“Mother,” I said, “what is the matter? Are you ill? What can I do?”
“I am shivering and trembling,” she said. “I have turned mortally cold.”
“Would you like me to get up and give you my bed?”
“No,” she said, “you need not get up. Just pull the coverlet aside a little that I may get near you. Then I shall get warm and be well.”
“But that is forbidden, Mother dear! What would people say if they knew? I have seen nuns given penance for much less serious things than that. At St. Mary’s a nun happened to pass the night in another’s cell; she was her particular friend, and I cannot tell how badly it was thought of. The Director asked me sometimes if nobody had ever suggested coming and sleeping by my side, and warned me gravely never to tolerate it. I even spoke to him of your caresses. I thought them quite innocent, but he did not think so at all. I do not know how I came to forget his advice. I had meant to speak to you of it.”
“Everything round us is asleep, darling,” she said. “Nobody will know anything about it. It is I who distribute rewards and penalties, and, whatever the Director may say, I cannot see what harm there can be in one friend taking in beside her another friend who has felt upset, woken up, and has come during the night, despite the rigor of the season, to see if her darling was in any danger. Suzanne, at your parents’ have you never shared a bed with your sisters?”
“No, never.”
“If the occasion had arisen you would not have scrupled to do so? If your sister had come frightened and stiff with cold to ask for a place by your side, would you have refused her?”
“I think not.”
“But am I not your Mother?”
“Yes, you are, but it is forbidden.”
“Darling, it is for me to forbid it to others, to allow it to you and to ask it of you. Let me warm myself a moment and I will go away. Give me your hand…”
I gave it to her.
“Come,” she said, “touch me and see. I am trembling, shivering, and like marble.”
It was quite true.
“My poor Mother will be ill,” I said. “See, I will go to the edge of the bed, and you can put yourself in the warm place.”
I went to the edge, lifted up the coverlet, and she got into my place. How ill she was! She was trembling in every limb. She wanted to talk to me and come nearer. She could not articulate or move. She said in a low voice: “Suzanne, dear, come a bit nearer…”
She stretched out her arms: I turned my back on her; she took me quietly and pulled me towards her. She passed her right arm under my body and the left over it, and said: “I am frozen; I am so cold that I am frightened to touch you, for fear of doing you some harm.”
“Don’t be afraid, Mother.”
She immediately put one of her hands on my breast and another round my waist. Her feet were under mine and I pressed them to warm them, and she said: “See how quickly my feet have got warm, darling, now that nothing separates them from yours.”
“But what prevents you warming yourself elsewhere in the same way?”
“Nothing, if you are willing…”
Suddenly there were two violent knocks on the door. In terror I immediately threw myself out of the bed on one side and the Superior threw herself out on the other. We listened and heard someone gaining the neighboring cell on tiptoe. “Oh,” I said, “it is Sister Theresa. She must have seen you passing in the corridor and coming in to me. She must have listened to us and overheard our conversation. What will she say?”
I was more dead than alive.
“Yes, it is she,” said the Superior in an exasperated voice. “It is she: I have no doubt of it. But I hope she will not easily forget her rashness.”
“Mother,” I said, “do not do her any harm.”
“Suzanne, goodbye, goodnight. Get into bed again and sleep well. I dispense you from prayers. I am now going to see this young fool. Give me your hand.”
I stretched it to her from one side of the bed to the other. She pulled back the sleeve which covered my arms, and with a sigh kissed it along from the end of my fingers to my shoulder; then she went out protesting that the rash girl who had dared disturb her should not forget it. Immediately, I went to the other end of my bed near the door and listened. She went into Sister Theresa’s cell. I was tempted to get up and go and interpose between them, supposing a violent scene occurred. But I was so upset, so ill at ease, that I preferred to remain in bed: I said nothing however. I thought that I should become the talk of the House, and that this adventure in which there was nothing that could not be easily explained would be recounted in all its most unfavorable aspects: that it would be worse here than at Longchamps, where I was accused of I know not what: that our fault would come to the knowledge of our superiors: that our Mother would be deposed and both of us severely punished. Meanwhile, I was all ears, and waited impatiently for the Mother to leave Sister Theresa’s cell.
Apparently the matter was difficult to arrange, as she remained there nearly all night.
14
Despite his long years of training to become a respectable gentleman of few words and measured gestures, Anselmo had one weakness: sport, or to be exact, sports statistics, or to be even more precise, soccer statistics. Entire seasons came and went without him going to a single match, although he never missed an international game, and only a grave illness or a recent bereavement would prevent him seeing a match between Portugal and Spain. He would subject himself to the worst indignities in order to buy a ticket on the black market, and if he ever had any spares, he could not resist doing a little speculation, buying them for twenty escudos and selling them for fifty. He was careful, however, not to do such deals at the office. As far as his colleagues were concerned, he was a serious fellow who listened with a wry smile to their post-match Monday-morning debates, a man who only had eyes for the serious side of life, who considered sport to be suitable entertainment for apprentices and waiters. There was no point asking him for facts and figures or about trades or famous dates in the annals of Portuguese soccer or to name the various national squads who had played between 1920 and 1930. But, he said, he had a cousin who, poor thing, was mad about the game. If they wanted, he could ask his cousin when they next met up and he would be sure to know the answer. Anselmo delighted in his colleagues’ eager anticipation. He would leave them waiting for days and days, saying that he hadn’t seen his cousin for a while or that things were a bit tense between them or that his cousin had finally agreed to consult his records, but all these lies were merely delaying tactics designed to strain his colleagues’ patience further. There were often bets at stake. Excited Benfica fans and excited Sporting fans were waiting to hear Anselmo give his ruling. At home in the evening, Anselmo would search for the desired fact among his meticulously kept statistics, his precious newspaper cuttings, and then, the following day, having first carefully positioned his glasses on his nose — for he now needed reading glasses — he would proffer, as if ex cathedra, the disputed fact or result. This admirable cousin of his did as much for Anselmo’s reputation as did his professional competence, his circumspect air and his exemplary punctuality. Had such a cousin existed, Anselmo, although always in firm control of his emotions, would have embraced him, because it was thanks to him (or so everyone thought) that he was able to give the manager a detailed report of the second Portugal — Spain match in 1922, from the number of spectators to the makeup of the teams, their respective team colors and the names of the referee and the line judges. It was thanks to that information that he had finally managed to get an advance on his wages and had in his jacket pocket the three one-hundred-escudo notes that would cover expenses until the end of the month.