*
SISTER JEANNE FELT THE COLD on her hands—her gloves were in her pockets, too late to reach them now—but she felt as well the blood drumming in her wrists and in her temples. She felt her heart in her chest beating against the gathered bed linens as if she were running away with them. Last night’s grief had made the new day profound, true, but for Sister Jeanne the first hour of any day, the hour of Lauds, was always the holiest. It was the hour she felt closest to God, saw Him in the gathering light, in the new air, in the stillness of the street—shades were drawn and the shops shuttered—but also in the first stirrings of life. There was the pleasant sound of a milk cart, tinkle of glass and clop of hooves, the sound of a few chirping songbirds, the call of distant gulls, of a streetcar down the avenue, a tugboat on the river, everything waking, beginning again. Deep night frightened her beyond reason; she knew herself to be a heretic of superstitions and weird imaginings, but knowing this didn’t stop the terror she could brew for herself when she woke to pray at 3 a.m. And the busy, crowded sunlight hours, filled with casework, hardly gave her a moment to raise her eyes. Suppertime, ever since she’d come to the convent, was a calm that God need not enter, since the bread and the soup were always good and the company of the other women, tired from a long day of nursing, was sufficient to itself.
But it was at this hour, when the sun was a humming gold at the horizon, or a pale peach, or even just, as now, a gray pearl, that she felt the breath of God warm on her neck. It was at this hour that the whole city smelled to her like the inside of a cathedral—damp stone and cold water and candle wax—and the sound of her steps on the sidewalk and over the five cross streets made her think of a priest approaching the altar in shined shoes. Or of a bridegroom, perhaps, out of one of the romances she had read as a girl, all love and anticipation.
Sister Jeanne maneuvered her bundle through the wrought-iron gate at the front of the convent and climbed the steps to the front door. The other nuns were just coming out of the chapel, and their stillness as they walked through the dark corridor, which was untouched, as yet, by the outside light, made her feel even more buoyantly aware of the life in her veins. It was the feeling she’d had as a young child, coming from the sunshine into the solemn, shaded house and being warned, day after day, to keep her voice low because her mother, an invalid, was sleeping. She fell in line behind the other Sisters and then turned with her bundle as they passed the basement stairs. She went down. Sister Illuminata, the laundress, followed on her heels. The cellar was dark, full of shadows, although the pale morning was pressed against the small windows. The basement at this hour smelled only faintly of soap, more profoundly of dirt and brick, the cold underground. Somewhat breathlessly, Sister Jeanne told the story of the death and the fire and the baby coming, and the request Sister St. Saviour had made. Unsmiling, Sister Illuminata took the sheets and blanket and counterpane from her arms. She sent Sister Jeanne back up the stairs with the thrust of her chin. “Bring Sister her breakfast,” she said. “And tell her it will be tomorrow, at best, before these things are dry. Even if I hang them by the furnace.”
*
WHEN SISTER JEANNE RETURNED, the snow had become steady and the sidewalk was somewhat slick with it. She carried a broom and a bucket that contained both a scrub brush and the breakfast: a jar of tea, buttered bread, jam, all wrapped in a towel but rattling nevertheless inside the metal pail, a sound that added a quickness to her step and made some of the people she passed—the men mostly, who tipped their hats and said, “Sister”—smile to see her: a little nun with a pail and a broom and a determined walk. As she reached the building, Sister Lucy was just coming down the steps, wrapping her cloak around her hips and pulling down the corners of her mouth, as if the two motions were somehow connected—some necessary accommodation to what Sister Jeanne saw immediately was her ferocious anger.
“She’s got the body coming back tonight,” Sister Lucy said, and added for emphasis, “This evening. For the wake. And buried first thing tomorrow morning.” She shook her jowls. She was a mannish, ugly woman, humorless, severe, but an excellent nurse. Among the many helpful things she’d already taught Sister Jeanne was to notice the earlobes of the dying, first indication that the hour had come.
“Tomorrow!” Sister Lucy said again. “Calvary—she’s got it all arranged.” She shivered a bit, wrapped her cloak around her more tightly, and dropped her mouth into a longer frown. “And why is she rushing him into the ground?”
There was a yellow tint to her pupils, which were darting back and forth as they took in the rooftops and the icy snowflakes. “I’ll say only this,” Sister Lucy declared. “You can’t pull strings with God.” She leveled her gaze and pulled again at her cloak. Sister Jeanne thought of a painting she had seen, maybe in the courthouse or a post office, of a square-jawed general in the snow—was it George Washington?—his cloak drawn about him just so.
“You can’t pull the wool over God’s eyes,” Sister Lucy said.
Sister Jeanne, the bucket in one hand and the broom in another, and the cold, for the first time this morning, whipping into her open cloak, turned somewhat gratefully to a woman who was passing on the sidewalk and saying, “Good morning, Sisters.” She was a young woman bundled against the weather, a dark blue shawl wrapped around her broad hat, another thrown over her shoulders. She was pushing a baby carriage. A thin line of snow had gathered on the hood of the carriage, and there was a frosting of snow on the knuckles of her black gloves as well. She was pregnant under her man’s overcoat. The nuns said, “Good morning,” with a bow, and Sister Jeanne moved to peer into the carriage. She felt Sister Lucy, reluctantly, bending to look as well. The baby inside was so swaddled in plaid wool there were only two placid eyes and a tiny nose and the dash of a pursed, thoughtful mouth. “Oh, lovely!” Sister Jeanne cried. “Snug as a bug in a rug.”
“He likes the snow,” the mother replied. She was rosy-cheeked herself.
“He’s watching it come down, isn’t he?” Sister Jeanne said.
Sister Lucy also smiled. It was only a small, tight smile, but mighty, considering the weight of the anger it had worked itself out from under. She turned the smile toward the child and then the mother. Once more, the snowflakes began to gather in her yellow lashes, and she narrowed her eyes against them. “Is your husband good to you?” she asked.