The Guineveres (33 page)

“What happened?”

I swallowed hard. I moved closer to him so he could see my face better, so I could see his. It was then I saw that The Guineveres had gathered around, arms linked, to watch. Their mouths were open in astonishment, and they were waving me on. “Say something,” I saw Ginny mouth.

“I … I think you were hurt. You
were
hurt. In the War,” I said, searching for words.

He paused as though he was trying to remember something, his eyes moving back and forth like a typewriter. He weakly adjusted his arm; his wrist dangled over the edge of his bed. Win nudged me closer, so I placed my clammy hand on top of his. “What's your name?” he asked.

I blinked blankly, dumbstruck. I can't say why. I've revisited this moment again and again, and each time I try to will myself to say something coherent, something profound, something so he'd know how much I loved him. But I always fail. The truth was, I couldn't speak. My tongue was a weight in my mouth, and I could barely lift it, not even to say my name.

“It's Guinevere,” Gwen finally said.

My Boy struggled to keep his eyes open; oh, how he tried. He blinked rapidly to ward off sleep, but his eyes shut like little window shades, and like that, he was gone.

In those days, the only way I understood love was through longing. I hadn't the slightest notion of what romantic love looked like. I'd never been in love, not like this, never kissed a boy who kissed me back. I knew that love hurt sometimes, badly. And that's the only way I can explain what I felt right then, as My Boy rested his weary eyes: I felt pain.

I stood for a few moments in the darkness, until I felt movement behind me.

“Do you think he's healed?” Ginny asked. “Do you think your prayers have been answered? We'll have to say good-bye to you soon, too.”

My Boy had returned for me. My Boy had come to take me home.

“You're lucky,” Ginny said.

“He has risen!” Win said.

“Don't get your hopes up,” Gwen said, not in a mean way, just matter-of-fact. And she was right. By Good Friday, he'd slipped back into his soundless slumber, locked away again in his living tomb.

I cried during the mass—cried afterward, too.

We never did tell Sisters Connie or Magda. Perhaps I was afraid they'd find his family, send him somewhere far away. Without me. Home. In hindsight, that may have been a mistake, for who knows what Sister Connie might have done to help My Boy? Who knows how things might have turned out? Yet who's to say a different ending would have been a better one? The universe has a plan, I must believe, and there's no regretting the past. You can only march forward.

At the time, however, marching forward felt like trudging through quicksand. “He wanted to know my name,” I cried. My head was buried in Win's lap. The Guineveres were sitting on Ginny's bed in the Bunk Room; on the wall above us we could see tape marks from where some sketches of hers had been hung, one of a night sky crowded with stars, and another of a green pasture that we knew was a field of poppies.

“Well, at least you have that,” Ginny said. “I don't have anything.”

“But I didn't ask him his.” He'd made me so nervous I'd neglected the simplest question of them all, one that could help me piece together his identity, figure out who he was. I kept running the conversation over and over in my head.
What's your name? What's your name?
His voice had been low, full of gravel, full of sleep.

“You don't have to know his name to love him,” Win said.

“But what if I never find out? What if he never comes back?”

“Just keep waiting,” Gwen said. Her calves were resting on the top of the mattress. She'd removed her shoes and socks, but we could still see squiggly lines indented into her skin. “What else are you going to do?”

“I've got to have faith,” I reminded myself.

“I didn't say anything about faith,” Gwen said.

“Then what?” I asked. Win handed me another tissue, then kicked Gwen with her heel.

“Just seems we do a lot of waiting—for our parents, for Our Boys, for the Sisters, for Father James, for our eighteenth birthdays. This whole place is a goddamn purgatory.”

“Don't talk like that,” I said. Then, “What's that even supposed to mean?”

“I know what she means,” said Ginny.

“It takes faith,” I said. That's what all the waiting had seemed like to me, a test of some sort.

“Then where are our parents? Where are signs from God that this all isn't some stupid joke? The War Effort. Pfft. What do we even know about the War?” Gwen curled herself into a ball on the floor. Her eyes closed, and her face went slack for a moment, so still that we thought she had fallen asleep. Win nudged her with her foot, and Gwen's eyes sprang open. They were glassy and wet with tears she'd willed back into their ducts. “Of course, I don't mean anything about Your Boy. I'm sure he'll wake up again. Really.”

“He'll be back to take you home,” Win said reassuringly. “Just don't forget about us.”

That night when the other girls were asleep, I closed my eyes and again slipped my hand under my nightgown. I ran my fingers up and down my body, imagining it was My Boy touching me. I tried not to shift in my bunk and make noise, even as I sank my fingers into the moist darkness, searching for the button that would set me on fire. I didn't want to be a freezer. I didn't want to be alone, either.
My name is Guinevere. My name is Guinevere. My name is Guinevere. My name is Guinevere.

What's yours?

My Boy, hear my prayer.

 

Easter

The morning before Easter, Holy Saturday, Ginny's bed was empty. Sister Fran said nothing of this during Morning Roll after she woke us with the shrill squeal of her whistle, slapping the bunk rails with her hand as she patrolled the room. “Laziness is just a half a hair away from sloth, girls, a cardinal sin, indeed,” she said. The moaning of bed coils filled the room as girls propped themselves up, swung their legs around to dangle over the edges of their beds. Sister Fran marched all the way to the window, then turned around and came to stop at Ginny's bunk. Her sheets and blankets were twisted and thrown to the side, her pillow still dented as though a phantom head rested there. “Good lambs are not idle lambs, nor do they stray,” Sister Fran muttered, trilling her whistle once more.

The Guineveres stood by our bunks during Morning Roll, probing each other for answers. We shrugged our shoulders and shook our heads. When Sister Fran called our names, we barely managed to stutter “here,” and when we did, she eyed us suspiciously, trying to read the intentions of our souls.

Despite the fact it was Holy Saturday, it was still a Saturday, which meant Wash Day. The Sisters observed Wash Day with the dedication of any of their rituals. Sister Claire, who wore a white smock on these days, rolled a large, thundering bin into the Bunk Room, and without prompting, the girls bundled their bed linens, along with their uniforms, and handed them over to be counted. “We're missing a set,” Sister Claire announced when the last of the girls had dropped her wash into the bin.

“It's Ginny's,” one of The Delinquents said, and she turned to point to the only bed not stripped to the mattress. Everybody stared for a moment, not knowing what to do, and Sister Claire herself seemed startled by the glitch in her normally seamless routine. She squeezed her face and hummed “hmm” several times over until Sister Fran said, “This is not an apparition, for goodness sake, but dirty sheets!” The girls all giggled, but The Guineveres panicked as she gathered Ginny's wash.

“Do you think she's okay?” The Guineveres finally asked when we found ourselves alone at breakfast. We were eating applesauce, and even though it was warm and smelled of wet newspaper, we gobbled every bite. Our stomachs creaked like rusted hinges, and a day of fasting stretched out before us. We wouldn't eat again until supper, and then only some broth and bread, since Lent meant scarcity.

“Maybe she ran away,” Win said. She licked her spoon, then thinking better of it, licked her hand and smoothed down her bangs.

“She wouldn't go without us,” Gwen said. “She'd want an audience for that. You know, the artist thing and all.” Gwen took the last bite from her bread plate and, sitting erect, placed it on her head.

“What are you doing?” Win asked.

“I'm practicing my posture,” she said, carefully tucking her hair behind her ears without moving her shoulders or her neck. “You should be able to balance anything on your head if you're sitting properly.” Gwen's hair was straight and fine; when it got greasy between Wash Days, it simply shined.

“Could she be sick?” I asked. “We need to do something.”

“Like what? And wouldn't Sister Fran have said something if she were sick?” Win replied. “Told us to report our symptoms at once?” Win was right; usually when one of us got sick, the Sisters made an announcement of it, demanded that those with even the slightest symptoms, a sniffle or a tickle in the throat, gargle with salt water. The Sisters believed salt water cured almost anything.

“Maybe she's in the Penance Room again,” Gwen said.

“Maybe,” Win replied.

“We certainly don't want to associate ourselves with whatever kind of trouble she's gotten herself into this time,” Gwen said.

“But we're The Guineveres,” I said. They didn't respond, just stirred and restirred what remained in their bowls. “I'm worried,” I said, and this time the other Guineveres agreed. We knew we couldn't do anything with our worry, though, so Win suggested we just put it away.

After breakfast, we sluggishly filed to the Wash Room to wait our turn for the fifteen-minute soak we were each allotted. “God does not mean for bath time to be a form of entertainment, girls,” Sister Fran would say, reminding us to scrub the backs of our necks and behind our ears. “Washing is labor. Labor is its own reward.”

The Wash Room looked like a hospital, like the Sick Ward. Sterile. Industrial. A place that made us feel uncomfortable about the fact that we were embodied creatures, and it was in here, in this white room, where we felt the most shame. The floor felt like ice cubes against our bare feet, and the pungent smell of bleach stung our noses. A plastic curtain hung around each tub, so we could maintain our modesty while we bathed. We undressed in private, and during this time, for fifteen brief minutes, we were alone with our bodies, all smooth skin and curves and hair matted between our legs. We'd step out of our clothing, and we'd remove our undergarments, hanging them over the curtain rod where they'd be collected for the wash. The steamy air felt foreign against our naked skin, coating our bodies in a thin sheen and creating sweat mustaches. We pressed our arms to our breasts, held them close to us as if they might fall away. We tried to avert our own eyes from our flesh, but we couldn't, even when we tried. Especially when we tried. This time was our only chance to peek down at ourselves, at our bodies, tight and rounded, strange and distorted, still changing with age.

Afterward we'd share notes. “Are nipples supposed to be oval shaped or round?” one of us would ask, or, “Is it normal if one boob is bigger than the other?” or “Are they supposed to be pointy?” or “Is your hair
down there
the same color as your hair up top?” We didn't know, and we certainly didn't dare ask Sister Fran such questions. We could only guess and reassure each other that we were, indeed, normal.

Usually, we bathed in silence, save for the clack-clacking of Sister Fran's shoes on the tile as she snaked her way around the room. However, today Sister Fran spoke to us, her voice fading in and out as she paced between the rows of tubs. “You know, girls, your body is a temple.” We'd heard this lecture before—we knew it by rote. God lived in us, in this temple. And to destroy the temple is to destroy He who lives there. Water splashed. Bodies squeaked against the porcelain as girls adjusted in tubs.

“God has loaned you these bodies, girls, like a book from the library. Do you write in the book you borrow? No. Do you place that book facedown and break the spine? I think not. You're gentle with the book you borrow—you treat it better than you'd treat your own because you know it is not yours. We must not grow too fond of the book, for we know we must return it. But, still, this doesn't prevent you from using the book, reading it, so to speak, as long as you do so with care.

“Do you see, girls, your body is this library book. You must remain unattached to it, for your own sake. You don't want a fine for ill-treating this property. You must resist your own desires to do as you feel, dog-earing pages or pencil-lining passages, for texts have value, just like bodies.” Sister Fran paused to consider what she'd just said, and girls took the opportunity to dip and dunk their washrags, then wring them out.

Sister Fran continued. “Now, girls, this is also why we fast during the Lenten Season. There is grace in deprivation; hunger reminds us that self-denial is holy; fasting—this abstinence—purifies our bodies. It's just as you'll clean your tub before another girl takes her bath; the tub is not yours, just a vessel you use to clean yourself. Such is the body. One sacrifice opens the door to even greater sacrifices. When we deny our bodies, we become closer to our own souls, and, thus, closer to that which the Heavenly Father intended. Do you understand, girls? Do you understand sacrifice?” she asked.

“Yes, Sister,” a chorus of voices responded.

“Good,” she said. “Your time is up. Now, out, before you prune your skin.” We quickly stood, wrapped ourselves in towels, and dressed in the clean uniforms Sister Claire had placed over the curtain rod while we were washing.

But The Guineveres didn't fully understand such sacrifice—not quite yet, not then, as we emerged from the Wash Room with wet hair, hungry, and looking with guarded hope for our friend. To us, sacrifice meant tedium, meant hunger, meant boredom. Our Boys had sacrificed much for the War, but was it worth it for them, their sacrifices? Could even they see that their bodies weren't their bodies, merely books on loan? Would they be fined for the damage they'd caused themselves, the injuries that had been brought upon them? Or, like Junior, the damage he'd brought upon himself? We wanted to ask Sister Fran, but as with our other questions, we didn't dare. Instead, The Guineveres single-filed to the chapel for prayer, our hair still damp, our spirits low, our minds wavering between Our Boys in the Sick Ward and our friend who, like Peter Drexel, was MIA.