From the very start the order was established on military lines, and here the foundress was inspired both by her brother the colonel and her brother the Jesuit. She also recalled the ill-discipline of the Commune’s defenders. Her recruits would not melt away when danger threatened, and would meet death gladly if need be. During this time too she designed the habit of what she hoped would one day be a religious order. The sisters were to wear essentially what she herself had worn at Gravelotte: a gray dress in cotton or wool, a cook’s apron, a simple white linen scarf tied behind the head, high-laced ammunition boots, and a blue cavalry cloak.
— FROM FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH: THE STORY OF THE NURSING SISTERS OF THE BLOOD OF CHRIST, BY SR. BENEDICTA COOLEY, SBC, ROSARIAN PRESS, BOSTON, 1947.
Sixteen
Paz was having another nightmare, only this time he knew, in the peculiar way of lucid dreams, that he was having one and wished to get out of it. He was at a crime scene, some horrible crime, the atmosphere of horror hung in the air, all the worse for being unnamed. He was interviewing two little girls, both about seven. They were on the street, twirling a jump rope between them. He wanted them to stop twirling, but the thought came to him, as it does in nightmares, that they would tell him more if he started jumping himself, and so he did, faster and faster, the little girls smiling now, their eyes empty of joy, and he noticed that one of them wore a dress of wool, the other of cotton….
He opened his eyes and discovered where he was: in Lorna Wise’s bed, with the AC chilling the room enough to make it cozy under her duvet. He recalled the previous night. Very nice, and now he was awake, unless, of course…the thought rippled his belly and broke sweat from every pore. He turned his head slowly. The blond locks of Lorna were on the pillow next to his. He could hear the gentle sighing of her breath. He brought his nose close to her head and sniffed. Herbal shampoo. He sniffed lower down, at the warm wafts from beneath the quilt. Essence of girl, the world’s most entrancing fragrance. Had to be real, dreams don’t have smells, he recalled hearing that somewhere; on the other hand he could be off the charts in some way, and that neat little head could now turn around in an unnatural fashion and exhibit a grinning skull or a dog’s muzzle saying “Surprise!” He could feel his heart knocking in his chest and then he thought to himself, just in passing, no, if this wasn’t real he would go to his mother, let her do what she had to do, and if that failed he’d check out of the job, let the shrinks play with his head, because he couldn’t stand it anymore. He sincerely believed that people who carry weapons ought to have a firm grip on reality.
Such were Paz’s thoughts as he breathed in Lorna Wise as if sucking oxygen from a mask. Minutes went by. She murmured, stretched, and rolled over. It was, he observed with vast relief, her regular face. He thought he had never seen such a beautiful face, although he had actually seen plenty, and in just such situations. He sat on the side of the bed and stared at her for some time until his eye beams stirred her awake. She opened her eyes, saw him, started to smile, and then, observing his expression with a trained eye, she knitted her brow and said, “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Something. Did you have a nightmare?”
“Yes, a strange one with characters out of a poem. I thought I was still in it. Did you ever have one of those, when you wake up and you’re still in it?”
“No, I never have bad dreams. And as your personal therapist I have to tell you that there’s only one sure cure known to medical science.”
“And what would that be, Doctor?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to lie on top of a naked woman for a certain period of time.”
“No, no, not that!” cried Paz, although he began the therapy immediately. “How long do I have to?” he asked after the necessary slippery adjustments had been accomplished.
“Until the naked woman says to get off,” said Lorna.
Lorna is now floating in the most pleasant phase of post-coital hypnopompic semisleep. She is awake enough to realize that she is not lying in the dreaded wet spot for a change, and not awake enough to start obsessing about the future of her relationship with Jimmy Paz, a nearly perfect combo, promoting cosmic well-being. He is not in bed just now, but that’s all right too. She slips back into dreamland, surfacing only when the sound of clinking crockery and silver intrudes. Paz is entering the room with a tray, upon which is the container of her Krups coffee machine filled with sloshing blackness, assorted jugs, mugs, napery, and utensils. The delightful smell of coffee and fresh baking arises from the tray. Paz places it on the side of the bed. He is naked except for a pair of slight black Hugo Boss underpants.
“What is that?” she says, sliding herself up to a sitting position and pointing.
“It’s a plate of magdalenas,” says Paz, taking one. “You didn’t have rum so I had to use cognac. They’re not bad, though.”
“Oh, well, the hell with it, then. You expect me to eat magdalenas without rum? What kind of girl do you think I am? God, this is beyond delicious.”
“Are you thinking of your great-aunt’s house in Combray yet?” asks Paz.
“Oh, he reads Proust too? Or is that something you picked up from one of the many?”
“From Willa Shaftel, as a matter of fact. We were watching a rerun of a Monty Python, the summarizing Proust contest? And afterward she actually summarized Proust for me during the rest of the weekend.”
“Uh-huh. You know, bringing up previous girlfriends all the time can get old real fast.”
“As can needling me a little every time I say something you figure is beyond the normal range of a dumb cop.”
“Oh, are we having our first fight now?”
“Yes, and now it’s over. Have another magdalena.”
She did and said, “This is well worth seventeen additional hours on the StairMaster. Where did you get them?”
“I made them.” As he pours coffee.
“Wha…youmade them? Inmy kitchen? You carry a madeleine pan around with you?”
“No, I used yours. It was in the back of the closet outside the kitchen. It was still in the box. It must have been a present.”
“It was. From my brother, in whose fantasies I am ever a baker of cookies.”
“Well, I broke it in for you. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I certainly do mind! Neverever break in a madeleine pan in my house again! Christ, this is strong coffee!”
“Weak,” says Paz. “It barely sticks to the spoon.”
Lorna eats another madeleine and falls back against the pillows with a sigh. She feels, to be honest, a faint nausea, but otherwise so good that she decides not to pay any attention to it. “I really wish something interesting would happen to me. Having terrific sex and then being brought breakfast in bed by beautiful naked men morning after morning, I mean, sometimes I want to scream with the tedium of it all.”
“Humor me,” says Paz.
“You’re really gay, right? That’s the catch.”
“I’m afraid so. I have to pretend to love women so the guys down at the police station don’t make fun of me.” They laugh, but in the midst of it Lorna feels the first twinges of real life. The devil speaks into her inner ear: Yeah, this is great, but you know you’ll go out another couple of times, fuck like minks, have fun, conversations, and then he won’t call for a day, three days, a week, and then, desperate to know what’s happening, you’ll call him and leave a half-dozen increasingly irritated messages and then he’ll call and it’ll be, what? As from a stranger.
Paz senses the change. He says, “I’ll clean this up,” and picks up the tray.
“No, leave it,” she says. “I’ll do it.”
Lorna is nearly overwhelmed with the urge to say something nasty and disruptive of this thing that seems to be developing, far too nice for the likes of her. As she fights against it, there is a beeping from Paz’s jacket where it hangs on a chair: the first bars of “Guantanamera.” Thank God, she thinks, something tacky at last.