Nun (9781609459109) (22 page)

 

A
gata's sense of justice demanded that Father Cutolo be punished for having seduced Donna Maria Celeste and caused her death, albeit indirectly. And also that he be deprived of the opportunity to destroy other lives. Agata had a clear, practical mission: to inform the mother abbess, the cardinal, and the vicar general, in order to make sure that the priest was expelled from San Giorgio Stilita and deprived of the right to serve as father confessor to any female religious. For good. She expected intense pressure to cover up what had happened and to prevent any scandal.

 

Agata knew that she was the subject of much gossip and whispering but she was unaware of the specific content. In the convent, the conversation returned incessantly to the escape of the two lay sisters and the death of the cook and servingwoman; Agata was accused of having provoked that tragedy. Some of the nuns said that Agata painted scenes of putti and little birds kissing one another on the beak on the milky frosting of her
cucchitelle
in order to make Brida fall in love. The poor thing did fall in love with Agata, but then she was abandoned for Angiola Maria. The evening of her suicide, Brida had gone to see if her suspicions were justified: she'd glimpsed their shadows in Agata's cell and then she killed herself. Others said that Agata had demanded that Angiola Maria break up with Checchina, who everyone agreed had always been Angiola Maria's true love. Still others claimed that Angiola Maria, having stolen the jewels of the Madonna dell'Utria, had run away with Checchina, who did not share her inclinations and had been forced to go with Angiola Maria.

 

Agata requested an interview with Donna Maria del Rosario, the new abbess, who summoned her to meet in her drawing room, along with the prioress, Donna Maria Clotilde. She extended her hand for Agata to kiss and then invited her to sit down.

“The flight of Donna Maria Crocifissa's lay sister must have come as a surprise to you.” The abbess had seized the initiative. She was a noblewoman belonging to a family that was hostile to the Padellanis; she was a staunch traditionalist.

Agata had another subject in mind, and she prepared to lay out the story: “I am here to talk to you about a very grave matter, something that has nothing to do with Angiola Maria,” she began; whereupon she launched into the dark story of Donna Maria Celeste. The abbess listened with a growing sense of unease and, before Agata had reached the details of the abortion, interrupted her, in an icy voice: “You are telling me that a highly respected chorister, a distant relative of mine, fell ill and began to rave in a delirium. You yourself, as sister infirmarian, took excellent care of her and, from what you are telling me, your treatment restored her to lucidity, until the sickness proved fatal. Clearly you misunderstood the words that the poor sick woman addressed to her father confessor.”

“No, abbess. She was speaking of carnal love, of kisses. She wanted kisses! She wanted them from him!”

“That's enough! I forgive you because you are a young nun; you do not know ecstasy, which can be misunderstood by those with sin in their hearts.”

Donna Maria del Rosario waited for Agata to leave. But she wasn't finished.

“Mother abbess, I was there when Donna Maria Celeste died. Her lay sister lifted the covers, and I saw!”

The abbess stood up abruptly. Just as a peasant woman repeats “shoo, shoo,” and scolds the hens to chase them out of a courtyard, so she accompanied her “Go away! Away! Away!” with the very same gestures, and like a chicken, Agata backed across the abbess's drawing room, propelled by those frantic waving arms. “I forbid you to repeat this lie to anyone else.” The abbess had opened the door leading out onto the cloister. Agata hurried away, but not before she caught a parting “Miserable liar!” She turned around and looked back: the face of the abbess was a mask of appalled fury.

 

Donna Maria Clotilde had followed Agata, and she was walking at her side, as if to ensure that she said nothing inappropriate to the other sisters.

“My daughter, I swear that I had no suspicion at all about what you say concerning the death of the unfortunate Donna Maria Celeste,” she said to her.

“Well, of course not, the lay sister and I took great care to make sure that you had no suspicions. I already explained that to you.” Agata was impatient.

“Then why did you bring it up now?”

“Because it's the truth, and to protect other nuns from that priest. Do you remember how her body was wrapped in sheets up to her neck? It was to conceal the oilcloth. We can ask the lay sister, she knows everything.”

“We would have to disinter the corpse. In the history of our convent that has never happened!” She went on emphatically: “And what good would it do? Just to create a scandal? To ruin our reputation and the reputation of a poor nun?”

“To ensure that Father Cutolo is never again allowed to be the confessor of another nun, here or anywhere else! If it wasn't for him, Donna Maria Celeste would still be alive!” Agata had raised her voice in exasperation.

“Why do you say this about a priest?”

“Because he seduced her!”

“Seduced?” And the prioress took on the tone of voice of a schoolteacher. “Let's think this over. He might very well say the reverse. He is poor, and Donna Maria Celeste enjoyed a very substantial stipend. She gave him gifts. Think of how delighted they would be, the enemies of Holy Mother Church, if they learned about these accusations!” Then she took a deep breath and put her hand on Agata's arm, with a protective gesture. “Trust me, let this be. The new abbess is very strict and she will keep all aspects of monastic life under close control, nothing will escape her notice, I assure you! Go, and don't think about it again.”

 

Agata went to see Maria Celeste's lay sister. She couldn't find her. Then she was told that the lay sister had been transferred that same afternoon to work directly under the mother abbess.

 

From that time on, Agata was treated dismissively by the abbess and the prioress. She had to obey the seal of silence imposed upon her by the abbess, but not in confession. And so she spoke to Father Cuoco about it. He listened. “What do you want to obtain?” he asked her, and added: “Vendetta?” When she said nothing in reply, he raised his voice: “In that case, go away from here, those aren't things to discuss in a confessional.”

“Father, I want justice,” said Agata.

“Justice? In that case, too, I am unable to help you: it is God Almighty who administers justice, after death.”

Agata wasn't going to give up. “And yet we must try to protect the innocent souls of the sister nuns!”

“Remember that you are all noblewomen and much wealthier than us priests, and just as man can tempt woman, so woman is quite capable of leading man into temptation; indeed, all the more, since she is descended from Eve. In time, that father confessor will leave the convent. He must have suffered from the scene that you described to me, and deeply so, especially if he's innocent, as I believe him to be.”

“Father, you forget that I saw the miscarriage.”

“My daughter, forgive me if I doubt what you in good faith believe you have seen. First of all, it was nighttime, and candlelight can play tricks on your eyes. Second, you've never seen what you claim to have seen and which you call a miscarriage: there are other illnesses and misfortunes, perfectly innocent, that can cause discharges of that substance even in virgins, I know this very well from the confessions that I hear. Third, we do not know whether the lay sister exaggerated, perhaps she too in perfectly good faith, like you, or out of mischief. Let us never forget that someone could have intentionally placed there the innards of a chicken, to give you a mistaken impression and cause trouble for Father Cutolo.” Father Cuoco stopped to take a breath, with weariness in his voice: “We don't know. Let's leave well enough alone.” And he gave her absolution and the usual penance of
Aves
and
Paters
.

 

Agata, indignant, prayed with desperate passion for God to help her. In a law book belonging to her aunt the abbess, she found a reference to the Concordat of 1822, which sanctioned the primacy of ecclesiastical law over the monasteries and convents of the kingdom. She could not simply leave with impunity: the cardinal had the right to demand that she be arrested and imprisoned in a religious institution.

All the same, she could still forward a request to the pope for a
brevi
for a limited or lengthy period, for considerations of health. In any case, she would have to request the cardinal's approval, and he would be required to verify the request and issue an opinion. A nun could also file a demand to dissolve her monastic vows, something that in her case would certainly be difficult, but not impossible. That demand had to be sent within the first five years of her profession of vows and it required proof that there had been moral violence in the process of becoming a nun. The case would be examined first by the Curia of Naples and then by the Curia of Rome.

Suspicious of everything and everyone and a target of hostility from many of her sisters, Agata was a bundle of nerves. She was losing weight. She performed her duties and then retreated to solitude. She devoured the books that she received from James Garson. Often she took one up with her to the belvedere and read as she walked back and forth.

One day, Agata received an unexpected visit from her mother. Donna Gesuela was in Naples while her husband got a medical checkup; seeing her in that state, she suggested that her daughter request the
brevi
. She could come back to Sicily with them. A few days later the cardinal, visiting the convent, asked to see her. Agata walked across the cloister, followed by glances of envy from the other nuns: they considered her to be fortunate and privileged for the favor that he was bestowing upon her.

“I don't understand the reason for this request of
brevi
, so soon after your solemn profession,” the cardinal began.

“It's already been eight months, Your Eminence. I would like to spend some time with my mother, her husband is unwell.”

The cardinal's gaze hardened: “You haven't seen one another for six years.”

“She's my mother.” And her eyes glistened as she thought of her father, as his voice rang inside her
: Deep down, your mamma is a good mother
. “If my father were still alive . . . ” she mumbled dolefully.

“Donna Maria Ninfa, you were reborn with your solemn profession, you no longer have either a father or a mother. I'm here now, for you.”

She was crying.

“Come, come, get a hold of yourself! I'm going to Rome and when I come back I'll come to see you. You'll feel better.” And the cardinal brushed her cheek with two slender fingers.

Agata sent a note to her mother, giving her the bad news that she would not be allowed to leave the convent. The note was returned to her: General Cecconi and the Generalessa had left for Palermo.

And it was them that Agata decided to file a demand to dissolve her monastic vows and to withdraw from the Cenoby.

F
rom then on, Agata lived in the convent as an outsider and a rebel. She continued to sing in the choir assiduously, but she skipped Mass, though she still said confession regularly. She performed her duties as infirmarian, which she considered to be her civic duty, and then she spent her time reading, making her
cucchitelle
, upon which she now painted hibiscuses and camellias, and creating wonderful
paperoles
with bird feathers, scraps of paper, threads teased out of rags, dried leaves, and pressed flowers. She walked frequently and at length, in her seclusion; she followed a route that she had created for herself, passing in front of the staircase that led down to the underground cemetery, into the cloister of the novices, and then upstairs into the uninhabited dormitories, walking through abandoned halls, taking stairs and passageways, opening doors that had never been open, concealed behind curtains weighed down by dust, and making her way onto tiny secret terraces tucked away on the convent's roofs. From up there, she could see Naples and she felt at one with the outside world. And she prayed for the others. How many times had she sought out the city from high above? How many times had she felt it calling to her, like a hope, like a natural destination? Hers was a prayer that called for fullness, space, action. She couldn't bring herself to feel shame for such a swelling wave of feeling. But she was confused. She let her hair grow, and she was vague and distracted. She prepared the request, but she didn't send it. Aunt Orsola, with whom she had spoken of her desire to leave San Giorgio Stilita, suggested another, less controversial way: seek an appointment as a canoness of Bavaria, an ancient knightly and religious order; the practical effect of that move would be to preserve her vows of chastity and poverty, but not the other two; the canonesses of Bavaria had the right to live independently, far from the cloister. Admiral Pietraperciata had offered to sound out his contacts with certain German noblemen of his acquaintance and to pay the 390 ducats for the honorific.

 

The abbess's lay sister had come to convey the message that Donna Maria Ninfa was wanted by the cardinal. It was a formal meeting, in the abbess's drawing room and in her presence. “It is my pleasure to approve this new honorific for Donna Maria Ninfa,” he said and then, looking her straight in the eye: “But, for the moment, I don't want to deprive the new chorister of the joy of life in the cloister. I will therefore permit you to wear the insignia of the Order of Bavaria on your habit.” Then he furrowed his brow and said that she could go. Agata died inside: she realized that the demand to dissolve her monastic vows would likewise be rejected by the Curia of Naples.

 

In the convent, the atmosphere had become intolerable. Veiled accusations and allusions to Brida's suicide came up continually. From that evening on, there was also gossip to the effect that Agata had caused the death of Donna Maria Celeste by administering the wrong medications, and that that was why she had asked to leave the convent, first with a request for
brevi
and then with the stratagem of her appointment as a canoness of Bavaria. Agata felt that she was under suspicion. Donna Maria Giovanna della Croce encouraged her to confide in her, but Agata was forced to remain silent by the obligation of obedience to the abbess.

They were sitting outdoors, embroidering a chasuble.

“Something new is tormenting you.”

“There is a dark night in my soul,” Agata burst out in reply.

Donna Maria Giovanna della Croce pinned the needle trailing purple silk thread into the damask and let her eye wander around the cloister beneath them; then she murmured, keeping her gaze directed away from Agata: “Just when it seems that everything is going wrong, when you are experiencing the ‘dark night' of the soul, that is when the process of purification is beginning. The seclusion of the cloister is not pointless, the vocation is to live every second full of love for the universe.”

But Agata's dark night showed no sign of ending. To avoid the murmurs and the open hostility of the other nuns, she refrained from eating meals in the refectory with the excuse that she was indisposed; in time she became accustomed to not eating. She was visibly wasting away, but she didn't care. Instead, she longed to learn things, to find out what was going on outside of the convent, from reading the
Gazzetta del Seggio
, which unfailingly found its way into the cloister, and through accounts of the conversations that other nuns had in the parlor. Agata began to frequent the more “worldly” and social choristers, despite their shallowness, just so that she could learn from them what was happening outside and the gossip from within their own families. Every time that she sent her linen out to be washed, she sent Sandra little notes requesting help in small tinfoil tubes baked into the
cucchitelle
. What came back was invariably clean laundry and nothing else. And yet she was determined to leave the cloister, God was with her.

Agata's behavior and her emaciation were impossible to overlook, and the abbess wrote about it to the princess of Opiri; she in turn informed Donna Gesuela, who reacted this time with motherly concern: not only did she make a special trip to Naples, but she seemed to regret her neglect of her daughter and she suggested to Agata that they go together to see the cardinal and ask him for the
brevi
. The request for an interview was granted immediately, and mother and daughter together went to the Abbey of San Martino, where the cardinal, on a spiritual retreat, had agreed to see them.

The veiled carriage clattered up from Via Mezzocannone and had reached the intersection with Via della Certosa. During the trip, Agata avoided looking out the window—it made her head spin. She pulled back the curtain only to peer out at the distant view of the Castle Sant'Elmo; it loomed, massive, against a gleaming, intensely blue sky, like something painted on glass. She remembered her carriage ride with Carmela and Annuzza before Anna Carolina's wedding, and her pride as she had showed them
her
Naples—memories from another life. At the age of twenty-one, she felt hollowed out, stripped of all vitality and hope for the future.

The team of horses was struggling as it pulled through the last few hairpin turns. The Abbey of San Martino was in plain view, high atop the hill. Agata began to feel uneasy; she couldn't understand the cardinal's attitude–he'd swung from benevolent to punitive for no apparent reason. He imposed his will upon her with a harshness that verged on the sadistic, as if he were her master, and yet she seemed to detect some genuine fondness for her, as if he just wished that she would bend spontaneously to his will. Likewise, Agata couldn't understand her own reaction to the cardinal's behavior. She, who was not rebellious by nature, almost instinctively became rebellious toward him.

They were walking through the abbot's apartment, accompanied by the cardinal's secretary. Agata, her face veiled, was walking with her head bowed, close by her mother's side. It was not only the vast space of sky and earth, but even unfamiliar interiors that disoriented her; she paid close attention to the white-and-green diagonal tiles of the majolica floor. The secretary left them in the Cloister of the Procuratori, which offered a magnificent view of the Gulf of Naples; he would come back later, to give them a tour of the Charter House. The air was fragrant with the airy perfume of linden blossoms. The grey piperno-stone arches stood out against the
pietra serena
, a grey sandstone, and the plaster of the walls. Agata lifted her eyes and immediately lowered them again, overwhelmed.

The cardinal came toward them from the opposite door. He seemed annoyed by the ritual kissing of the ring and he gestured for them to rise. “What new problems do we have with our young chorister?” he said in a cutting tone of voice. The narrow tip of his right slipper was tapping the floor.

Her mother lifted Agata's veil with a gesture of ownership. “My daughter is wasting away, just take a look at her! Send her home with me for a while, the next time I come.” Donna Gesuela had drawn herself erect, back straight, chest thrust out; beneath the hem of her dress, lifted slightly off the floor, the light-green leather tips of her shoes could be seen.

Agata stubbornly kept her eyes glued to the floor. She had once loved those fetching little shoes. Her mother's shoes, with silver buckles and knife-sharp heels, next to her own shoes, black and clumsy, made her feel incongruous and out of place, as did the soft morocco leather slippers worn by the cardinal, directly across from her.

“If it's so urgent, shouldn't you want her with you immediately?”

“I have a husband to take care of. I came in a hurry because Orsola was so worried about my Agatuzza that . . . ”

“About Donna Maria Ninfa!” he corrected her.

Donna Gesuela leaned back against a column and crossed her ankles, one small shoe with the heel raised and the tip dug in against the floor. “Whatever her name might be, she's still a daughter of mine . . . Will you let me have her, then?” And she stamped her heel.

“I see no reason to do so. Your request for
brevi
is for health reasons. Either your daughter truly needs fresh air, and if so she will have it immediately, or else she does not, in which case she will not be given leave at all. Are you ready to take her away tomorrow?” His purple slipper was tapping time.

“How can I do that? You tell me! My husband isn't well . . . ” And her voice cracked.

“We all make our own choices and we all take on certain obligations, and we must meet those obligations. Donna Maria Ninfa took the monastic vows of her own free will, after passing the appropriate examinations. Her physical and spiritual health is very dear to me.” A pause, and then, “As is that of all the servants of God in the diocese.” Then he pushed forward his right foot, practically toe-tip to toe-tip with Donna Gesuela. Agata lifted her eyes but she did not dare to look him in the face. The two were practically chest to chest.

“Well, then?”

“‘Well, then,' what? You, Generalessa, should go home to your husband. Our young nun will return to San Giorgio Stilita, where her fellow sisters will cook her delicacies and delights of all sorts to tempt her to eat.” The cardinal had turned toward Agata and he whispered: “You will try to eat, won't you?”

Agata didn't answer.

“The poor girl doesn't have the strength to answer! Are you trying to kill her?” Donna Gesuela was quivering with indignation. “You need to give us this
brevi
!”

Her back flat against the column, Donna Gesuela was twisting the silk bow that dangled from her hat, draping over her breasts, murmuring all the while. He responded by fiddling with the cross on his chest.

There was an unspoken discussion in the air between them, and Agata was its designated victim, caught like a hare with its leg in a trap.

“I'd like to hear what Donna Maria Ninfa has to say.” And he stiffened back into his initial position, feet flat and parallel on the ground in a wide stance.

“I too would like to speak with Your Eminence, alone.” Agata had screwed up her nerve. The cardinal sketched out a hint of a bow to the Generalessa and stepped aside with Agata onto the portico overlooking the Bay of Naples.

“Tell me, my daughter.”

Agata started laying out the details of the story of Father Cutolo, but she was immediately interrupted. “I've already heard it, from others,” he said, quite dismissively. Then, in a silky, almost caressing tone of voice: “I ask you to show compassion. We aren't executioners, nor are we judges; those are prerogatives of the Lord.” And he said, again: “Compassion, I beg of you.” He looked her straight in the eyes, the glittering black of his pupils shining beneath his half-lowered eyelids.

Agata accepted the challenge.

“You've never shown any compassion for me. Never. And you should have, you of all people. I would like to be better than you . . . ” Agata had spoken all in a rush. She stopped to catch her breath. Then she went on: “But, like you, I have no compassion for a priest who seduces a woman, whether she is a nun, an old maid, or a wife.” She lowered her eyes to the parapet. The rocky escarpment beneath her made her head spin.

After what seemed to both of them like an interminable interval, the cardinal laid a hand on her shoulder. “Come now, let's go, your mother is waiting for us,” and he gave her his arm as they walked back.

In the narthex of the Charter House, the cardinal's secretary was showing them a painting of the destruction of charterhouses by the English during the Reformation. The bodies of the monks in white habits being murdered occupied the foreground. Agata and her mother listened distractedly. The cardinal was in the background, silent. At that point he spoke: “Remember, it was the English who did this, treacherous they were and treacherous they remain.” She took this as a personal criticism, but she only needed to take a look at him before deciding not to dignify it with a response: he was pathetic.

 

In the carriage, Agata was relaxed. Her mother snorted in annoyance at how late they would be returning home. “You seem very pleased with yourself, as if you didn't care a fig whether you leave the convent or not,” she said, “but for me this has been nothing but a waste of a day!”

 

Three days later, Dr. Minutolo was summoned to the convent in the middle of the night: Agata was twisting in agony. The sister pharmacist had no idea of what to do. They did their best to identify her last meal: it was a bowl of salad, which still sat on its tray, in her cell. They discovered that the oil had been dusted with verdigris. Agata had ordered the salad from the kitchens and the tray had been left outside her door: anyone could have added the poisoned oil.