A Provençal Mystery (14 page)

“Yes. I went to the university at Aix to study on a scholarship Agatha had arranged. I’ve always thought that she used her own money—the money nuns get for their ‘little needs,’ but I can’t be sure. It would have been like her.”

I imagined Madeleine walking the leafy streets of Aix and entering one of the old stone university buildings. “Did you study history there?”

“Yes, and I am still taking courses.” Madeleine shrugged, her hidden shoulders lifting under the fancy cloth of her vest. “Some at night and on Saturday mornings.”

I plunged in and asked her: “Did you ever see Jack Leach there at the university?”

“No,” She looked down into her glass. “Why would you think I did?”

“Leach’s mother is from Aix. And he works at the Mejanes. Fitzroy does, too, sometimes. And I think Fitzroy has taught some courses. . .”

“The handsome older man?”

I regarded her. “Older? Handsome? I suppose so. Agatha seemed to dislike him. Do you know why?”

As I said it, I saw her flinch. “No,” she said.

I wondered why the mysterious Madeleine had chosen to tell her story—was it true? I didn’t know how to show doubt without scaring her away. I looked down into the red wine in the glass, saw the rosy transparent reflection on the shiny table. The reflection shivered as I jostled the glass. “You do live at the convent, don’t you?”

“Yes. As a pensioner. Just temporarily.” Madeleine clutched her own glass of wine to her chest. Both of us were using them as props.

“Do you think I could talk to someone at the convent? About my nuns?”

She smiled, apparently relieved with the change in subject, and said, “Your nuns?”

“I’d like to bring the story of the convent up to date.”

“All you need do is go up to the front door, ring the big bell, and ask the doorkeeper. I’ll mention you to the nuns. Because you’re studying the nuns of the Old Regime, someone will see you. Maybe not the Mother Superior, but at least the assistant.”

A silence fell between us. “Would you like another glass of wine?” I finally asked.

Madeleine smiled. “No, I must get back to the convent. I have work to do if I am to finish my thesis in time. But thank you.” She got up to leave, dropping two ten-franc pieces to pay for the drink.

She got what she wanted, I thought, but I didn’t know what that was.

Chapter 12

That night, the first thing I did when I got back to my apartment was read Agatha’s obituary. It did not mention how old she was, just that she had been a nun at the convent all her adult life. Who was Roger Aubanas? He certainly was not who he said he was. How did he know Agatha’s age?

Pondering Aubanas’s identity and, I must confess, his attraction, I took Foxy out, but reached no conclusions except that it was very unlikely that he was the killer.

Back in the apartment, I took the copied diary out of my briefcase and finished reading.

* * * *

12 June, 1659

I cannot claim such a thing as innocence for myself, even though it was against my will that I lost my virginity, my precious treasure, as the other nuns call it. It happened this way. When our cook was ill, one week in my fourteenth summer, I did the shopping for food. The butcher André lured me into the back room of his little shop, flipped up my skirt, and poked his own piece of meat into me. He left a big, bloody hand print on my kerchief. What could I do? I struggled, but he was bigger than I. It is a nothing compared with the love of my spouse Jesus, who leaves my body alone. And Monsieur André is married. His big cow of a wife was then about to give birth to their ninth child. Five of the nine had died by then. I could not scrub the bloodstain out of the cloth. Luckily no one asked about it.

I did not tell my father. My precious treasure was stolen forever. My father might have killed André, and if he had, no court would have penalized him. Yet what would have happened to my father’s immortal soul? I do not worry about this experience with the butcher. I am not the only nun who was deflowered in her past life. It is not my sin but André’s.

I could have married. My father had chosen a spouse for me—an ugly marquis at least thirty-five years old. Through the marriage, the marquis would replenish his family’s fortunes, and our family would gain a titled relative. I refused, though I knew it disappointed my father. If my mother had been alive, she would have found someone else more to my liking. God rest her soul.

My father was willing to pay the dowry for me to become a nun of the choir, like most gently brought up girls who can read and write. I would have lived a life of prayer and song with those of my station in life in the outside world. But I had my reasons for becoming a converse. The harder the work, the more pleased God is.

18 June, 1659

Late this afternoon, as I was weeding the carrots in the garden, I looked up to see Antoinette approaching. Usually Antoinette seems to dance rather than walk. But this time her footsteps were slow and her movements hesitant.

So that no one would suspect we were discussing anything serious, we acted as we did when we were children keeping secrets from our elders. We laughed and smiled as if conversation was about nothing important.

She: Did you notice that Mother Fernande was not at noon dinner?

I: Yes. I thought she was probably flagellating herself.

She: No. I came out into the courtyard for a moment, just to breathe the air, and I saw Mother Fernande there talking to someone, a man.

I: Who was he? Men are not allowed in the courtyard.

She: I do not know. They were too far away for me to hear what they were saying. But I could tell that Mother Fernande was excited. She was wagging her finger in the man’s face. The sleeves of her habit were lashing from side to side. He must have done something wrong.

I nodded—I had more than once seen Mother Fernande’s arms flapping like a flail. When that happens, I try to be somewhere else, because those arms signal that her temper is out of control again.

Antoinette continued talking:

She: And he was holding his hand up like that picture of Jesus asking for peace. You know, the one hanging in the hallway.

I: What were they arguing about?”

She: I don’t know. As I said, I was too far away. I wanted to disappear before they saw me. I knew that I was seeing something I was not supposed to see. I turned slowly to go inside, but they must have spotted my shadow. Mother Fernande shouted my name and motioned me to come to her. The man vanished. Then she said that I was in terrible trouble for leaving the refectory. She said I would be very sorry. She also said that she knew about the missing tansy. She screamed that I should have told her about it. She screamed that maybe I killed Jeanne.

I: This is not good.

She: I want to leave here. I haven’t been happy in a long time. I no longer hear the voice of God. You are the only reason I stay. How can I defend myself? I am just a converse.

The windows of the convent were blank. But someone could be watching.

I thought about what Antoinette had said. Who could we tell about the theft of the tansy? The priest? He is a distant relation of Mother Fernande and would support her against Antoinette. We were without power.

I: They won’t let you leave so easily. You must escape.

I stood so that I could not be seen and took her hand in mine.

She: But how?

I: As Katherine Hardy did. Her second escape. Remember? She refused to repent and pined for her lover. One night she climbed the bell tower and then jumped to the wall and down. You are as strong and agile as she. And you certainly have a better reason. All she wanted was to meet her lover. You want to save your life. Wait until it gets dark, and we are all at vespers. Then make your escape and go to my father’s house. He will take you in. You are his niece. But do not stay too long, or the police will find you there. Go to another city.

She: I am afraid.

She was shaking

Against the rules, I reached out and embraced her.

I: Are you safe here?

She: No,

Her eyes were wet, but she tried to smile to reassure me. I felt my heart break.

At that moment it was time to leave each other and join the other sisters.

As dusk came, Antoinette slipped out of the line of sisters on their way to Mass. Sister Gertrude asked me why. I said that she was sick, about to vomit. They believed me long enough for her to escape.

I thought of her climbing up into the bell tower, trying to slide silently down the tiled roof, jumping to the wall and then down to the ground, a good two stories. If a tile slipped and someone heard it, she would be captured, and it would be all the more easy for someone to arrange for her death or to put her away for life. She could break a bone. But if she stayed, I knew she had no chance at all. I had thought to send this diary with her. But what if she was caught with it? Instead I will give it to my father when he comes to visit. Or I can stuff it between the stones if I think I am in danger.

Mother Fernande questioned me about Antoinette’s escape. Her eyes were narrowed with suspicion.

She: She is your cousin. Surely she told you what she was planning. I have seen you talking.

I: She would not want to have that secret with me.

She: Indeed. And why not?

I: Because she would know that you would ask me about it. Since I know nothing, I do not have to lie.

But I did lie.

She: I do not believe you.

I: I am sorry about that, Mother Fernande.

She: You are impertinent! And a liar! You will hear more about this!

She is beside herself with anger. I think she is also afraid. She will question me again. And again.

I wonder if I should have aided Antoinette. As a nun, she was truly in the hands of Jesus. What about her immortal soul now? How will she survive in the world without a protector except my father, who is old? What if he decides that her fears are nonsense and brings her back to the convent?

I think of Jeanne’s death, when she was covered with the black cloth. The demon in my dream. It is through our sins, which leave us open, that the Devil is able to enter us. Only the pure are safe from his penetration into our hearts and souls.

Should I try to escape, too?

* * * * *

My eyes were so tired that Rose’s writing was turning blurry. I stopped there, even though I was close to the last page.

What is going on in that convent, I thought? Everyone wonders about such things. Under the habit. Why this obsession with virginal women? Does chastity confer power? Virgins, nuns own themselves. Intact. Whole, unpunctured, unpenetrated vessels, they are. Could someone, some man, have wanted to know what went on under Agatha’s habit? That would explain why her habit was up. Was she raped? The police had not said. Did she die having lost what she lived to preserve? If so, how sad.

And that could be the wrong tack entirely, I thought. The convent undoubtedly had internal politics. Look at what Rose’s diary said about the tensions, gossip, machinations of her day. Why would it be so different in the present? Complicated politics are natural in close quarters. Could a nun have killed Agatha? I could imagine reasons—jealousy, fear she would reveal a secret. All a nun had to do was find a way to sneak into the archives—get past that buzzer—then into the reference room. Wasn’t a nun as capable of cold-blooded murder as anyone? No! my mind countered. Their vows, their very lives, the fear of hell and the thought of the loss of God, all would prevent them. But then someone, probably a nun, had killed Jeanne.

The convent drew me. The research for my paper, though well underway, was nowhere near done. The deadline for the outline was two weeks away. But the paper had changed shape in my mind. Since its focus was recruitment, of both nuns and fallen women, wouldn’t it add relevance to include some modern comparisons? They would make the article stand out without making it controversial. And where better to find out about modern recruitment but the convent? That would be my excuse. I would go to the convent in the morning.

I ate some leftovers, threw open a window and watched children kick a ball up and down the street. They were calling to each other below, in high excited voices. I listened for a while, remembering my own childhood, playing three-person baseball in the backyard during long summer evenings. Long ago. I played a nameless tune on my flute, and Foxy looked at me in modest anguish.

Chapter 13

The next morning, I set out by a back way, which avoided the Rue de la République and the plaza. The convent loomed ahead, dominating the crooked street with a wall that looked to be at least six feet high. I could see the bell tower and the tiled roof and imagined Antoinette, the little nun from so long ago, as she made her escape: The robed figure on the roof picks her way over the tiles, then, suddenly liberated, body gone light, stretches out her arms, and, veil flying behind her, glides to the ground, like a large migratory bird. Having landed, she flees down the street, disappearing into the dot she becomes in the distance. Gone into the anonymity of history, I thought. Then I chided myself for my flighty imagination—a more likely scenario was quite different: Antoinette looks from the roof in fear, teeters on the edge, forces herself to jump to the wall then the ground, feels jarring pain in her feet when she lands—perhaps has the breath knocked out of her—quickly gets up and starts walking because running will give her away as a fugitive. Her habit brands her, too. She sneaks by deserted streets to the edge of the city, then to the village, hiding by day.

Being at the spot where Antoinette might have landed gave me an awful feeling of transitoriness, as if I were a shade, a ghost, myself, one more ephemeral human being to pass by that place. Then a car came along, windows open, radio blasting some ticky-tacky French rock. The jagged rhythm broke my connection with the past, and I was back in the twentieth century, feet firm on the ground.

The high convent wall, a blank-faced barrier, faced me.

An old man walking with a black cane came painfully down the street. “Are you lost?” he said, with concern in his voice.

“No, thank you, monsieur, I am merely admiring the stone work of this marvelous old convent.”

“Indeed,” he said. “It is where they keep the whores.” And he went on. I wondered if he thought I, too, was a whore.

I finally found a door set deep in the wall. I marshaled up the French phrases with which I planned to talk my way into the convent and pulled the bell rope. At first there was only silence. Then, through a tinny-sounding intercom system, a voice came from within, asking what I wanted.

My answer, in formal French, sounded pompous in my own ears, almost like Jack Leach at his worst: “If you would be so kind, I am an American historian studying the origins of your religious order. I would like to speak to someone who may be able to tell me more about where I might find records.”

“The records are at the departmental archives, madame.” The voice was polite but dismissive.

“Madeleine Fabre said she would mention me to you.”

“Oh, Madeleine,” the voice was warmer now. “Yes, she said something about a Professor Ryan.”

“Myself, I am Professor Ryan.”

“I will go ask the Mother Superior.” Again I waited, then heard the voice. “She will see you.”

The thick wooden door creaked open on huge metal hinges. Feeling as if I were entering another dimension, I walked from the bright, blowy outdoors into the hallway of the ancient world of the convent. A long crawl back into a stone womb? The sister who greeted me was dressed in a black suit, with a mid-calf length skirt—as was nuns’ choice since Vatican II. No concealing wimple, no mysterious sweeping robe. The costume seemed startlingly modern in this place that smelled of history, of many thickly-clothed bodies, of old stone gone a bit mossy. And as we walked down a long hall, I heard a choir of voices singing, sounding far off in an echoing vaulted room, waves of sound reverberating like supernatural light in a hall of reflecting mirrors.

The nun opened a door with a key and motioned me into a room that faced on the inner courtyard. “Please sit down,” she said, and left me to wait while she went to fetch the mother superior. The singing stopped. I guessed that the tiny room was meant for meetings with the public—it seemed unused. Only a small wooden crucifix adorned the otherwise bare white wall. There was no desk or other workplace, just a table with some religious magazines and three chairs.

The window looked out on a long arched walkway around the courtyard. A gnarled old olive tree framed the door, and there was a grape arbor to the left. It was here, I thought, that Sister Rose worked in the garden under a seventeenth century sun, and I imagined her bent over, digging out weeds with her fingers in the warm dirt. At least fifteen minutes went by, as I absorbed the silence of the place and tried to decide if it held peace or menace. But except for the shade of Sister Rose, it had the dumbness of old stone.

When the door opened at last, I was so deep in my thoughts that I was momentarily caught off guard. The black-robed nun standing in the doorway had a pale beauty. Maybe it was because she was never in the sun that her skin was so white, but that didn’t explain its luminosity. It was tempting to think that she shone because of her spirituality, but, no, I decided, it had to be genetics.

“Good morning,” she said, in a deep, resonant voice—a voice that seemed pitched to speak to crowds. “I am Mother Superior Therese. You are. . . ?“

“Pandora Ryan,” I replied.

“Of the box?” She smiled.

“So some people say. Please accept my condolences on the death of Sister Agatha. She was the life of the archives. We were both working on the history of your convent. She was a woman with a sense of humor. And so kind, underneath her jokes.”

Mother Therese’s chestnut eyes filled with tears. “She is with God, of course. Those of us who are left feel a terrible loss. She was the life of the convent as well. Lay people think we religious are always serious, but that is not so. God loves happiness—and jokes, if they are not mean.” She sat down opposite me, neatly arranging her body in a modest pose with no docility in it at all. Her feet in the sensible, black, laced shoes pointed straight ahead. She radiated personal authority, benign mystery, and grace. “And you are here . . . ?” she asked.

The comfortableness that emanated from her put me at ease. “As you may know, I am studying your order. Right now I’m working on an article about recruitment of nuns in the Old Regime and I’d like to compare my findings with modern day recruitment . . .” I went on, talking as if I were in a seminar, hearing my own voice in my mind—blah, blah, blah.

After I came to a stop, Mother Therese launched into a description of the work of the order—it sounded like a standard prepared response to an interview question. It ebbed and flowed, as French always does, being a musical language, but without hesitations. I took out a grid-lined writing pad and started writing some notes. The nuns of Our Lady of Mercy were still engaged in saving fallen women. Though the regimen was less punitive than it had been in the seventeenth century and though the fallen women now were really girls, none more than eighteen, the objective was still the same as it had always been: to bring souls to God and convince the women to sin no more. And though the nuns taught the girls to be secretaries and data processors rather than to be textile workers or laundresses, the idea still was to train them so that they would have an option for survival other than sinning for money. The delinquents participated in little plays from time to time and were even let out to go to concerts (properly escorted, of course) when such things came to town.

“And the nuns?” I asked.

“It’s a problem. Our group of nuns here has an average age of forty-five, and six of our number are retired, two bedridden. But we continue. We don’t proselytize. Probably we should. Young girls are less interested in convent life than they once were. For obvious reasons.”

“Rock and roll and sex and drugs?” I asked.

She laughed. “And interesting professions with good pay. So we are attracting more older women, who have had a chance to become disillusioned with life in the secular world. You aren’t interested in joining, are you?” She smiled wickedly.

The question stopped me cold. For a moment, and it was only a moment, I felt the appeal of the convent, of having the decision made, of being enclosed, safe. Inside. Borne away by music and words, in another world. . . . Then I felt the walls close in. “No, I’m sorry, but I am not Catholic, was not brought up in the faith. And, I am afraid, not really a believer. It seems like a good life, though.”

“Too bad,” Mother Therese said, simply. “Perhaps you haven’t thought those ideas through completely. What do you mean when you say you are not a believer, for instance? But you are a professor and know all about this kind of talk.”

“But I don’t want to play professor,” I said, yet nonetheless I turned the conversation to a discussion of the vocation of Old Regime nuns—of how, though society forced some of them into the convent (the unwanted girls, pawns in the marriage game), many of them, I thought, really wanted to be there. Mother Therese mentioned that they lost their last chance at family money, which left more for other siblings. Looking out into the courtyard, she added, “The nun not only would pray for her family to get them into heaven, but she changed the lives of the fallen women who entered the convent. So she performed more than one service for society, even though she was behind walls—perhaps
because
she was behind walls. That is still true.”

“And didn’t a nun have as much choice, though in different ways, as a wife did?” I said. “Maybe more? Wives, after all, were without many rights in the old days. . . . Listen to me, I’m lecturing at you.”

“Indeed you are,” Mother Therese said, “and you want to talk about the work of our order now—in the present?”

Something in the way she said it, a tinge of irony, gave me the impression that she was on to me, that she knew I had another reason for being there but would not question it. “Tell me,” I said. “Are you still cloistered? I imagine you are—otherwise, why the wall?”

“Yes, we’re cloistered, though we may go out very occasionally on God’s business as Sister Agatha did . . . “ Therese stopped for a minute, remembering, her face sorrowful, then recovered and said, “She had a special dispensation from the bishop to work in the archives. The bishop felt the convent history was a necessity. Sister Agatha was the best one to do it—a talent for writing and long experience in the convent.”

“And she was the only one to leave the convent?”

Mother Therese smiled. “Are you from the police? No, don’t become agitated. Just a joke, Professor Ryan. Yes, she was the only one. The only nun, that is. And the only pensioners living here right now are Madeleine Fabre and Madame La Fiche, an old woman we took in as a pensioner a few years ago.”

So much for the notion that a nun did the murder, I thought, unless one of them administered the poison before Agatha left for the archives. Or, unless one of them sneaked out, unseen. It was time to change the subject.

“You said that Agatha’s dispensation was to allow her to go to the archives,” I said. “Yet I saw her at the high school exhorting the students about sexual abstinence.”

“The bishop knew that and allowed it. Agatha believed in activism in the world. Perhaps too much.”

“Too much?”

“She tended to pay more attention to her political activities than to her soul, which, I am sure, was nonetheless in a state of grace.” A beam of light entered the room through the window as the sun climbed in the sky. It cast shadows on Therese’s face. I was reminded of paintings by Georges de la Tour, faces half-shadowed, half in brilliant light, so that they seemed cut out of the dark. “She used to be involved in campaigns against abortion itself, but she gave that up more than twenty years ago and began to concentrate on promoting sexual abstinence instead.”

“Why, do you think?” I asked. I thought about Jack’s mother and wondered if perhaps it had been Agatha who convinced her not to abort her child and if Mother Therese knew about that.

Mother Therese shrugged. “I have no idea. She never said, though I think something happened to change her attitude.”

“What might that have been?” Was she holding back?

“As I said, I have no idea.” She might just as well have said “case closed.”

“Yet Agatha practiced contemplation?” I said.

“Of course, it’s part of the Rule. It is built into our day.”

“And mortification?” I felt my heart pounding as I thought of the needle in Agatha’s tongue. “It was so popular back in the Old Regime. But now?”

“I never heard Agatha talk about it. And it would have been unusual.” Her face went cloudy with memory.

“She didn’t seem the type.” I sat forward in the hard chair.

“No. She was exuberant and happy. But that does not rule out the discipline—needles would have been too much, though.” She stared at me directly. “Are you comfortable?”

She really is astute, I thought. “I’m fine.” I changed the subject and asked if the delinquent girls practiced mortification.

Therese smiled and shook her head. “No, not ordinarily. It is enough to get them to make their beds, get to mass, and be polite.”

“Madeleine Fabre told me that Agatha was active in reforming her.”

Mother Therese didn’t answer immediately, but looked out into the courtyard. Finally she said, “She lives here as a lay person now. We are all quite proud of her.” She kept looking out the window.

“And she shows no sign of returning to her past life?”

“We try not to discuss such things,” said Therese.

The leaves of the olive tree moved in the wind, which could insinuate itself even into enclosed spaces. The conversation was like a formal dance; for me it was like doing a minuet after flinging myself about to rock music. “And might Madeleine become a nun, do you think?”