Gilman, Dorothy - A Nun in the Closet Page 6

  Sister John considered thhis. "We really must learn about everything, and I do confess to an interest in what you could be doing with farm workers." She glanced at Sister Hyacinthe, still holding a cup of tea in one hand. "Let's all go up to see him; it's time formal introductions were made."

  It could not justly be said that Sister Ursula warmed to Alfie and Naomi at first glance, not even after it had been explained to him that they were neighbors and quite harmless. His reaction upon seeing them was a violent, "Oh, God, hippies?"

  "Already I know something about him," said Alfie.

  "Definitely Establishment," said Naomi.

  On the other hand, once Sister Ursula had purged himself of this epithet he gave every evidence of relief at seeing another male, especially since it turned out that he had to go to the bathroom. After Alfie had carried him off down the hall they attempted a hasty furnishing of his room. Lamps and a table were brought upstairs, a bed carried down the hall to place under his mattress and a rug tossed cross the floor. The room began to acquire a certain lighthearted bohemian flavor, or, in Naomi's words, it took on the look of a real pad. All of this reduced a great deal of Sister Ursula's hostility; the remainder of it showed further signs of erosion when Alfie promised him cigarettes and said he might play a hand of poker with him after repairing the broken window.

  Naomi went back to camp alone, leaving Alfie to his boards and hammer. Presently she returned to escort Sister John to the meeting, carrying with her a number of items that Alfie had requested for the evening, including cigarettes for Sister Ursula. Looking radiant, Sister John left with a wave of her hand.

  Alfie's hammering issued rhythmically from the side of the house. Birds chattered in the tops of the trees and a locust sang from a hidden vine of wisteria. Sister Hyacinthe, stolling out to the porch, sat down on the front steps and removed her shoes. The sun was an hour to sunset, racing against a series of cumulus clouds that threatened to blot out its brilliance before it reached the horizon. After wriggling her toes in the grass for a few delicious minutes Sister Hyacinthe stood up and walked around the side of the house to look for Alfie. She found the dining-room window neatly boarded over but Alfie had removed himself to the rear. "The pantry window needed fixing," he explained. "Darn thing has no lock and opened as soon as I touched it." He climbed down and regarded his handiwork with pride. "I'd like to see the man who could get through that."

  "So would I," Sister Hyacinthe told him loyally.

  "You notice I nailed the boards in the shape of a cross. Appropriate, don't you think, and rather artistic?"

  "Oh, very."

  They strolled around the opposite side of the house testing windows as they went, and entered the front door just as the clouds reached and obscured the sun, turning the world a metallic gray. This sudden withdrawal of sun dimmed the main hall and placed it in twilight. The house seemed abruptly, overwhelmingly, still, with a tomb-like quality that struck Sister Hyacinthe as extremely unpleasant. She could hear the faucet dripping in the kitchen, the rustle of ivy against the house and upstairs a snort from Sister Ursula.

  Alfie said in a subdued voice, "I don't think I'll tackle the secret staircase after all."

  "No," said Sister Hyacinthe.

  "Of course it won't be really dark for another hour but the lights work all right, don't they?"

  She nodded.

  "Weird house. Very atmospheric. One feels a lot of people have died here."

  "I feel it, too," said Sister Hyacinthe, "but then of course people have to die somewhere."

  "Not violently. There aren't-I mean you and Sister John had no problem sleeping last night? No strange sounds or anything?"

  Sister Hyacinthe gave him a sympathetic glance. "If you mean ghosts, Sister John says if you meet one you just say 'In the name of Jesus Christ go away.' "

  Alfie nodded. "I wish I found that reassuring. Let's consult the I Ching about your house-I asked Naomi to bring it over. You've heard of the Book of Change? No, I don't suppose you have. I really don't think you'd find it blasphemous," he said earnestly, "unless of course you're terribly devout. Well, I suppose you are, being a nun, so you can watch. I've got the I Ching and the yarrow stalks . . . oh yes, and cigarettes and playing cards for Sister Ursula."

  "That's terribly kind of you."

  "I thought so."

  "Is I Ching a game?" she asked, looking at the odd assortment that Alfie pulled out of his pocket.

  "Good Lord, no, it's ancient Chinese divination. I wish we had some incense to burn. You don't happen to have any lying around, do you?"

  Sister Hyacinthe shook her head. "Only some red cayenne pepper; it kills vermin and insects when you burn it in a closed room."

  Alfie gave her an admiring glance. "I have the feeling you may appreciate the I Ching more than I expected. Let's go upstairs and begin our baby-sitting, shall we?"

  They found Sister Ursula tossing restlessly on his bed. "You took so damn long," he said peevishly. "I thought at first you'd all gone off and left me and then I could hear you talking and talking down there."

  "Alfie has brought you cigarettes," Sister Hyacinthe told him. "Of course they're not at all good for you-"

  "Neither is being shot at," he said, looking at Alfie expectantly.

  The cigarettes were produced and he immediately lighted one and sent up spirals of smoke. The curtains were drawn at the window, the lamp brought closer and the yarrow sticks unwrapped. In a solemn voice Alfie said, "We are asking about this house, we are asking if Sister Hyacinthe and Sister John will find this a happy place . . . " A deep silence fell over the room as they watched Alfie toss the yarrow sticks and lay out intricate lineal arrangements on paper. Sister Ursula puffed away non-stop on his cigarettes, producing the only incense available, and Sister Hyacinthe thought it all very companionable and not unlike the abbey on a winter's evening.

  Alfie said at last, "It comes out hexagram 39."

  "Never heard of anything so ridiculous," said Sister Ursula, punching his pillow. "You really expect an answer?"

  Alfie said coldly, "I know two more things about you: you have a New York accent and a closed mind. Okay, here's hexagram 39. Brace yourselves, it's the Chen hexagram, meaning trouble."

  Sister Hyacinthe placed her hands over her ears. "I don't want to hear it."

  "Well, look for yourself. It says, 'This hexagram implies great difficulties. Danger lies ahead. To perceive danger and succeed in averting it, this is wisdom indeed.' "

  "I don't believe it," snorted Sister Ursula. "You're just trying to alarm me with mumbo-jumbo black magic hoping I'll tell you who shot me. Bull. I'll bet you there weren't even three men prowling around the garden last night.

  "Three men in the garden?" Alfie turned to Sister Hyacinthe in astonishment. "Good God, Sister Hyacinthe, is that true?"

  "Now you've done it," she told Sister Ursula reproachfully. "How did you know?"

  "Heard you talking."

  "Yes, there were three men here last night, they came during the thunderstorm and left when Sister John called from the window."

  "But that's terrible," cried Alfie. He jumped up, turned off the lights and hurried to the window to peer outside. "Good Lord, why didn't you tell me? That's just what you ought to be afraid of. If they were looking for a body in the garden they'll be trying next to get into the house."

  "You're a real bundle of cheer," Sister Ursula told him. "Anybody out there?"

  "No, so I'll turn on the lights again but I don't think you're so helpful, either, you know. Who wants you dead? Why were you shot?"

  "No comment."

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm nasty clear through to the bone," he growled. "Are we going to play poker or don't hippies play poker?"

  "I'm not a hippie."

  "The hell you're not. I know a hippie when I see one"

  Sister Hyacinthe intervened quickly. "I have to remind you both that Sister Ursula is convalescent-he's still very weakand if you're going to play
poker you'll have to play without arguing. Where are your cards, Alfie?"

  From downstairs a voice called, "Hey, everybody, anybody at home?"

  "It's Naomi. Up here," shouted Alfie.

  "Coming," called back Naomi, her voice growing nearer. "Which room? Oh, here you are. When Brill told me Sister Hyacinthe was going to make a fresh comfrey poultice tonight I had to come and watch. Look who just came in on the bus from New York-I've brought Bhanjan Singh!"

  Naomi appeared in the doorway wearing a long flowering muslin dress, followed by a short rotund figure in what looked to be another long and flowing dress. As they entered the room, however, certain differences could be noted: the second figure was male, and the dress was a yellow robe covering a plump, twinkling little man with beige skin and bright black eyes.

  "Oh God," said Sister Ursula from his bed.

  "Great," said Alfie. "Bhanjan will have ideas, Bhanjan knows everything. He's a guru."

  "Guru?" said Sister Hyacinthe blankly.

  Sister Ursula, looking Bhanjan Singh over from head to foot, said, "Christ, don't you people know any nice Chamber of Commerce types, any TV repairmen or stockbrokers or postmen?"

  "Don't be dull," said Naomi. "Bhanjan's not only a Tibetan monk but he can read the future if he chooses."

  Sister Ursula laughed derisively. "He could start by reading mine, then, since I don't even know if I have one."

  "Show me a man who insists on knowing the future," said Bhanjan Singh gently, "and I will show you a man who finds the past meaningless and the present empty. Such a man should attend to his soul, which is undernourished."

  "It can't be any more undernourished than my stomach," protested Sister Ursula. "They've given me nothing but broth and eggnog. Come on, be a sport and tell me 'my future.' "

  Bhanjan smiled and shook his head. "I will say only this, my friend: if you cannot bear a sting you should not put your finger in a scorpion's nest."

  Sister Ursula started at him blankly.

  "The Sufis also have a saying: Make no friendship with an elephant keeper-if you have no room to entertain an elephant."

  To Sister Hyacinthe's surprise their patient's face turned dark red, as if Bhanjan's words had scored a mysterious hit. She said, rising, "That's enough for now. Before any fresh shocks are given to Sister Ursula I'll change the poultice on his arm. I think I'll also make us a pot of sassafras tea."

  "I'll help," said Naomi.

  Over sassafras tea they discussed clairvoyance, and Bhanjan Singh explained that it was simply a matter of seeing the invisible: every human being carried about with him his past, his present and his future. Even a rock, he said, had an aura and characteristics all its own.

  "That's hard to believe," said Sister Hyacinthe.

  Bhanjan Singh looked at her with amusement. "About yourself, Sister Hyacinthe, I see that you have great compassion for green and growing things, and I believe that you have conversations with your plants and sometimes-am I not right?-you listen to them reply to you."

  Alfie turned to her eagerly. "Do you really, Sister Hyacinthe? Oh, crackerjack, I knew you were one of us!"

  Sister Hyacinthe had turned crimson with embarrassment. "I've never told anyone I talk to my herbs."

  "You can't keep things from Bhanjan," Naomi told her. "He picks them up. He's a very advanced person."

  "Maybe he is in Tibet," said Sister Ursula, "but Americans are more rational. What's your angle, Bhanjan Singh, how do you do it? Christ, you've got even me curious."

  "To him who has perception," said Bhanjan, "a mere sign is enough. For him who does not really heed, a thousand explanations are not enough."

  "Well, give it a try, won't you?"

  Bhanjan shrugged. "It is very simple, really: all around you are clues, promises, auras, vibrations, portents. Think of electricity! We are surrounded by it but no one has ever seen it. Your physicists tell us that we have each of us a magnetic field which can be measured, and when we leave a chair in which we have been sitting we leave behind traces of this magnetic field that can be measured by instruments. In this house there remain just such traces of all the thoughts and emotions experienced here. You are accustomed only to the visible, but the most significant things in life are invisible."

  "Like thought," pointed out Alfie.

  "And love," added Naomi.

  Sister Hyacinthe said eagerly, "How did it start, how did it come to you? Where did you begin?"

  "It is something that may come only after long years of meditation," said Bhanjan. "Of stilling the mind and silencing desire."

  Sister Ursula said testily, "That's all very well but you can't earn a living if you go around meditating all the time, how can you get anywhere in life?"

  "Bhanjan isn't interested in getting anywhere," said Naomi. "He's already there."

  "Where?"

  "In a state of Being."

  "Where the hell's that?" demanded Sister Ursula. "What does he do for food? Tell me how he pays his bills. For that matter how do either of you pay your bills?"

  Sister Hyacinthe said seriously, "At the abbey we pay our bills by baking bread and selling it, sixty loaves a day fresh from the ovens of St. Tabitha's."

  "You too?" Sister Ursula looked alarmed. "My God, am I outnumbered? Am I the only one here who pays taxes, has a job and a bank account, knows what an investment portfolio is and holds things together?"

  Bhanjan Singh said gently, "You are also the only one here, my friend, with three bullet holes in him."

  After Sister Ursula had fallen asleep Bhanjan Singh told them stories in the kitchen. Once upon a time, he said, when God had finished making the world, he wanted to leave behind Him for man a piece of His own divinity, a spark of His essence, a promise to man of what he could become, with effort. He looked for a place to hide this Godhead because, he explained, what man could find too easily would never be valued by him.

  "Then you must hide the Godhead on the highest mountain peak on earth," said one of His councilors.

  God shook His head. "No, for man is an adventuresome creature and he will soon enough learn to climb the highest mountain peaks."

  "Hide it then, O Great One, in the depths of the earth!"

  "I think not," said God, "for man will one day discover that he can dig into the deepest parts of the earth."

  "In the middle of the ocean then, Master?"

  God shook His head. "I've given man a brain, you see, and one day he'll learn to build ships and cross the mightiest oceans."

  "Where then, Master?" cried His councilors.

  God smiled. "I'll hide it in the most inaccessible place of all, and the one place that man will never think to look for it. I'll hide it deep inside of man himself."

  Sister Hyacinthe looked at Bhanjan Singh and smiled. "Now I know what a guru is," she said simply.

  6

  When Sister John returned at nine o'clock they had moved into the living room and were sitting on the floor instructing Sister Hyacinthe in Buddhist meditation. She had been directed to breathe deeply through first one nostril and then the other, after which she had chanted A-u-m until her palate tickled and all of her brain cells vibrated. Following this came a stillness marred only by the hum of crickets outside, the rustle of ivy against the wall and the faraway scream of a siren somewhere along Fallen Stump Road.

  Into this silence walked Sister John, looked distracted. "Sister Hyacinthe?" she called, and stopped in surprise at the sight of four bowed heads.

  Alfie looked up and grinned. "Hi, Sister John, how was the meeting?"

  "Heartbreaking," she said, and sank into a chair. "I don't want to talk about it until I can think about it. I've been asked by Brill to send you right back to camp because rabbits are eating the lettuce in your garden."

  "There are always rabbits in the garden," sighed Naomi. "It's positively symbolic, like serpents in Eden. Hey, Sister John, you haven't met Bhanjan Singh yet."

  "Singh?" echoed Sister John, and seeing him uncoil himself from t
he floor stared at him in astonishment; he advanced toward her and she made a move to rise.

  "No, no," he said, smiling. "Please remain seated, I see that you are very tired."

  "Surely we've met before?" she asked, looking baffled.

  His smile deepened. "We recognize each other because we are travelers on the same path, although perhaps in another life-never mind, I want you to know that I have enjoyed this evening so much."

  "They've given you tea?"

  "Yes, and much more."

  The sound of a siren that had remained a backdrop for their words now became loud and penetrating, like a scream gone berserk. Sister John opened her mouth and spoke but her words were swallowed up at once and soundless. Alfie walked over to the window, drew aside the curtain and peered outside. "My God, it's a police car," he gasped. "A police car coming here. Straight up the driveway to the house!"

  "Sister Ursula," cried Sister Hyacinthe, stumbling to her feet. "The police will find him!"

  "No they won't, we'll hide him. Upstairs, everybody," shouted Alfie, waving his arms. "No, no, not yet, Sister Hyacinthe, you live here. Come on-fast-before they reach the front door and see us."

  Alfie raced for the stairs, followed by Naomi and Bhanjan Singh. "This is a frenzied world," said Sister John with a sigh and a shake of her head. "You and I must set an example of being very calm."

  "Y-y-es," stammered Sister Hyacinthe, standing at the foot of the stairs and looking anything but calm.

  The siren was mercifully stilled, a car door slammed, followed by heavy footsteps on the wooden stairs and a loud knock. Sister John smoothed her coif, moved to the door and opened it.

  Two men in uniform confronted her, one of them middle-aged, well-muscled and formidable, the other small, elderly and wizened. "Evening, ma'am," said the larger one. "Mind if we come in?" Without waiting for reply he opened the screen door and walked past her into the hall, his glance taking in Sister Hyacinthe on the stairs before settling on Sister John. "I'm Sheriff McGee and this is Deputy Johnson."