The Guineveres (25 page)

Gwen pulled the bottle of whiskey from her waistband, held it to the sky. It was Christmas, even in Sunny Brook.

“To Christmas,” Gwen said.

“To Christmas,” Win said.

“To Christmas,” Ginny said.

“To Christmas,” I said. I swallowed a big swig of the whiskey, and I felt the burning rising up through my nose. And like Joan of Arc, I was set on fire.

After we drank to Christmas, we drank to Father James, then to the War, and to Our Boys who had served there. We drank to our loneliness that felt like a disease, to the Jesus Juice we declared we were drinking, to our new socks we'd find in the morning beneath the Christmas tree in the Rec Room, to the rancid plum pudding we'd likely have to choke down during dinner, to Sister Fran and her Holy Constipation look. We drank to a lot of things, until we were no longer cold and the bottle was empty and we were drunk.

Walking down the hill was not so easy this time. Win couldn't hold the flashlight steady, and none of us was able to stop laughing as we clung to each other's clothing in the dark. The night air seemed to propel us forward, and we felt a sense of euphoria that made us believe we could jump into the sky and hang on to the moon if we wanted to. A few stars poked through the canvas above us, and we wondered which of them was the North Star, the guiding light for the three wise men. How'd they know which star to follow? Who was the first person to discover that the stars could lead the way, that they remained fixed in the sky, night after night? We philosophized as we walked, our heads hung back so we could take in deeper breaths. It was nighttime, and it was Christmas, and we were The Guineveres, and life was perfect in that moment, fleeting, which made it all the more beautiful.

Whiskey had a different effect on us than the wine had. We were unsteady yet effervescent, ponderous and bold. We felt desire in places we hadn't before, in parts of our bodies covered by our bathing suits. Our Boys never felt so far away from us, even as we walked toward them.

“Our Boys,” one of us moaned.

“Our Boys,” the rest of us echoed, our throats to the moon, our voices full of forbidden longing.

We grew silent as we neared the convent. The stone structure blended into the night, and even though we couldn't see the enormity of it in the dark, we could still feel the weight of its shadows. We entered through the front door, and, like Jonah, we were swallowed whole. That was the spell of the place, the power of it, too. We lost ourselves within those gray walls. Or maybe we gave ourselves over. Later in their lives, long after they left, both Win and Ginny would admit to me that they didn't resent Father James or Sister Fran or the other nuns. They resented the convent itself, as though it were a living, breathing thing capable of such blame.

“Let's be the first to wish them a merry Christmas,” one of us said.

We didn't talk further about it. Our love felt boozy, but stronger for it. Win turned off the flashlight because we knew our way by heart. We tried our best to be silent, but the floor felt wobbly, our legs unsteady. We stopped every few moments and bumped into each other, then tried to restrain our laughter beneath a blanket of darkness. For all the years we'd been at the convent, we'd never seen it at night—not like this, not after the last Sister had said her nightly prayers and crawled into bed to dream about whatever a Sister dreams about. About Jesus as her bridegroom. About what it might feel like to have human hands caressing her papery skin.

The small Christmas tree lit the Front Room of the Sick Ward, and by its light we could see that the door to the Back Room stood open, like an inky threshold to another world.

“I want to see what's in the duffel,” I said. “My Boy's box. His personal effects. I still haven't looked.” I wanted a piece of him to carry around, too. Each of the girls had something of Her Boy, and at night in the Bunk Room, when it was safe, they'd lie on their stomachs and examine their prizes. Ginny rubbed her Lucky Talisman with her finger, memorizing its smooth center, its ridged edges. Win played with her paddle, making the wooden horse gallop and gallop. She vowed to get a cowboy hat someday. Gwen, for her part, had twined dental floss around Her Boy's ring, so it fit properly on her wedding finger. Sometimes she slept that way, careful to remove it in the morning and tuck it beneath her fitted sheet.

We crept to the storage room. Win hid the telephone book beneath our cassocks, and I pulled the metal box from deep within the duffel. It felt light, nearly empty. I opened it. My eyes adjusted. Inside were no cigarettes, no gum or matches. Only one item: a pocket-sized Book of Psalms, a two-dollar bill tucked inside.

“No comb?” Gwen asked.

No comb.

“That's it?” Ginny said. “Nothing else?”

Nothing else.

“Maybe you didn't need to baptize him after all,” Gwen said.

“Couldn't have hurt,” added Ginny.

“No, couldn't have hurt,” I said. I wondered which psalm was his favorite, which one he'd turn to in his darkest hours.

We stood by the bed of Our Boys. We slid our bodies beneath their covers, and we shared their warmth. We kissed their cheeks and wished them a merry Christmas. We whispered to them stories about ourselves, things we'd tell no one else: the kind of wives we'd be, the kinds of songs we'd sing to our babies when they could not sleep. We told them we loved them from somewhere deeper than our souls. Our love radiated around us like an aura, like halos. God had his plans, and we had ours, and we hoped they were the same. Because we were tired, and we were drunk, and it was Christmas.

I woke up to the sound of Mr. Worlizter coughing. The room held a different light, gray and fuzzy as my eyes came into focus; my head pounded in my teeth. I quickly unfolded myself from the crook of My Boy's arm, where I had been sleeping. He seemed to shift when I stepped out of the bed, but I didn't stay to take note. I scanned the room for the others, but I didn't see The Guineveres. I didn't have time to think about the fact that they had left me behind, or
why
they would do that to me. Now Miss Oatley began to stir, calling out for water, and I didn't even stop to refill her glass. Instead, I raced out of the Sick Ward as quickly as my legs could carry me. The convent went by in a blur—corridor, foyer, hallways, the blacks and whites and grays of the walls and the marble floors. The lights were still out, which was a good thing, but as I passed the kitchen, I could hear the clanging of pots and pans, the swishing of water, which meant some of the Sisters were up already, preparing breakfast. I ran faster, through the Rec Room with its lit Christmas tree, beneath which sat our Christmas packages. I charged up the stairs to the Bunk Room, three at a time.

I was breathless when I arrived. Everyone was still sleeping, and the silence rang in my ears, a high-pitched chorus. I tiptoed down the aisle of bunks to the end of the row and, as quietly as I could, changed into my nightgown, climbed the metal railing, and crawled into bed. I stashed My Boy's Book of Psalms beneath my pillow. The room spun around me, so I closed my eyes. I felt like I was on a raft in the water, tipping back and forth with the tide. I didn't think I could ever sleep again, but I must have, because before I knew it, it was time to rise.

Instead of our usual wake-up call, we arose to a group of Sisters serenading us with Christmas carols. I buried my head in my pillow, but this did nothing to stifle the sound. As they reached my end of the room, I sat up and made movements toward getting out of bed. I looked down at the Sisters—Monica, Claire, Lucrecia, Tabitha. No Sister Fran with her wicked whistle, her declarations about lambs and vanity and cleanliness and diligence.

This detail would come to be an important one. Although we didn't know it at the time—Gwen, Win, and I all grimaced at the sight of one another as we filed to the bathroom to change our clothes and brush our teeth—Sister Fran sat at that moment in her office with Ginny, whom she'd found passed out in the alcove, curled up next to a radiator.

“Why'd you leave me there?” I asked Win and Gwen. I watched them in the Wash Room mirror. My feelings were hurt. They both looked tired. Win's dark circles resembled black eyes. Gwen's normally smooth hair clumped in tangles.

Win shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know,” she said. “When I left, everyone was still awake. At the time, I didn't even think of it.”

“I barely even remember getting back here. It's not like I left you there on purpose. Animal instinct kicked in,” Gwen said. She splashed her face with water. “Survival of the fittest.” She began picking through her hair with a comb.

Ginny told us later that she had awoken in bed with Her Boy. It was still dark. Knowing she couldn't stay there, she wandered the hallways, confused. Ginny had a tiny birdlike frame, so it's no surprise that the Sunny Brook hit her the hardest. She couldn't find her way back to the Bunk Room in the dark, but she was cold and so very sleepy. She thought she'd rest for a few minutes—like Dorothy did in that poppy field, she told us—so she found a warm spot to close her eyes. On her way to do morning checks, Sister Magda spotted her there, and when she realized Ginny was too drunk to rouse, she called for Sister Fran.

Ginny woke up on the bench in Sister Fran's office, her double vision finally focusing until she saw Sister Fran hovering above her, her face white with anger. “Now,” was all Sister Fran said, meaning she expected Ginny to talk. But Ginny knew better than to incriminate us; she alone took the blame. She did not mention how we'd found Father James passed out in his office prior to the Midnight Vigil, a bottle of Sunny Brook in his hand. Nor did she mention the wine he let The Guineveres have after we served mass. She simply explained how, after the Midnight Vigil, she'd drunk the leftover wine from the chalices when nobody was looking.

“And what of this?” Sister Fran said to her, unfolding from a handkerchief Ginny's Lucky Talisman. Ginny instinctively checked her sleeve. Sure enough, it was gone.

“That's mine,” she gasped, and she grabbed for it, but Sister Fran pulled it away. She folded the handkerchief again and set it on her desk.

“Where did you get it?” Sister Fran demanded.

“I found it,” she said.

“Where could you possibly have found this?”

“It was in with the soldier's things,” she admitted.

“A drunk
and
a thief,” she said in disbelief. “Have you learned nothing during your time here? To steal from those unable to defend themselves?”

“I didn't steal,” she said. “I was just borrowing it. For luck,” she added quietly. She wanted to tell Sister Fran that
she
was defending Her Boy.
She
was looking out for him.

“For luck, girl? For luck? Do you know what sort of perversion this is?”

Ginny shook her head.

“An ear! A human ear!”

Ginny's throat became a desert, dry and filled with sand. She felt an asthma attack coming on. Her stigmata wounds ached. Pains shot through her eyes. Her hands felt filthy, full of death. The room began to fade, tunneling to a pinprick of light. That's the last thing she remembered before she passed out.

Ginny did not show up to open our Christmas packages in the Rec Room. Her gift lay alone beneath the tree, untouched. We could not find her during the Christmas Celebration in the chapel, where Father James preached with a worried look on his face. Her seat stayed empty at lunch, and at Christmas dinner, in the cafeteria decorated with drooping tinsel. Her bunk remained made up, even after the last of the girls had climbed into bed that night, happy bellies full of Christmas ham.

The next day Sister Fran called an emergency all-girl assembly. The topic: Depravity. Everyone filed into the Rec Room and sat cross-legged on the floor, kneecaps touching. Shirley and Lottie sat behind us, and we heard them whispering about Ginny. “Looks like they lost a Guinevere,” Lottie said, and Win didn't even turn around to shoot her a menacing look. Instead, we squeezed each other's hands, digging nails into skin. By now, all the girls had noticed her absence.

When everyone was settled, Sister Fran commanded the attention of the room with a zip of her whistle. “Quiet,” she said; then she pursed her lips tightly together, and it looked as though she was about to spit. Next to her stood Father James, his nose rosy, his expression sunken.

“Girls,” he said. “Indulgence is a sin.” He avoided eye contact with The Guineveres, skimmed over our heads as he lectured us. We were told that befogging our minds with the drink of sin was not a vice becoming to girls
like us
—girls brought up in the image of God. “The joy of God is the innocent,” he said, and at that, Sister Fran nodded vigorously. Father James nervously fingered the buttons on his cuff and then announced an impromptu penance service to be held after lunch in the chapel. “I encourage you to let God know what he already knows,” he said, and he weakly caught our glance, just quickly, with a pleading look. “You have nothing to gain but absolution.” Absolution was freedom.

I don't know why we wanted to keep his secret. Perhaps we thought it would somehow save us. Ginny was still nowhere to be found during confession in the chapel. The Guineveres spaced ourselves out from one another. As the music played, and as the other girls lined up to unburden their souls to the old priests who stood around the perimeter of the room like creepy grandfathers, we made our way to Father James, who sat at the open door of the confessional, barely hidden by the penitential grille.

“I stole a whiskey bottle from a drunk priest, and I kept this from Sister Fran,” Gwen confessed.

“I slapped a priest. It was to wake him up from too much drink, and I kept this from Sister Fran,” Win said.

“I accepted liquor from a person who should not have offered it, and I kept this from Sister Fran,” I said.