They were in what the Sisters humbly called the refectory; it was, in fact, the rich man’s former drawing room. It was elegant still, high-ceilinged, paneled, with the same thick silk draperies he had paid for. It was where the Sisters took their simple meals, but it was also the site for card parties and ladies’ teas, Christmas gatherings for the neighborhood poor, visits from the Bishop. A room the nuns used to impress both the indigent and the hoi polloi.
The small bulbs in the chandelier above the polished table where the nuns now sat reflected prettily in the dark wood, like starlight on a pond. As Sister Lucy spoke about the arrangements she had made to remove Sally from the scene of her mother’s “indiscretion,” Sister Illuminata recalled that she had seen such a pond, such dancing starlight, at the sanatorium upstate. She recalled the pond, the bracing cold night, the tall black pines in the distant darkness, and the flavor of pine on the air. She became aware once more of the ache in her scarred lungs. She recalled the old doctor.
She remembered the lesson she had learned on her first afternoon at the sanatorium, had learned but forgotten: There is a hunger.
Now Lucy was speaking of the property that was to be left to the Sisters, an estate out on Long Island. A rambling house the order would convert to an old folks’ home, the acreage that might accommodate a hospital someday. This was a realm of convent business Sister Illuminata had little to do with—upstairs business was how she referred to it—the stuff, as she saw it, of ambition and vanity as much as it was a part of the Sisters’ mission to serve the sick poor. There was goodness in it, of course, and the generosity of the Catholic family who had left the Sisters the land. Sister Lucy said the property would not come to them free and clear. But the motherhouse in Chicago would work with the diocese here. The Bishop approved. Some of the good ladies of the Auxiliary had volunteered their husbands, Wall Street men, bankers, men of the world.
There was goodness in it all, of course, but there was greed, too. Sister Illuminata heard it in Lucy’s eager voice: acreage and a house and banks and mortgages, the Bishop, the Cardinal.
More good, Sister Lucy said, than any one Sister could do on her own, going door to door.
It was the kind of worldly ambition, Sister Illuminata thought, that well suited Sister Lucy’s mannish face. And then prayed to be forgiven for the unkindness.
This was no time, Sister Lucy was saying, to disturb the ladies in the Auxiliary, or to stir gossip in the neighborhood, by throwing out onto the street a widow known these nearly twenty years as the laundress in the convent.
Sister Illuminata raised her eyes from the electric starlight reflected in the dining table’s shine. She felt that old ache in her lungs. And in her swollen knees. She knew the time would come, soon perhaps, when the trip down to the laundry, the trip back up again, would be impossible for her. She was well aware that even now, without Annie’s help, she could not manage half the tasks, most of the tasks, the convent needed her to do. If Annie was to be dismissed, no doubt another, younger nun would be assigned to take her place, or perhaps another needy widow from the neighborhood. The long hours Sister Illuminata spent in her chair beside the ironing board, sometimes—with Annie’s good indulgence—just dozing, would be exposed. Sister Illuminata, all other usefulness gone, would be brought every morning to an office lobby or a drafty subway entrance or to the vestibule of some busy store, a woven alms basket to hold on her lap. The cane she now used an extra added attraction.
Sister Lucy was saying, “If Sister Illuminata will have her.”
They all directed their eyes toward Sister Illuminata.
Caught by surprise, she only nodded gravely.
“I suggest we keep her here, then,” Sister Lucy said. “Whether she amends her life or no.”
And then they called Annie into the room. She stood with her hands folded before her, her back straight. “No” was the answer.
*
ONCE MORE, the cathedral light, the light of painted holy cards, streamed from the high windows to touch the girl’s shoulders and her bowed head. Sally was crouched on the floor beside the nun, leaned into her lap. The Ninth Hour prayers had just ended. Sally visited now only when her mother was out—at the shops, they continued to say, as if the truth of what her mother was up to on these afternoons could not assail the custom of their belief, their determined innocence.
There is a hunger, Sister Illuminata told the girl.
“A hunger to be comforted” was how our mother recalled it.
But the nun’s language in these matters—matters of the body, of the flesh, what went on between women and men—was limited. Her experience limited as well.
She put her hand on the girl’s head. Leaned as close to her familiar, sweet-scented hair as the starched bonnet would allow. “We can pray for your mother’s soul,” she said. “We can offer up our work, the way we do for the souls in purgatory.” She paused. Felt the old assurance of words she understood. “Maybe there are some extra works of mercy you could do. Something you can offer up to God in the name of your mother.”
“I don’t like nursing, Sister,” Sally said. Stubborn. “I’m no good at it.”
“It doesn’t have to be nursing,” Sister Illuminata said. “It doesn’t have to be religious life.” Sally was leaning against her lap, looking up at her warily. Sister could feel the quick impatience in the girl’s young bones. A coiled energy that had been there since her childhood, that Sister only now was willing to acknowledge was proof of Lucy’s assessment that marriage might settle her.
“You could simply do some good in your mother’s name,” she said. “Until your mother’s ready to do something for herself.”
Sally narrowed her eyes, as if to see Sister’s point. Her plain lovely face was not as childish as it once had been. Today she wore some face powder that obscured her fading freckles. Some rosy color on her chapped lips as well. Mr. Tierney had found her a small job in the tearoom at the hotel, three afternoons a week. Sister Illuminata took the makeup to mean the end of the girl’s vocation.
“A kind of penance,” Sister said. “A way to gain some indulgence for her. For her soul.”
Above them, the sound of the Sisters’ footsteps as they were leaving the chapel. Only a few of the nuns had returned to the convent today, most had stayed out on casework, need being what it was in the neighborhood.
“Maybe we can find some poor creature you can help. Maybe an old woman who would love your companionship. Maybe a young mother nearby who needs help with her children. We can ask the Sisters. We can find you some good you could do. For your mother’s sake. You can offer it up. For the salvation of her soul.”
Sister Illuminata heard Sister Jeanne’s light step on the basement stairs. Sally placed her cheek on the nun’s wide lap. “She won’t,” she said. And Sister heard Annie’s own determination in the girl’s voice. “She won’t change. She calls him ‘dear.’”