did not seem to him to be serious and he regretted having come. He could have sent someone else. Then he remembered that he had promised Sister Ana. He asked: ‘What is your opinion of the Mother Superior?’

‘She is very kind. I think she is right to want to keep the orphan. It is the Christian thing to do.’

‘Are you helping her with him?’

‘Only a little. When she has to be elsewhere. I am glad to. She is very competent. Do you know that she used to be a nurse?’

‘Yes. What do you think I should do?’

‘The baby does no one any harm, Your Excellency.’

‘But the Mother Superior committed a terrible act because of him.’

‘The dogs? Only after one almost killed her. You should have seen it.’

‘Nevertheless, Sister Carlota is very distressed.’

The young nun did not disagree. ‘It was a cruel thing killing them, yes. But if you had seen how that dog attacked the baby you would understand.’

‘I am told you were the only one who tried to help her when she was in danger.’

‘Ah that. If only I was brave enough.’

‘Apparently you were. It was the others who held you back.’

‘The poor child would have been harmed–but the Reverend Mother saved him.’

After a few more questions Bishop Estrada sent her away with a sad smile and a few words that sounded like a farewell: ‘Look after yourself. And come to see me if there is anything that I can do for you.’ Sister Beatriz raised her head and looked straight at him for the first time during their discussion. The Bishop realised that he had almost given away his secret desire to resign from his responsibility to the nuns and rushed to add: ‘I will see you all on Sunday, as usual.’

The nun left the room with a silent bow. He watched her go, regretting his comment. It was almost midday and the rising temperature was causing him to sweat under his heavy cassock. He opened a window, leaned out and took a deep breath, looking at his car parked beside the steps to the convent and covered with dust. The thought of the trip back to the city filled him with dismay. He was in good condition for a man of his age but his problem was more of the mind. Lately he had been toying with the idea of pushing for the post of apostolic nuncio in a quiet mission abroad. It would not be impossible. After all, he had studied diplomacy and had some powerful friends in the Vatican. Wanting to rest a little, he lay on the narrow bed in the corner of the room but immediately winced at the hardness of the mattress. He thought: ‘O God, anything, anywhere but here…Why did I come?…Forgive me…’ There was a knock on the door and before he could answer Sister Ana entered with a packet.

‘Excuse me, Your Excellency,’ she said. ‘I had no idea you were resting. I will come back a little later.’

The Bishop waved her in and rose slowly. ‘Never mind, Sister. There is work to be done. Please come in.’ Then he saw the packet and his mouth puckered. ‘Another present? Now, Sister, I am afraid I cannot accept any more presents from you.’

‘No, Your Excellency. This is in connection with the investigation. It is very important.’

Bishop Estrada sat at the desk and watched the nun unfold the brown paper with delicate movements. She took out the soiled bed sheet, spread it over the desk as if it were a tablecloth and took a step back. The Bishop looked at the large bloodstain and turned to the nun. Her face showed no trace of clemency. ‘And what is this, Sister?’ he asked.

‘Indisputable evidence of Devil worship, Your Excellency–here in our convent.’

She told him where she had discovered it and how she had searched for other evidence of sorcery, which she had finally found in one of the rooms of the old school for novices: traces of blood on the newly mopped floor. She believed that everything was connected with the arrival of the child. She added: ‘Even before I came across these signs of witchcraft I had been against the Mother Superior’s intention of keeping the orphan. I tried to warn the sisters but they didn’t listen. I admit that I haven’t confronted the Mother Superior with what I have found because I fear for my life. But after the poisoning of the dogs I had to act and so I came to see you.’

The Bishop leaned over the cloth and said: ‘We cannot be certain how long this thing has been buried. The stain could be very old.’

‘Perhaps, Your Excellency. But whoever mopped the floor in the abandoned building had done it very recently.’

‘And what does the child have to do with all this?’ the Bishop asked. Then, remembering their conversation in his office, he answered his own question: ‘Oh yes, the spawn of Satan. I forgot.’

‘We need an exorcist, Your Excellency.’

‘Or Sherlock Holmes’ the Bishop said with a well-meaning smile.

He asked the nun to show him where she had found the bed sheet. When they came out of the room, he told the Mother Superior to wait for him and followed Sister Ana. They went to a corner of the convent where the nun pointed to the exact place the dog had dug out the bed sheet. Then he asked her to show him the room where she had found the signs of the satanic ceremony and they crossed the courtyard and entered the school for novices. The wind blowing in through the broken windows had deposited small heaps of earth where grey plants without flowers grew in the gloom with the help of the damp. Bishop Estrada followed the nun up the creaking staircase. The corner where Sister Ana had come across the traces of blood appeared no different from the rest of the room. Since her discovery, dust had covered the floor again and erased every sign of the blood and the mopping. She knelt and brushed the dust with her hands in vain. She said: ‘It was here, Your Excellency. If you look closely between the boards…You see?’