The Divine Economy of Salvation (30 page)

“You fucking bitch!” I screamed, raising my arms to shield myself. “Mr. M. is going to kill you when Rachel finds out! You hear me? Kill you!”

Esperanza lost her nerve and lowered her foot back to the floor. She smoothed out her apron. Then she dropped down to my level, taking my shaking fists into her own hands, dry and rough with callouses. Resistant at first, I soon accepted her grip like a child finishing a tantrum, aware I'd passed the point of tolerance. She then spooned herself behind me, her legs wrapped around mine, holding me as I cried openly, my anger dissipated into helplessness.

After I calmed down, red with tears and embarrassment, Esperanza loosened her grip and kissed my hair at the nape of my neck, the way my mother used to. I pressed her cheek to mine.

“I didn't mean it,” said Esperanza. “I'll do whatever you want. Don't tell Rachel.”

I shook uncontrollably, tried to collect the dimes off the floor as Esperanza got up. I barely noticed her leave for Bella's room.

KIM IS SHAKING ME
, and I lift my hands against her in fear. Her hair appears white under the angle of the sun, but then my senses return to the waking world and I can see it is black and I am huddled in my winter coat on a bench in the snow-covered orchard of the convent, among the buried flower bulbs and stones. I try to speak, but all that comes out is a low moan.

“Are you all right? Do you need . . . need a doctor or something? You fell asleep right in the middle of our conversation,” she says.

“No. No. I'm fine, dear. Fine.”

It is early afternoon and sunny, although the chill of winter is persistent. Ice along the maple tree branches sparkles. Kim has taken her gloved hands off my shoulders and now holds her belly like a package in front of her.

“You were screaming in your sleep,” Kim says, her forehead scrunched up in confusion. “I thought maybe you were having a heart attack or something.” She chuckles nervously, watching me carefully for a response, digging her boots into the hard ground underneath our iron bench.

“I'm sorry,” I respond. “I didn't know I was . . .”

“Well, I didn't really think you were. I thought you're too young to have a heart attack, right?”

“I hope so.” I can't help but be a little amused and smile amidst my own embarrassment. The walkway is clear, not a Sister in sight, and the orchard is about thirty feet away from the road. Kim was no doubt torn about leaving me to get help. She has been so quiet in her stay here, she was probably afraid of a commotion. She is visible enough.

I let my back rest against the bench and pat the metal beside me. Kim sits down, her knees wide apart, more like a tomboy than a soon-to-be mother. She lifts her bangs by exhaling, her lower lip punched out. Her breath freezes in the air for a moment like fog.

“Oh, I suppose it's just stress,” I tell her.

She looks at me quizzically. I am aware she too, no matter that she sought refuge with us, must think like other outsiders that a nun leads a very sheltered existence, that we are practically inhuman. It might even have been one of the reasons she wanted to live with us: to erase herself from the regular world. That we could be under stress or distress might be a revelation for her. I must admit, it was for me when I was her age. The nuns at our school existed in the hours we beheld them, that was all. Their private lives were of no interest. They seemed to merely do: schoolwork, chores, church activities, sleep. This was the extent of my imagination for them.

But I am stressed out. The phone call has unnerved me.
I couldn't sleep last night. When I went to return the messages Sister Bernadette warned me about, I used Mother Superior's office. Mother Superior paced outside the smoked-glass window the entire time. She couldn't view me entirely, but she could see my outline. And she might have heard me if I hadn't been careful about the tone and pitch of my voice. She must certainly have some legitimate suspicions now.

I put down the phone after giving my account and address information to the man. Mother Superior wanted her office back. She is possessive over the only computer in the convent, claiming it should only be used in emergencies and to keep the lines of communication open with other sects. But I think she was rushing me out in hopes I'd forget to cover my tracks. No one likes being lied to here, least of all our leader. It seems I'm becoming as mysterious in their eyes as Kim. Two girls on the run. I am relieved it is Kim who heard me scream.

The messages were from a lawyer: Mr. Y. He didn't wish to reveal the name of his client, but he called to ask me where I went to school and what my current occupation was. He said I could not be forced to answer his questions, but I would be of great help if I did. “How did you find me?” I asked. “Who is this for? What woman has hired you?”
Who has come for you?
But he refused to answer me. I was right from the beginning. Someone is toying with me. Would this lawyer find enough to have me arrested? “We'd like to pay you a sum for your time,” he said when he finished taking notes. “I don't need money,” I replied. “I'm a nun.” “Oh, we are sure you'll think of something to spend it on. People
always do,” Mr. Y. said, although I suspect this will only put me further in debt. Yet when it comes to money, I suppose Mr. Y. is right.

“We have pasts too, you know,” I say to Kim, staring at a solitary rock brushed free of snow, sitting at the edge of the orchard. There is a pull between us, the rock and me, and I rub my hands together as if feeling the coldness of it between my fingers.

Kim places her hands in front of her while I meditate. The sun is above us, not nurturing this humble spot, but killing it further, in conspiracy with the cycle of the seasons. Although winter offers some small consolations, I regret this time of year, with its gross injustice to plants and animal life: the way birds pack up and leave, how squirrels and raccoons must go into hiding after rummaging through garbage bags and hoarding nuts, huddled in holes in the ground or tight spots in attics. The trees have surrendered, let their lifeblood drip from them bit by bit through their weary limbs. It is these slow deaths that affect me most. The people too lose their colour with each new layer of clothing they don, space themselves farther and farther apart from each other, keep heads bent, hands in pockets, looking up only for landmarks along the way. The homeless of the city, who know deeply how blind the elements are to human suffering, come to church more frequently for a warm place and anonymity, carrying their regrets inside. Father B. offers them coffee sometimes, a bit of money out of the collection plate, asking them to vow not to spend it on drink, even though he knows they'll search for warmth in whatever form it takes. I overheard him once talking to a
middle-aged woman with a Jamaican accent who walked to the front pew of the church and knelt down, leaving a shopping cart filled with her belongings by the holy water. When she finished, he put some change into her gloved hands and told her, “God loves you.” “Of course He does,” she replied loudly. “It is them.” She pointed to the exit at the front. “It's them who don't, Father.”

The wind helps, but I am still groggy, loath to go inside. There is tranquility out here, somewhat tainted by melancholy thoughts, but tranquility nonetheless. Kim is good company. She is a girl oddly detached from herself; she blends into her surroundings.

“You were calling someone's name, I think. I couldn't make it out,” Kim says dreamily, as if the incident had occurred years and not minutes ago.

“Yes?”

“Uh-huh.” Perhaps she thinks I've been praying.

“Oh.”

The nights have been long, the candle holder on my dresser like a sentry. It is difficult to sleep in its presence, to relax. I nod off for only brief periods at a time and am aware it isn't enough. During the day my eyes are constantly closing. My legs and lungs tell me to stop moving, to take rest. But I continue on, not wanting to draw attention to myself. Yet no one has come. No one besides the lawyer, and he asked no questions beyond what I might have discovered about myself in the City Archives. He mentioned no other names to me. It's as if I've been followed by a ghost, by one of the children buried underneath the old St. X. School for Girls, and not a living person at all.

“Do you ever talk in your sleep?” I ask, thinking to indirectly change the subject.

Kim shrugs. “I think so.” She pauses, hesitant whether or not to continue. “This guy once, he told me I did. But I don't know if I believe him. Probably just wanted to say I told him things I never did. He likes to think he knows everybody.” She looks down at her belly again, and disgust spreads across her face as if she is just about to spit.

“Is he the one who—” I point stupidly to the evidence.

“No. I mean, I don't want to talk about it.”

I shouldn't push her. I don't have the right. But I can't help myself, I want an answer.

“Have you decided what you're going to do yet?”

She is silent, flattens her hands against the metal beside her. It is clear she is about to get up and leave me.

“I suppose you don't want to talk about that either?” I say, raising my voice.

“No.” A strand of her black hair blows into her mouth and she catches it between her lips, then brushes it away with her hand.

“Time isn't going to wait for you to decide, you know,” I retort, clamping my hand on Kim's skinny thigh, twisting to face her.

“I know.” She swings her legs, knocking the bench leg underneath. “Doesn't really matter though,” she mutters.

“You should—”

“Look,” she says swiftly, pushing my hand from her pants, a little large on her but donated by Sister Monica's sister. “I really appreciate everything you're doing, or trying to do for me. But . . .”

Her hands shake as she does up the top button of her coat. Her face holds the despair of someone who would normally be in tears at this point but has already shed so many there are no more in reserve. She is practically blank, this girl. I am afraid her baby will be blank too.

“Well, Kim,” I say, “if I'm not helping, then stop coming to me. I don't need to see you any more. I'm tired of your lies and your secrets.”

I can tell I've shocked her. She studies me as if all of a sudden she doesn't recognize who I am.

“You're the one in trouble. Not me,” Kim replies.

She leaves me in the orchard.

I stayed on the floor, my back against the washroom door, until I heard Esperanza scream. “My God! My God!” Esperanza cried down the hallway, her feet stumbling in her haste, her heavy ring of keys flung to the floor.

Esperanza ran down the dormitory stairs to get the nuns to phone for an ambulance. She had discovered Bella straddled across her bed, her white cotton sheets removed from the corners and bunched underneath her like a pile of dirty snow. Sheets stained reddish-brown with blood. Bella's head was bent into her chest, her black hair fanned in front of her. If she hadn't been bleeding, you might think she had merely fallen asleep in a sitting position. She had tried to stop the flow. She had tried to keep it from getting out, applying pressure on her wound as
we had been taught to do in Health class. The clot must form in time.

As I heard Esperanza's footsteps race by, the clatter of the keys, and the echo of her screams in the hallway, I wept against the bathroom door, my body determined to keep it closed.

THE SNOWSTORM BEGAN EARLY
in the day, a cold front sweeping through the province from the north-west, a wind blowing fiercely at ninety kilometres an hour. Streets inside the city were closed and the highways were difficult to reach, many of the ramps blocked by snowbanks the size of trucks. Citizens were advised to stay inside until the storm passed, the temperature reported at minus thirty degrees before the wind chill factor. The skin freezes in less than thirty seconds in such weather. Limbs go numb, the lungs rebel, and eyelids can be forced shut. Sections of hydro and telephone lines were down in various parts of the city, whipped off their poles or smashed down by the winds. The downtown core had generators as backup, but many of the houses and streets were cloaked in darkness, while outside, the world clothed itself in oppressing white.

My father was supposed to come downtown for Bella's funeral the next day, notwithstanding the snow and the difficulty to get there by car. All the parents were notified and advised to attend to help their children cope with the tragedy. He had agreed, but phoned Mother Superior back and told her my mother had made a
doctor's appointment that couldn't be rescheduled, the waiting list was too long, and she might miss her opportunity to get better. At least that's what he told her to tell me. She may have believed him. Christine, too, would be absent. “She's too young to come,” my father said. “Not to a funeral.”

I had never attended a funeral either, and I hated him for abandoning me. A Leftover once again. Rachel's father would be coming. Caroline's mother, father, and sister were coming. Francine's mother was coming. But not Francine. She, apparently, still had the flu. Relatives of many of the nuns had begun to arrive as well. The school started to resemble a hotel. Each person who entered, dragging in the snow behind, was directed to one of the free rooms in the convent or school dormitory. Mother Superior stood like an idol in the entrance lobby, motioning to washrooms and the cafeteria, holding up in the face of all the questions. Meanwhile Esperanza toiled down in the basement collecting blankets and towels, extra cots from the boys' school down the street; her workload tripled. She was too distracted to speak with us any more, or was thankful to be busy. She didn't mention what had happened in the bathroom, and I gratefully ignored it too.

The nuns generally kept the church attached to our school locked after evening service. However Father McC. decided, due to the unexpected tragedy, that the church would stay open in the evenings and at night. Vandalism was a concern, but he opted to take the chance and leave it in God's hands to protect the place of His worship. “Keep the lights on. Maybe someone will be seeking guidance. We must provide,” he said. Sister Aline informed us of the
change so we would not be startled to see the lights on past their regular time or be alarmed by people entering the church at unexpected hours. The parking lot was filled with snow, despite the efforts of the staff and altar boys who had tried to clear paths for vehicles. Although most of the street's power was out, our school had its own generator. When I looked out my window, to the side of the large maple, the light from the church formed an arc around the entranceway. That light drew me from the staleness of my room, from the rattling of the shut window. As if those who entered the light would be protected. It spoke of possible warmth.