Skylight (13 page)

 

The extract from
The Nun
by Diderot that Isaura had read that night:

 

My Superior began to fall victim to nerves. She lost her gaiety, and her plumpness, and slept badly. The following night, when everybody was asleep and the House was silent, she got up. After having wandered for some time about the corridors, she came to my cell. I was sleeping lightly and thought I recognized her step. She stopped. Apparently she rested her head against the door, and in so doing made enough noise to wake me up if I were asleep. I remained quiet, and I thought I heard a voice which wailed, somebody who sighed. I shivered slightly and determined to say
Ave.
Instead of answering, whoever it was withdrew. But she came back some time afterward: the wails and sighs began again. I again said
Ave,
and the steps again withdrew. I reassured myself and fell asleep. While I slept, someone came in and sat down beside my bed. The curtains were partly withdrawn. She had a little candle, the light of which fell on my face, and she who carried it watched me sleeping: so I judged at least from her attitude when I opened my eyes. And this person was the Superior.

I sat up suddenly. She saw that I was frightened and said: “You need not be alarmed, Suzanne, it is I.” I put my head back on my pillow and said: “Mother, what are you doing here at this hour? What can have brought you? Why are you not asleep?”

“I cannot sleep,” she answered. “I shall not sleep for a long time yet. I am tortured by horrid dreams. No sooner are my eyes closed than I live in imagination through all the agonies you have experienced. When I picture you in the hands of those inhuman monsters I see your hair falling over your face, your feet bleeding, the torch in your hand, the rope round your neck: I feel they are going to take away your life: I shiver and tremble: my whole body breaks into a cold sweat: I want to run and help you: I wake up screaming and wait in vain for the return of sleep. This is what has happened to me tonight. I feared Heaven was announcing that some misfortune had come to my friend: I got up and came to your door and listened. You did not seem to be sleeping: you spoke and I withdrew: I came back, you spoke again, and I withdrew again. I came back a third time, and when I thought you were asleep, I came in. I have been at your side some time and have been afraid to wake you. I hesitated at first to draw aside your curtains. I wanted to go away for fear of disturbing you. But I could not resist the desire to see if my dear Suzanne was well. I looked at you. How lovely you are even when you are asleep . . .”

“How good you are, Mother.”

“I am quite cold. But now I know that I need not worry about my child. I think I shall get to sleep. Give me your hand.” I gave it to her.

“How calm your pulse is! How regular! Nothing dis­turbs it!”

“I sleep quietly.”

“How lucky you are!”

“You will get colder than ever.”

“You are quite right; goodbye, my darling, goodbye. I am going away.”

Still she did not go at all, but continued looking at me. Two tears rolled down her cheeks. “Mother,” I said, “what is the matter? What has happened? You are crying. I am so sorry I told you of my misfortunes.” At that moment, she shut the door, blew out the candle, threw herself upon me. She held me in her arms. She was lying on the coverlet beside me. Her face was pressed to mine, her tears damped my cheeks. She sighed and said to me in a disturbed, choking voice: “Pity me, my darling.”

“Mother,” I said, “what is the matter? Are you ill? What can I do?”

“I am shivering and trembling,” she said. “I have turned mortally cold.”

“Would you like me to get up and give you my bed?”

“No,” she said, “you need not get up. Just pull the coverlet aside a little that I may get near you. Then I shall get warm and be well.”

“But that is forbidden, Mother dear! What would people say if they knew? I have seen nuns given penance for much less serious things than that. At St. Mary's a nun happened to pass the night in another's cell; she was her particular friend, and I cannot tell how badly it was thought of. The Director asked me sometimes if nobody had ever suggested coming and sleeping by my side, and warned me gravely never to tolerate it. I even spoke to him of your caresses. I thought them quite innocent, but he did not think so at all. I do not know how I came to forget his advice. I had meant to speak to you of it.”

“Everything round us is asleep, darling,” she said. “Nobody will know anything about it. It is I who distribute rewards and penalties, and, whatever the Director may say, I cannot see what harm there can be in one friend taking in beside her another friend who has felt upset, woken up, and has come during the night, despite the rigor of the season, to see if her darling was in any danger. Suzanne, at your parents' have you never shared a bed with your sisters?”

“No, never.”

“If the occasion had arisen you would not have scrupled to do so? If your sister had come frightened and stiff with cold to ask for a place by your side, would you have refused her?”

“I think not.”

“But am I not your Mother?”

“Yes, you are, but it is forbidden.”

“Darling, it is for me to forbid it to others, to allow it to you and to ask it of you. Let me warm myself a moment and I will go away. Give me your hand . . .”

I gave it to her.

“Come,” she said, “touch me and see. I am trembling, shivering, and like marble.”

It was quite true.

“My poor Mother will be ill,” I said. “See, I will go to the edge of the bed, and you can put yourself in the warm place.”

I went to the edge, lifted up the coverlet, and she got into my place. How ill she was! She was trembling in every limb. She wanted to talk to me and come nearer. She could not articulate or move. She said in a low voice: “Suzanne, dear, come a bit nearer . . .”

She stretched out her arms: I turned my back on her; she took me quietly and pulled me towards her. She passed her right arm under my body and the left over it, and said: “I am frozen; I am so cold that I am frightened to touch you, for fear of doing you some harm.”

“Don't be afraid, Mother.”

She immediately put one of her hands on my breast and another round my waist. Her feet were under mine and I pressed them to warm them, and she said: “See how quickly my feet have got warm, darling, now that nothing separates them from yours.”

“But what prevents you warming yourself elsewhere in the same way?”

“Nothing, if you are willing . . .”

Suddenly there were two violent knocks on the door. In terror I immediately threw myself out of the bed on one side and the Superior threw herself out on the other. We listened and heard someone gaining the neighboring cell on tiptoe. “Oh,” I said, “it is Sister Theresa. She must have seen you passing in the corridor and coming in to me. She must have listened to us and overheard our conversation. What will she say?”

I was more dead than alive.

“Yes, it is she,” said the Superior in an exasperated voice. “It is she: I have no doubt of it. But I hope she will not easily forget her rashness.”

“Mother,” I said, “do not do her any harm.”

“Suzanne, goodbye, goodnight. Get into bed again and sleep well. I dispense you from prayers. I am now going to see this young fool. Give me your hand.”

I stretched it to her from one side of the bed to the other. She pulled back the sleeve which covered my arms, and with a sigh kissed it along from the end of my fingers to my shoulder; then she went out protesting that the rash girl who had dared disturb her should not forget it. Immediately, I went to the other end of my bed near the door and listened. She went into Sister Theresa's cell. I was tempted to get up and go and interpose between them, supposing a violent scene occurred. But I was so upset, so ill at ease, that I preferred to remain in bed: I said nothing however. I thought that I should become the talk of the House, and that this adventure in which there was nothing that could not be easily explained would be recounted in all its most unfavorable aspects: that it would be worse here than at Longchamps, where I was accused of I know not what: that our fault would come to the knowledge of our superiors: that our Mother would be deposed and both of us severely punished. Meanwhile, I was all ears, and waited impatiently for the Mother to leave Sister Theresa's cell.

Apparently the matter was difficult to arrange, as she remained there nearly all night.

Despite his long years of training to become a respectable gentleman of few words and measured gestures, Anselmo had one weakness: sport, or to be exact, sports statistics, or to be even more precise, soccer statistics. Entire seasons came and went without him going to a single match, although he never missed an international game, and only a grave illness or a recent bereavement would prevent him seeing a match between Portugal and Spain. He would subject himself to the worst indignities in order to buy a ticket on the black market, and if he ever had any spares, he could not resist doing a little speculation, buying them for twenty escudos and selling them for fifty. He was careful, however, not to do such deals at the office. As far as his colleagues were concerned, he was a serious fellow who listened with a wry smile to their post-match Monday-morning debates, a man who only had eyes for the serious side of life, who considered sport to be suitable entertainment for apprentices and waiters. There was no point asking him for facts and figures or about trades or famous dates in the annals of Portuguese soccer or to name the various national squads who had played between 1920 and 1930. But, he said, he had a cousin who, poor thing, was mad about the game. If they wanted, he could ask his cousin when they next met up and he would be sure to know the answer. Anselmo delighted in his colleagues' eager anticipation. He would leave them waiting for days and days, saying that he hadn't seen his cousin for a while or that things were a bit tense between them or that his cousin had finally agreed to consult his records, but all these lies were merely delaying tactics designed to strain his colleagues' patience further. There were often bets at stake. Excited Benfica fans and excited Sporting fans were waiting to hear Anselmo give his ruling. At home in the evening, Anselmo would search for the desired fact among his meticulously kept statistics, his precious newspaper cuttings, and then, the following day, having first carefully positioned his glasses on his nose—for he now needed reading glasses—he would proffer, as if
ex cathedra,
the disputed fact or result. This admirable cousin of his did as much for Anselmo's reputation as did his professional competence, his circumspect air and his exemplary punctuality. Had such a cousin existed, Anselmo, although always in firm control of his emotions, would have embraced him, because it was thanks to him (or so everyone thought) that he was able to give the manager a detailed report of the second Portugal–Spain match in 1922, from the number of spectators to the makeup of the teams, their respective team colors and the names of the referee and the line judges. It was thanks to that information that he had finally managed to get an advance on his wages and had in his jacket pocket the three one-hundred-escudo notes that would cover expenses until the end of the month.

Sitting between his wife and daughter, both of whom were busily sewing, Anselmo, his fact sheets spread out on the dining room table, was savoring this victory. Finding that he did not have the names of the substitutes selected for the third Portugal–Italy match, he decided that he would write the next day to the information desk of a sports newspaper and find out.

He could not, alas, forget that the three hundred escudos would be deducted from that month's wages, and this rather soured his joy. He could, at most, hope to be allowed to pay back the debt in installments. The worst thing was that any deduction from his wages, however small, threw a large monkey wrench in the works of the household budget.

While Anselmo was pondering these thoughts, the radio was blaring out the most blatantly plangent, painful, piercing
fado
ever to emerge from a Portuguese throat. As everyone knew, Anselmo was no sentimentalist, but even he was profoundly moved by this lament. His feelings had much to do with the terrible prospect of that deduction from his wages at the end of the month. Rosália paused, needle in the air, and suppressed a sigh. Maria Cláudia, although apparently unmoved, was following the words of that unhappy love spilling forth from the loudspeaker and softly repeating them to herself.

What remained after the singer's final “Ay!” resembled the atmosphere at the end of a Greek tragedy or, in more modern terms, the air of suspense to be found in certain American films. Another song like that and those three normally healthy people would be transformed into hopeless neurotics. Fortunately, the broadcast was coming to an end. There were a few bits of news from abroad, a summary of the schedule for the following day, and then Rosália turned up the volume slightly to hear the twelve chimes at midnight.