Obedience, page 16
‘Les Cèdres?’ asked the boy.
‘Yes,’ said Bernard. ‘Please.’ She could not think of a different reply.
The cold seeped through the church, falling on the congregation with the weight of sin. Bernard’s attention had drifted during the young priest’s long sermon. She may even have slept. The heavy missal, which had come to her on the death of her father, dropped from her folded hands with a thud which shuddered through the church, startling and confusing her. When Sister Marie’s name was read out among the notices at the end of Mass, Bernard was for a moment unsure of what she had heard. It was only when the priest went on to offer a brief summary of Marie’s life, thanking God for the gift of her long vocation at the convent and leading the parish in a prayer for the dead, that Bernard was finally sure that the nun was gone. She looked up at the faint glow of the stained glass and the slender stone arches above her, blotched with damp and old dirt, and she rejoiced.
At the end of Mass, Bernard tapped the arm of the priest to ask him the details of Marie’s funeral.
‘Ah, Sister Bernard, how are you? How are you finding your new home?’ he asked, distracted, his eyes not on her.
‘It’s fine, Father.’
‘Good – that’s good. Yes. I see someone is bringing you to church here, on the transport rota.’
‘I’ve always come here,’ Bernard said, unwilling to tell him how difficult a thing it had been to arrange with the staff at Les Cèdres.
‘Yes, yes, of course. And sad news about Sister Marie. What a saintly woman! It was a blessed release, perhaps.’
‘She was well looked after, Father.’
One of the altar boys skidded down the aisle to his parents. The priest glared at him over Bernard’s shoulder.
‘Is that right? Well, that’s good,’ he said.
Bernard traced the cross on the front cover of her missal with her finger, slowly following the indented gilt line right round before she spoke. The priest closed his hands, waiting.
‘Father, could you tell me again the time of the funeral?’ she asked in the end. ‘I didn’t quite catch it.’
‘For Sister Marie?’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘Tuesday morning at ten. At Sainte Famille.’
This was a church to which Bernard had never been. The thought of it alarmed her.
‘She would have liked to have it here. Couldn’t it have been held here?’ she said.
‘Would she? Do you think?’ The priest nodded, answering his own question. ‘Ah well, it’s Sainte Famille. It’s the parish for the nursing home. Father Gabriel does a lot of work there.’
It was a new church. Its brick bell tower, punctured by an elaborate lattice of rectangular holes, dominated one end of the town, its colour odd among the dry ochres of the old stone. Inside it was hollow and bare, unwelcoming. Bernard sat firmly to one side, one of the smooth white walls almost within reach. The suited diocesan official who had picked her up from Les Cèdres sat in the pew in front of her, as though this might help to fill the space. There were only seven mourners. Three parishioners, who were there simply to attend Mass, sat together near the front. Sister Thérèse arrived a few minutes after Bernard, on her own. Bernard recognized the clipped rhythms of her step and glanced back to watch her come up the aisle. They smiled at each other, but Thérèse went to sit apart, on the far pews. Veronique and her colleague from the nursing home were alongside the looming coffin, directly in Bernard’s vision.
Bernard knelt and dipped her head. Her veil fell around her, closing her in. When the priest entered, she did not raise her head. The sounds of the Mass went on, unequivocally solemn, and once or twice the bells rang. Bernard said the responses quietly but did not look up. She could not. She could not be sure it was not all some kind of shadow play, a manifestation of the terror of her first few days at Les Cèdres, an inevitable result of the disorientation and dismay that had made everything insubstantial and out of place, driving her into the corridors and the garden in the freezing hours of the night. She could not be sure that if she looked at Veronique, even once, her granddaughter might not disappear and leave her again, with only the unendurable ache of longing.
It was Thérèse who spoke to her.
‘I didn’t expect to see you again quite so soon, Sister. In such circumstances.’
Bernard raised her head, and her veil fell back to her shoulders. The Mass was over. The undertakers were fiddling with the latches that secured the coffin trolley and Thérèse had moved onto the pew alongside Bernard.
Bernard blinked, wondering at the solidity of things.
‘May God grant her eternal rest,’ she said.
Thérèse tutted quietly. ‘It’ll save the diocese some money, at least – with my moving in with Corinne and Sister Marie going to heaven. They must be relieved.’
Things were settling around Bernard, coming clear. Veronique was still there, bending in her pew to pick something from the floor, her bag, perhaps, or an umbrella.
‘Maybe that was a comfort to her,’ Bernard said.
‘They found her in a heap, you know, on the floor,’ said Thérèse. ‘On the stinking linoleum. She’d been lying there for hours, her leg skewed from the hip at an unholy angle.’ She shook her head. ‘A torment, that’s what it was. And unnecessary. If she’d only been taken care of properly…’
‘She always had a special talent for sacrifice,’ said Bernard.
The trolley rolled past them, one of the wheels creaking. Thérèse crossed herself and, for the slightest of moments, touched the coffin as it passed.
She was not wearing her habit, and Bernard noticed that the large metal crucifix which habitually hung between Thérèse’s breasts had disappeared. A small cross and chain, perhaps gold, snuggled instead in the dint at the base of her neck.
‘Is it working well, your… arrangement?’ Bernard asked.
Thérèse turned from the coffin. Her voice was newly supple. ‘Oh, it is, Sister, it really is. Corinne is such a marvellous cook, for a start. We have such meals! And I’ve signed up for a yoga class – for the spring and…’
She fingered the new chain round her neck.
‘It was the right decision, Sister. That’s the thing. I know that now. It must have been right. It must have been God’s will. After all.’ She let the cross fall lightly against her jumper and her face stiffened. ‘And you, Sister? How is Les Cèdres?’
Even now, after several weeks, Bernard had only the faintest sense of the place, like a tremor in her stomach, the endless nausea of falling.
‘It’s fine,’ she said.
‘Yes. Yes.’ Thérèse nodded hard. ‘I thought it would be, in the end. I thought that.’
‘I can’t seem to find my way around,’ said Bernard.
The church was empty now. The mourners had followed the coffin outside and the nuns’ conversation, tuned for Thérèse’s deafness, was too loud. It seemed like sacrilege. They were quiet. They slid along the pew and genuflected stiffly, side by side, as they came out into the aisle. Then Bernard and Thérèse made their way along the strip of bright carpet that split the rows of benches and stopped outside the wide door, on the top of the steps. The coffin was being manoeuvred into the back of the hearse and they stood to watch. The parishioners had left. The diocesan man in the suit took a cigarette from a crumpled packet of Gauloises in his inside pocket and smoked quietly, scenting the air. Bernard found herself standing next to her granddaughter.
Veronique did not turn. She looked far in front of her, at something on the building opposite or beyond, across the sloping roofs dotted with pigeons.
‘I can’t come to the burial, Sister. We must head back – to work.’ She spoke wearily, as though she was continuing a conversation they had already exhausted. ‘It’s busy today – we’ve got a new arrival.’
‘Yes,’ said Bernard. And then, some moments later. ‘It was good of you to come.’
‘We always come to these things. It’s part of the job.’
Veronique sniffed. The tip of her nose was red with cold.
‘I thought of sending someone else, though. This time.’ Her desire to avoid the nuns had been almost irresistible. ‘I wasn’t sure what to do, when I heard Sister Marie had died. I didn’t want… I thought about it a lot. Even this morning, I wasn’t sure.’ She huffed a melancholy laugh. ‘I was up and down in my office, trying to decide, pacing around. I knew you’d be here. And – well, I did my duty in the end, didn’t I?’
Bernard did not think to reply. Thérèse was not sure of what was being said. She moved away, towards the smoking man. There was hardly a pause.
‘The photo in the paper, of Philippe Pourcel. Of my father. The cutting I saw at the convent.’ Veronique took short sharp breaths between the abrupt sentences. ‘You had it… you’d kept it, because he was your son.’
It was not a question. Veronique drew the toe of her shoe along the bright yellow line painted on the top of the steps.
‘I know all about it. It wasn’t a secret. My father told us everything he knew. Not a lot really, but I knew he was the son of a nun.’ It seemed nothing, when it was said out loud like that. ‘And when I saw the cutting and saw you – well, I knew.’
She did not mention the bitter onion taste in her mouth the afternoon she had driven away from the convent. Nor that she still thought of the squat nun with disgust. Instead, finally, she glanced at Bernard, seeing nothing except the thick folds of habit and the round face and the glitter of something behind in the dark interior of the church.
Bernard was puzzled by the tone of what her granddaughter had said. She could not work out what was expected of her.
The hearse started its engine and for a moment its exhaust fumes were strong in the air. The diocesan man stubbed out the remains of his cigarette beneath his shiny shoes. Thérèse looked back to where Bernard was standing and swept an arm towards her, beckoning at her for something. Veronique shuffled.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘I should go. I’m sorry if I’ve… you know, said something I shouldn’t. I just thought it was best to be open about it. I mean, don’t worry – I won’t go telling anyone. I don’t want people to know. I just wanted to tell you that I’d found you out. That I knew. That’s all.’
Bernard thought there was something soft about Veronique’s last words. It might have been an invitation.
‘Is that why you came… to the funeral?’ she asked. ‘To see me?’
Veronique looked away. The hearse moved smoothly off and waited by the church gate for a break in the traffic.
‘I don’t want a fuss. Really. I wanted a clean break. I just thought I’d tell you, that I knew – that I’d worked it out.’
‘Did you want to see me?’ Bernard asked again simply.
Veronique frowned. ‘I told you – it’s my job. I needn’t have come at all. I could have sent someone else. I was going to send someone else. I just thought…’
‘No,’ said Bernard.
Thérèse came and took Bernard by the arm to help her down the steps.
‘He offered you a lift, the man from the diocese. He was going to take you back home, Sister. But Corinne’s coming to take me to the burial and I thought you could come with us. That’s all right, isn’t it?’
Veronique stepped back.
‘Wait,’ said Bernard. ‘Please. Just a moment.’
She tugged on Thérèse’s arm and managed to move a few steps closer to her granddaughter.
‘I’d like to speak to you again,’ she said, her voice so low that, even bending towards them, Thérèse could make out nothing.
This was not how Bernard had thought it would be. She had known, already, the feel of the girl, the warmth, and she had thought, of course, of the soldier, the only person she had ever held. She had thought she would recognize everything about it, his musk a memory on Veronique’s new skin.
Veronique looked hard at Bernard. Thérèse pulled on Bernard’s arm.
‘I don’t know. I’ll think about it,’ said Veronique at last. ‘You’re at Les Cèdres, aren’t you?’
Bernard nodded. Veronique smiled before turning away down the steps. Bernard was sure then that she would come.
Corinne joined them at the cemetery for the burial. Her pink trousers distracted Bernard’s attention from the damp thud of the soil being piled back into Marie’s grave and her bouquet of flowers seemed unnecessarily gaudy.
‘I’m sorry I was late. I had an appointment, at the doctor’s. I couldn’t make the Mass.’ She was bright. ‘It’s good to see you again, Sister Bernard. Poor Sister Marie.’
Thérèse was ahead of them, making her way through the long rows of clean stones. ‘She had a long life. And happy – blessed,’ she said, turning.
‘She was a saintly one, they say,’ said Corinne.
Bernard closed her eyes momentarily so that it might all pass.
‘And you, too. You helped her with great patience, I know, Sister Bernard,’ said Corinne. ‘It’s not easy looking after someone like that. It’s a great strain.’
Nothing like this had ever been said before. Bernard stopped walking. The crisp light slanted shadows from the gravestones, cutting geometrics into the short grass. Corinne stepped across one of the sharp squares and laid her hand lightly on Bernard’s arm.
She smiled. ‘Have you got time to come back with us for a meal, Sister?’ she asked. ‘I could drop you back at Les Cèdres later.’
Bernard remembered the block of apartments she had seen from the minibus window, the drapes at the windows, neat and fresh, and the revelation of another way of living, the unexpected craving. She shook her head.
‘I have to go back,’ she said. ‘They wouldn’t like me to stay out. They’re quite strict.’
‘But surely this once, Sister Bernard…’
It was Thérèse this time who shook her head.
‘We shouldn’t upset things,’ she said briskly. And then, more gently, smiling. ‘We wouldn’t want to land her in trouble.’
Corinne took Bernard’s hand. The offence of such sudden intimacy flushed Bernard’s cheeks red; she went to pull away. But Corinne’s skin next to her own was warm, a solace, and tentatively, Bernard pressed against it, the slightest of movements, as though everything might shatter.
Corinne felt the pressure and squeezed back. Then she let Bernard’s hand fall.
‘Well, I’m sorry, Sister,’ she said, smiling. ‘It would have been nice. We’ll have to do it another time, that’s all.’
‘We’ll drop you back,’ said Thérèse. ‘On the way.’
Bernard looked out across the graveyard. The studs of tall monuments drew her gaze away to where plastic bouquets of flowers were piled by the far wall, their anxious colours fading. Corinne and Thérèse started towards the car, but Bernard did not move; she was afraid to. Everything ahead of her was hateful, the sameness, the stupefying loneliness, the terror of waiting for Veronique and yearning for her.
Corinne turned. ‘Are you all right, Sister? Can I help?’
Bernard pushed at her veil. ‘You said… could I come… you invited…’ she began, wanting to change things, but her voice was faint and Corinne, searching for her keys in her pocket and waving an arm towards Thérèse to direct her to the right parking place, heard nothing but breathy discomfort.
‘You’ll be fine,’ she said brightly. ‘You’ve been out in the cold too long, that’s all. And it’s upsetting, a funeral. It’s always upsetting.’
She took a step or two back towards Bernard and stretched out a hand.
‘Come on. We’ll have you home very soon.’
Bernard did not take Corinne’s hand this time. ‘Yes,’ she said.
Thérèse’s fury was unstoppable.
‘Why? Why did you invite her? She might have come.’
‘Of course she might have come. That’s what I wanted. That’s why I asked her.’
Corinne laughed slightly. The soles of their shoes, squeaking on the soft plastic floor of the apartment block’s underground car park, echoed the sound of her laugh, making it seem more than it was.
Thérèse stiffened. ‘I don’t see why,’ she said. ‘I still don’t.’
‘She looked sad. And cold. And lonely. I thought it might be nice.’
Corinne pulled open the heavy green door that led into the building, and they climbed up to the apartment without speaking. Thérèse had never felt so miserable. The unholiness of it shocked her.
‘We can’t abandon her,’ said Corinne finally, unlocking the apartment door and holding it open for her friend to pass ahead.
They hung their coats neatly in the hallway. Walking through to the bright sitting room they brushed against Claude’s pot plant and the pink flower heads danced.
‘You wouldn’t want that, would you?’
Corinne eased into a wide armchair with a puff and slipped her feet from her shoes. Thérèse did not sit down. She walked to the window, tugging back the curtain to look down onto the street.
‘Really,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘I don’t understand. You suggest I come here, to live with you, because Sister Bernard is – I don’t know – unworthy. Unworthy of my sacrifice, if that’s what it is. I’d be better off here, with you, than making my life a misery for someone who, well, has sinned. So much; who has sinned so much. That’s what you said, as good as. And now, now you—’
Corinne sighed. ‘Sinned, Sister Thérèse. Exactly. Aren’t we meant to forgive a sinner?’
‘Forgive the sinner, of course, yes. Forgive the sinner.’ It came out flat, without meaning. ‘But this I don’t understand.’ Thérèse let the curtain fall. There was a pause. ‘Oh, I don’t know – what you say. That’s right. I know that’s right.’ She fiddled with the chain round her neck, running it through her fingers. ‘I don’t understand why I feel that I can’t… that I can’t forgive her. That I hate her.’
