Father Romero turns to face the nuns. The moment has come. The women file out of their seats toward the altar, led by the abbess. She is grace itself at such times, hands folded, back straight, gliding more than walking. Those who follow try to match her, though with the elder nuns it turns to shuffling soon enough. They kneel one by one in front of the stooped figure, heads back, mouths wide open, like hungry birds waiting for the mother’s food. It is as well that Father Romero keeps good hold of the chalice, for a few of them are almost greedy for the wine. His blood. His body. How could you not want more of it? When Zuana’s turn comes she clasps her hands and empties her mind.
“Accept the body and blood of Christ.”
“Amen.”
The wafer slides onto her tongue. She feels its cool familiar weight, the way it slowly starts to disintegrate as it mixes with her saliva. To take the Lord thy God inside you. To be filled with His grace. His sacrifice. His love. The essence of goodness. There is no simpler or greater miracle.
She returns to her place in the choir stalls, head bowed, eager to hold on to the loss of self for as long as she can. At the altar Suora Umiliana kneels, followed by each of her novices in turn.
It is not clear exactly at what moment it happens, whether Serafina is actually receiving the eucharist or if the priest has already moved on to the next young girl. What everybody does agree on is that the noise comes first: a sharp angry crack, as if the very flagstones of the church are splitting open; indeed, those who have lived through such quaking of the earth swear they even felt a shiver. But the ground stays firm enough. It is the world above that changes.
“Aaah!”
“Our Lord …Jesus!”
“The cross. The cross!”
Above their heads the left hand of Christ has pulled away from the horizontal bar of the crucifix and the torso lurches forward. For a second it seems as if the whole body might tear itself off the wood, but the right hand and the feet stay anchored, so that He remains, hanging, suspended, His left arm stuck out into the air, the nail still embedded in His palm, His face staring down in agony toward the altar. At the same time a thin rain of wood dust pours from the exposed hole, showering Father Romero’s robes and head. The priest gives a strangled cry and his hands let go of the psalter and chalice. They bounce off the stones, scattering the remaining host and spilling the wine across the floor. And suddenly everyone is wailing and screaming so that it feels as if the beginning of the end of the world might be nigh, right there in the sanctuary of Santa Caterina’s convent chapel.
In the vacuum left by Father Romeo’s dithering, the abbess is immediately in charge. She retrieves the chalice and sets it back on the altar, though she does not touch the hosts, for even she is not so blessed.
“Sisters, sisters, be calm.” Her voice is clear and penetrating. “There is no danger. One of the nails on the crucifix has come loose, that is all. But we must be alert in case Christ’s dear body falls farther onto us. Return to your cells, all of you. Suora Umiliana, will you guide the novices out of chapel?”
But Umiliana is still on her knees and does not move.
“Suora Umiliana. Look to your novices.”
It might have ended there, for when she chooses, Madonna Chiara delivers not only comfort but unmistakable authority. Yet even as she says it the chapel door is opening and the figure of the conversa Letizia stands inside, the morning light bright behind her.
It is possible that Zuana sees her before the others. Certainly she recognizes her faster. She does not even need to make out the look on her face to know there is more to come. Oh, sweet Jesus, she thinks. What is happening to us here?
“Can someone come …please? Suora Zuana, the old sister is dead.”
The abbess closes her eyes briefly. While she may have indeed been bred for this, there are still moments when the testing seems more than she can bear. She does not have long to rest, however, as at that very moment, behind her, with no fuss or drama at all, the novice Serafina slides quietly to the floor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
FOURTEEN DAYS AND fourteen nights.
During one of them she dreams of Jacopo, his body washed up in black river water, small fishes darting like colored musical notes in and out of his mouth. The dream scares her so much— not for the violence as much as for the very thought of him— that she eats nothing at all the next day making do with only a dozen sips of water, and the fixation of her mind on food—or the lack of it—erases any further thought.
She is tired much of the time now and would sleep all day if she were allowed. There are times while she is awake when she feels so light and giddy that she wonders if she might even be lifting off the ground. The closer it comes to the day of the mass, the more she fears that if anything should pass her lips it might sully the purity of the sacrament. She listens carefully to Umiliana’s instruction leading to this moment—on her state of unworthiness, His boundless grace, and the need to approach Him in complete humility—but there are times when she finds it hard to concentrate, and more than once she finds herself crying with the effort. When this happens the good sister does not chastise or criticize but rather takes her hands and draws up her gaze to meet her own, pulling her back into alertness.
“My soul longeth, yes, even fainteth for the court of the Lord: My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God for the Lord God is sun and shield. The Lord will give grace and glory and no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.”
There are times when her words are so warm that Serafina is tempted to confess everything, but she is frightened that the depth of her sins might make Umiliana reject her. For her part, if Santa Caterina’s novice mistress is curious as to the reason why such a rigorous fasting penance has been imposed upon her young charge, she does not ask. Some of the holiest journeys begin with transgression, and she speaks of this penance only as a blessed chance. Serafina has been given a great gift, she tells her, and she must treasure it.
Some questions, however, she does permit herself. She is eager to know what happened when the old woman entered the cell as the girl lay there half dead. What had the blessed Magdalena said to her? What did she herself see? And what of the time before, that afternoon before Vespers, the incident that no one speaks of but which everyone in the convent knows about, when Magdalena experienced some form of rapture?
Serafina answers as honestly as she can. When she describes how it was for her in the cell, how as the old woman grabbed her hand and spoke to her she had experienced a terrible hollowness, as if someone had taken a scalpel to her innards and emptied her out, Umiliana’s crumpled face lights up like a lamp and she says that this in itself was a sign, that for all her unworthiness the old sister had seen in her the possibility of grace. And for this reason it is even more important that she continue her fast. Though Serafina has no idea what grace feels like, she knows she is moving toward something, for in all her life she has never felt so …so consumed, so dense and yet so full of air.
The night before mass she prays and prays until she falls asleep on her knees. In place of the gnawing hunger there is now only a dull ache and a certain tingling and numbing in her fingers and her feet. Though the weather remains quite warm, she often finds herself cold and has to add another shift and shawl under her habit. As she changes her clothes she is struck by how strange and large her body looks, as if starvation is making her grow rather than reduce. It is God’s way of telling her she must try harder. She thinks of Suora Magdalena and how the host was her only food. She knows more about her now, for in exchange for Serafina’s acquiescence Umiliana has her own convent stories to tell. She describes how Santa Caterina was once a place of miracles and marvels, nurturing its own living saint, who lit up each and every office with her goodness and even bore the marks of her own stigmata, blood dripping from her hands and feet. How there was not a single novice or young nun who was not thrilled and exalted by the experience. And her eyes shine with rising tears as she says it.