Gilman, Dorothy - A Nun in the Closet Read online

  "I'm Sister John and that's Sister Hyacinthe," she responded crisply. "May I ask what brings you at this late hour?"

  "Well," he drawled in a flat bored voice, "to be perfectly frank about it, ma' m, to get to the point without horsing around, so to speak, you can pack your bags and come along with us, if you know what I mean. We've come to take you wherever you were going when you got here."

  "Wherever we were going when we got here," echoed Sister John in a bewildered voice. "But as you can see, we're already here."

  "Yes, ma'am, but you shouldn't be here, it's against the law," he said. "I don't know what rules you sisters go by, being Presbyterian myself, but you can't just stop where you please; it's trespassing."

  "Trespassing?" repeated Sister John. "Is that why you've came? Is that the only reason you're here?"

  "If you don't think it's reason enough I could always add more charges," he said, eying her coldly. "Like breaking and entering, maybe."

  "No, no, that's quite all right," she told him hastily. "Who told you we were trespassing? Who made the complaint?"

  The sheriff shook his head. "I get my orders from higher up, Sister-"

  "As we do, too," put in Sister John.

  "-so I wouldn't know who complained, now would I? Hubie, where the hell did I put my imported Sani-Smokes?" He had been absently patting his pockets; now he turned indignantly to his deputy.

  "Saw you tuck 'em in your hip pocket."

  "Damn fool place to put them." He brought out a large fat cigar and held it, unlighted, as he continued to explain the circumstances. "It's not a duty I take to kindly," he said, "running you off this property, but it's a private residence and trespassing's against the law, so if you'll just pack up your things and come along peaceably now-"

  "Oh, we couldn't possibly," Sister John told him.

  His boredom vanished in a second. "Maybe you're not reading me loud and clear," he said in a hard voice, and clamped his cigar between his teeth. "Maybe you're thinking nuns get special treatment-I've seen you people on the six o'clock news, Sister, and some of you are getting to be real troublemakers."

  "We are?" said Sister John, surprised.

  "Get out the handcuffs, Hubie."

  "Handcuffs?" Sister John said incredulously.

  "Handcuffs. Believe me, I wouldn't hesitate to carry you out, you understand me? In fact, to lay it on the line, Sister, if you're not out of here in ten minutes I'll not only arrest you, I'll put you in jail a few days to cool off."

  Sister John stared at him in astonishment. "I never heard such nonsense in my life, Sheriff. And you call yourself a Presbyterian, a Christian, presumably with a conscience?"

  "You can leave my conscience out of this," he said. "I'm tired to death of people screaming about consciences these days. Laws are laws. Now are you coming peaceably or do we use force?" He removed the cigar from his mouth and returned her steady look unblinkingly. "Well?"

  Sister John said curtly, "I'd like to get something from the kitchen."

  "Go with her, Hubie," the sheriff told his deputy.

  Hubie accompanied her; a moment later Sister John returned with a sheaf of papers bound in pale blue. "The deed," she said, presenting it to him.

  "Deed? What d'ye mean deed?"

  "To this property. Which," she told him coolly, "happens to have been left quite legally to St. Tabitha's Abbey of Bridgemont, Pennsylvania, making you the trespassers here."

  "Left to you?" said the sheriff. "Christ, how can it be left to you when it belongs to Frank Scozzafava?"

  "I don't know about any Scozzafava. If you'll read the deed you'll see it was bequeathed to us by Mr. Moretti."

  "Who the hell's Moretti?"

  "The man who owned this property."

  The sheriff's glance dropped to the papers in his hand and he scowled over the first page. "Joseph A. Moretti," he read aloud, and slowly a look of astonishment replaced his scowl. "Christ, d'ye mean Joe Moretti?"

  "Since I never had the pleasure of meeting him I've never called him that but possibly his friends did."

  "Old Joe Moretti," said the sheriff incredulously. "And he left this place to nuns?" A rich and fruity chuckle escaped him. "Oboy," he said. "Oboy, Scozzafava's not going to like this." He began to look extremely pleased that Scozzafava wasn't going to like this. Handing the deed back to Sister John, he said, "Let's go, Hubie, it looks like we got a very very interesting night ahead of us." At the door he turned and gave Sister John a curious glance. "How many sisters you got here in this Godforsaken place?"

  "Three," Sister John told him, "but there are no places that God has forsaken, Sheriff, and we have our faith."

  "Hell, you may need it," he said, and disappeared into the darkness.

  From the stairs came a long drawn-out sigh as Sister Hyacinthe stopped holding her breath. "You were magnificent, Sister John," she breathed. "I was terrified."

  "A most extraordinary man," said Sister John, staring after him. "Pure bully-one of the most unpleasant I believe I've ever met-and what I resent very much is that I shall have to pray for him."

  "Surely not yet," pleaded Sister Hyacinthe.

  "He would have taken us to jail, can you imagine? And in handcuffs. I might add that he even seemed to relish the thought."

  "At least we won't have to see him again," pointed out Sister Hyacinthe.

  "One certainly hopes not because he strikes me as a very weak reed to lean on in crisis."

  From the landing above them Alfie called down. "Why didn't they want to search the house?" He sounded offended.

  "Because Sister Ursula appeared to be the last thing on the sheriffs mind. You can come down now. How's Sister Ursula?"

  "Exhausted but swearing a lot. Naomi and Bhanjan are carrying him back to bed. Look, if Brill needs us we'd better leave now but first tell us what happened. What did he want?"

  "There seems to have been a misunderstanding over who owns the house," Sister John told him. "After I produced the deed the sheriff transferred his considerable hostility to a man named Scozzafava, but not before he threatened to throw us out of the house. Would you believe he was going to send Sister Hyacinthe and me to jail, and very happily, too?"

  "I could believe it," Alfie said, nodding. "God, I hate leaving. To think we have to exchange all this for chasing rabbits."

  "Must we?" protested Naomi, following Bhanjan Singh down the stairs.

  "Try to remember," pointed out Bhanjan Singh, "that every plain is followed by a slope, every going forth is followed by a return." He paused to shake hands with Sister Hyacinthe, his eyes twinkling. "Next time chamomile?" At the door he stopped and directed a penetrating glance at Sister John. "A word of warning," he said softly. "There is evil all around you here. To tread with impunity upon a tiger's tail, breathless caution is required." Shepherding Alfie and Naomi in front of him, he went out.

  "I don't like the sound of that," said Sister Hyacinthe, staring after him. "Bhanjan Singh knows things."

  "Yes, what a dear little man he is, and what an astonishing day this has been," said Sister John. "Except-where has it gone? I want to begin reading Brill's book, I want to think about the migrant workers I met tonight, there's Sister Ursula's habit to finish, I want to hear about Bhanjan Singh, and I simply must write Mother Angelique and ask about Sister Emma." She turned off the hall lights and moved to the door to close and lock it for the night. "Sister Hyacinthe, look-the moon is out now!"

  Sister Hyacinthe came to stand beside her and they gazed out on a brilliant, cloudless sky. A huge globe of a moon hung over the thruway, dusting their lawn with silver and sending inky long fingers across the hollows. With a catch in her voice Sister Hyacinthe said, "It's such a beautiful world, isn't it, Sister John?"

  Off to their left a shadow detached itself from the shrubbery and the dark figure of a man moved through the tall grass toward the center of the lawn. For a moment he stood quietly in the moonlight, his face hidden from them, and then he turned and stared up at the house an
d with his head lifted they clearly saw his features: it was the garbage man, Mr. Quigley. They had no sooner recognized him than he glided across the lawn-there was no other way to describe his well-oiled soundless movement-and vanished around the side of the house.

  "Really," said Sister John thoughtfully, "when you recall that this property has been deserted for years it seems an amazingly busy place."

  Sister Hyacinthe only shivered. "Close the door, Sister John, I don't like it, it frightens me."

  After evening prayers they carefully locked up the house and carried a glass of warm milk to Sister Ursula. They spread their bedrolls across mattresses in the room next to their patient, but Sister John said she refused to go to bed until she had read some of Brill's book, whereupon she went downstairs and established herself under a lamp in the living room.

  Sister Hyacinthe washed her face, brushed her teeth and knelt beside her bed. After a few minutes on her knees, and hearing only snores from Sister Ursula's room, she dropped to the floor, crossed her legs under her and tried a tentative Ahhhhh and then an Ooooooo, followed by an Mmmmmmmm.

  In the living room Sister John opened Underground America to its Preface and began to read. Once upon a time, she read, there was a United States of America where Sunday dinner was roast beef and apple pie, where the Fourth of July was parades, the American flag, and a lump in the throat; where any little boy could grow up to be President and every little girl waited patiently to trade her Barbie doll for a real baby after she met Prince Charming, with whom she would live happily forever after . . . .

  Today roast beef is $3 a pound and the apple pie full of chemicals; there have been a few problems about the American flag which has been flown upside down, backwards and at half mast too many times; Vietnam and Watergate have removed the last vestiges of America's fabled innocence; the divorce rate is zooming, the air polluted, our water dirty . . .

  Oblivious to the sounds of humming from Sister Hyacinthe's room upstairs, and of snoring from Sister Ursula's room, Sister John moved from Preface to Chapter One, her eyes growing wider and wider.

  7

  In the morning Sister Hyacinthe opened her eyes to a chorus of bird song and lay in bed recalling the events of the previous evening. Sister John, she noticed, had already awakened and gone downstairs, leaving her bedroll neatly folded at the foot of her bed. Sister Hyacinthe wondered if she had left her magnetic field behind her, too. The thought of that rotund little man Bhanjan Singh filled her with the greatest pleasure. She could not have put it into words but she felt that most of the obstacles in her life had been placed there by logical people. Bhanjan Singh, on the other hand, was a man who had mastered logic and then happily left it behind him for a world that Sister Hyacinthe sometimes glimpsed but had never dared mention to others, fearing ridicule.

  Rising, she said her prayers, dressed and went downstairs to look for Sister John. She could find traces of her everywhere: Brill's book open on the couch, Sister Ursula's habit neatly folded on the kitchen table, their breakfast gruel simmering on the stove. She called and a moment later Sister John emerged from the cellar wreathed in cobwebs. "I've been in the preserve closet," she said breathlessly.

  "That disagreeable place!"

  "I've just hidden the money there. I had trouble sleeping last night," she confessed. "I came downstairs and finished Sister Ursula's habit, and then I wrote a long letter to our abbess asking her about Sister Emma and telling her about the suitcase. Then it occurred to me that of course she'll want to know how much money is in the suitcase so I carried it down to the preserve closet where we can count it later, whenever we have time. Which brings me," she added, "to the suitcase."

  "Suitcase," echoed Sister Hyacinthe.

  She nodded. "I know Sister Vincent would love to have it for her lute but last night I met someone with more pressing needs. A little girl named Alice, Sister Hyacinthe."

  Sister Hyacinthe stopped spooning out the gruel and waited, spoon in hand.

  "I can talk about it now but it upset me a great deal," confessed Sister John, her voice trembling a little. "You can't imagine how those migrant workers live, Sister Hyacinthe. This child, this little girl, is nine years old and hasn't the faintest concept of what a home is. She and her family move week after week, wherever crops need to be picked, and she carries her few things with her in a paper bag." There were tears in Sister John's eyes; she reached into her sleeve for a handkerchief. "Her dream, Sister Hyacinthe, is to own a little suitcase. She saw one once in a picture. Before that she'd never known suitcases existed for the"-Sister John's lip curled-"for the traveler." Anger drove the tears from her eyes and she returned the handkerchief to her sleeve.

  "And the child's American?" asked Sister Hyacinthe in astonishment.

  "Of course she's American, although if you asked her she might not know what that means. She's an outcast, Sister Hyacinthe, every single one of those migrant workers is an outcast."

  "But why?" asked Sister Hyacinthe, bewildered.

  "It's all in Brill's book," Sister John said firmly. "Apathy. Nobody knows who's in charge any more. The center no longer holds."

  "But people who believe in God, surely-"

  Sister John shook her head. "According to Brill's book Time magazine announced in 1966 that God is dead. Terrible things have been happening in the world, Sister Hyacinthe. It's hard to understand, and it would look utterly hopeless to me if I hadn't seen for myself, with my own eyes-" She hesitated.

  "Seen what?" asked Sister Hyacinthe, and put down her cup of clover blossom tea.

  "Seen what these young people are doing. Brill insists it's nothing, he says it's nothing because they'll soon be abandoning the workers just like everybody else but that isn't so, because without any thought of recompenseonly because they want to, because they care-they've been spending their free time with them, explaining their rights to them. Simple things, like how to get a birth certificate-can you believe that most of them don't have one?-and how to insist on enough money and enough plumbing, and how to fight horrid crew leaders. It's a beautiful thing, Sister Hyacinthe."

  "What are crew leaders?"

  "Men who hire the workers down south and bring them up here in trucks or cars and pay them. And steal from them, too, frequently."

  "Sister John!"

  "Exactly. They are absolutely helpless people, Sister Hyacinthe." Her chin tilted defiantly. "It may be shocking of me to say but I find it hard to believe that hell is off somewhere in another world after learning how these people live on this earth."

  "I'm not shocked," Sister Hyacinthe said loyally. "What are you going to do?" She asked this as a matter of course, knowing that it was Sister John's nature to fix and change things.

  "I don't know yet," Sister John said, idly stirring her tea. "Brill is going to come over this afternoon and tell me more about them. Perhaps I could begin by writing an article for our magazine. After all, Reflections has a judge and three doctors on its mailing list."

  "I've often wondered if anyone actually reads our magazine," Sister Hyacinthe said boldly.

  Sister John gave her a level, expressionless glance.

  "Or whether they're just loyal Catholics," finished Sister Hyacinthe, and stood up and carried her empty bowl to the sink.

  "You may have a point," said Sister John with a wry smile, "but it's one I hope you'll never repeat to Sister Charity, it would break her heart. I wonder if you'd mind taking up Sister Ursula's breakfast tray while I spread out the money for counting downstairs. Has he had meat yet?"

  "He had it in his stew last night."

  Sister John nodded. "Then give him gruel this morning." She left the table and walked into the pantry. "All these jars of sugar will have to be moved out of here and down to the preserve closet, Sister Hyacinthe, they take up far too much space. I see you didn't even have room to put away all the groceries yesterday." Her skirts rustled; Sister John's habit was always more crisply starched than anybody else's.

  "Sugar?"
>
  "Yes, jars of it everywhere."

  Sister Hyacinthe winced. "And I bought sugar yesterday. Five pounds of it."

  "I thought you might have noticed. Come see for yourself."

  Sister Hyacinthe joined her in the pantry and discovered that two long high shelves were crammed with large glass jars labeled powdered sugar. At a glance it looked as if their pantry was stocked with more than fifty pounds of the stuff, and her apologies for buying more of it were fervent.

  "No harm done. Mr. Moretti was, I fear, a hoarder. Obviously a hoarder." Picking up three of the jars, Sister John added, "You might bring a few down later." Clutching the jars to her bosom, she moved at a slant toward the cellar door, kicked it wide with the toe of one boot and disappeared.

  Sister Ursula did not appreciate the gruel. After one mouthful his eyes bulged, he swallowed with difficulty, and gagged. "What the hell is this stuff?" he gasped.

  "Gruel," said Sister Hyacinthe. "It's no more gluey than oatmeal and just as nutritious."

  "Yes but what is it?"

  "Slippery elm bark, cooked and flavored with nutmeg and honey."

  "God damn," he exploded. "I'm used to bacon and eggs every morning, lots of toast and jam, fruit juice and coffee and you're feeding me tree bark?"

  "Cooked tree bark."

  "Horrible," he said, shuddering. "The kindest thing I can say for it is that it must have a hell of a low cholesterol count."

  Sister Hyacinthe nodded. "Attitude is so important, don't you think? Try another spoonful before it gets cold, it tends to jell when it's cold. You might as well like it because you'll be having it for breakfast tomorrow, too."

  "The death of hope," he growled. "What are you planning for lunch, shrubbery and grubs?"

  "Bread, cheese and tea," she said, grinning at him. "I think you're developing a sense of humor, Sister Ursula, you must be feeling better."

  "A person would have to develop something here. Ulcers, hives, eczema," he said gloomily. "The thing is, I'm not used to the ascetic sort of life."