The Divine Economy of Salvation (34 page)

I was amazed and torn. I wanted to see what would happen to Bella but I didn't want to either. I had no idea whether it would work or not, or what it would mean to Bella to have her virginity snatched away from her. But curiosity won out over mercy. None of us realized Bella might be permanently harmed. Rachel took the candle, which had been burning in the shaft of the candle holder, and carried it to her dresser, where it momentarily illuminated her father's photograph. She turned the frame towards the wall, and lit a tea-candle instead. She didn't mind her father seeing her with Patrick, but not a girl by herself? I wondered. Perhaps she hadn't thought of him watching her from behind the glass until then. It was the only indication I ever had that Rachel might have been as afraid of ghosts as I was.

Caroline, Francine, and me, as I was now permitted to retreat into the shadows, sat on the bed, while Bella stood in the centre of the blanket. The yellow patch on the carpet resembled dead grass fried by a sweltering summer. Bella untucked her blouse, the white folds flattened against her skin with sweat. Her skirt remained around her waist though she hiked it up, extending her thighs to catch the material. She slipped off her underwear. They were pink,
I remember, pink like her fingertips, pink like the sugared candies shaped into hearts we bought for pennies at Woolworth's. She squatted and Rachel, once she had rubbed the wax off as much as she could, placed the candle holder on the floor between her legs and joined us on the bed. From our angle, it almost looked as if Bella were trying to find a position in which to urinate, her skirt in front of her, hiding in her modesty. Caroline sought my hand and I held on, pleading to myself over and over in my head:
Who has come for you? Who has come for you? Who has come for you?
I couldn't believe it was us.

She bore down upon it quickly. Bella moaned with pain, the suffering evident in her creased forehead alone enough to make me afraid for her. Her knees on the floor, her thighs closed around the base of the candle holder. Spots of red on yellow. Hands clenched against the bottom of her ribs, attempting to dislodge the foreign object. Her teeth clipping her bottom lip leaked a tiny trail of blood to her chin. She was still squatting, her face quivering as if in prayer towards the ceiling, wet clear snot cradled under her nose, in the space above her upper lip. She was still beautiful, if crumpled, her body slouched and surviving like a flower in a rainstorm. Black shadows from the candlelight moved over her like clouds, her face white as sheet lightning.

Rachel crouched before her. Bella fell against her and Rachel held her in her arms. The candle holder was still inside Bella, her body stuck to it, glistening with blood, red-black blood in patches over her legs. Finally, Rachel managed to balance Bella. She
removed her hands from Bella's waist and grabbed the base of the protruding candle holder. I heard muffled noises from Caroline, who stuffed her face into Rachel's pillow, screaming into the feathers. Rachel cried out when she pulled, as if the object had been lodged inside her instead. They both fell against the floor. In the yellow haze, it was difficult to tell which girl was on top.

The candle holder lay discarded and stained beside them. Francine got up, her face pale, and stumbled out of the room, almost kicking Rachel and Bella on the way. Caroline was alone with her muffled screams; Rachel and Bella had become entwined like lovers. I was alone. There was no comfort for me.

When Rachel's face emerged out of Bella's embrace, it too had blood on it—an imprint on her forehead and on her blouse in the space between her breasts. Her cheeks looked chubby, bloated. Bella was curled in a ball on the floor, her hair falling out of the bobby pins, strands of black spilling from her bun, plastered to her face, her neck. Her hands pressed against her belly.

Rachel could barely speak. “Help me. God, help me,” she begged through tears.

I knew we would see better if I turned on the light, but I didn't want to draw attention to Rachel's room. I didn't want to see Bella, not really see her, to be able to tell how bad it was.
God help us,
I echoed. It was the first time I'd uttered a sincere prayer within the walls of the school. Leaving Caroline on the bed, I slid to the floor and crawled over to Rachel, who was stroking Bella's hair reverently on her lap.

THERE ARE NO SUICIDES
in a convent. Even now, when abortions are legal, handled by legitimate medical professionals, and where one can give power of attorney to family members to pull the plug on hospital machines, there is no such thing within our walls as a suicide. It is a sin, and the stains of sin, as Sister Marguerite would have called them, are not welcome here. The soul must be free of its own murder.

Sister Pina, five years ago, committed suicide—or euthanasia, depending what you call the deed done by a dying cancer patient. But in the convent, in the eyes of the church, she died of natural causes. She struggled, one of her breasts removed, her stomach and chest in great pain. Her skin had developed lesions, the sores shaped like hard pits of fruit along her arms. Throughout her chemotherapy, Sister Pina had trouble standing, could hardly keep solid food down, and her flesh had taken on a yellow hue not unlike jaundice. Mother Superior turned the other cheek when her nephew smuggled her tiny sealed baggies of hashish sent by cross-town courier; and most of us ignored the heavy smell clinging to
her sheets and blankets, escaping underneath the crack of her door. Those who opposed were told to heed Sister Ursula, who, as a doctor, claimed no crime was being committed, only mercy. I remember sitting with Sister Pina one day, wheeling her outside to take in the spring air, admiring the red and white tulips planted throughout the rock garden in the orchard. Her hands gripped the arms of the wheelchair, steadying her as we went over the grass. She had refused the electric wheelchair Mr. Q. had obtained for her, saying it should be donated to a patient at the hospital or one who lived alone and didn't have all the Sisters she had to take care of her. She fell asleep in the sun that day, and I imagined her following the light shining down upon us: Pina rising from her chair ascending into the heavens. No wheelchairs or X-ray machines, no blood tests and cardiograms. The machines' broken screws and plates disintegrating with her bones. Imagined each pound she lost erasing a pound of memory.
What use is suffering?
I remember thinking.
What use is it if we can't leave ourselves behind?

She took painkillers with her other medications, sometimes doubling the doses as she was told to do if she couldn't sleep. She hoarded her painkillers for five full days. The concentration of codeine in her system, we found out later, was enough to kill a horse. Sister Katherine found her in the morning. Her doctor was telephoned, an ambulance summoned. There was nothing we could do to bring her back. Her body was hard and cold as stiffened clay. The official report said Sister Pina died of cancer.

The depictions of martyrs have always seemed strange to me. The burning, the crosses. Rising fires, rising bodies. Christ, his feet
nailed to the wood, his sides bleeding, crown of thorns. Joan of Arc, man's clothing over a woman's young body, draped by fire. Her heart, unburned in the ashes, sold as a relic, but the skin and bone destroyed. Saint Catherine martyred on a wheel of fire. A virgin sacrifice. Saint Christina who went further, the wheel of fire no match for her faith. She was rocked in an iron-hot cradle, sent into a burning furnace. Saint Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins slaughtered. Mutilated, tortured, piecemeal women. Saint Margaret. Saint Agatha. Saint Prisca. Saint Restituta.
Marry or burn,
St. Paul wrote. But we burn anyway. The symbols are wrong. On Ash Wednesday, the priest pronounces,
Remember, you are ashes and to ashes will return.
Ashes are the lot of us common sinners. Martyrs do not burn; they freeze.

I washed and dressed in a black wool skirt and a black sweater that I had brought back with me at Christmastime, and I was combing through my wet hair when Sister Marguerite knocked on my door and entered the room. Mother Superior needed to speak with me immediately. Sister Marguerite looked concerned, her usually firm face softened. I held the brush in my hand, nearly paralyzed, and she opened my palm for me, releasing the brush from my grip.

“I'll go down with you,” she said, placing it back on the dresser. “Take your coat. And take a book or something.”

Rachel was in the hallway holding her father's hand, preparing to go down to the church for Bella's service. She too was wearing black, as was her father, whom I'd never seen in black. They were
completely drained of colour. Rachel stared at me directly and I longed to run to her, beg her to take care of me, give her a sign we were all done for and Mother Superior knew everything. I was being summoned and would have to tell all, accept the shame and the punishment. The only time Rachel had spoken to me over the last three days had been to say that the silver candle holder was in the metal garbage bin outside. “We can forget about it,” she had said. “I don't want it any more. My father won't notice.”

I was hurried along by Sister Marguerite and began crying before we reached the stairwell, a textbook in my left hand. Finally I spilled tears over Bella's death, and this made me feel worse, knowing they had come only when I was threatened. The last glimpse I had of Rachel was her free hand, by her side, waving goodbye to me upside down.

Sister Marguerite ushered me into Mother Superior's office and left, and Mother Superior motioned to the chair on the opposite side of her tidy desk. It was free of papers, completely cleared of any books or items save a photograph of her family in a humble brown frame with a studio's blue background. In it the figures were poised on stools, with Mother Superior in her habit like a huge black-and-white banner behind them, no smile on her lips. The rest of the family seemed closer to one another. Their smiles, if not broad and beaming, implied comfort, their knees and arms naturally facing the other family members while their eyes looked towards the camera. The picture unnerved me. I had never thought of Mother Superior coming from anywhere or being a child of anyone. I rarely exchanged words with her, even in History class, and
feared my face must have betrayed the guilt I was carrying. Heavy as lead, my legs numb and motionless in front of me, I wanted to sink into the floor. Mother Superior wore a silver cross that moved between her breasts as she breathed, and I couldn't take my eyes off it. I fixated on the silver like an oracle, hoping it would help me find the words to explain Bella's death.

“There is no easy way to begin,” she said, pacing behind me then stopping and laying her hands firmly on my shoulders.

I jumped under her touch. Her strong and large hands were cold and intrusive. Was she going to strike me? Wait for my confession or send me to Father McC. crawling on my knees to beg for forgiveness? Would she call the police?

“Your mother died last night,” she said authoritatively. “God has taken her to Him.”

She continued to hold onto my shoulders as I tried to wriggle out of her grip and confront her. Had I heard right? Was Bella alive and my mother dead? Whose funeral was I dressed for? Why was her silver cross hanging so close to my cheek I could feel its coldness like bone?

She let go, put a glass of water in front of my face, and motioned for me to drink. She was a hundred years old to me, an endless survivor. Her eyes betrayed only a hint of concern, her face as stony and monumental as always, a bronze eagle. The water slid down my throat effortlessly, tastelessly. Death is a blessing in our faith. We were reminded of this daily. Sister Marguerite told us Death meant Peace. If one had cleared one's debts with a confessor, there was nothing to worry about.

“Sister Marguerite is going to drive you home immediately,” Mother Superior continued, directing me towards the doorway. “It may take some time because of the storm, but you'll get there.”

The door of Mother Superior's office ajar, I could see Sister Marguerite wearing her stylish green winter coat with the white faux-fur collar, a Christmas gift from a relative. My expression must have betrayed my bewilderment, for Mother Superior added, uncomfortably, “I'd take you myself, but I don't have a driver's licence.” Wearily I stood, almost disappointed in this monolithic woman who could instill in me the fear of expulsion, but who was unable to take me to the trial, let alone carry out the sentence.

Father's unmarried sister, Heather, whom I had only heard of in passing since she lived in England, arrived by plane the day before and managed to make her way to our home by morning. During the past year, my father had told us that Aunt Heather would visit when it was more feasible. They had believed there would be plenty of time for us all to meet and to get to know each other before my mother's decline. Then my father warned Aunt Heather that Mother was very ill and asked her to come help him, since his own strength had been depleted over the months of caregiving. She had inherited the family home and a sum of money from their parents to live on and was between secretarial jobs at the time my father called. He sprang for the ticket. She had no idea when she finally arrived that the bride she had never met had already died.

She introduced herself when Sister Marguerite accompanied
me to the house on Ashbrook Crescent. Sister Marguerite had been silent for most of the trip, cautious with the car the convent communally owned and she rarely drove, doubly anxious due to the treacherous condition of the streets. I didn't know what to say to her, so I spent the time flipping mindlessly through a textbook filled with mathematical equations. We were learning algebra, how letters stand in for numbers; how to compute equations to identify the worth of a letter. It seemed too much like the Bible exegesis Sister Aline performed, the answers obvious only to those privy to the hidden meanings. Sister Marguerite regarded me distressingly at one point during the drive but said nothing. The three days had been hard on all of us. We'd all cope differently.