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.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
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.