Doctor Death (13 page)

Two hospital sisters, who really should have been having a well-deserved rest after their night shift, had been woken up and agreed to help with the initial examinations. One, Sister Marie-Claire, was young and energetic and apparently found it easy to brush off her sleepiness; the other, Sister Agnes, showed the strain of her night’s work more clearly, and every other move was accompanied by a soft, unconscious, “Oh dear. Oh dear.”

The examination was simple. With the aid of a bright light and a loupe, the nostrils and oral cavity were studied for signs of mites,
and samples from the mucous membrane were collected with the aid of a pipette, to be examined later under the microscope. Fortunately, one wing of the school had a coal-powered generator that provided electricity to the entire first floor, and it was possible to find three lamps suitable to our purpose. I started by examining both Sister Marie-Claire and Sister Agnes, partly to demonstrate how it was done and partly to make sure that neither was carrying the infection.

“As you can see, it is a simple procedure,” I said to Mother Filippa, who had accompanied us to observe events.

She smiled. “Nothing is simple when you are dealing with three hundred girls,” she said. “What are you planning to tell the students?”

“The truth, of course,” I said. “That we are here to investigate whether the mites we found on Cecile have infected anyone else.”

“I would not recommend using the word ‘mites,’ ” said Mother Filippa.

“Why not?”

“Because I would like to keep the hysteria to a minimum. How do you think the average sixteen-year-old reacts if she is informed that she might have potentially deadly mites in her nose?”

“Umm . . .”

“We try to discourage tight corseting for health reasons, but not everyone follows our suggestions. In addition to shrieks and screams and hyperventilating, you should probably expect some fainting.”

“But . . . This is hopefully only to determine that the mites are
not
there.”

“Nonetheless . . .”

“That is not rational!”

Mother Filippa looked at me for a few seconds. “We do in fact try to encourage our young pupils to become thinking human
beings,” she said. “But not all of them are as rationally inclined as you seem to be, Mademoiselle Karno.”

“So you want me to lie?”

“Not at all. But perhaps you could leave the explanations to me?”

Fifteen minutes later I thus heard Mother Filippa explain to the first group of Cecile’s previous schoolmates that the hospital sisters and I were going to perform a preventative and painless
Pneumonyssus
examination that would be “over in a few minutes.” Eight girls in gray uniforms nodded seriously and sat down in turn on the three chairs we had arranged, allowed themselves to have their nose and throat illuminated, and accepted the pipette sampling with minimal objections. Cecile Montaine was not mentioned, and no one used the word “mite.”

The rest of the morning passed with student examinations. Luckily, we did not find any signs of mites, a result that microscopic testing later confirmed. A few had irritations in the mucous membrane, but as far as I could determine, they were simply the result of a common cold. Then it was the turn of the adults who had been in contact with Cecile, which was more or less the school’s entire faculty and the sisters and novices and lay sisters who took care of the laundry, cleaning, cooking, and so on. There was no sign of a mite infection among them, either, though two of the kitchen maids were found to have lice.

As the afternoon wore on, I was becoming thoroughly tired of staring into nostrils of varying sizes and degrees of hygiene and hairiness. When I closed my eyes briefly, a procession of noses flickered past my inner eye, and every time I was introduced to someone new, I initially saw nothing but this one organ.

“Are we done?” I asked Mother Filippa, who had patiently remained with us.

“Not quite,” she said. “But all that remains now is to see to the sisters who do not go out into the world.”

“How many are there?”

“About a dozen. We are not a cloistered order, but even so, for some the convent is a refuge and a retreat. Some of the older sisters in particular have withdrawn from the world to live out the rest of their lives behind the walls of the enclosure in prayer and contemplation of God. But there are a few younger ones among them, too. Until a month ago, one of them was Cecile’s teacher in physics, biology, and chemistry. Would you follow me?”

I cleaned the magnifying glass, mirror, and pipette with carbolic solution—I had insisted that this be done after every examination; we were there to stop infections, not to spread them—and wrapped them in a clean cloth before I put them back into my bag.

“So she has only recently . . . withdrawn from the world?”

“Yes, she is still a postulant.”

“Why?”

“In the case of Imogene Leblanc, it was probably not only God who called to her but also the world that frightened her. It is too bad; she was a good teacher and worked tirelessly to develop her pupils’ abilities. She offered them individual tutorials, Cecile, too, I believe. And sadly it is not so easy to find female lecturers in the sciences. We can hope that she returns, but unfortunately I doubt it.”

I expressed my surprise that the natural sciences were a part of the school’s curriculum at all. They certainly had not been at Madame Aubrey’s Academy for Young Ladies, where I had passed entirely too many years of my life.

“It is the belief of the Bernardine sisters that the world cannot
afford to waste the intelligence of young women,” said Mother Filippa with a small sniff. She had an unusually well-formed nose, I noticed. “The founder of our order, Saint Bernarda, wrote one of the most treasured works of her time, on fever illnesses and their treatment. We do not teach our girls only French poetry, hymns, and embroidery; history, geography, biology, chemistry, physics, and of course mathematics are all equally important to their education. We have a very good teaching laboratory. Would you like to see it? We can pass it on our way.”

“Very much,” I said.

When we left the school to walk back toward the convent, a feeling of unfairness burned in my veins. Why had I not been allowed to go to school here? My father had chosen Madame Aubrey because he preferred an education with less emphasis on religion and especially Catholicism, for which he harbored a deep mistrust. We did not go to church very often, and when we did, it was to the small Huguenot chapel in Rue Colombe. But I would have been prepared to swallow a substantial portion of holy water and saint worship if it had given me admission to the institution we had just left. Well-lit workbenches, Bunsen burners, microscopes, copper spools, magnets . . . and, first and foremost,
knowledge.
Knowledge instead of posture and good manners. I could not refrain from sighing.

Mother Filippa glanced at me.

“Are you tired? Would you like to rest a moment before we continue?”

“No. No, I am just a bit envious of your pupils.”

“In what regard?”

“I am afraid Madame Aubrey’s Academy for Young Ladies
found female intelligence much less indispensable than you do,” I said, and silently wished that we had used more time to discuss the subject matter of books and less time wandering around with them on our heads.

“Imogene?” Mother Filippa pushed open the door to the sisters’ refectory. “Imogene, we have a visitor . . .”

“No!” The woman in the postulant habit looked up abruptly, and there was a terror in her gaze that stopped me short. “I do not want to see him! I . . .” Then she saw me, and she realized that she had misunderstood the situation. “Oh, pardon me. Good afternoon.” She had been in the process of scrubbing the long table with soapy water and was still clutching the brush in one hand. Her throat and face flushed unevenly with nerves or effort, and there was a worried furrow between her eyebrows that looked as if it was more or less permanent. Of whom was she so afraid?

“Mademoiselle Karno is conducting a health examination of the school’s pupils and teachers. We think it best that you also participate, since you are still officially on the teaching staff.” Mother Filippa spoke with a calming authority that would have made any animal or child relax and lie down. It had no visible effect on Imogene Leblanc.

“Health examination?” she said suspiciously. “How so?”

“I would like your permission to examine your nostrils and throat,” I said. “It will only take a moment.”

Her expression did not change. Her eyes were very pale, gray or perhaps a watery blue, it was hard to determine. What you could see of her hair was frizzy and auburn and as lusterless as the fur on a dead animal. She looked at me for so long that I began to wonder if she would refuse, and what I would do if she did.

“If you really feel it is necessary,” she said at last. “But I have my work to do.”

“Thank you, Imogene,” said Mother Filippa. “The value in these tests lies entirely in being thorough and complete.”

There was no electricity in this part of the convent, and the refectory was so dim that it was impossible to perform the examination there. Mother Filippa led us out through a side door to a small enclosed courtyard where sunlight fell bright and sharp onto the old sandstone tiles. I asked Imogene to sit on one of the four benches and tilt her head back. She moved a bit stiffly, and her fingers were crooked with arthritis in spite of the fact that she was presumably still in her early twenties. The flush had not been just the result of nervousness, I could now see. She had patches of old eczema on her cheeks and neck. But her throat and nostrils were normal, and there was no sign of mite infection. I thanked her, and she returned to the refectory to resume her work.

I could not help asking Mother Filippa who it was that she had been so anxious to avoid meeting.

“Her father does not approve of her decision to devote herself to convent life,” said Mother Filippa. “He has attempted to prevent her from returning several times, the last time he physically locked her up, as far as I understand. She was in a very bad way for a long time afterward, both physically and mentally. As you can see, her health is delicate. I think it was her fear of her father that made her give up her teaching and seek permission to join the order. I think she was afraid just now that he had come to force her to leave us.”

“Can he do that?”

“Not without a fight. But . . . he is her father, after all. Until she takes her full vows, she is still under his authority. Come, we can go through here. I think we will find the last two sisters in the west wing.”

Sister Bernadette and Sister Beatrice were in a courtyard almost identical to the one we had just left, except that here an old
mulberry tree grew between the sandstone tiles. The sisters were both quite old. One was clearly almost completely blind but sat crocheting with hands that saw more than her eyes did, and the other had clearly entered a second childhood and hugged a rag doll tightly, singing a lullaby in a high, clear, and astonishingly beautiful voice.

“This is Sister Bernadette,” said Mother Filippa, indicating the crocheting nun. “And this is Beatrice.”

“She is in a good mood today,” said Sister Bernadette. “When she is sad, she sings nothing but funeral psalms from morning to night. Poor dear.”

“Sister Bernadette was Cecile’s closest spiritual adviser,” said Mother Filippa. “I thought the two of you should meet. Perhaps a short stroll in the garden? I will sit with Beatrice in the meantime.”

Bernadette got up quickly and set her crocheting aside. “Thank you. She is the sweetest creature . . . aren’t you, Beatrice? But a little stroll will do me good.”