Some of the flax was left to ret or cure in the field; some was bound in bundles, wrapped in tow sacking, and sunk at the edge of the river in vast trays made of logs. Rocks weighted the bundles so that they stayed in the water. Mold and rot made a stench in the bundles worse than the garbage bins before they set them afire. That was the most valuable flax of all, for Sister Agathe said when it was woven it shone like gold.
Sister Agathe came to me one evening. “I have asked the Mother Superior if you may be allowed to visit your uncle. She made inquiries and found he is not your uncle.”
I sighed. “I hoped if I said he was my uncle you might allow it. He was the minister of our community. He was kind to me.”
“And so you have lied again? This time about something more serious than eating a carrot, no? You will spend tomorrow on your knees in prayer at the foot of the cross.”
“Yes, Sister.” I tried to contain my glee at facing a day without flax, but found on the morrow this punishment was not so easily ignored as before. The stones at the foot of the crucifix had been strewn with seeds, and I was not allowed to move them or to sit. I did not cry for myself. I laid curses to Sister Agathe on the deaf ears of the plaster man hanging above me.
Another Sunday came, a day warm and misty, the air reeking with moldering flax blown away by a light breeze, so that the whole place seemed lush and fragrant, verdant, full. The sun was high in the sky when prayers and Sunday’s only meal of the day at mid-morning were finished. I walked to the vegetable garden hoping to find it unattended, but three nuns in gray bent there, praying over pease suffering wilt. The day warmed as I ambled the grounds. I came to a glade made by blueberry bushes grown overhead. An elderly nun sitting in an invalid chair slept there. Her blanket had slipped to her feet. I tucked it up over her shoulders. She awoke and smiled at me. “Merci,” she whispered, “petite ange.” She fell asleep again as soon as the words left her mouth. More like “petite sauvage,” I thought. I wished I were an Indian with a tomahawk.
I picked a handful of berries and ate them. On the other side, a gate in the garden wall stood ajar. Beyond it stretched an open field of grain, silver heads waving under the gentle breeze like water in a bay. Bees hovered about a honeysuckle grown upon a discarded stile beckoning over a fence that no longer existed.
I wheeled around to face the convent buildings, aware that I was alone. I could see the upper floors with their open shutters, the spire of the cathedral. In the distance near the stables a man brushed a horse. Chickens pecked around both their feet. On this side of the blueberries, though, as far as I could see, I was alone at a path between fields. Once I stepped through the gate and stood on the far side of the wall, nothing lay before me but grain fields in all directions. Doves sighed and fluttered overhead, a pheasant cried out rising from his hiding place under the stile. I began to run.
As I ran from the convent proper, my face spread with joy. I opened my mouth to gulp in great breaths of free air. No one called me. On and on I dashed, my shadow before me as if a dark image of myself ran along as company, my arms swinging, my back warmed by the sun and the thought of freedom. “Oui!” I called out, with joy. I returned to English, crying, “Yes, oh yes, Ma. I am coming home!”
I ran until my side ached. The ground rolled lower at the end of the field, which stopped at a stand of maple trees. I might have dashed my brains against the colorless wall of stone on the far side of the maple trees, for I ran into it at full tilt, my hands breaking my fall. The wall was higher than the sides of the Saracen ship. I raced along it one way, then turned and went the other. I beat against it with my fists, growling like a wild animal. I jumped at it, trying to find a fingerhold. Here and there, a rock protruded, but putting my toes on it crumbled it from its place. I heard a dog bark on the other side of the fence. I called out, “Ho, there! Help me, gentlefolk!”
“Who calls?” a man’s voice answered.
“Your servant, sir. Help me, please. They torture children, and starve us, and beat us without mercy. I was brought here by Indians. Save me from this, dear sir, and my mother will pay you handsomely. She is the duchess of all Scotland! Only throw me a line, and I will climb over. Take me away from this place and you will be rich!”
The voice laughed! “You will not find a one in this city who will go against the church!” His laughter and the dog’s barking faded away.