The lengthy conversation was not without discomfort on both of our parts, as evidenced by our mutual reticence, and afterward I knew I could not gain an accurate idea of Sister Teresita’s condition if I did not take the opportunity to see her myself; I explained to the Mother Superior that my professional obligation required me to see the patient immediately, and despite her visible hesitation, she ultimately agreed. The patient was in a room in the basement of the house under lock and key. The first thing I noticed in that narrow room was that the grille-covered window looked onto the gallery and courtyard, not the street. As the shutters were closed, the room was all in shadow at that moment, and we arrived dazzled by the clear, midday winter light, so for a few seconds I could not see much except a lively gray blot that emerged from a corner and came toward us, stopping in the center of the room. I stood blinking at the threshold, but the Mother Superior entered and went over to the window, prudently opening the shutters halfway. A ray of sun came in and lit up the girl with the intensity of a spotlight. She was rather petite and had very short hair, and, instead of the order’s habit, she wore a sort of gray blouse that covered her from the neck, where it buttoned tightly, to her ankles. Although the room was freezing, I saw that her feet were bare on the brick floor, but she seemed unbothered by the cold. Noting the disapproval in my gaze, the Mother Superior rushed to explain that the sister wouldn’t tolerate a brazier, as she had violent hot spells and declared that the cold had no effect on her. I searched for Sister Teresita’s gaze to confirm what I had just heard, but I found it impossible to meet; she had gone still, eyes closed and a shy smile on her lips, the hands that emerged from the gray shirt-cuffs of her blouse resting softly on her belly, one atop the other. That overly-obvious shyness was not unfamiliar to me: It was not difficult to identify an attitude of fakery, common in certain mental patients brought before a doctor for the first time, of adopting a theatrical pose to try to persuade him, that it would be an unjustified waste of time to bother with people so normal to the naked eye as they. In presenting herself so calmly and demurely, there was also an attempt at seduction, quite effective on her part and ultimately unnecessary, as I must confess that her lively and energetic presence captured my sympathies immediately, though I did not let myself forget the strong likelihood that I was addressing a sick person. It did not take me long to realize Sister Teresita was trying to establish some private bond with me, not just apart from the Mother Superior but perhaps also apart from the convent and even the world, maybe to prove to them, and also to herself, that she and her actions could once and for all be properly interpreted.
When I approached her, she opened her eyes and looked at me: She had round, gray little eyes, too restless there between her broad, domed forehead and her small nose, a round, pale little button with almost no septum, a single fleshy bump protruding above her thin lips, which remained closed all the while. Her tiny white face, a circle drawn from where her hair emerged above her bulging forehead, outlined her pink-dusted cheeks and closed at her delicate, almost nonexistent, chin. It was hard not to love her at once, with the same love one has for a pet rabbit, for example, knowing that its hot and nervous existence will bring us more complications than happiness once we adopt them — their motives, so different from our own, count ours for nothing. When our gazes met, I thought I perceived fleeting sparks of mockery in hers, that sort of tacit mockery with which, in the presence of third parties, certain people acknowledge us, believing we share the same point of view about things; in reality, it is a search for complicity, and usually a fruitless one. The Mother Superior noticed it right away and, more worried about morality than the health of her ward, went to Sister Teresita and encircled her shoulders with an arm concealed by the wide, black sleeve of her habit, exposing no more to the world of sin and corruption than a white, slightly wrinkled hand that alighted firmly but without violence on Sister Teresita’s left shoulder. A detail that almost immediately attracted my attention, although frequent dealings with madness had accustomed me to that kind of dissonance, was the contrast I observed in the little nun, between the terrible humiliations she had borne for months, and the good humor, the air of health and determined energy reflected in her person. When I began to interview her, as pleasantly as possible, she adopted an attitude both childish and demure, curling up against the Mother Superior’s chest so, I realized, the Mother Superior had to respond to my questions for the patient, who darted occasional glances at me from the corners of her eyes, provocative yet mocking. As the Mother Superior’s answers added nothing new to what she had told me upon my reception, I chose to defer the interview for the coming days and took a moment to cast a glance about the room, ascertaining that the meticulous reigned therein: The bed was made without a wrinkle, with a sort of black cape spread carefully at the foot, and there was a table with a three-branched candelabra from whose stand not a single drop of wax had fallen, as well as two stacked books of equal size, a metalwork inkwell with two or three pens resting in the horizontal groove at the base, a small rectangular pile of white, well-aligned papers, each one in its place, and a crude wooden chair whose rattan seat was tucked in beneath the table. Even the wicker cushion of the armchair from which she had arisen to see us enter seemed not to have a crease, not a dent, as if the small girl’s body resting on it a few moments ago had been weightless and without substance.
When I expressed my wish to retire, announcing I would return a few days later to finish the preparations for departure, the Mother Superior, relieved perhaps, removed her arm from Sister Teresita’s shoulders and approached me, intending to bring me to the front door. The little nun did not move from her spot but, abandoning the vulnerable attitude she had held a moment ago, she straightened up so the sunshine streaming through the window suddenly made her look bigger and stronger. A noise I could not at first identify began to carry through the room, until I realized that the little nun had grit her teeth and puffed her cheeks out slightly, building up saliva inside her mouth and making a screeching sound, and I was still wondering why when she began to writhe her tongue obscenely, moving it all about, licking her lips, thrusting it in and out of her mouth, rhythmic and rigid, and how, even as she carried out these movements, she was gathering spittle, drooling and screeching. A heightened expression of ecstasy came over her face and her eyelids drooped once more. She pushed her belly in and out while she slowly shook her head in rapture as, at the sides of her body, her hands made strange, slow movements. All this sudden activity, excepting perhaps the writhing of her tongue, reminded me of certain group dances I had seen the African slaves perform sometimes in the port of Buenos Aires, and it took me a few moments to realize that my astonishment at the little nun’s contortions, presented somehow like a dance, came from the fact that they were carried out (apart from the saliva-choked screeching) in utter silence. The pink in her cheeks burned even brighter and, because of the effort it cost her to produce saliva, spread across her whole face, but when I turned to the Mother Superior, who had lost all reserve in my presence and looked at me, her expression helpless and supplicating, it was plain to see that redness — in her case of shame and confusion — had won out on her face, as well. Sister Teresita’s outburst came to be of great use to me, however, as it allowed me to show great calm before the Mother Superior, which I did not refrain from exaggerating, to suggest to her how ordinary the little nun’s behavior appeared in the eyes of science. When I saw that despite her so-called ecstasy, the little nun would sneak glances from time to time to see the effect her behavior had on us, I burst out laughing, which alarmed the Mother Superior but not so the little nun, who abandoned her strange posture and, having cheerfully contemplated us for a few satisfied moments, came toward us. Thirty years have passed since that morning, but I can still see clearly the curious way she moved then, throwing her torso forward and her buttocks slightly back, arms folded with elbows out and hands crossing each other rhythmically at her navel, a slight swing in her hips, adopting with her expression and agility, despite the apparent delicacy of her form, the masculine air of a young boy. Impudently, she planted herself a meter distant and wagged her left index finger, crooking it in to signal me to come closer; trying, amiable and firm, in the patient tone one might use with a disobedient child, she said: Come here, and I’ll suck it. With a cry both overwhelmed and appalled, the Mother Superior hurled herself from the room, although she must have witnessed similar scenes many times. But among the mad I had seen far worse, and I have to say, there had been something amusing in the contrast between the little nun’s crudeness and the excessive modesty of the Mother Superior, who was unable to see things from a medical angle, and so — without becoming the slightest bit upset, and trying not to appear shocked by anything — I approached the little nun with my best smile, explaining that I had not come for that, but rather to look after her as a doctor, and that as we were going to be living together from now on it was best that we maintained a good relationship. She burst out laughing and stuck out her tongue again, and tapped at it lightly with her finger, taking it into her mouth and asking: So not like this.? I promised I would come by to see her that week and left the room. While the Mother Superior was locking up, Sister Teresita stood in the window behind the grille, and, in a cheery and playful tone, as if telling a secret the three of us would share, began to softly recite a list of horrifying obscenities, describing voluptuous acts that the Mother Superior and I were supposedly about to commit and from which she was unfairly excluded.