Before Kate could think of anything to say, Sister had closed the door firmly behind her, and in a minute Kate heard the front door close and the silence of the place settled down upon her.
Kate unpacked her bag and laid out her few things on the wooden chest near the bed. Then she went to the window, standing for a long time to watch three sparrows splash in the stone birdbath in the center of the garden. They bobbed and dunked and shook their feathers in the shade of a small mimosa tree. Then she lay on the bed and closed her eyes, seeing again the winding road of the mountains and feeling the pull of the curves until she drifted off to sleep.
The clanging of the bell woke her, and Kate opened her eyes to a dark room. For a moment she thought she was back in the novitiate. Then she jumped out of bed and went over to the mirror to straighten her veil for Vespers. Her face was pale and her eyes seemed enormous in the gloom.
She followed the path to the small chapel on the other side of the convent. As she swung open the heavy door, she heard a single voice intone the opening of Vespers: “Deus in adjutorium meum intende.” “O God come to my assistance,” Kate prayed. Then a chorus of young women’s voices answered the cantor, and the ebb and flow of the nuns’ chanting began, soaring into the corners of the chapel. The voices came from behind a wooden grille carved with birds and leafy vines, but the nuns were invisible. She stood alone in front of the altar trying to sing along, but her voice sounded thin and reedy. Now she was angry. Why was she out here alone instead of being with the others as Jeanne was? Even Tom got to see the cloistered nuns face to face and could laugh and joke with them. She felt like a leper.
When the singing stopped, she listened as the nuns rustled and coughed on their way out. Then Kate knelt, closing her eyes tightly, trying to be calm. Dear God, please help me. She bent over the pew, resting her face on her arms. Sister Marguerite had to pluck her sleeve several times before Kate looked up into the fat, flushed face of the little nun.
“I’ll be bringing your tray over to you in a little, my dear.”
“Oh, can’t you have dinner with me and keep me company?” Kate tried to keep the plaintive note out of her voice.
“I’m sorry, dear. I have to eat in the refectory with the others. But I’ll stay and visit a little with you when I bring over your tray.” With that Sister shuffled down the center aisle, and Kate followed her outside and then headed back to the guest house.
She turned on the two table lamps in the sitting room and opened the single window that looked out to the convent garden. The scent of jasmine rose in the heavy night air, and Kate heard the sleepy last murmurings of the birds as they bedded down for the night. A few tree frogs croaked, and Kate thought she could smell the rain coming. She looked up to the sky, but the moon was hidden behind low clouds.
Restless, she turned back to the room and noticed a glass-fronted bookcase like one her parents had at home. She pushed aside the biographies of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare, and flipped through the History of the Poor Clares. Then she picked up a small maroon volume of the collected stories of Chekhov. She settled herself in the faded easy chair by the lamp, and opened the book to a story she had never read, “Lady with Lapdog.” Her eyes fell on a passage:
Anna Sergeyevna, this lady with the lapdog, apparently regarded what had happened in a peculiar sort of way, very seriously, as though she had become a fallen woman—so it seemed to him. . . . [S]he sank into thought in a despondent pose, like a woman taken in adultery in an old painting.
Kate could picture the woman so clearly, and she felt the callousness of the lover. She was almost sorry when she heard the key in the lock and looked up to see the little nun enter balancing a tray on one hip as she maneuvered past the half-shut door of the sitting room.
“I’m so sorry I took so long, but Reverend Mother gave us recreation at supper in honor of your Sister Jeanne Marie’s arrival. Tomorrow she’ll be in the silence with the rest of us.”
She perched on the edge of the other chair and watched approvingly as Kate tasted the steaming soup. Kate found she was famished, and she ate steadily, glad that they had sent two of the hard crusty rolls and not one.
“Try your wine,” urged the nun. “It’s made here from our own vineyards.”
Kate sipped the white wine. It was cool and dry and tasted faintly of earth. “Wonderful,” she said, and Sister Marguerite beamed at her. Kate finished every bite of the chocolate cake, and poured a cup of tea from a blue and white pot. Then she asked the little nun questions about herself and the other American nuns here she would never see. Sister chattered on happily, and Kate wondered whatever had made Marguerite decide to join a cloistered order. She seemed made to gossip.
Finally, Kate sat back and thanked her for the delicious supper; the nun rose
