ZUANA BARELY HAS time to reach her own cell before the bell for Matins starts to sound.
She and Serafina take their respective places in chapel without a glance or any sign between them. But even with her eyes to the floor, it is impossible for Zuana not to feel the abbess’s gaze upon her. On them both. Does she know of her visit to the novice already? Well, if she does not, she will soon enough, for the watch sister is a loyal soul and neither as deaf nor as stupid as some might like to believe.
Back in her cell again, Zuana kneels in darkness for a while, then gets up and lies on her pallet. Prayer can do only so much. She needs a different kind of intervention now.
“Dear father, there is a disease inside the convent,” she says, under her breath. “A deep malignancy. A young woman needs to be released from here—but in a manner that saves the convent rather than taking it down with her. What remedy can there be for this?”
In the silence that follows—she no longer expects her father to answer, but there is quiet in the place left by his absence—she begins, slowly, to fashion a plan. As befits the complexity of the malady, it will call for the combination of different ingredients: a number of simples that must be compounded not only in the right doses but also at the right moments. Despite her tiredness she feels an energy, almost an excitement, growing within her. When she finally closes her eyes, her sleep is deep and dreamless.
Next morning she prepares the first ingredient. It is both straightforward and difficult: a young man in the house of an apothecary by the west gate must be prevented from leaving the city. Even if the girl had strength and wit enough now to write a letter, no convent censor would pass any communication from a novice unless approved by the abbess first. Zuana, however, is a choir nun of many years’ standing and can write to whomever she chooses, so long as the content is not inappropriate. In the morning hour of private prayer she takes a sheet of paper and writes a letter, already memorized in her head.
Dear sister in healing,
I write further to our conversation about the welfare of your patient who suffered such grievous wounds on his body and neck. Having studied my notes, I can suggest that case wort and yarrow will help the skin to join, and honey mixed with cobwebs and egg white can also be applied to minimize scarring. However, it is vital that the patient remain in your care and within your walls at present. In particular he must not undergo any journey, since friction on the torso will cause the wounds to reopen before proper healing has taken place. With regard to the great pain he feels in his chest, in the vicinity of his heart, I am hoping in due course to find a remedy and will forward it when I do.
I remain yours in the glory of God and the purity of the convent of Santa Caterina.
She finds Suora Matilda in a small room behind the gatehouse. The post of convent censor is a weighty one, as the nun who takes it on must possess not only authority and experience (those who deal with the outside world must be over forty years of age) but also excellent eyesight, and these qualities do not always go together. Though not directly of Madonna Chiara’s own family, until now Matilda has been a loyal servant to the abbess, although recent revelations in chapter suggest that her loyalty may be wavering.
Luckily, Zuana’s connection with her is more robust. When she was younger, Matilda suffered from a chronic complaint of itching and stinging when passing water. It had taken her a while to confess such an intimate ailment (she is not the only one; it can drive many sisters mad in the heat of a Ferrarese summer), but the doses of vaccinium juice Zuana gave her had brought much relief, and she has held a fondness for her ever since.
“It is not often you have recourse to the outside world, Suora Zuana.”
“No. But I had a visitor recently.”
“Oh, yes, I know. A daughter of one of your father’s pupils, wasn’t it?”
Zuana smiles. How could such an occasion ever have remained a secret?
“She is the wife of an apothecary now and came to ask advice on treatment for her husband. It was an urgent request, and I must answer her with all possible speed.”
Thus prepared in advance for the substance of what she must pass, the sister opens the letter and starts to read, holding the paper almost at arm’s length to do so. Zuana has already noticed how in chapel she screws up her eyes sometimes to follow the daily prayers in her breviary.
“Cobwebs and honey, eh?” Suora Matilda, evidently relieved to have managed the small print, closes the letter and brings her stamp down upon it. “When I was a child my nonna used to say that spiders’ silk was the thread of life. She would make the servants collect webs from the cellar. It always made me squirm.”
“She was a healer then, your grandmother?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. She was more of a termagant to me.” She pauses. “Though these days I think she was the better for being so strict. It is important to live by strict rules, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Oh, most certainly.” Zuana smiles, taking a vial from under her robe and placing it on the desk next to her. “You sacrifice your eyes selflessly for the good of the convent. A few drops of witch hazel will help to keep them sharp on our behalf.”
The sister hesitates for a second—rules are rules, after all— then closes her hand over the container. “You are most kind. As you say, the letter is urgent. I will make sure it goes this afternoon.”
WHILE THE FIRST day goes well, that night and the ones that follow it are not so smooth. After Compline, when the convent has finally fallen asleep, Zuana makes her way to the girl’s cell again, bringing food saved from her own plate and extra supplies traded from the kitchen. She must stay with her now until everything is consumed. Eating. It is such a natural act until it is transformed into an ordeal. But then, once a certain level of starvation has been reached it is not only the flesh that is affected but also the spirit.
“I’ve had enough.”
“You have eaten barely anything.”
“How can you say that?” she snarls. “I am stuffed like a goose.”
“That is because your stomach is shrunken. You must stretch it.”
“I’ll eat later.”
“No, you will eat now.”
“Aagh!”
If it is hard for Zuana, it is worse for the girl. Each night she finds herself seated in front of a mountain of congealed food— thick and foul, like the devil’s vomit. Before she takes the first spoonful her body is in revolt, her stomach heaving, her throat closing up at the sight of it. Each mouthful is gross to the taste, like chewing raw flesh and swallowing poison. It is all she can do not to spit it back out across the room.
“Eat, Isabetta.”
Don’t eat, Serafina.
There are nights when she fears she is going mad, when she can hear Umiliana’s voice drowning out Zuana’s, rising up out of her as if it were her own; times when even the thought of Jacopo is not enough to pry her lips apart. Were it not for Zuana she would give up before she has begun. They are locked together in the struggle: the push-pull of hope and despair. In between the tears there are eruptions of fiery rebellion, growlings of fury, or blunt refusals. It is remarkable how the coiled snake of resistance continues to hiss and spit, as if halfway to heaven—or maybe it is to hell—she will not, will not, give up.
Eventually, however, the exhaustion beneath the hunger reduces her to a kind of docility, a numb surrender watered by tears.
My dearest Isabetta, I did not, nor would I ever, knowingly desert you.
Zuana woos her mouth back open by reading extracts from the letter.
My dearest Isabetta. How long is it since anyone called her that? Isabetta. Her own name is a stranger to her now. Who is this young woman who once answered to it? Who is this man who once loved her?
I hear your voice each night before I go to sleep, its beauty seducing the very sweetness out of silence, and when I wake it is the first thing I remember. I ask for no more.
She listens carefully, like a child hearing again a story she once loved. And sometimes it seems she can almost remember, can almost go back there: a face, a touch, the echo of a voice. But where and how did all these things happen between them?
I will never love or marry another. That is the promise I made to God if He would let me live, and it will be my pleasure to keep it… Pray for me, my dear Isabetta.
But will she ever really be Isabetta again? After a while it is too tiring to ask herself the questions. To imagine a future, she must give up the comfort of feeling nothing. It seems it is not just her body that has shrunk but her whole world.
Afterward, when the horror of eating is over, she is given, and takes—for she is acquiescent by now—a dose of acqua-vita to help the process of digestion. It does little to quiet the war of attrition that is starting to take place in her body. After the first few days her gut launches its own rebellion, sending out nausea and cramps so that at times it is all she can do to sit without doubling over with the pain. Where before she folded herself up against the cold, now she lies curled over her own throbbing entrails.
Meanwhile, if the physical refeeding is a challenge, so is the extra level of dissembling that must now accompany it. Once outside her cell, whatever her exhaustion or confusion, Serafina needs to be clever. And deft. At every meal in the refectory, the convent must see her eat, though in a way that makes it clear to Umiliana that no food is actually passing into her mouth but is instead hidden away under her robe to ensure her continued fasting. And Umiliana, as always, is eagle-eyed over the journey of her most beloved novice.
As the food starts to give her back some strength, so does constipation begin, her bowels filling up with stones that grow bigger and harder each day. It feels as if her whole body is bloated with the poison of waste. She remembers the bishop and the way he leaked blood and bad temper everywhere he went. Is this how it will be for me? she wonders. Will I grow back into a body made decrepit by starvation? She looks at herself. Her skin inside the shift is gray, veins running like gnarled branches underneath. Hideous. She is hideous. How can any man ever love her?
Zuana tells her again that it takes time for a body to reacquaint itself with the normality of eating, that it will pass, it will get easier. But what if it doesn’t? What if she simply swells up until she rips open or explodes? Zuana now supplements the acqua-vita with senna: senna, the great healer of life, to clean the spleen and the liver and the heart and, in this dosage, strong enough to move the bowels of a horse. But not, it seems, those of a starved novice.
On the sixth morning at Lauds the pain and pressure are so bad that she almost passes out. Eugenia, as usual, is at her side in chapel, and supports her until she gets her breath back. She straightens up, the sweat of pain glistening on her skin, only to find herself staring into the faces of a dozen choir nuns and novices in the opposite stalls. They look almost disappointed to find her still on her feet. Plainly, every move she makes has the convent enthralled. But then it is not nothing to watch a body starving itself in its search for God.
SUORA UMILIANA, MEANWHILE, is not distressed. On the contrary, she is excited. She, who knows the arc of fasting as well as she knows her psalms, understands that there are moments when one is hard pushed to tell pain from the arrival of transcendence. It is not the right time, anyway. The chapel is still empty, the figure of Christ still in the hands of workmen. If—no, when—this wondrous young soul is called, it should be when He is back to watch over her.
For Umiliana, too, has her plan, her own dream of well-being that warms and sustains her in the darkness. She has nurtured an army of novices in her time and there have been those, such as Perseveranza or Obedienza or Stefana, even the young Carità, who have emerged humble and dedicated brides of Christ. Just as she herself has always yearned to be. She has burned with the love of Jesus for so many years now—worked, fasted, prayed, given her life to Santa Caterina—and yet, and yet, she cannot help but feel there is something lacking.
It is Umiliana’s fate to have stood in this same convent chapel, an impressionable young nun barely twenty-one years old, when a living saint, a small stunted figure, humble and mysterious beyond words, opened her palms during Matins to reveal the bleeding stigmata of Christ Himself. For the rest of the service, with the choir transfixed around her, this tiny but vast soul had sung her way through the office, tears streaming down her face, before limping back to her cell, leaving a trail of bloody footprints in her wake.
As a child Umiliana had heard of such wonders—who had not? — and from the earliest moment they had affected her deeply. She had always dreamed of being pure enough, prayed that she might one day be made so humble. Living saints, they called them. In the years before the heretic madness spread there had seemed to be so many: Lucia of Narni, Angela of Foligno, Camilla of Brodi. Her mother had made sure she heard of every one, feeding their life stories like rich worms into her fledgling’s open mouth. If only all young girls were instructed so young.
Even without her mother’s piety, she would have yearned for the veil. As a child she’d continually had to be restrained for being too fierce with herself. And while the family was never one of the most powerful in the city, their name had certainly been good enough to find her a place at Santa Caterina. By the time she entered at the age of twelve she already had calluses on her knees and found most of her fellow novices vain and frivolous. Surely it would be only a matter of time and self-abasement…
Except it had not happened. Despite all the praying and passion (one is so sure when so young), she had yet to feel the touch of ecstasy and had begun to fear that she would never be worthy enough. That night, as she had stood staring at the blood trickling from Suora Magdalena’s hands, she had understood the truth: she herself would never be so blessed.
When you love someone so much, it can be unbearably painful to be passed over. But Christ gives different challenges to different souls, and Suora Umiliana had shouldered her own cross without complaint, sewing, copying, cooking, gardening, with as much humility as she could muster, until she had found a way to move into a position where her passion and dedication could help guide younger souls. No one could doubt that she had been an honest and just novice mistress and that a number of her charges grew to love her as much as they once loathed her. But all the time, through all of them, she had been watching, waiting, in case such a moment might come again. And it had never been more important than now, when false truths were everywhere and the church itself was bent on more discipline and less license.
If she were truthful, she had not (though surely this was true no longer?) been entirely sure about Serafina. At the beginning she had seen only a spoiled, angry rebel, full of vanity and carnality. But then had come the changes. First the early encounter with Suora Magdalena, followed by the arrival of her voice, pure as angel’s breath if only it could have been allowed to rise straight to God rather than trained to seduce through the public grille. Then her sudden showy display of piety—well, God had seen through that fast enough, sending her spinning into that terrible night of fits and illness, which had broken her body and brought her so close to death. Without Magdalena, she would certainly have died. That was the moment Umiliana had known for sure. There had been other nuns and novices, some worthy beyond measure, who had expired alone in agony. Yet Santa Caterina’s living saint had come out of her cell for this girl and had triggered within her a hunger for repentance and fasting. Finally, as if there could be any doubt, Magdalena had died at the same moment as Christ slid halfway from the cross, while Serafina herself had been taking the eucharist.
Yes, there was something of power in this young woman, something put there almost despite herself. She had sensed it inside her despair, had nurtured it, watching the spirit quickening as the body starved. She, Suora Umiliana, had prayed for a force like this to help her in her cleansing of the convent. And now it had been given to her.
THAT EVENING SHE comes as she always does, in the hour between dinner and Compline, to pray with Serafina. Eager for each nuance of feeling that her young protégée experiences, she questions her about what happened in chapel that morning, when she had almost collapsed. Had she been in pain? What had she felt or heard? Was there any noise or rushing in her ears, the echo of a voice perhaps, or a disturbance of her vision?
Serafina tells her what she wants to hear.
Not all of it is pretense. In those long, starving nights before Zuana came to her, there had been times when she could swear she saw things: strange half-formed shapes growing out of shadows, sudden auras and flashes of light at the edges of her vision. If she stared for long enough into darkness it turned itself into color, oranges and burning yellows like running veins of gold in black rock. Once, in the no-man’s-land between sleeping and waking, she was sure she saw a face coming out of the gloom: His face, bearded, framed by night-black hair, eyes wet with tears of compassion—oh, please God, she thought, let those tears be for me. In contrast, her dreams were full of nothing, though when she woke sometimes she heard music—voices—in her cell, vibrating notes far too high and pure to be human, and they made her feel giddy and weightless, as if she could lift off the bed to join them.
When, haltingly, she recounts these things to Umiliana, the old nun seems almost beside herself with joy.
Such experiences do not come to the girl anymore. With food as ballast she is now weighted back down to earth, her very solidity interrupting the quivering air around her. If she is truthful, with such ordinariness comes, sometimes, a certain sadness, a wonder at what has been lost. But she does not let herself think of that. She is leaving this place, leaving both its visions and its horrors, and she will do whatever it takes to get herself out.
“Help me. I long for Him so. Help me, please.” She knows the lines well enough.
“Prayer, Serafina. Prayer and denial of the flesh. It is the only way. When you are filled with emptiness it will happen. He will come. The pain you had today is surely a sign. The hour of Matins is the best time. He is so close then. All you have to do is welcome Him in. You are ready. The convent is ready. For Him.”
IN SOME WAYS Umiliana is right. As the food starts to swell her wits as well as her gut, Serafina becomes aware of a sea change in the world around her. Many of the nuns are themselves fasting, with such enthusiasm that there are times when one can hear a descant of protesting stomachs as they gather in chapel. During the work hours, the choir struggles with The Lamentations of Jeremiah: the very architecture of this music is stricter than they are used to, and Suora Benedicta’s arrangement for their voices can do little to change or enrich it.
“Jerusalem hath grievously sinned. ”
The words reverberate around the cloisters.
“She hath wept in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks. ”
There are some for whom the text feels like a commentary on Santa Caterina itself.
“All that honored her despise her, because they have seen her shame. ”
IN THE EVENINGS, hardly any nuns visit Apollonia’s cell anymore, they are too busy on their knees in their own. A kind of stillness descends on the convent, heavy, cloying, like the stillness before a storm. A further chapter meeting passes without incident. Though the atmosphere remains charged, no one seems to have the energy for further drama. It is announced that the great crucifix is repaired and will be returned to the convent and rehung within the week. Even this news is received quietly. Umiliana, who is more of a politician than she herself knows, says nothing. Yet her soul remains taut as an overstretched lute string, and every evening she continues to pour her longing into the novice’s ears. She is waiting. As are they all.
WHILE IT WILL take at least a month for there to be enough change in her body for anyone to notice, after nearly two weeks of refeeding the girl’s face is altering a little: the great hollows under her eyes are growing less dark and there is a touch of color in her cheeks. It is time to add the next ingredient. The abbess must be brought into the plan.
Zuana is under no illusion as to how daunting a task this is. She knows how angry she will be. How angry she is already. Since their last meeting, Madonna Chiara has spent an increasing amount of time in her chambers, seeing visitors or writing letters. Those with sharp eyes would say she looks tired. Zuana knows better. A woman who is used to being in control of the world around her is watching it fall out of her grip. No, she will not want to hear this plan. It is therefore all the more important for Zuana to find ways to convince her.
That night, along with the usual food, Zuana brings two small pouches to the girl’s cell. After they have eaten she hands her the first one.
“Be careful with it.”
Apollonia has been generous with her face powder. “Take it as a thank-you for what you did for my sister,” she had said. “Though I must say, I never expected to find you in need of such things. But many of us are changing our behavior now. You should join us for a concert one evening. They may not continue much longer.”
Serafina—or rather Isabetta, for now that the food is working in her that is how she is beginning to think of herself again— opens the pouch and slips her finger in, then dusts the white powder across her cheeks.
“You must use it sparingly. Umiliana, in particular, can spot makeup from halfway across the choir stalls.”
Zuana takes the other pouch and puts it on the cot.
“As to this, I have measured the amount exactly. You remember the proportions for the water?”
She nods.
“Good. It is vital that you go ahead only if and when you have the sign. And that you do and say exactly what we have discussed. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“No more, no less. There will be no second chance.”
“Yes, yes, I understand.” She is jumpy tonight. They both are. “You think it will come to this?”
“I don’t know. But if it does, she will need to see that you have the will and the stomach to carry it further.”
Zuana hands her the sharp little knife with which she had once cut and peeled the figwort root. Ah, how long ago was that?
“You are sure you can do this?” Zuana says.
“Oh, yes, I’m sure.” Along with the color in her cheeks there is now a flash of brightness to her eye. “It can hardly hurt more than my gut.”
THE NEXT MORNING Zuana goes to the abbess. There are no pleasantries between them on this visit, no offer of wine or a place by the fire.
“I have come to confess my disobedience, Madonna Chiara. Against your wishes I have been visiting the novice at night. And in doing so I have broken the Great Silence repeatedly.”
“Yes. Perhaps you might tell me something I do not know. How much she is putting into her stomach, for instance. She looked half dead at Lauds.”
“It was constipation, a necessary side effect of eating again. The fast is ended. And with it Umiliana’s influence over her.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
Zuana takes a breath. She is more nervous than she has ever been in her life. “Madonna Chiara, I would give anything to protect this convent. I rejoice in the sustenance and comfort it brings me and many women like me—”
She starts quietly but the words ripen fast and fall over each other in their eagerness to get out.
She stops and gathers herself.
“The novice is equally loyal to you. Though she is strong-spirited, there is no spite in her. She was brought into Umiliana’s orbit by despair. But if we help her, she will reject her. And she will keep her silence until the grave. Anything and everything that has gone on inside these walls—or outside them—she will forget as if it had never happened.”
She stops. She can feel a fine sweat on her forehead. The abbess’s gaze is cool, even cold.
“What a passionate speech, Suora Zuana. Not like you at all. So tell me about this help we must give her to buy her silence. That is what you mean, isn’t it? From what I see she has food, nursing, and, it seems, the attention of half the convent. Pray, what more help could she require?”
Zuana does not flinch. “That she be allowed to leave this place and start a life with that young man, somewhere a long way away from here.”
The abbess stares at her for a moment. “My! Her wits have returned fast. Unless the idea did not come from her directly—”
“I have given it a great deal of thought, Madonna Chiara. And there is a way—”
“Oh, there are many ways,” she says, cutting across her. “I could open the gates for her this evening. Or perhaps I should let her petition the bishop so the shame can bring an inspection down upon us. Let me guess. You have had the arrogance to take it upon yourself to examine the body of Santa Caterina and you find—what? — some kind of remedy for its ills. I daresay your father has given you some help in this.” And her voice is cruel with sarcasm.
“My father does not speak to me anymore,” Zuana says quietly. “These thoughts are mine and mine alone.”
“In which case you are more at fault than I imagined. It seems you are the one with greensickness, even if you are too old for it. Has she turned your head, too? Seduced you as she has all the others, so that now you are willing to ruin the convent for her sake?”
“No, that is not how it is.” Zuana’s voice is clear, without quaver or fear now. “I love this place as much as you do.”
“You will forgive me if I harbor some doubt of that.”
“I would—”
“Be quiet!”
Zuana does as she is ordered. The abbess is silent for a moment, hands clasped tightly in her lap, as if she understands that she has overreached herself. Finally she raises her head.
“Our audience is finished. Your penance—”
“Madonna Chiara—”
“You will not interrupt me further!” For now she sees enemies all around and will have none of it. “Your penance is that from this moment on you are confined to your cell until I have decided what to do with you.”
There is nothing more she can do. Zuana bows her head to denote her obedience.
“And the novice?” she says quietly.
“If she needs further assistance, I will give it.”
BY THE OFFICE of Compline it is clear that something has happened to Zuana. Her choir stall has been empty since Sext. If it was illness, the abbess would surely have said something before the Great Silence so that she might be included in their prayers. Instead, she appears to be curiously oblivious to the absence.
As the assembled nuns settle themselves, Isabetta lifts her head toward the empty place. Her face is drawn and deathly pale in the twilight. Not all of its pallor is a result of powder.
Zuana’s instructions had been very clear. “If I am there, then just before the office begins I will bring my right hand to my forehead and hold it there, as if I am suffering some pain. That will be the signal for you to go ahead. ”
“And if you are not there?”
“If I am not there …you must take my absence as your sign. ”
Benedicta sings the first notes and Isabetta follows her lead. When she was at her weakest it had been all she could do to hold on to the order of the office, and her thoughts had often strayed into the shadows at the edges of the candlelight, where Umiliana’s stories had been at their richest: angels moving in and out of the smoke, and a young nun pierced with the joy of the Lord, her tears and blood mingling in full sight of them all. There had been moments when she had felt her own palms prickling in longing, only to discover later that she had been digging her nails into herself, leaving pathetic red weals in the skin.
But now the chapel is simply a place for nuns to pray and the office is just more words. Now she knows the only way she will draw blood from her own hands is to use a knife. Across the pews she sees the abbess, standing tall and firm. Look at her: this is a woman who knows how to use knives to get what she most wants. How much does Isabetta hate her? It is not something she has let herself feel. But she tastes it now, and it is so strong it makes her almost giddy.
Yes, she can do this.
BACK IN HER cell, at the appointed time, she gets out the pouch and, using a dark corner of the floor as her palette, mixes water into the small heap of granules. Then she takes out the knife. If she hesitates, it is only for a second, before she plunges the blade point into her flesh, letting out a hiss of pain as it penetrates the layers of skin. She shifts the knife to the damaged hand and does the same, though with more difficulty this time, to the other palm. In the candlelight the blood oozes, both bright and dark. She conceals the blade, then moves over to the corner where the mixture is wet and presses her palms hard into the puddle. When they come up they are saturated with red.
She moves back to the outer bedchamber, blows out the candle, and begins to scream.
The convent is dead asleep, but three people are fast out of their cells. The watch sister is first, but before she gets to the door the abbess is halfway across the cloisters, ahead of Suora Umiliana, who arrives as fast as her older, creakier limbs can carry her.
The watch sister waits by the cell door but does not open it or say anything. The Great Silence is more powerful than any noise.
“Benedicta. ” It is Umiliana who offers the word, breathlessly, bowing her head quickly to the abbess.
“Deo gratias.”
“This need not disturb you, Madonna Abbess. I will see to her.”
“No, Suora Umiliana.”
“She is a novice under instruction. It is my du—”
“ I will see to her.”
“But—”
“But nothing. You do not run this convent yet, Suora Umiliana. That is my privilege and burden.” The tone brooks no argument. “You will go back to your cell.”
And because there is no other way, except by physically barging past her, Umiliana turns back, and as the watch sister steps aside, the abbess goes in.
Inside, the girl is standing in the corner with her back to her, the howling now muted into a single high note, vibrating on what feels like an endless breath.
Madonna Chiara lifts her candle into the darkness. “So, novice Serafina. What is this nonsense that you break the Great Silence for?”
There is a small pause. Then Isabetta turns to face her, lifting up her hands as she does so and opening her palms. Dark red blood drips down onto the floor around her as, quietly, without hysteria or malice, she says what it has been decided that she will say.
“Madonna Chiara, I was put into this convent against my will. And against my will I have been kept here. I mean you no harm. And if you let me go, I swear I will keep silent until my dying day. But if I am forced to stay here, I promise I will bring chaos down upon all your heads.”
As she says these words, the abbess pushes the door closed behind her so there will be no chance of their being overheard.
“YOU ARE CALLED to see the abbess.”
Letizia is fluttery with agitation. Zuana, who has not slept, has been ready, waiting for hours. As they cross the courtyard she deliberately does not look in the direction of the girl’s cell, though she cannot help but notice the figures in the upper-floor window of the embroidery room. Suora Francesca, who is not able to impose silence when the chatter has nothing to say, will be presiding over a hum of gossip now. The starving novice had started screaming in the night and the abbess—the abbess herself—went to see her. Beside this news, how can they sit quietly embroidering yet another letter E on another pillowcase? But even pillowcases, humble though they are, have their place in the great scheme of things. And Zuana has made it her business to know that they are working on the last pieces of a trousseau for a young woman from a lesser branch of the d’Este family, which must be ready for delivery soon so that there can be time for fittings and further alterations before the wedding ten days after Easter. The ingredients are almost all gathered.
The head pops back from the upper window as Letizia moves past the door of the abbess’s cell without stopping.
“Where are we going?”
“She told me to bring you to the chapel.”
Zuana has worked with this girl for as long as Letizia has been in the convent. She would dearly like to ask her now what she knows. But Letizia is too anxious, and as soon as they reach the chapel she scuttles away.
Zuana enters as quietly as the great door allows.
Once inside, the reason for the abbess’s presence there becomes obvious. On the flagstones beneath the altar is the great, newly repaired crucifix, lying in all its glory, ready to be lifted back into place. In between the choir stalls a tower, hoist, and pulley are waiting to start the process.
The abbess is on her knees to one side of the cross, prostrated upon the ground, her body reaching out toward His own. His sculpted flesh is so close that if she were to put out her hands any farther she would surely touch it.
Zuana hesitates. She has seen her often enough in chapel, where she always makes the prettiest picture of a nun at prayer, but as she watches her here it appears that she is at a deeper, private devotion. She finds herself almost embarrassed to be watching.
After a while, as she turns toward the door, the voice says, “Sit, Zuana. I will be with you soon.”
Perhaps not so private after all.
From her vantage point in the choir stalls, Zuana now studies the sculpture. On the ground, Christ’s figure seems larger than life-size. Along with making repairs to the crossbar and the hand, the workmen have cleaned and revarnished the body, removing a century of candle smoke and grime so that the surface of His skin seems to glow.
At last the abbess straightens up. She sits back on her heels for a moment, staring at the body, then leans over and kisses the wood of the cross before getting to her feet.
“You know, when I first came here as a child, the story was that the man who sculpted this had used the body of his own son, who had died in a brawl, as his model.” Her voice is calm, conversational even. “It was said that his grief was so overwhelming it informed his hand when it came to his chisel on the wood. He’d been a handsome young man, by all accounts. A favorite with the young women. I used to wonder how it could be that his body had now become that of Christ. For there was never any doubt that this was who this was.”
She finds a place to sit near her dispensary mistress and spreads her skirts around her.
“Over the years I have come to realize that we nuns are wondrously adept at seeing what we believe.” She hesitates. “Or rather believing what we want to see, perhaps even when it is not there.”
Both her words and manners are a long way from the rage with which they had parted company less than a day before. The rule of their order is clear on such things: a Benedictine nun must not give way to anger or foster a desire for revenge. She must love her enemy and make peace with an adversary before the setting of the sun. And she must never, ever despair of God’s mercy. It is an arduous list, and the abbess must be seen to be a shining example to all around her.
Even when she had not agreed with her, Zuana had admired her more than any abbess before her. Would that she could feel that way again.
“It appears I have you to thank for the fact that she did not stab herself in the middle of Matins.”
“It was not simply me, Madonna Chiara. The girl herself has no wish to do you or the convent harm.”
“No, she did make that clear. Nevertheless she hates me. The eyes show more than the words.” She pauses. “Well, in her place I would hate me, too. I assume you supplied the extra blood to make the performance complete?”
Zuana hesitates, then nods.
“It was most impressive. I hope you left enough for Federica’s blessed cakes. Though it is likely that there will be no Carnival feast by next year.”
“There will be a feast,” Zuana says firmly. “You will still be abbess. And then, as now, you will be much loved and admired.”
“Oh, Zuana, please. Do me the courtesy of refraining from false praise. We are, I think, beyond that. We are here to negotiate, are we not? In which case let us get on with it.”
“Here?” Her eyes slip to the crucifix.
“Why not? We will never have a better witness. And I would not like it to be thought that we sought to hide anything from Him.”
And so Zuana speaks, first of the disease and then of the remedy. The words she uses are clear and simple, as befits a good physician or scholar who has studied something deeply and wishes to convince others of its efficacy. The abbess, for her part, listens well, never once taking her eyes off Zuana’s face.
ON THE CHAPEL floor, on the cross, Christ’s face is turned away from the two nuns. The falling angle of the head suggests a man close to death rather than one still in agony. For Him at least the worst is past and there is resurrection to come.
“Do you know the greatest fear women have when they enter a convent against their will?” the abbess says at last. “It will surprise you, I think, for often they do not even know it themselves. It is not about children, or the latest fashion, or even stories of the marriage bed. No. At root it is that if they do not find comfort in God, they will die of boredom. Boredom.” She smiles. “I must say, in all the years I have been abbess of this convent, thanks to sisters such as yourself and even Umiliana, that has never been my problem.
“It is very clever, Zuana, your plan. You have always had the clearest mind when it comes to understanding problems and finding a solution. Still, it is not so much a remedy as blackmail.”
“Oh, it is not meant to be.”
“No? And if I still refuse? What then? I daresay there is enough dye left for her to disturb a good many offices. You have not seen her hands. She was most enthusiastic with the knife. If she were not in ecstasy, Suora Umiliana certainly would be. But of course you know all that. So tell me, this ‘remedy? You have used it before?”
“Not exactly. It is not possible to try it with any certainty upon oneself.”
“No, I would think not.”
“But I have studied a number of sources.”
“From apothecaries or storytellers?”
“I …I don’t see—”
“Ah, Zuana!” The smile lifts her lips, but does not reach her eyes. “For someone who knows so much, you are sweetly ignorant. Two noble lovers, one dying to be reborn in the other’s arms: Mariotto and Giannozza …Giulietta and Romeo …they go by many names. You’ve never heard the tragic tale? Well, it is too late now. The good Fathers of Trento consigned Salernitano’s stories to the flames. Though I daresay that will only make them even more popular.”
“You are right,” Zuana says quietly. “I know nothing of such stories. The sources I have for the remedy come from a traveler from the East and from my father.”
“…Sources we must do our best to protect.” The abbess slides her hand over her skirts, a gesture that denotes business as usual. “So you had better tell me the rest of it. How, for instance, will her ailing young pup learn what he must do?”
“She will send him a letter.”
“What? You have an address for him?”
Zuana drops her eyes.
“And you are sure he will respond?”
“Yes. I am sure.”
“And if something goes wrong? What if this potion of yours does not work? What if she dies?”
“She will not die.” Zuana’s voice is strong. “Though”—she hesitates for a second—“though if that were to happen, you need have no fear, for her secrets would die with her.”
“You have thought of it all. Except perhaps for one thing. It is clear what the convent will lose by your plan: an unwilling songbird novice and most of her considerable dowry. But as to what we might gain?”
And Zuana, who is not surprised at all by this question, now speaks again.
This time there is no hesitation.
“Very well, you had better have her write the letter. She will not stay thin forever.”
NOW, AT LAST, the ingredients can be mixed together.
Under Zuana’s tutelage, the girl writes to a young man who has sworn to love and marry no one but her. While the letter contains enough phrases of longing to leave no doubt of her feeling, its main purpose is to issue instructions, and in this the words are Zuana’s, for there can be no mistakes here. When it is finished, instead of the censor, the abbess reads it herself, seals it, and dispatches it by private messenger.
If there is any doubt as to the young man’s fidelity, it is dispelled within hours. The messenger is kept waiting so he can bring back an answer straightaway. It is almost as if the recipient had been waiting for it—which, of course, in some ways he had. The reply is delivered directly into the abbess’s hands, so that she is the first to read the outpouring of passionate love from the young man who will be instrumental in the escape of one of her novices. The irony is not lost on any of them.
The next day the abbess makes an unexpected visit to the sewing room to make sure the novices and sisters there are chattering less and sewing a little harder, so the trousseau will be ready and packed for dispatch within the week.
For her part, Zuana is busy with her books and her choir of cures. She is cross-referencing between two sources: her father’s own notebooks and a volume by one Alessio Piemontese, who claimed to have traveled the world in search of nature’s wonders and secrets. Though the ingredients in both are the same, there are discrepancies of measurements between the versions. In the end she errs in favor of her father’s, though it comes along with his warning—This has not been tested by myself but comes from verbal sources of others—scrawled close to the edge of the page.
For these few days Isabetta, in contrast, does nothing, which in some ways is hardest of all. By now she does not even bother to conceal the food she is not eating at table, so that everyone can see how viciously she is starving herself. For the rest, she sings and prays ostentatiously, hands together or hidden in her robes, face chalk-white, body hunched and fragile as she trots like a newborn lamb in the footsteps of the novice mistress.
As promised, the crucifix is mounted in time for Palm Sunday. The nuns take part in a procession around the convent that ends in the chapel, where there is a public service and mass, all of which take place without further mishap.
Matins that night is a glorious affair. In celebration of the return of Our Lord, the chapel sister lights an array of great candles to further illuminate His homecoming. Everyone is eager. Even those half asleep from fasting and prayer take their places on time tonight.
Umiliana is early into her seat. This, she is sure, will be an office to be remembered. Above her head Christ glows in the candlelight, His sweet suffering body its own miracle of transformation, His flesh suddenly so real, the blood from His hands and feet a shocking red against the pale varnished skin. When she was young and at her most febrile, she would imagine the weight of that tortured body lying across her knees, imagine the wonder of holding Him in her arms. She has loved Him all her life, this perfect, gentle, powerful, beautiful man, beside whom any other bridegroom could only be found crassly wanting. She sits, hands gathered in her lap, watching as the novices arrive and Serafina takes her huddled place among the rest of the night procession.
How frail and ghostly pale she looks, more spirit than body, surely. Except for the eyes. The eyes are as bright, these last days, as if a great light were shining somewhere behind them. Oh, if only Umiliana had reached her cell more quickly the night she had started screaming. She had been amazed when, the next day, the girl described to her how a trio of spitting black devils had been in there with her, kicking and pushing her to the ground every time she tried to pray Serafina had even shown her the ripening bruises to prove it. Oh, the wonder of it. Of course the girl had been frightened, fearful that such an attack proved she was not worthy of God’s mercy. But what Umiliana knows, and the novice does not, is that such a violent testing often comes with the final awakening of grace. The testaments of the humblest visionaries tell stories of wrestling physically with devils, of their violence and taunting. She, Umiliana, has been plagued by a few such tribulations in her time. But unlike the saints and now this young girl, the beatings never left a mark on her.
The opening chant begins. Umiliana raises her eyes to the body of Christ. He is above us now. He is here and will make His presence felt.
Except that He does not.
Matins passes with joyful song amid warm candlelight. The novice seems so tired she can barely open her mouth. In her choir stall as the office draws to a close, Umiliana gives herself up to prayer, swallowing her disappointment and accepting His will humbly, almost numbly, as she has done for so long in her life.
It is only as the nuns leave, and she stands watching the novices file out, that she sees Serafina trip on the hem of her skirts and pull one hand from under her habit in order to steady herself on the edge of the pew. And as she does so, a spasm of sudden pain crosses her face in a way that makes Umiliana’s heart beat faster.
THE CHAPTER MEETING next day is so full of necessary business that it is verging on dull.
Easter is almost upon them, and with it the reliving of the terrible, wondrous story of Christ’s persecution and death on the cross and His resurrection. While the novices and young choir nuns are visibly excited—Lent seems to have lasted forever— a few of the elder ones are thinking how quickly this season has come around again. If it is true that years seem to move faster for the old, it is also a marvel of convent life that what at first appears a desert of time is actually a dense calendar of all manner of liturgical feasts, city celebrations, special masses for benefactors, and saints’ days. The demands of Easter are among the most arduous, and, between questions about psalm settings and the Good Friday procession through cloisters behind the convent’s great silver crucifix, there is ample room for disagreement. Maybe for that reason the meeting starts with everyone being exceedingly polite, as if the slightest objection will unleash a storm waiting to break.
They are in the middle of a discussion about the Easter Sunday feast, which breaks the Lent fast, when Suora Zuana asks— and is given permission—to speak out of turn.
“Madonna Abbess, as fasting is not compulsory for novices, may I ask if those who are doing so might be allowed to eat normally again before Easter Sunday? As dispensary mistress I am becoming fearful of the impact of the regime upon their health.”
The room stiffens—or, rather, those nuns who support Umiliana stiffen, in readiness for her rejoinder. In the front row, Suora Benedicta nods animatedly; the choir is ragged without the inspiration of its finest voice. But it is the abbess who answers first.
“While I appreciate your concern, Suora Zuana, this is surely more the business of the novice mistress than it is your own.”
“I …um”—Umiliana is momentarily taken aback by this unexpected support—“I am not sure what the dispensary sister is referring to. The only fasting done by a novice was in response to an imposed penance and has been over for some time.”
“With respect, Suora Umiliana, I do not think that is true. The novice in question has grown steadily thinner through the weeks, and while the food may go onto her plate, I believe she is not eating it at all, only hiding it away to dispose of later. It is not good for one so young to be so depleted of nourishment.”
Zuana is not the only one to be staring directly at the novices’ bench. By now everyone has noticed how clumsy Serafina has become at mealtimes, with bits of food falling to the ground or being so obviously hidden that there is almost no pretense about it. Yet no one has said a thing. When someone is wasting away so dramatically, the fascination can, for a while, overwhelm the concern.
“I am grateful to you for the observation, but if my novice’s true health was in any danger, I assure you I would have noticed it by now.”
“Yes, indeed.” The abbess again confounds expectations. “If there was anything to worry about, I am confident Suora Umiliana would have seen it.” There is the briefest of pauses. A few are no doubt remembering the recent screaming. “I know she disturbed the peace of the convent a few nights ago, but I believe that was because she had bad dreams.”
The discussion has taken on a strange, almost surreal, quality, since Serafina herself, the person at the center of it, is being totally ignored. She sits, huddled and gaunt, on the novice bench. For some time those around her have been aware that her breath is coming in fast little spurts with occasional quiet grunts, like a small animal trying to bury itself farther into its lair.
“Meanwhile, we have many more things to discuss and must move on. Rest assured, Suora Umiliana, the convent has the greatest faith in your judg—”
But the abbess does not get any further.
The noise—for it is indeed a noise—coming out of the novice has grown suddenly louder. For a young woman with such a pure voice, the lack of harmony in this rising wail is immediately disturbing.
“Aaaaah!”
Umiliana, who has kept her in her sight, sees it coming. Oh, sweet Jesus! She might have chosen a more devout setting, but one does not argue with God’s ways. She is half out of her seat, but the chapter rows are packed and she cannot get there.
The novice, however, is now standing out from the front row, in the middle of the floor.
“Aaaaah!” She throws her hands above her head, exposing two black, gory palms, with blood streaking down her arms to the floor. Then, when there can be no mistaking what people are seeing, she grabs her skirts and lifts them high, a good deal higher than is necessary, to reveal, at the bottom of long bare legs, feet dotted with blood, though nowhere near as much as the mess of her hands.
The room sits stunned.
She starts to jump and dance, as if trying to get her weight off her feet, and the wail turns into a howl as if she is being tortured, while her skirts reach up as far as her thighs. If this is a thing of wonder, it certainly does not appear to be that way for the girl herself. There is surely no ecstasy here. Only panic, terror—and hysteria.
The abbess gets to her first. “What have you done? Novice Serafina, what is this?”
And Serafina turns on her, pushing her hands almost into the abbess’s face and yelling, “It’s Him! It’s Him! She told me He would come!”
“Who told you?”
Now she waves her hands in the direction of the novice mistress, spraying flecks of blood over the heads of the nuns. “See,” she says, “see, Suora Umiliana? I prayed and He came. Christ’s wounds. But oh, oh, loving Jesus, why does it hurt so much? Oooh! Aaah!”
Behind her a few of the other novices are moaning now, as much in fear as in wonder. Suora Umiliana stands transfixed. Inside her, there is a great falling away. She has waited so long for this moment. Yet she is not tasting ecstasy, either. Far from it. She has spent too long in the company of volatile young women not to recognize hysteria when she sees it. This is not God’s work. The novice is suffering from some other ailment.
She is not so proud that she cannot admit it—but even as she is pushing her way toward the girl, something else happens. As Serafina jitters and twirls, howling like a stuck pig, there is a loud clatter as an object drops from the inside of her habit and skitters across the stone floor.
The nuns closest to the girl see it immediately. But it takes the abbess’s picking it up and holding it aloft for its true significance to become apparent to all present: a small shining knife, with what can only be streaks of blood on the blade.
“My herb knife!” Zuana’s voice now rises above the throng. “It is my herb knife. It disappeared weeks ago from the dispensary, when I was ill. She must have taken it then.”
After this no one can say or do anything, because the place is in such uproar. In the middle of it all the girl whirls and howls, shaking her hands in the face of anyone who comes near her so that the blood spatters around the room, until eventually she is restrained by the abbess and the watch sister and a few others of the braver nuns. She continues to spit and struggle as they pin her to the ground. Then, equally as suddenly, she gives way, her body going totally limp and curling in upon itself until she looks more like a pile of rags than a person. “Oh, I am sorry, I am sorry,” she moans, over and over again. “Oh, oh, I am so hungry. Please, please can I eat now? Please, someone, help me.”
On the orders of the abbess she is picked up by the watch sister and carried from the room under the supervision of the dispensary mistress. “Take her to the infirmary and put restraints on her. Come back when you can.”
As Zuana leaves she sees Suora Umiliana dropping to her knees where she stands, her head in her hands.
IN THE INFIRMARY they pick the nearest bed by the door.
Clementia is beside herself with excitement. “Oh, the angel has come! The angel has come! Welcome, poor thing. She is so small now. Oh, no, no, don’t put her in that bed. They all die there.”
No one is listening to her. The girl puts up no fight as the restraints go on. It is as if she is utterly exhausted, almost unconscious. The watch sister stands staring down at her. “I always knew she would come to no good, “ she says grimly. “Still, imagine Suora Umiliana being so fooled.”
“You can go now,” Zuana says. “I will give her something to make sure she sleeps and join you when I can.”
The watch sister, who spends much of her life bored rigid while the convent sleeps, scuttles back to the drama in the chapter room.
Zuana waits until the door closes then leans over the cot. “You did well,” she whispers.
The girl opens her eyes. “Oh, my hands are burning so.”
“I know. But you must lie quietly now. I will bring you something for them later.”
The door opens. Augustina with her blunt face and blunt hands stands waiting. “I am called for?”
“Yes, you are to sit with the novice. Let no one come close to her and be careful. She is very ill indeed.”
But as she starts to rise, the girl pulls at her.
“Suora Zuana.” Her voice is so small that Zuana has to bend her head to her lips to catch the words. “I …I am scared.”
“I know.” She smiles. “But it will be all right.”
By the time she straightens up, her face is grim again.
BACK IN CHAPTER, the convent is on its knees.
“Bring us to safe harbor from the tempest we are traveling through. For while we are not worthy of Your grace, we strive to be Your true and humble servants.”
From the side of her eye, the abbess spots Zuana in the doorway and brings the prayers to a close. She motions for them all to rise and sit again.
“Dear, dear sisters, we have been subject to a dreadful storm—for which, as your abbess, I must hold myself responsible. Ah, Suora Zuana. Tell us, please. How is the girl?”
“She is restrained.”
“Good. Did you have a chance to examine her?”
“Only enough to know that she has wounded herself severely and is pitifully thin and undernourished.”
“Which may have contributed to her madness.” The abbess bows her head for a moment, as if asking now for help outside herself. “However”—she looks up again—“it is perhaps worth remembering that this sad young woman was, well, most erratic in her behavior when she first entered.”
In the fourth row Suora Umiliana sits, pale, eyes on the floor. The room falls quiet. She starts to stand. “Madonna Abbess, I—”
“Suora Umiliana.” The abbess’s voice cuts across her gently. “You will, I know, be feeling this pain more acutely than the rest of us, for you have spent so much of your time and blessed instruction on her behalf. How much more important it is, then, that we ask for God’s understanding on this before we offer up any blame. And if there is blame, it will fall on my shoulders, for I am the abbess. Please, please, dear sister, sit and rest yourself.”
This kindness silences Umiliana faster than any rebuke. It also leaves the floor to Chiara. She lifts herself up, resting her hands on the lion’s heads of the chair. It is a familiar, almost comforting gesture that everyone knows well, which is all to the good, because they are in great need of comfort now.
“You will know, I think, that even before the distressing events of today I have been concerned about the welfare of the convent. We are living in turbulent times. There is change and debate everywhere, and it is not a surprise if some of this anxiety finds its way inside these walls, with disagreements and confusions as to how we should be conducting our lives as nuns. In many cities, others are asking the same questions—and some are being forced to make changes under grave duress.” The abbess sighs. “These past few weeks I have spent many nights in prayer, asking for God’s advice in this, my great task of caring for His flock. And He has taken pity on my distress and come to my aid. He has helped me to understand much. And perhaps the most important thing He has helped me to see is how some of the burden we have been laboring under has come from the presence of this young woman.”
She pauses. The room is utterly still, waiting on her words.
“Dear sisters, I would ask you to consider this now, as He revealed it to me. How since the novice Serafina arrived with us all those months ago, her fury, her disobedience, the fame and glory that came with her voice, her tremendous sudden piety, her illness, her secret confession with its dramatic penance, her exaggerated fasting nigh unto starvation, and now this—this exhibition of fraud and madness—all this behavior has taken its toll on the peace and comfort of Santa Caterina. While we have done our best to absorb and contain her—in particular the work of Suora Zuana in the dispensary, Suora Benedicta in the choir, and the selfless care and discipline of Suora Umiliana—despite all our efforts, this young woman has grown more rather than less distressed. It is perhaps not a surprise.
“All these stages of behavior, these phases of the moon that she has passed through—for there has been some correlation between her mood swings and the moon’s cycles—have one thing in common: they have needed—no, demanded—and received our attention. Such symptoms are consistent with a most virulent form of greensickness, which though it can beset many young girls of her age, at its worst brings full-blown lunacy. Until this point, Santa Caterina has been mercifully free of it. I had some worry about this on that very first morning—Suora Zuana will no doubt remember that we discussed the possibility that the girl was sick rather than simply rebellious. I wrote then to her father to ask for further information. His reply was reassuring. And yet since then it has only grown worse rather than better—so much so it is surely no surprise that we have all, in some way or other, been influenced by it. For what we have been living through is the presence of a mad young woman who has dedicated her life to performance rather than piety.”
All this the abbess says slowly and with quiet conviction, leaving pauses every now and then so that you would think the words are somehow precious, fragile things that must be handled with care; either that, or they are so heavy one must hold them for a while in order to absorb them.
The message she offers is simple: a young woman has destroyed the equilibrium of the convent by dedicating herself to deceit rather than devotion. Very simple, in fact, yet it speaks to many of the nuns present.
Zuana looks out over the sea of faces. To the left of the room sit the novices, a group of young women overshadowed by Serafina up to now but who can perhaps feel vindicated for their occasional flashes of envy or lack of charity toward her. Could it be that they have been pious enough to suspect that she was a fraud all along? Close by, young Suora Eugenia is no doubt remembering how contented she had been as the convent songbird before Serafina opened her mouth at Vespers, and how lost and tortured she has become since.
On the converse bench Letizia hears again the girl’s sniping, angry tone, so different from her public piety, as they crossed the cloisters together to tend the chief conversa in her cell, while Candida thinks about all those evenings she spent brushing her hair, and how she can always tell the ones who yearn to be touched more, even when they seek to deny it.
In among the choir nuns, the twins, who have long since had to make do with being ignored, remember that once she tripped one of them up in her hurry to get to chapel and never apologized. Suora Benedicta thinks that though she composes for God, the young girl often seemed more interested in singing for her own pleasure, while Suora Federica knows she never really liked her, even though she felt compelled to pick her out for the first marzipan strawberry, and wishes now that she had put more wormwood into her penance food. Devout old Suora Agnesina reminds herself that she was never sure of her, even when Umiliana spoke so hotly about her emerging purity. Felicità, meanwhile, does not feel so bad about the resentment she has harbored toward Umiliana, whose time has been taken up with this shallow novice rather than other, more deserving sisters such as herself.
And Suora Umiliana? Well, Suora Umiliana is thinking and remembering a great number of things.
“Performance rather than piety. The noisy seeking of attention over the gentler business of living humbly inside God’s love. That has been a fear close to your heart, I know, Suora Umiliana, and one must say that in this you are right,” the abbess says, with a generosity that cannot help but draw attention to Umiliana’s own gullibility and failed judgment in this whole sordid business.
“We need to come back to the true path: Not to love strife. Not to love pride. Not to be jealous or entertain envy. To hate one’s own will. To love one’s neighbor as oneself and—”
And here she does not need to add—because each nun knows the words of the rule of Saint Benedict backward—and to obey the commands of the abbess in all things.
“In this way I am sure we will ride out the storm and return our convent to what it once was, a place of harmony and honest worship.”
The room is silent. It is a remarkable performance, and no one is more impressed than Zuana.
The bones of the plan, the central ingredients, were hers. But this …this elaboration …this decoration has come spinning out of the abbess’s own head, and its skill and cleverness amaze her. Here is a woman who cares so much for the reputation of her convent that she was willing to allow a young man to be killed to prevent scandal from coming upon them, but also a woman willing to forgo the chance of revenge on her most potent opponent in order to bring peace and reconciliation. For, as she well knows, only in that way can they hope to avoid interference from outside.
Zuana thinks back again to the rule of the order. The abbess is one to whom much hath been entrusted, from whom much will be required; the difficult and arduous task of governing souls and accommodating herself to a variety of characters, mingling gentleness with severity, so that she not only suffers no loss in the flock but may rejoice in the increase of a worthy fold.
Who else in this room could do it so well?
She lifts her hand gently.
“Yes, Suora Zuana? You have permission to speak.”
“I—well, I wonder, what are we to do with the novice now?”
The abbess sighs. “We must try our hardest to bring her back from her fasting madness into health and then address her spiritual state. The first, I think, falls to you.”
“I will do my best.” She bows her head. “But I must say that examining her in the infirmary just now, I found her to be in a grave state. In her lunacy she has been using the knife to harm herself in many ways alongside which she is emaciated unto starvation.”
“My dear Suora Zuana, every sister in this convent knows you will do whatever can be done. I shall ask Father Romero to go to her now. The rest is up to God. We shall pray for His guidance.”
THE NUNS OF Santa Caterina retire to their cells for prayer and private contemplation with an unexpected sense of peace and harmony. And as they kneel praying, long into the dark, there are those who swear they hear a voice coming out of the infirmary, the soaring notes of a young songbird, and though some fear it to be further madness, it is hard not to be seduced by its purity and wonder perhaps whether their prayers have been answered and this disturbed young woman is at last made welcome by God.
At the darkest part of that same night, long after Suora Zuana has bid good night to her patients, Clementia wakes to see a figure in the room, a figure she swears is that of the Virgin herself, for she comes on quiet footfall with a white veil over her face and the smell of flowers around her. She stands by the girl’s bed and immediately the novice sits up and prays as if she were not near death at all. Then the Virgin seems to lean over and kiss her and offer her the communion cup, from which she drinks deeply. The girl lies down again and, after praying for a while by her side, the figure leaves as quietly as she came in.
Clementia is known to be as mad as a field of spring lambs, yet when it is discovered, close on sunrise, that the girl has quietly died in the night, this account of hers moves like a soft breeze through the convent, bringing a sense of wonder and hope to all who hear it.
IN THE MIDST of death, however, life must go on, and a convent leading up to Easter is a busy place.
Letizia and Suora Zuana, who had been the ones to find the girl without pulse or any sign of life, take the body to the mortuary room behind the dispensary, where they wash and dress it for burial. In lieu of a public laying out, prayers are said in chapel. While everyone is mad with curiosity to see the corpse, it is the abbess’s duty to return the convent to normal life as soon as possible, and with her authority renewed she is obeyed without question.
That same day is also when the trousseau for the noble wedding must be completed and packed for collection the next morning. Such is the importance of the commission that the abbess herself supervises the process as the chest is brought downstairs to a room close to the infirmary ready for transportation to the river storehouse that afternoon.
In the mortuary, Zuana and Letizia place the girl in a rough wood coffin, covering her body with a length of white muslin (the gold cloth is used only for those who have taken their vows). Zuana then dismisses Letizia—who has been unexpectedly affected by the sight of the bone-thin young body, to the point where she is overcome by tears—and keeps vigil herself during the afternoon work hour.
Halfway through she is joined by the novice mistress, who has humbly gone to the abbess and asked if she might be allowed to say her own private farewell.
The two women kneel by the coffin together. The last time they tended a corpse was at the death of Suora Imbersaga, when Zuana had been so moved by the novice mistress’s febrile joy. Now she cannot help but be aware of a dark turmoil within her fellow choir nun, as if however much she tries she cannot, will not, forgive herself for whatever her part was in this strange young woman’s death.
Eventually, after what feels like hours of prayer, the older woman rises slowly to her feet and makes her way silently to the door.
“Suora Umiliana?”
She stops and waits.
“You told me once that you wished you had been my novice mistress. Well, I share that feeling, and if you would let me I would like to come to you sometimes, to talk more about how I might reach closer to our Holy Father.”
The old woman shivers. “You should not come to me,” she says harshly. “I am not worthy.”
“Oh, but I think you are. Please. I do believe that you might help me.”
And while there are some things in this room that are ripe with deceit, this is not one of them.
Umiliana stares at her, nodding slightly, her white hairs and pitted chin trembling as the tears start to flow.
“I will do my best.”
JUST BEFORE VESPERS the abbess calls the chief conversa to her chambers and asks her to wait until after supper before they move the chest to the storehouse, since she herself would like to make a last check on the contents.
When the nuns disperse to their cells for private prayer, Zuana and the abbess meet in the mortuary. Between them they easily lift the girl’s body out of the coffin and carry it through a now unlocked door to the room where the trousseau chest is waiting. As they place her under layers of embroidered wedding silk, Zuana searches for a pulse. It is steady enough when she finds it, though faint, like that of someone heading toward death. The consensus of the two sources is that a body can remain as if in a state close to death for up to twenty-four hours and still emerge in health. But the first source is an observation from some heathen tribe found in the Levant, and the second, her father’s, relies on descriptions but no living proof. They will just have to hope. At rest the girl looks so fragile, more bone than body still, her hands carefully bandaged with salve beneath. Such a long way from the peach-ripe young beauty who first entered. But then, with the scars of having half his throat cut open, her prospective husband will surely be no prettier.
Before they close the lid, the abbess unwraps something from beneath her cloak and sets it under the young girl’s bandaged hands. It is a jeweled crucifix, less precious than the one she uses for special feast days but rich enough to buy the beginnings of a new life for the person who possesses it. The instructions have already been made clear: on no account should she attempt to sell or pawn it within the city of Ferrara or its dominions. But once the young couple is far enough away, it is theirs to do with as they see fit. No one will question where it came from, and even if they did there will be no record of a precious cross missing from any convent in Ferrara, and certainly none of any escapee who might have stolen it. The novice Serafina will be long dead and buried by then, her obituary, largely indistinguishable from a hundred others, inscribed in the convent necrology by Suora Scholastica’s elegant hand and part of her dowry passed on to the convent.
The girl had listened and understood. “I don’t deserve this,” she had said, staring at the crucifix.
“I don’t know about that, but I fear you will find it hard to live without it.”
Though now, as the two women stand looking down at her, surely the same thought is going through both their heads.
“Because she is so weak I gave her too little rather than too much,” Zuana says quietly. “I pray it will be the right amount.”
Her words put speed into their step and they close the chest (picked for its empty knots, through which a certain amount of air will flow) and return to the mortuary, where they face the problem of how to weigh down the empty coffin enough not to arouse suspicion when it is carried to the chapel and burial plot the next morning.
Zuana has the answer ready. From the dispensary she brings an armful of books and lays them at the bottom.
The abbess stares at her. “We are both sacrificing jewels, it seems.”
Zuana shakes her head. “She is not so heavy—and like you I have greater ones. Many of the remedies in these I have tried and found wanting. The better ones I have already memorized.”
“Good.” She pauses. “Perhaps it would be wise for you to memorize more.”
Zuana feels the hollowness open up inside her. “When? When will it come?”
“I do not know for certain. Her leaving will steady us for a while. But it will happen, for in the end it does not depend on us. If it is not this bishop, it will be the next, or the one after him.” She smiles. “I am sorry.”
But of course Zuana has known it all along. How bad will it be? Though she can fill her mind with information, she will be able to do little with it if they see fit to destroy her choir of cures. She imagines the convent graveyard in the future, with two neatly dug new graves. Perhaps God will see fit to take them both by the time the worst happens.
“Come,” the abbess says briskly. “We had better finish this.”
Together they fashion a softer shape made from the abbess’s old shifts wrapped around the books, then cover the whole thing with the thick muslin. The abbess has already agreed with Father Romero that by the time he comes at dawn to conduct the service the coffin will be nailed down. Until then either Zuana or she herself will keep the night vigil over the “body.”
There is nothing more to do.
“God be with you, Suora Zuana.”
“And with you, Madonna Abbess.”
And so, leaving Zuana with the coffin full of books, Madonna Chiara calls for the chief conversa and supervises as four sturdy younger converse hoist the trousseau chest onto the cart and pull it through the gardens in the fading light down to the storehouse, where it is placed in the outer chamber, ready for the bargemen to find it there the next morning.
HER PALMS THROB. Her palms throb and her throat hurts. Her throat hurts and she cannot breathe well. When she opens her eyes she is blind. In the few seconds it takes her to remember and make sense of where she is, she is gripped by panic, which smothers as powerfully as the layers of heavy fabric that cover her face when she tries to move.
She relaxes her body and tries to breathe more calmly. There is air but it feels thick in her nostrils, and she knows from a thousand stories of premature burial that it cannot last forever.
But she is not buried. She is in the trousseau chest. In the storehouse. And somewhere out there, behind the door, on the river, is a boat even now perhaps pulling up and …
Yes, yes. That is surely what is happening. They have been through this, Zuana and she, a dozen times: how, as soon as the convent is asleep, Zuana will make her way across the gardens and, using the abbess’s keys, let herself through first one door and then the other. She will open the chest, the girl will get out, and together they will go through the outer doors to wait on the dock until …
She must have woken too early. I cannot say for certain how long the drug will last. It would be better if you woke sooner rather than later, for it will be hard to move you if you are still under its influence.
She had listened to every word, never taking her eyes off Zuana’s face as she explained it once and then again. She trusts this woman absolutely and knows she would never do anything to hurt her. But while Zuana does not say it to her directly, she also knows that this is the first time she has used this remedy, so she cannot be certain one way or another how strong or how long.
What if she did not give her enough? What if she has woken halfway through? Perhaps she has not yet reached the storeroom. There may be converse in the room even now, ready to heave up the chest and move it down the stairs out into the grounds. Be quiet, Isabetta, she says to herself. Be calm. You must not make any noise now. Or waste any air.
She begins to pray There is so much to pray for. That she will make this man a good wife. That for all they have been through, they will care for, as well as love, each other and be mindful of God’s commandments. She prays that God will look after all those she leaves behind. She begs to be forgiven for her many trespasses, as she now willingly forgives those who, in their way, trespassed against her. Suora Umiliana, who meant no harm even if she could not help but cause it. The abbess, who did what her duty demanded but without whom she would not be free at all. And Suora Zuana—oh, Suora Zuana! — what can she ask of God on her behalf? As she searches for the words she feels the calm slipping away as the weight of cloth sinks more heavily on her face. She feels the urge to sing—to hear her own voice as a companion—but she does not dare.
How long has she been awake? Too long now, surely. Her head aches. Yes, the drug must have been strong enough. In which case how can it be that Zuana has not come? What if …?
What if? The two words release a wave of terror that seems to use up all the air around her so that she finds herself gasping.
What if someone is taken ill in the night and Zuana cannot get here?
What if in some way the plan has been found out?
What if there never was a plan?
Or what if this was the plan all along?
Sweet Jesus, what if this is the abbess’s final revenge to ensure her silence, and she is not in the storehouse at all but in the mortuary? Or worse—what if it is done already and she is even now buried, deep under the earth in the graveyard, as punishment for having brought the convent so close to ruin? What if, after all, she is going to die?
Once thought, it cannot be un-thought. As the panic hits she forces her bandaged hands up through the layers of silk till her knuckles crash into the lid above. The holes in her hands burn and throb as she pushes. But the wood is too heavy. Is it nailed down? Oh, dear God, it must be nailed down! She fills her lungs with whatever air is left and starts to shout. It will end as it began: with terror and tears and useless hammering against wood in the night.
“Help, oh, help me! I—”
And now she hears it: a knocking and scraping above her, then the sound of a key clunking and shifting in the lock, and a lid being lifted and pushed back.
“Hush, oh, hush. You must not make noise. I am here.”
The layers of cloth are pulled off and she takes a great gulp of air. In the darkness she makes out Zuana’s broad, smiling face above her.
“I thought—”
“I know …I know. But there is no time now. Come, come. The watch sister was a tiger tonight, and it took me longer to get away.”
Zuana’s voice wraps itself around her, encouraging, cajoling, as it has done for so long.
“Here, drink this. Acqua-vita. Just a few sips. It will give you strength. I have put some in a bag for you. Give me the crucifix. Where is it? Did you let go of it? No, I see it here. I will put that in the pouch too. I have made up two vials. One is for the apothecary. A good dispensary can never have enough acqua-vita, and the other you may trade for some small monies to get you out of the city. Ah, quickly, quickly, Isabetta. Can you walk?”
As they move across the room they can both hear it now— something bumping against the wood of the dock outside.
Zuana fumbles with the lock on the door. It opens with a fearful creak; the wind and rain have swollen and twisted the wood since the last time they were both here.
The dock is longer than she remembers it. On one side it slides away into black water. But at the other end, close to the convent’s rowboat, another small boat is docking, with a candle lantern at its prow. There are two figures aboard. Two? Zuana’s heart jumps for a moment. But he would have to bring someone to help, of course. The loyal apothecary, perhaps.
The man in the prow climbs up and onto the dock. Zuana holds up her own lantern to meet him. There is light enough to see that he is tall, lanky, with a scarf tied high around his neck. Down one side of his face runs a jagged dark line.
Isabetta sees him, too. She stands frozen to the spot. So frozen that in the end Zuana must give her a little push.
She moves slowly, groggy still, half limping toward him. They stop when there is still space between them. One might think they would fling themselves into each other’s arms. But instead it seems they are not sure they know each other anymore. After a second’s pause, he puts out a hand toward her and she gives him her bandaged one in return. He holds it most gently. The moment appears to last forever.
“You must go.” Zuana’s voice pushes them on. “Go now.”
The girl turns and smiles quickly, and then they are on their way; the two of them clambering into the boat, the ropes freed from the mooring, the second man maneuvering the craft backward, turning, then rowing quickly out into the water until they are eaten up by the darkness and all one can hear is the splash and chop of oars.
Zuana stands listening until the sound dies away. Then she goes back inside and locks the door. She replaces the wedding shift and the top sheets, smoothing out their surfaces as best she can, and puts the lid back into place before moving into the inner storeroom and from there out into the convent grounds, locking each door carefully behind her.
She makes her way quickly back across the orchard and gardens toward the second cloisters. As she passes the herb plot, it comes upon her to wonder whether or not the calendula will be sprouting yet, and she makes a note to check it first thing at work hour, for she has grown somewhat lax in the affairs of the dispensary of late, and it will not be long until spring is fully upon them.
In her cell, she says a prayer that their new life together will be pure, and then prays for the souls of all those around her in the convent, for their benefactors, and for the rulers of the city, both alive and dead, before lying down to sleep.
As she lets her mind slide away, she recites a few of the remedies from the books that will be buried in the graveyard tomorrow. From now on, every night, she will memorize a few more. Of course she will never be able to reproduce her library in her head; that would be impossible. Not even her father could do so much.
The work of revealing God’s secrets through nature is not meant to be easy, Faustina. You would do well to remember the words of Hippocrates: “Life is short, the art long, opportunities fleeting, experiment treacherous, and judgment difficult. ” Ah, such humility in a man born so long before Christ. For all our knowledge now, he is yet to be surpassed.
Well, she will do the best she can. Though it would be better if she could find an assistant among the novices, a young soul with energy and aptitude, so that together they might form a chain, to hand on to those who come after the fruits of that which she now knows.
Tomorrow she will talk to the abbess about it.
She closes her eyes and sleeps. And the convent sleeps silently around her.