Sat woke v early v hot day alr mlle E awake v quiet she was read the BIBLE she never do that did not speak to me I went downst to beg wkg on the new cloths w Sr FRANCOIS-AGNES no PH I sewd till dinner 1 S sd to another now you see she made her shadow disappear I lookd at them oh where is yr shadow PH now they laughed anothr S sd I think her mistr sent her home she was turning into a witch hrself or was it the witchs mistr who got her send her home they laughg I turnd away cd not finish my din made sev errors w the stitchg later mlle E silent not sayg anything when she aslp I did not cry tryd night visit saw my mothers face but thats all & no ros
Sun v hot wk early mlle E already awake staring at me at mass pere malesvaux sd it v fast sat alone aft we assembled on the back lawn to say goodbye to pere malesvaux he wldnt return until the late fall or early winter MOTHR SUP sd the wagon to carry him off wd arrive that aft sev nuns prayd I went downst to sew cloaths did not see mlle E at dinner we got soup w sweet onions some jerky & sweet bisc I sewed until nightf Sr FRANÇOIS-AGNÈS said go back to your rm when I got there did not see mlle E her bed empty a circle of ashes? on the floor near my cot I waitd until v late no mlle E quiet outsd checkd my books and papers all there sd rosary tryd night visit but no luck then on a swatch of paper no larger than my palm & began —
Drawing
River — or creek — a hill—
a clearing — two figures — no faces—
girl— male— older male
— convent— barns— fence— gate—
hedges— trees— woods—
— convent — grounds around the convent—
beeches— mulberries— black willows — dense
trees — so dense two bars of black—
rain — light rain— falling— river—
convent — barns— fence— stiles—
a figure — girl— lying — cylinder—
water — dark water— river— current—
flood— circle— blood— empty—
empty circle — shore— empty—
shawl— doll— blue— empty—
eyes— black— tongue—
torethewhiteout—
Krik krak, a week later at midday, as I sat in the cellar workroom in the rear of the nunnery, making new blouses out of old linens under the nominal supervision of Sr. François Agnès, who had slipped away to make a toilette, I heard a hubbub emanating from the first floor. The summer brazier that been pressed to the sky above the convent and town had yielded to several days of light, intermittent rain, but the basement remained humid as a cave, and I found myself intermittently reciting lines of Scripture, switching from English to French to Spanish to Kreyòl to Latin to Greek to myself in order not to fall asleep. Sr. François Agnès’s Bible sat on the table beside me, open to the Gospel of John. As I brought the needle to the sleeve, the warm, dense air, which filled the air as if I had conjured it from my childhood, enfolded me like a lullaby….
When I awoke, having not missed a stitch, I could still hear a din above, though now it was feet scurrying rather than voices. Sr. François Agnès had not returned, nor had any other nuns or enslaved girls. I set aside my needle and fabric and hurried out of the room to find out the source of the commotion. Down the hallway, I saw Sr. François Agnès huddled with Sr. Ambrose Jeanne in the doorway to the storeroom, their whispers caroming off the walls. I wiped the sleep from my eyes and lips and slowly, step by step as if to render myself invisible, approached them.
Sr. Ambrose Jeanne was telling Sr. François Agnès that given the circumstances, the Mother Superior had no choice but to conduct an inspection, it was a disgrace that such events should come to pass in a house dedicated to the Lord, but under the circumstances there was no choice. Sr. Ambrose Jeanne shook her head violently; it was simply impossible that any of the nuns, let alone the girls, had been involved in such abominations. Sr. François Agnès agreed, pausing to look in my direction, her gaze arrowing past me towards the far wall, but added that the Mother Superior had no other option — the sheriff, Reverend White, had given her an ultimatum, and if she was unwilling to examine the girls, he would bring a party similar to the one that had just accompanied him, firearms in hand and deputized by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, to the convent’s front steps, either do his work on the premises or take the nuns and girls by force to the town.
At these words both sisters embraced each other tightly, and Sr. François Agnès held Sr. Ambrose Jeanne as the latter sobbed her astonishment away. The examinations were to occur early that evening instead of supper, and as it was to be, so be it. Then they knelt on the warm stones and prayed, and after two rosaries, both nuns headed quickly down the catacomb-like hallway to the stairwell. After a pause of my own and still unsure of what was going on, I followed. When I was almost at the stairwell, I could hear other voices rounding the corner. It was two of the schoolgirls: Josephine O’Grady from Georgia, and another girl who was not Eugénie. I leaned back against the limed wall and crouched to listen.
The girls’ voices trembled with shock as well. Josephine, her English thick as a magnolia petal, asked the other girl who on God’s earth could have possibly done such a thing? She ticked off the list of nuns, not a single one had been with child, of that both were sure. They saw them daily at breakfast, at supper, at dinner, in class, in chapel, not one was with child. How could anyone have assumed such a thing? And then there were the schoolgirls themselves, only five now in summer residence, Josephine and Mary Margaret, both speaking to each other now, who were each sure that the other was as virginal as their other classmates, Catherine, Dorothy Angelica, and even the sickly, greedy Eugénie — none of them could possibly have been with child either, it was as clear as the reflection on the chapel patin. Sr. Germain Ruth, who ran the infirmary, would attest to that. And it had not come from any of the slaves, Josephine assured Mary Margaret, because, as they’d seen with their own eyes when the sheriff had thrust the tiny corpse into the Mother Superior’s hands, Mary Margaret gasping at the very memory, its tiny fists seizing at the air, its mud-caked face petrified in a shriek, its icy blue eyes staring out fishlike as if glimpsing the netherworld for the first time, its azure placenta eeling out of its swaddling, and most horribly, the calligraphy of marks and hatches, as if a demonic stylus had been drawn across its forehead and chest, it had been as clear to everyone assembled, all the nuns, all the schoolgirls, all the slaves, and the sheriff and his party of a dozen, that although the withered infant body had been found bundled in what appeared to be a slave girl’s shift, it was not a product, as he had clearly noted, Josephine’s voice breaking, “of that infernal race.”
The stench, Josephine continued, she could not ever forget, even less than that horrific image. And its unheard cry was still ringing in her ears. But, she told Mary Margaret, shortly after the sheriff and his party had descended the hill, aggrieved and barely satisfied, and everybody had been sent to their rooms or stations until another order was to be given about what would occur next, she had spied the Mother Superior and several of the other nuns, including Sr. Germain Ruth and the disciplinarian, Sr. Charles Thérèse, in the parlor looking at the small, bloated body, which they had placed on a table, and she had heard them saying that it did not appear to have been mutilated or used for some diabolic ritual, as the sheriff and most in his party had alleged, but rather as if it had simply been expelled from its birthing place too early, and been buried in that shallow grave just on the other side of the creek, at the rim of one of the many tiny sloughs the flood had created — a tiny blue waxen doll, not murdered by some mortal hand, despite its pose and cry and open eyes, because it was already deceased, though in the sheriff’s conclusion, the two amounted to the same thing.