Gilman, Dorothy - A Nun in the Closet Read online

  Taken aback, Sister John turned more hopefully toward the other woman, a neat young woman in sandals, bare legs and a cotton frock. The young woman put down her book and smiled. "I hoped we might meet presently," she said. "I see you're Benedictine-I'm Dominican."

  "I beg your pardon?" said Sister John blankly.

  "Dominican," repeated the young woman. "I'm working with drug addicts at the House of Hope. I'm Sister Isabelle Irwin."

  "You're one of the new nuns!" gasped Sister John, and eagerly thrust out her hand. "How perfectly wonderful, there's so much I want to ask you, so much I want to hear. Oh, do sit down over here so we can have a long and serious chat."

  "I'd love to," said Sister Isabelle.

  "Take them away," screamed the man in the cell on their left, and on their right Uncle Joe haltingly finished reciting the 123rd Psalm and began on the 124th.

  "First of all," began Sister John, and drew a deep breath . . .

  "I don't appreciate clover blossoms in my soup," Sister Ursula said at dinner, predictably and with venom.

  "There is a saying," Bhanjan Singh told him, "that could very well apply to you, my friend: He cackles often but never lays an egg. If you would observe yourself coolly and dispassionately you would see yourself as others see you. This could be far more crushing than clover blossoms in your soup."

  "Besides, it's spinach soup," Sister Hyacinthe told him but was, on the whole, inclined to forgive him because she noticed how frequently he looked toward the door. She was edgy herself, impatient for Brill's return and mystified by his lateness. "Everyone leaves for Gatesville and disappears," she lamented.

  When Brill returned at last it was nearly ten o'clock and he came alone. "I didn't see any of them but I've gotten things rolling," he said, throwing himself into a chair. "There'll be an American Civil Liberties lawyer at the sheriff's office at ten o'clock tomorrow. His name is Jason Horowitz and he's in New York tonight for a meeting, but I talked with him on the phone and he'll be here on the 9:22 Saturday train."

  "They're going to spend a night in jail?" gasped Sister Hyacinthe. "Not only Sister John and Uncle Joe but an innocent young girl like Naomi?"

  "Naomi won't mind," said Brill, and seeing Sister Hyacinthe's shocked gaze he explained, "She's been there before, in the sixties. Peace marches. Demonstrations."

  "But Sister John has never been in jail," she reminded him.

  Brill grinned. "No, but Sister John is engaged in a battle of wills with the sheriff, and is exploring the thought of martyrdom. It seems they could all come home if they paid a fine, pleading guilty, but Sister John refuses and Naomi agrees, and Uncle Joe can't leave and walk the five miles back so he's elected to stay, too. As a matter of fact, Melida was only too accurate: Sister John's gone even farther. She won't leave until the sheriff admits he discriminated against Melida, Uncle Joe and the kids."

  "She could be there for years," protested Alfie. "Sheriff McGee isn't going to admit any such thing."

  "She's on strike," breathed Sister Hyacinthe happily. "Now I understand."

  "She's a nut," blurted out Sister Ursula. "It's all your influence; she'll turn into one of those militants yelling about peace and love. Sheer cussedness."

  "Don't be silly, it's a matter of principle. I stopped in at the supermarket and talked to the manager, a guy named Epworth. He said it was perfectly obvious the sheriff's trying to scare the migrant workers away from coming into town again. Epworth's a good guy. When I left him at six he was packing bags of groceries to take to the migrant workers' camp. He said it was the least he could do, and where could he find them? I gave him directions."

  "I suppose he's taking them steak," put in Sister Ursula bitterly.

  "She's been praying," said Sister Hyacinthe, nodding. "When Sister John prays the most surprising things happen. Our electric water pump broke down in 1969 and Sister John prayed until she had blisters on both her knees."

  "What happened?"

  "Mr. Doermann came. He lives in Bridgemont Corners and builds windmills. He asked if he could put a free windmill on our property to show people how pretty they look and how much money they could save. He took care of all the expenses, including a new water pump. After he built the windmill Sister John prayed for him and he sold eleven."

  Brill was staring hard at Sister Ursula as if seeing him for the first time. "Good Lord, you need a shave," he said. "Didn't anyone shave you last night? If someone looked in one of the windows and saw you sitting here we'd all be in the soup." To Sister Hyacinthe he said, "If you don't mind we'll all stay here with you tonight."

  Five miles away, in the bowels of the court house, Sister John was saying earnestly, "So that's how I happen to be here but, my dear, you're not wearing a habit, is there anyone to speak for you? Does the sheriff know you're a religious?"

  "Not yet," said Sister Isabelle blithely, "but someone will come for me because I telephoned and left a message. I live at Community House over in Gatesville Heights, and one of the priests will bail me out. You see, I was stupid enough to take one of the House of Hope addicts to visit her mother, except that it turned out to be her supplier, not her mother. The police were watching the house and when they broke down the door Agnes slipped five ounces of marijuana into my purse. A very hostile child. And so stupid of me! But I find it very difficult to think like an addict. They're not themselves."

  "Like Sister Ursula," said Sister John, nodding.

  "They can be very devious. Of course I should have waited until someone could go with me but I was impatient. I have to confess that we're all impatient, we want to change things. Other things, too."

  "What other things?" Sister John asked eagerly.

  "Well," said Sister Isabelle, looking at her challengingly, "I'm a member of the National Coalition of American Nuns now."

  "There's a union?" gasped Sister John.

  "We want to end the oppression of women in the church. There has to be more to sisterhood than teaching second grade, it's so unfair."

  "Women's Lib," said Sister John, nodding.

  Sister Isabelle looked at her in surprise. "You're a little more with it than I thought, Sister John. Of course Women's Lib but human liberation, too. Everyone!"

  "So what do you kids want?" asked Sister Ursula, pressed into a chair upstairs and lathered for his first shave. "After five days here I'll admit you're not as peculiar as I thought at first. You're not wild-eyed radicals or deadbeats either, although this could be my weakened condition. What bugs me, though, is what are you? I can't figure you out."

  "You're always looking for labels," said Brill. "That's your first problem."

  "Well, how the hell do I know where you fit without them?" growled Sister Ursula. "You're really not too different from my nephew-"

  "He has a nephew," crowed Alfie.

  "-but he works in a bank, making a hundred and fifty bucks a week and he buys things. You know, things like color television-and you've heard of telephones, those instruments used for communication?"

  "And for obscene calls," put in Alfie.

  "-and he's got a Mustang now. You could have a Mustang, too."

  "Nothing less than a Rolls-Royce would suit us," said Alfie solemnly.

  "Well, what the hell motivates you? Christ, you've all had college educations and you're picking beans?"

  "We're leftovers from the sixties," said Alfie. "Flotsam and jetsam."

  "All that burning and marching you mean?"

  "Yes, as well as a few assassinations and an undeclared war. We've been shot at and we've been clubbed and we've been arrested and we're tired, that's all. And the hell of it," said Alfie, waving the razor at him, "is that we were right about the hypocrisy and the corruption. It's terrifying to be right before you're even old enough to vote. It's so frightening most of us have given up and retreated to the sidelines to put ourselves together again."

  Bhanjan Singh, seated cross-legged on the floor, nodded solemnly. "In the I Ching it says 'When grass is uprooted, what is
attached to it is pulled up as well.' "

  "But living in a bus and picking beans?" said Sister Ursula incredulously.

  "The essential problem," said Sister John, speaking earnestly to Sister Isabelle, "is the migrant workers' always moving, never having a place to call home, a place to put down roots and go to school."

  "And to vote," said Sister Isabelle, nodding.

  "There should be-must be-some way to change that."

  Sister Isabelle looked thoughtful. It was past midnight, the cells were quiet at last and the lights turned low. The young shoplifter had been bailed out by her father and the man with d.t.s had been taken off to a detoxification unit. Naomi dozed on the lower bunk nearby and Uncle Joe mumbled occasionally in his sleep in the next cell. "There's an experiment taking place in Florida," said Sister Isabelle at last. "I recently met one of the men involved in it. They're experimenting with settling the migrant workers into one place, one community exclusively theirs. It seems to be working, too. They've built their own homes and they're governing themselves and making the decisions . . . not without difficulty of course. Naturally it's heavily funded."

  "Funded?"

  "Money," said Sister Isabelle. "The government's backing it-or was. OEO or HUD, I don't know-and the Ford Foundation was helping, too. Seed money."

  "Seed money," echoed Sister John, struggling to master a new vocabulary.

  "They pick crops within a certain radius of their community but they have their own homes now, simple as they are. Their own crops, too, and the children actually go to the same school all year."

  "But that's marvelous!" exclaimed Sister John and then, in a thoughtful voice added, "Where can I find out more about it?"

  "Why?" asked Sister Isabelle, startled.

  "Because we have one hundred and fifty acres of land here."

  "Really?" said Sister Isabelle. "You could do a lot with that, certainly, but it would need money, Sister John. Lots of money."

  "How much?"

  "Half a million? I don't know but I can give you the name and address of a man who knows all about it. He lives in New Jersey."

  Sister John nodded. "I'd like that, Sister Isabelle, I'd appreciate it very much. Now tell me what OEO and HUD are, if you don't mind, and if you aren't terribly sleepy yet . . ."

  "What's wrong with picking beans?" asked Alfie. "Growing things is real. People are real. Where are you going, Sister Hyacinthe?"

  Sister Hyacinthe hesitated at the door. "I thought-I thought I might go downstairs, perhaps even out on the porch, and pray for Sister John. I can't bear the thought of her in jail all night."

  Bhanjan Singh smiled at her gently. "She is not lost, you know. No man is lost who walks a straight path."

  "I'll just remind God about her," Sister Hyacinthe said, and left.

  "You were saying?" said Sister Ursula pointedly.

  "Alfie's saying that a paycheck isn't enough," explained Brill. "A Mustang isn't enough. A split-level house in the suburbs is no longer enough."

  "It's a matter of soul," added Alfie.

  "You're copping out," Sister Ursula told him accusingly.

  "No, I think we're into something real," contradicted Alfie. "There's certainly something damned real about pumping water by hand and growing vegetables without chemicals and patching things up to make them last. Bhanjan Singh has a saying: Observe that the things which are considered to be right today are those which were considered impossible yesterday. The things which are thought wrong today are those which will be esteemed tomorrow."

  "Meaning what?" demanded Sister Ursula.

  "We're working on tomorrow."

  "Picking beans?"

  "Not exclusively," Alfie said patiently. "You keep missing the point. I mean that when all the cars are rusted junk and the suburbs sterile and food in short supply and equipment scarce there have to be people who'll know how to put things together again. People who know how to live simply, without machines. And," he added, whipping the towel from Sister Ursula's shoulders, "I'll bet you don't believe we're right about that either, but did you ever think oil would be rationed?"

  Downstairs Sister Hyacinthe wandered through the dark rooms like a wraith, presently unlocking the front door and venturing out into the coolness of the night. The sky was bright with stars. The huge elm nearby had captured a yellow crescent moon in its branches and cradled it, filtering the pale silver light through its leaves. In the shadows of the wisteria Sister Hyacinthe knelt and prayed for Sister John. Her views might be considered somewhat eccentric at St. Tabitha's but her prayers were always sound and when she had finished it was past midnight. She turned to go inside but the moonlight caught at the gypsy in her and she hesitated. Impulsively she unlaced her shoes, picked up her long skirts and waded barefooted into the tall grass, laughing at the shock of cold dew on her feet.

  Delicious, she thought, and walked toward the rear garden to greet her herbs. As she rounded the corner of the house she found Mr. Quigley there in the act of opening their garbage pail and she stopped, surprised.

  Hearing her small intake of breath he, too, stopped in mid-motion, his attitude guarded; they faced each other in the pale white light of the moon.

  Sister Hyacinthe said politely, "It's very nice of you to come for our garbage."

  "Yes," he said, staring at her intently.

  "I'm not sure we can afford you, though. We save the eggshells for the garden-for the lime in them-and any cans we'll probably bury."

  "Yes," he said.

  "Although if you really need the work," she added generously, "by all means go ahead."

  He responded at once, drew out the modest bag of garbage, replaced the lid and nodded to her. "Lovely evening," he said, and carrying the bag walked across the garden and disappeared into the woods.

  12

  In the morning Brill went off to meet the 9:22 train, taking with him the spare key to Mr. Armisbruck's van so that he could rescue it from its parking space on Main Street. Alfie stoically remained behind on guard duty; it was true that Bhanjan Singh knew some judo, he said, but the man was so persistently non-violent that he couldn't be trusted to fend off invaders. Obviously restless, he asked Sister Hyacinthe if she had anything for him to do.

  "Yes," she said promptly, "you can scythe the front lawn and help me dry the mustard."

  "But that's really Naomi's bag, she'd love doing it," he pointed out.

  "Yes, but Naomi's in jail, and the morning's endless, and when Naomi's out of jail, God willing, there may not be time to dry mustard."

  "Okay," he said, suddenly agreeable, and went off to look for a scythe.

  It was a pleasant morning, cooler than yesterday, with a playful south wind ruffling the trees. Sister Ursula was dozing over his book on cannibals upstairs; Bhanjan Singh sat under a tree and meditated in the shade. Alfie bared himself to the waist and began vigorously scything a portion of their mustard-laden lawn while Sister Hyacinthe followed behind him, bundling the golden harvest into sheaves. Presently she went searching for old window screens, found a collection of them in the barn and carried them to the porch. Clumps of blossoms were pressed between pairs of screens and then placed across wooden sawhorses to dry in the shade. "The rest of the mustard we'll have to dry inside the house," she told Alfie, "and for that we'll need lots and lots of paper bags."

  He reluctantly put down the scythe and pulled on a shirt. "What do we do with paper bags?"

  "Hang them from the ceiling," she explained. "With stalks of mustard tied upside down inside of them, of course."

  "Of course," he said, and helped her carry great piles of greens into the kitchen where she distributed them across the table, chairs and counters.

  "Hooks," she said, removing a box from the drawer. "String . . . you can begin screwing hooks into the ceiling while I look for paper bags." Returning several minutes later with a load of grocery bags, she reminded him that Bhanjan Singh was still sitting under the tree in the same position. "Should we nudge him? How long can
he sit like that?"

  "No need to worry about him, he does it for hours," Alfie reassured her. "Look, I've run out of hooks, what do I do now?"

  Sister Hyacinthe showed him how to tie together bunches of mustard, insert them into the paper bag and suspend each one from a hook in the ceiling. They had hung up three when a door slammed and Brill hailed them from the hallway. "Hey, come on," he shouted, "things are happening. I drove back to get you."

  "They're free?" cried Sister Hyacinthe dropping scissors and string.

  "Not yet. Hop into the van; Bhanjan Singh will look after Sister Ursula."

  Bhanjan Singh was standing on the porch, vertical at last. "Trust me," he said gravely. "The Arab horse speeds fast, the camel plods slowly but it goes by day and night."

  Sister Hyacinthe assumed this to mean that he was prepared to sacrifice non-violence for their cause, picked up her skirts, thanked him and climbed into the van beside Brill and Alfie. "I don't understand," she protested as the van turned and raced down the driveway to Fallen Stump Road.

  "A picture is worth a thousand words," Brill told her, grinning. "It's been a busy morning and it's only just past noon. Its being a Saturday helped. That, and the fact that Sister John seems to have shared a cell last night with a remarkable young woman named Isabelle Irwin who was released at six this morning."

  "He's being deliberately mysterious," Alfie told Sister Hyacinthe. "When he's like this there's absolutely nothing you can do. Hey, we're almost there, that's the court house up ahead."

  Sister Hyacinthe glanced up Main Street and turned pale. "There's been an accident!" she gasped, clutching Alfie.

  "No accident," Brill said firmly, and inserted the van into one of the last remaining parking spaces three blocks from the court house. "We have to walk now."

  It was obvious why they had to walk the rest of the way: swarms of people surrounded the court house and overflowed into the street, which made traffic difficult on a busy Saturday afternoon and added more congestion and more people to the crowds. Signs on long sticks were being brandished; horns blew; men shouted, among them Hubie Johnson attempting to clear the street for cars, and all of this appeared to focus upon the steps of the court house. With uncanny skill Brill slipped through the crowd, pulling Sister Hyacinthe and Alfie behind him, and found a clear space just under the feet of General Grant.