In the first, Joseph and Mary are returning to Jerusalem after the birth of the Christ child. Mary rides a donkey while Joseph walks beside her. Baby Jesus, already a sturdy infant, sits astride His father’s shoulders, with His arms thrown out in joyful recognition toward His mother, His childish pleasure so far from the burdens of divinity yet to come. In contrast, the fresco to the side shows the cross on which He is to die, with a ladder leaning up against it and the figure of the adult Christ climbing—His step almost sprightly—up the rungs toward the lateral bar.
When Zuana first entered the convent, the novice mistress of the day had pointed out these two images as representative of the spirit of Santa Caterina: how they showed Our Lord reaching out first toward life and then death. Even then the art was old— over two hundred years—and considered special, she said, since they knew of no other convent where Christ was depicted giving Himself up for sacrifice in this manner. She had died a year later from the fever (it was before Zuana was allowed to treat patients), but her kindness and the power of the images had fused in Zuana’s memory and in times of crisis she has often found comfort being close to them. She sits and studies them now, the letter resting beneath her hands, a modest dot of scarlet wax sealing it shut.
So, Madonna Chiara’s family had taken care of the young man, had made sure that he did indeed disappear from the novice’s life. Dear God! But had they told her what they had done? Had the abbess known all along that instead of a post at Parma there was only the prospect of a corpse pumping blood from a dozen stab wounds into the river? No. Surely not. How could she have known? How could she possibly have condoned such a thing? Except …except that, in all of the abbess’s story, it had been the one event that didn’t make sense: why, after risking so much to be close to his love, he should suddenly choose to desert her.
Because such young men do not care a fig for anything but their own pleasure. If he had had his way he would have taken her and ruined her.
Is that what she truly believed? She, who has lived in the convent all her life, yet seems to know more about man than she does about God? Zuana sees her standing in the herb garden, her hands smoothing out the nonexistent creases in her robes. It is a gesture she knows well. But how well does she really know the abbess, this woman who has dedicated her life to the glory of God, the well-being of her convent, and the reputation of her family? Until, that is, one of those loyalties comes into conflict with another.
In the chapel, Zuana puts her head down and starts to pray
The afternoon light moves around her. Eventually she lifts her head, takes the letter in her hands, and breaks the seal.
IT IS ALMOST the end of visiting hour when she crosses the courtyard to the novice’s cell. By rights she should be studying or at prayer. Instead, she finds the girl lying on her bed, so deeply asleep that she does not even register her entrance. She is fully dressed, curled up like a small child, with a blanket pulled over her. Her face is pale, save for the lightly bruised skin under her eyes. The line of her chin is sharp now, the childish plumpness worn away. She will be feeling the cold, hence the body curled in on itself: before the spirit ignites its own fire, lack of food drains away the body’s warmth.
Under the bed Zuana notices a small bundle. She takes it out and unwraps it. A lump of bread sits inside. It is fresh, her daily portion from lunch, no doubt, concealed somehow in her robes. As her appointed spiritual guide, it is Suora Umiliana’s job to be monitoring her return from fasting to food now. Since there is no nun in the convent with a sharper eye for the infraction of rules, the very presence of the bread is evidence that Umiliana is encouraging the fast beyond the end of the penance. How convenient it would be for her if this sweetest of the sweet saved souls now became a conduit to God. Her very own young mystic.
But how long does it take to truly subdue the body? At what point did Magdalena’s fasting turn to joy? And what happens to those who never manage to light the fire within, young women with no future, who in the end do not really care if they live or die? The letter lies folded in the pocket of her robe. She moves the blanket farther up over the girl’s body and leaves her quietly sleeping.
Back in the cloisters, the abbess’s outer door is closed. It is a sign that she is either at prayer or in conference. Zuana lifts her hand to knock, then makes out muffled voices from behind the door. The mellifluous tones of Madonna Chiara’s voice are instantly recognizable, and in recent months she has become familiar with the harsher, more sibilant sounds of Suora Umiliana. She is about to turn and leave when she hears footsteps moving briskly toward the door. She barely has time to step back before it opens and the novice mistress comes out. The meeting is so abrupt and unexpected that it takes them both a few seconds to recompose their features—Zuana to disguise her discomfort at being caught at a kind of eavesdropping and Umiliana to cover up the unmistakable look of triumph in her eyes.
“WHAT WOULD SHE have us do, drive nails into our own hands?”
Inside her chambers, Zuana has never seen the abbess so angry.
“If she is so in love with humility and poverty, she should have joined the Poor Clares. Though even they might not have been strict enough for her.” She laughs bitterly, moving to and fro across the pile of the Persian rug. “Ah! Who would have thought it? A younger daughter of the Cardolini family turning out so ambitiously pious.”
Zuana would prefer to leave now and come back when she is calmer, but she is already pulled into the orbit of her fury. Evidently she is the abbess’s confidante as well as spy. “What did she say?”
“That God has given her the courage to speak her mind and she can—or rather will—no longer be silent.” She shakes her head. “Though I cannot recall when she was ever quiet, with or without His intercession.”
“Perhaps she feels there are more who agree with her now.”
“And who are they? Agnesina, Concordia, yes, Obedienza, Perseveranza, Stefana, Teresa perhaps, and a couple of the novices and younger nuns—I have not seen Carità so enthusiastic at the idea of deprivation before. Still, I would not give her more than maybe twelve or fifteen in total. Fifteen out of sixty choir nuns; that is hardly the convent. Santa Caterina is home to some of the city’s noblest women. Their families did not pay good dowries to have them living like paupers, fasting and praying twenty-four hours a day.”
She moves to the desk, opens the glass decanter, and pours two glasses of wine. Zuana takes hers without a murmur. She has no idea when she is going to speak and what she is going to say. Strangely, it does not worry her.
“Ha! She is playing with fire. She knows nothing of what is really going on out there. Once a bishop or a cardinal is determined, the inspections can take place with barely any warning. Apostolic visitors, they call themselves and, when they leave, an army of ironmongers and bricklayers come after them, building walls and fitting grilles and gates wherever there is a glimpse of open air. I have heard of places where the parlatorio is being redesigned as a prison, so that the nuns can only see their families through iron grilles covered with curtains. Is that what she wants? We would have half of the city’s fathers hammering on the duke’s door complaining that their daughters were suffering ill treatment.”