Authors: Jane Haddam
True Believers (14 page)
She dipped her fingers with holy water from the font and crossed herself. She came up the middle aisle and genuflected in front of the altar. She slid into a pew halfway down the line of them and knelt carefully on the padded kneeler. She had been in dozens of Catholic churches in half a dozen states, and every one of them had been close to identical: the pews, the kneelers, the fonts. It had startled her, the one time she was in France, when she realized that very old churches did not have kneelers, or even pews that were set in place like the ones she was used to at home. She had tried to imagine herself a medieval woman, going to church to stand and kneel, unsupported, on a stone floor, but the picture had not fit. She could no longer imagine herself anywhere, because the picture did not fit anywhere. At some point when she wasn't paying attention, she had been set adrift in space. Now she was no one and nothing, weightless and loose, tossing in the wind without an anchor.
Mary sat back in her seat and turned her attention to the statue of the Virgin that stood watch over the huge bank of candles in the niche they called the Mary Chapel.
“All right,” she said, in her head, although she could hear the words as clearly as if she had spoken them. “You're supposed to have all the answers. What do I do now?”
For Sister Harriet Garrity, the issues surrounding the execution of Anne Marie Hannaford were problematic. On the one hand, she was a woman, oppressed by definition, and, due to the fact that she was anything but conventionally attractive, one of the victims of the vicious lookism that pervaded every segment of American society. On the other hand, she was the daughter of one of the great hegemonic capitalist oppressors of the Reagan period, and from all the evidence she was not a rebel trapped in the patriarchal fold. Harriet didn't think she had ever seen such a thorough case of false consciousness. Anne Marie
hadn't given a lot of interviews over the past ten years, but the ones she had given were monuments to hierarchical thinking. It was just so obvious that the woman thought herself better than just about everybody she met, and that she was convinced that the only reason she had been convicted in the first place was that the jury was full of lower-class Blacks and Latinos acting out a fantasy of revenge on their “betters.” She had actually used the word “betters” at one point in one interview, and the very sight of the word had made Harriet flinch. Still, there was principle involved here. Harriet knew the death penalty for what it was, judicial murder, the legal construct that allowed the ruling class to murder the troublesome members of the classes beneath them before those troublesome members could gain disciples and become agents of change. She didn't think it would be possible for her to pretend that this particular judicial murder was not happening. No matter how much she might dislike Anne Marie Hannaford personallyâfrom a distance, of course, since she had never met the woman face-to-faceâHarriet couldn't imagine herself staying home while the state of Pennsylvania pumped poison into the woman's veins. Besides, it might all be a trick. Journalists had been gotten to before, and most of them didn't even need to be gotten to. They bought the patriarchal line without ever thinking to question it. In real life, Anne Marie Hannaford might be nothing at all like the woman she seemed to be in interviews. She might be a sister under the skin, or someone who had struck a blow against repression and now just didn't know how she was supposed to behave. Harriet knew from experience how hard it was for women to own their anger, or excuse themselves for acting in their own interests, and without permission.
hadn't given a lot of interviews over the past ten years, but the ones she had given were monuments to hierarchical thinking. It was just so obvious that the woman thought herself better than just about everybody she met, and that she was convinced that the only reason she had been convicted in the first place was that the jury was full of lower-class Blacks and Latinos acting out a fantasy of revenge on their “betters.” She had actually used the word “betters” at one point in one interview, and the very sight of the word had made Harriet flinch. Still, there was principle involved here. Harriet knew the death penalty for what it was, judicial murder, the legal construct that allowed the ruling class to murder the troublesome members of the classes beneath them before those troublesome members could gain disciples and become agents of change. She didn't think it would be possible for her to pretend that this particular judicial murder was not happening. No matter how much she might dislike Anne Marie Hannaford personallyâfrom a distance, of course, since she had never met the woman face-to-faceâHarriet couldn't imagine herself staying home while the state of Pennsylvania pumped poison into the woman's veins. Besides, it might all be a trick. Journalists had been gotten to before, and most of them didn't even need to be gotten to. They bought the patriarchal line without ever thinking to question it. In real life, Anne Marie Hannaford might be nothing at all like the woman she seemed to be in interviews. She might be a sister under the skin, or someone who had struck a blow against repression and now just didn't know how she was supposed to behave. Harriet knew from experience how hard it was for women to own their anger, or excuse themselves for acting in their own interests, and without permission.
The Action Alert from the Seamless Garment Network was lying across the green felt blotter in the middle of her desk, along with the Urgent Memo from the Gay and Lesbian Support Advisory, which had to do with the priest-pedophilia case, and especially with the men who had once been victims and in many ways were victims still. There wasn't much she could do about the execution of Anne Marie Hannaford, but six of the men who had been victims of the priest pedophiles worshiped right across the street, and she had already talked to
Father Burdock about what she might be able to do to help them out.
Father Burdock about what she might be able to do to help them out.
She was supposed to be outlining the needs of the Special Committee for the First Communion breakfast, but she was finding it impossible to concentrate on how many dozen bagels should be plain and how many should be raisin. The whole idea of the First Communion breakfast made her sick to her stomach, and especially so since she had lost this round of the policy war to Sister Scholastica and her traditionalist nuns. The idea of sending tiny girls down a church aisle dressed in white veils and white gloves as if they were brides appalled her almost as much as the execution of Anne Marie Hannaford didâbecause it was an execution of its own in a way. What the Church was trying to murder was self-respect, and a sense of empowerment. It wanted those things for boys, but what it wanted for girls was only docility and acquiescence. Pray, pay, and obeyâthat was the old formula, for all Catholic laypersons and for all Catholic nuns. There was a war going on, just the way those Christian idiots said there was, a war for the soul of the country and a war for the soul of the Church. Harriet Garrity had enlisted on the side of Truth, Justice, and the Legitimate Aspirations of Women.
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She took the Action Alert and the Urgent Memo and pushed them out of the way. She turned to her computer and looked at the First Communion schedule sitting there on the screen, with the major events highlighted in red. She rubbed her head and wished it didn't ache so much. It had been aching since early this morning, and not even four ibuprofen taken less than an hour apart had done anything to make it better. That was because Father Healy's deadline was coming up on her as fast as a freight train, and she still didn't know what to do about it. She had no intention of getting into a habit. None of the women in her order wore habits anymore. She had no intention of leaving St. Anselm's, either, if only because she didn't have the faintest idea where she could go. Five or six years ago, there were plenty of jobs in parishes and chanceries for nuns with professional training and management skills, but since the appointment of this Cardinal Archbishop, those things were drying up, at least in this archdiocese. She thought of herself being transferred to some college somewhere, or stuck
off in a backwater where her only influence on the course of events would come from journal articles in little magazines and the letters she would write to the newspapers, which wouldn't bother to print them. She would be no better off than she had been when the nuns in her order
had
worn habits, and been held to a rule that forbade them to “singularize” themselves. If Harriet had been truthful about herself, she would have had to admit that she was a very ambitious woman. She knew she would have made at least as good a priest as Father Robert Healy. She would have made a better one than half the priests she'd served under in her career, whose only real qualification for the priesthood had often seemed to be that bit of flesh they had hanging between their legs. If she had been a man, she would have been a bishop before she was forty. She would have been a Cardinal very soon after that. She might even have been Pope. As it was, she often felt so stifled she could barely breathe, and then she wanted to blow up at somebody, smash something, do something, anything, to get out of this box without air that she'd lived in for so long she couldn't remember what any other kind of life was like. Maybe, she thought, that was because there was no other kind of life for a woman. All women lived in boxes, and all women died before they could get completely out. If they didn't die of exhaustion from the struggle, then the system killed them, the way it was about to kill Anne Marie Hannaford, the way it murdered the countless women who fought against helplessness for birth control and abortion and reproductive rights. Harriet looked guiltily at her computer monitor, but it still showed nothing but the First Communion schedule: rosary before Mass; Mass; scapular enrollment ceremony; breakfast. She rubbed her temples and sighed. She left the Action Alert about the execution openly on her desk, but she never left anything about Catholics for a Free Choice anywhere anyone could find it. She didn't even go to their website without erasing the cookies they sent and making sure the Web address wasn't left for somebody to see it on her Internet travel history. The Seamless Garment Network would annoy the hell out of the Cardinal Archbishop and drive Father Healy to distraction, but they couldn't do anything about it. The Cardinal Archbishop was one of the most vocal opponents of capital punishment in the American Church. The Gay and Lesbian
off in a backwater where her only influence on the course of events would come from journal articles in little magazines and the letters she would write to the newspapers, which wouldn't bother to print them. She would be no better off than she had been when the nuns in her order
had
worn habits, and been held to a rule that forbade them to “singularize” themselves. If Harriet had been truthful about herself, she would have had to admit that she was a very ambitious woman. She knew she would have made at least as good a priest as Father Robert Healy. She would have made a better one than half the priests she'd served under in her career, whose only real qualification for the priesthood had often seemed to be that bit of flesh they had hanging between their legs. If she had been a man, she would have been a bishop before she was forty. She would have been a Cardinal very soon after that. She might even have been Pope. As it was, she often felt so stifled she could barely breathe, and then she wanted to blow up at somebody, smash something, do something, anything, to get out of this box without air that she'd lived in for so long she couldn't remember what any other kind of life was like. Maybe, she thought, that was because there was no other kind of life for a woman. All women lived in boxes, and all women died before they could get completely out. If they didn't die of exhaustion from the struggle, then the system killed them, the way it was about to kill Anne Marie Hannaford, the way it murdered the countless women who fought against helplessness for birth control and abortion and reproductive rights. Harriet looked guiltily at her computer monitor, but it still showed nothing but the First Communion schedule: rosary before Mass; Mass; scapular enrollment ceremony; breakfast. She rubbed her temples and sighed. She left the Action Alert about the execution openly on her desk, but she never left anything about Catholics for a Free Choice anywhere anyone could find it. She didn't even go to their website without erasing the cookies they sent and making sure the Web address wasn't left for somebody to see it on her Internet travel history. The Seamless Garment Network would annoy the hell out of the Cardinal Archbishop and drive Father Healy to distraction, but they couldn't do anything about it. The Cardinal Archbishop was one of the most vocal opponents of capital punishment in the American Church. The Gay and Lesbian
Support Advisory was more problematic, but since there were so many people in it who had been on the innocent victim side of The Scandal, the Cardinal Archbishop wasn't likely to use it against her. Catholics for a Free Choice, on the other hand, could get her bouncedânot only out of St. Anselm's Church and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, but out of her order, and maybe out of the Church as well. Harriet wasn't really entirely clear about the sort of thing that made it possible for the Church to pronounce a formal anathema.
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At the moment, she wasn't clear about much of anything, so she got up from her chair and went out into the hall. Her office was in a long single-story annex that connected the church and the rectory, along with the offices of all the other people who held administrative posts of any kind in the parish. Sister Scholastica had an office in the parochial-school building, but she also had one here, because she was not only the school principal but the parish's delegate to the Archdiocesan Office of Education. Sister Thomasetta had her office here, too. She was the new comptroller, brought in by Father Healy only a year ago, to replace the nun of Sister Harriet's own order who had held that position for fifteen years. Sister Thomasetta, needless to say, was a Sister of Divine Grace and wore a habit. All the other people who worked in the offices were laywomen, of the type Harriet thought of as Daily Communicants, and most of them did go to Mass every day at seven o'clock before they checked in for work. Harriet had only begun to realize how much change Father Healy had brought with him. Her own office was now the only one that did not have a picture of the Madonna on the wall, or a holy water font just inside the door. In the old days, Harriet couldn't remember a single time when the women in these offices had prayed the rosary together, or spent their lunch hours studying Catholic doctrine. Now it happened every noon, and there were copies of
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
on every desk top. Copies of
The New American Bible
had disappeared. Copies of
The Ignatius Bible
, which boasted that it was the only translation in English that had not given way to inclusive language at all, were everywhere. It was as if a sea change had happened in this parish while Harriet wasn't looking. The waters that surrounded her were cold as ice, and the air was darker than
any ordinary darkness could be. She had said a lot of things about the way the Church was marching back into the Dark Ages, but she had never really believed them. In the back of her mind, she had always been sure that progress was inevitable. Now it frightened her to realize that she might have been wrong. It might really be possible for the Church to go back, and it was going back, returning to a time when it would have ground a woman like her into powder. In a world of devotional rosaries and First Friday Devotions and weekly confessions in a dark curtained box, she would be invisible.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
on every desk top. Copies of
The New American Bible
had disappeared. Copies of
The Ignatius Bible
, which boasted that it was the only translation in English that had not given way to inclusive language at all, were everywhere. It was as if a sea change had happened in this parish while Harriet wasn't looking. The waters that surrounded her were cold as ice, and the air was darker than
any ordinary darkness could be. She had said a lot of things about the way the Church was marching back into the Dark Ages, but she had never really believed them. In the back of her mind, she had always been sure that progress was inevitable. Now it frightened her to realize that she might have been wrong. It might really be possible for the Church to go back, and it was going back, returning to a time when it would have ground a woman like her into powder. In a world of devotional rosaries and First Friday Devotions and weekly confessions in a dark curtained box, she would be invisible.
She stopped in front of Sister Scholastica's office door and saw through the window that the office was empty. She went down the hall to Sister Thomasetta's and found the door open and Thomasetta pecking away at a computer keyboard. Harriet didn't think anything looked as odd as nuns in full habit pecking away at computers.
“Can I help you?” Thomasetta asked, not bothering to look up.
“I was hoping Scholastica was over here, that's all,” Harriet said. “I was hoping not to have to go all the way over to the school.”
“Well, you don't have to. Sister isn't there, either. She's been out all morning.”
“Out? Where?”
“The chancery.”
“Why would she go to the chancery?”
Thomasetta shrugged. “How am I supposed to know? The Cardinal Archbishop calls, and Sister goes. Oh, and I think she was stopping to see friends afterward. At any rate, she took Peter Rose to the chancery with her and Peter Rose is back, but Scholastica isn't, and she isn't likely to be until after lunch. Would you like me to leave a message?”
“No,” Harriet said. “No, that's all right. It's about the First Communion breakfast. I can get to her later, or Father Healy would know. What time is it exactly?”
“Ten-thirty-two-oh-six.”
“Thank you.” It figured, somehow, that Thomasetta would know the time down to the fraction of the second. Harriet left Thomasetta's office door and went down the hall again. She passed Scholastica's office and tried the door. It opened easily. Like many traditionalist nuns, Scholastica almost never locked
any personal space, because she didn't think of herself as having personal space. Harriet went down the hall to her own office and sat.
any personal space, because she didn't think of herself as having personal space. Harriet went down the hall to her own office and sat.
The difficulty was this: Harriet had no idea why Scholastica had gone to the chancery, but she was sure it had to be about something important, because the Cardinal Archbishop did not waste time on trivialities. She was equally sure that it was going to be something important that concerned her, because at the moment she was the biggest problem the Cardinal Archbishop had. She had to be, because Father Healy was making waves, and the Cardinal Archbishop knew she wouldn't take being bullied lying down. She might even be in a fairly strong position, if only because this Cardinal Archbishop hated publicity more than he hated any other thing. That was entirely natural, considering the damage the child sex abuse scandal had done to this archdiocese when it had finally broken in the papers and been spotlighted on CNN. And
60 Minutes
. And
The CBS Evening News.
Even so, if she didn't know what was coming, she might easily make mistakes. This man was not the fool the old cardinal had been. He was more like Cardinal Richelieu.
60 Minutes
. And
The CBS Evening News.
Even so, if she didn't know what was coming, she might easily make mistakes. This man was not the fool the old cardinal had been. He was more like Cardinal Richelieu.
Harriet got up and went back into the hall. It was empty. Everybody working on this floor was in her office, minding her own business. Harriet walked down the hall to Sister Scholastica's office. Nobody looked up to see her pass. She went into Sister Scholastica's office and shut the door. The door's window had a curtain that could be pulled across it for privacy, just as the window in her own office door had. Harriet pulled it closed. The door itself had a turn lock. It wouldn't keep a burglar out, but it would stop the casual visitor or the wandering nun looking for something she thought she might have left on Scholastica's desk. Harriet locked up and went to sit down in Scholastica's chair. Scholastica wasn't due back until after lunch. Lunch at the convent was an hour and a half away. Harriet had plenty of time.
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