It was only when I asked her how she came to the order that she wouldn’t give me an answer … but one day, as I pried insistently while hunting flies, and by then we were pretty much buddies, she said: Just like you.
Huh?
I’ll tell you, why not. They found me. I recovered here. I stayed.
What’d you do before?
What’s it to you?
You’re right.
The first few days I felt sick, my head hurt, the string began to make itself heard again in the distance … I was scared of it, scared to sleep even, because of the dreams, Maria brought me some tea, though, that made me sleep like a rock … sometimes I told her I couldn’t stand it there … and after a very long time and much begging and pleading Maria brought me a cigarette, I smoked it in the bathroom, fighting off a couple faints, she laughed. Steered me back into bed. I guess that cigarette messed me up, I touched her. She sprang back.
Cut it out! Do that one more time and you’ll never see me again. I’m Maria Anna Fatima Coseta now … an I belong to the order of the Silent Sisters. Don’t forget it! Don’t ever forget.
Sorry. Forgive me, Sister.
Ever since the three nuns’ visit, Maria had been casting mysterious glances at me, puffing up my puffed-up pillow, walking around the room, telling stories … what’s goin on? I asked. What’s it mean, that visit a theirs?
Oh, she said, that was a big honor for you, a great honor, the mother superior spoke about you at the staff meeting, I mean, you know, they don’t talk, but … Why not? I’d asked that one several times now, she always gave an evasive answer. So as not to defile … their tongue! I guessed … the paths to the Lord, they say … and anyway they don’t need to, I mean, you know, since they can … tell me, Sister Maria, what secret’re they protectin, some of em have their tongues cut out, I read something somewhere … she put her hands in front of her mouth, I donno, she gasped, maybe some … but listen, they really did talk about you, and that’s a big honor … what’d they say? She got flustered again … listen, you know how much this treatment would cost you anywhere else, and you have a room to yourself … and you … yes, and I’m free to come here and talk with you whenever I want, it’s unbelievable, you know you’re the first person I’ve spoken with normally for any length of time since I came … why, Maria, whadda they want from me?
You know … Mr. Potok, she flashed a smile, it may sound fantastic to you, but nothing surprises me anymore, that woman who appeared to you was Sister Samaritas, some say Samargas, and this order reveres her and is searching for her, truly searching! That’s their mission.
How … I don’t get it.
I found out, Maria said softly, she’s alive, that is, just an incarnation of her, of course, but she’s out there somewhere!
Well, why not, I wriggled on the bed.
And she, Maria swallowed, she was from the tribe of the Samaritans and knew Jesus, she knew him well! They met by the well that time, and this order believes that Jesus … the Samaritans were shoved aside like dogs, you know, it’s in the Bible …
Way things were then, I said, why not … I mean, Mary too, but sayin that kina stuff scares me, Sister, I can’t … so this is the order of the Baby Jesus, the Child?
Exactly, said Maria, it’s connected … that’s the connection! and they might want you to go somewhere, carry out an assignment for them.
Gladly, Maria, gladly.
It might be another country, they might send you somewhere, you have the sign, they said so yesterday at the staff meeting, and listen, you’re getting bored here, huh.
Not at all, I sleep a lot, catchin up from all those crazy nights, an I dream an get beautiful books an talk with you.
The sisters say you’ve tried a lot of things, that you’ve done harm even.
Uh-huh, lots … Maria! So they know … and out it came.
Maria … I really love this one woman, but she, she became a whore, see, I couldn’t stand it … and my first night here she spoke to me, she’s out there somewhere … I abandoned her, betrayed her, and now, if I could have her, I’d chop off my hand, or do whatever, I really long for her an I donno where she is. A harlot, sold herself, get it?
Lie down … she pushed me back into the covers and grabbed my hand … you can’t talk that way about her, you don’t have the right … maybe she had to … what do you know about women, what do you know about her, lemme tell you somethin. You wanna know if their tongues’re cut out … tongues, pfeh, what about me! An what was I sposta do? An what can I say? I’m standin outside, back then, I’d left, and I say to myself: Where do I go? Where am I supposed to go now? And then I fell, bad, you’re not the only one. To the bottom. That’s all there are here. Just people who come back. To life. You have to hang on, you have to. You have to hang on to life.
Now I was the one shaken … she’d told me a lot, a strand of hair had slipped out from under her veil, she was twisting it.
And the next day I was feeling much better, pacing around the bed and calling my room a cell, purely in jest … the next day she brought in a little man in spectacles carrying another chair … this is Father Antonio, also known as Lobo, Father Lobo, Sister Maria said, flashing that smile of hers … and he’s going to teach you Spanish … I hope you won’t refuse … of course not, great idea, I love the sound of that language … galeón, I barked at the little man … caravela, I said, he sat down … caballero, I gave it a try … misericordia, he volleyed back, and I shut up, having exhausted my vocabulary. He began cleaning his glasses. I saw that movement afterwards many times, every day. It astonished me how similar Spanish grammar was to the Bohemian tongue’s, and I liked the upside-down question marks, chopping back at the sentences, spearing them like hooks.
Out? Maria, out is the last thing I want, I don’t want to see anyone … I’m dying to go to her place, but I don’t dare yet, no, I have to wait … can’t imagine myself on the street yet, but I gotta start runnin or somethin … I missed movement. We had an agreement, a pact, that I wouldn’t wander around the convent.
Maria said there weren’t any men there at all, Father Antonio walked over each day from Břevnov,* and I rejoiced when he told me what Lobo meant, el Lobo … the only man there was the gardener, he was deaf and mute … Maria got an idea and made a few inquiries … yes, you can help him out, but …
They let me walk around the garden, I had to tie a little bell around my knee … some of the sisters are strict and don’t want to see any men, this way they’ll know when you’re coming … so I got my own clothes back, winter was closing in, I’d been there a long time, I was feeling strong, a couple times it occurred to me, jump up an swing over the wall an I’m gone, who knows what they got planned for me … in the garden was a ladder for the apple trees, I watched them a lot … but I think I stayed for Maria’s sake, slacking off with the gardener and carting around manure, jingling at the sisters, occasionally they’d go for walks dressed in their flowing vestments, like something from another world … sometimes it was misty.