The White Garden (11 page)

With infinite love he fed me on wheat and honey, and, seeing
then my matchless beauty, he made me a great queen.

I was ripe for love. With my sisters I swam in the sea, and the sea threw its green cloak about me, decked me with pearls and with sapphires. And on the edge of the ocean, the edge of the world, I walked hand in hand with Violetta. We loved. Naked we swam in the waves, and in the creamy foam we would embrace. We shared mind and body and spirit. She spoke directly to my soul. And we ate bread and honey and drank fresh milk from old glass cups. ‘Here’s to the End of the World!’ she used to say, and she would hold her cup aloft and take a long draught.

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Violetta, people used to whisper, is more than a little crazy. She was Italian.

Jesus united me with Celine at this time, united us with bonds
a hundred times stronger than the bonds of blood. He made us
sisters of the spirit, following gaily in his own footsteps. Ripe
for love, I was embraced by Jesus, united with Celine in the
spirit.

What wonderful talks we had, Celine and I, at night upstairs
in our room as the moon rose above the trees and its silvery
light poured over the sleeping world. Stars glittered in the dark
blue of the sky. One night as I stood by the window, I looked up
at the heavens, and I saw, written in stars on the velvet cloth
above me, my own name, Therese. I pointed this out to Celine,
and we felt at that moment that everything was drawing our
souls up to God.

I look up at the heavens and I see the stars. I close my eyes and look into the arching heavens within the dome of my skull and I see the velvet field of night cut by the pinpricks of screaming light. The waters within me are pulled this way and that by the power of the moon and the great tides come and go on my beaches. My stones are tears that have fallen from the eyes of the weeping moon. I am a silent girl, quiet as darkness, soft as a spider’s web of wishful sleeping silk. My name is written in the stars, you know. Clearly written for all the world to see. Heaven deals with me directly.

I never spoke, never said a word to my confessor about what
was going on in my soul. This was because I knew that the path
I trod was so bright and straight I needed no guide but Jesus.

God was dealing with me directly. There are scholars who spend
their whole lives in study. If such scholars had questioned me
at this time in my life they would have been amazed to come
across a girl of only fourteen years who understood so much. I
understood the secrets of perfection, secrets that all the learning
in the world can not reveal.

The saints have this knowledge; they have it in their hearts.

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The great Spanish mystic poet, St John of the Cross, said: ‘I
had neither guide nor light, except that which shone within my
heart, and that guided me more surely than the midday sun to
the place where He who knew me well awaited me.’ In my own
case, I knew that the place where my Jesus was waiting for me
was the convent where my dear sisters Pauline and Marie were
already professed.

French, Italian, Spanish — we were so very continental. The nuns at school were from a most French order, and they emphasised the importance of European culture. The life of the Little Flower was studied, naturally, in French. Violetta had a great gift for languages, and said I could probably learn Italian by drinking her blood. We would pick scabs from each other’s body and then we would chew them and swallow them. Hers were very sweet. She said mine tasted of cinnamon.

It was Christmas when I watched my name being written in
the stars, and it was at that time that I knew I had a vocation
to follow Jesus. I began at once to respond to my vocation,
but I met with nothing but obstacles. Celine also had her
own vocation. I knew this, and she discovered that I too, her
little sister, was to enter the convent. With great courage she
accepted the knowledge of my secret. I was determined to
enter Carmel one year from that Christmas of what I regard as
my ‘conversion’.

One of the great obstacles to my desire was the health of my
dear king, Papa. He had suffered a paralysis and was becoming
very, very frail. As well as this, a poisonous insect had bitten
him on the neck, causing first an inflammation and then a
growth. It was painful and horrible.

But I knew that I must soon tell him of my vocation and of
my decision to enter the convent by Christmas. So, at sunset on
the feast of Pentecost I sat by Papa at the well and I told him of
my calling. We walked up and down the garden, weeping, and
he seemed to feel the tranquil joy that comes from a sacrifice
freely accepted. At one point we paused by a low wall where
miniature white lilies were growing, and Papa plucked one of

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the flowers and gave it to me. He then described the care that
God has given to the creation and nurture of the lily. As he
spoke I heard and understood the similarities between the life
of this lily and my own life. I saw that Papa had taken the lily
from the velvety moss of its bed, complete with its roots. The
roots were unbroken and I knew this to be a sign that it would
one day grow in more fertile soil, just as I would grow from
the gentle valley of my childhood to the great height of Mount
Carmel. I put the white flower in my book of
The Imitation of Christ
. The stem broke from the root after a time, and it seemed
that God was telling me He would soon break the bonds of His
little flower, and would not leave her here to wither away on
earth.

The white flower is in the tiny book, the imitation book.

I always called it that, the imitation book. It is
Golden
Thoughts from The Imitation of Christ
. I took it one day, stole it really, from my grandmother. I was playing in her sewing room, pulling out the carved drawers of the old sewing machine and counting the different sorts of buttons and reels of cotton. In one of the drawers I found the imitation book. It was bound in dark red kid, so worn and soft. So small and secret. Each Golden Thought was edged, boxed, in a line of red ink like blood. ‘Unto the pure all things are pure.’ I put the book in my pocket and later I placed it with my other treasures in my cupboard in the roof. I plucked a white violet with its green heart leaf and pressed it in the imitation book. It left no stain, and turned in time to paper.

There are 126 Golden Thoughts; 15 and 16 are missing.

As we walked in the garden, Papa gave me his permission to
enter the convent. But there were to be many obstacles in my
path. For one, my uncle would not consent. He said that to let
an inexperienced girl of fifteen enter would do great harm to
religion.

I was alone in the desert waste, my soul a fragile skiff tossing
on a stormy sea.

Then began my dark night of the soul. The sky was dark with
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clouds and rain fell in sorrow on the earth. Then Jesus intervened and my uncle changed his mind. But next the Superior of
the convent said I must wait.

The heavens were black. I was in despair.

I was in black despair, in the coal black heaven of despair, white in a black heaven between the bed and the wall. I lay quite still on the cushions with my stones around me and books and beads and all my golden treasures and the pastel I did of Violetta, and also my teddy and dolly and golly. Oh Golliwog is a dirty dog. His face is as black as coal. But his skin is as white as the pale moonlight compared with the state of his soul. His soul. Compared with the state of his soul. The coal of the soul, oh golly gosh.

Raining cats and dogs and golliwogs. The thing about Golly is his hair. Hundreds of little black corkscrew curls that stick out all over his round soft head. I wind the woolly curls around my fingers and they spring away from my grip. Sometimes I chew them and pretend they are licorice. They taste only of wool. He doesn’t mind if I chew his hair. Actually, he likes it; it stimulates his thoughts. Golliwog is a great thinker, as well as a dirty dog. He invented those tongs shaped like small black hands for picking up live coals. All his ideas are to do with coal and earth and fire. He has suggested we should get some candles and set the bed on fire. The idea is very appealing, appalling, appealing. Bright swift hot gold and scarlet tongues of little dancing flame go flicking along the edge of the downy mattress.

Bliss. Hot bliss kiss. And when the fire was over the birds began to sing. Oh wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king. After the fire you get the charred and blackened and ruined dead remains. They find my sizzled body, dead from inhalation of smoke and they look around and they say: Golly did it. Oh, that Gollywog is a dirty dog. Poor dear white Therese has frizzled up and gone to heaven, flown off like a pure sweet butterfly. Flit.

Flit. Flit.

I had to prove my vocation was real, and I had to prove this to
the Bishop himself. Papa made an appointment for us to go to

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the palace. Nothing but my love of Jesus enabled me to overcome my shyness, my feeling of being so small and powerless.

I spent a long time putting up my hair — it was the first time I
had ever done this, and I looked different. I think it helped me
to feel older and more experienced.

In the drawing room where Papa and I met the Bishop
there were enormous armchairs. I had to sit in one of these,
and I felt that it was big enough for me and all my sisters to
sit in at once. I sat there and looked steadily at the Bishop,
explaining that ever since I was three years old I had longed
to give myself to God. I attempted to sound level-headed and
unemotional, never allowing my true passion to display itself,
for I knew that if I began to describe the depth of my conviction, I would be dismissed as an excitable child. The Bishop
suggested I should perhaps stay home with Papa for a few
more years. Papa spoke up and said that if the Bishop did not
give me his permission to enter the convent, we would go on a
pilgrimage to Rome and would put the case to the Holy Father.

The Bishop was silent for a moment, and I held my breath. I
was sure that Papa’s words had turned the tide. But no. The
Bishop smiled and said in a kind voice that he would have
to consider his opinion. He would see to it that we heard his
decision when we were in Rome.

At one time the Bishop placed his spectacles on the table in front of him. In the shining glass of the two lenses, I could see the perfect double vision of my perfect couple self, my soluble double trouble turmoil vision elf-self.

I was beside myself, a curved and shining double bubble reflection of me and me. Mimi, I said, and the Bishop smiled and patted my flesh-and-bone hand. While the Mimis in the mirrors shimmered with clear clean watery hatred of his apey hairy patting paw. Mimic my Mimi, I said to the Bishop, and he heard me say, ‘What is the time?’ He said it was early. Then he picked up his spectacles and with the left paw of the ape he placed them carefully on his sweaty nose. ‘Pretty early,’ he said, and he smiled his bishop-ape smile and I began to hum quietly to myself as the Mimis faded from his spectacles and slid gently,
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as softly and gently as tears, back into my skin, back into my bloodstream and streamed like the slimy shapes of broken eggs into my heart. And were gone.

We walked in the garden with the Bishop, the gravel of the paths
crunching under my feet. We stood beneath the trees, and a pure
white dove alighted beside me. I blushed when Papa told the
Bishop that I had put my hair up for the first time that morning.

Ever since, whenever he has spoken of me to anyone, I believe
that the Bishop has mentioned the fact about my hair. I felt that
it had only served to emphasise my childishness, having the
opposite from the desired effect.

It was three o’clock in the morning by my father’s clocks
when we set off for the railway station in Lisieux to begin our
journey to Rome. We were in the company of other pilgrims,
important titled people such as I had never met before. But
to me their titles were quite empty and meaningless. Only in
heaven will we know the titles of our true nobility, for in the
Revelation St John speaks of the secret name God keeps for us
there. God will give to His faithful each a white stone in which
will be engraved a new name, the secret name of each faithful
follower.