Someone claps her hands and a few of the younger nuns actually cheer. It has been almost forty years since a fire caused by a candle left burning after supper wiped out the original frescoes. This will be an opportunity for Santa Caterina to have a great work in the fashion of the day, along with the excitement of a fashionable artist installed behind screens for the time it will take to complete it. Zuana is less enamored of the latest style of painting, which seems to her to be interested more in exploring the violent contortions of the body than in finding the anatomical truths beneath. Nevertheless, she cannot help but be impressed. Such large-scale commissions are expensive. She finds herself wondering what might have happened if Serafina had not survived the treatment. The death of a novice before taking her final vows would trigger the return of a proportion of her dowry. A successful escape, however, would surely render it all forfeit. It is not something Zuana has thought about until this moment.
Perhaps she is not the only one to note the connection between the girl’s health and the fresco; a couple of the choir sisters have been glancing toward the side seats where, amid the row of novices, a small space marks her absence. The abbess, who is better at reading minds than souls, lifts her hands to recover everyone’s attention.
“Finally, before we move on, we should pay tribute to another sister to whom we owe particular thanks. As you will know by now, following the success of the concert and the play our youngest novice, Serafina, was taken suddenly and gravely ill with fits and fever. Without the intervention and vigil of our dispensary mistress, it is likely that we would have lost her. The art of healing is one of Our Lord’s greatest gifts, and Suora Zuana’s expertise and devotion enrich all our lives inside Santa Caterina.”
This is remarkable praise indeed, and the room responds with a rustle of appreciation and smiles. Zuana is so taken unaware that all she can do is smile and drop her eyes.
The abbess, however, has picked her moment well. All present—choir nuns, novices, and converse—are happy to acknowledge their dispensary mistress. The fact is that even before Carnival, Zuana’s star had been rising. Her part in taming Serafina’s rage and delivering her to the choir, her handling of the contagion—including her own illness—and now the drama around the novice’s illness, ending, as it did, so theatrically, all this has naturally brought her to prominence. After years of seeking ways to fit in unnoticed, Zuana has unwittingly become a player in the drama of convent life. And, it would appear, an acknowledged favorite now of the abbess herself.
“I think it is time to go on to the rota for Lent fasting. Yes, Suora Umiliana?”
“Madonna Chiara. If I may?”
In the middle of the second row Umiliana stands, hands clasped together, and turns to address the choir sisters behind her.
“Before we move on we should surely mark a further wonder, one that more than all the others shows the glory of God within our midst.” She pauses until she is sure she has everyone’s attention. “I speak of the arrival of Suora Magdalena in the novice’s cell and the part she played in this …miraculous, marvelous recovery. For those of us who saw it for ourselves, it was as if Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself was in that cell, helping to guide the young woman back to life.”
The room is very still now.
“If I may continue?” She looks to the abbess once more, who nods her head almost imperceptibly.
Umiliana turns to Zuana. “Suora Zuana, you arrived there before any of us. Perhaps you might recount for us what took place.”
Zuana, the center of attention for a second time, looks up into Suora Umiliana’s piercing gaze.
“I …I am not sure I saw any more than you, dear sister. I had been in the dispensary making a potion, and when I returned, Suora Magdalena had left her own cell and was at the bedside of the novice, praying.”
Though the words are entirely truthful, it is clear that they are not what Umiliana wants to hear.
“And was there not something of …of wonder about her? Some vision of the Lord that touched both her and the sick girl?”
Zuana picks her words with special care. “The novice was certainly much comforted by her presence. She opened her eyes for the first time since the remedy had sent her to sleep.”
The novice mistress stares at her coldly. How quickly enemies are made, Zuana thinks.
“Oh, but the girl was dying. It was a miracle!” Suora Felicità’s words burst out as if she can no longer keep them within, for fear of their exploding inside her.
There is a tiny shimmering silence, as if the whole assembly is now holding its breath. This is indeed a chapter meeting worth waiting for.
“Suora Felicità.” The abbess’s voice is gentle and measured by contrast. “Those are strong words to describe an event that, as far as I am aware, you did not yourself witness.”
“I? Well, I …not exactly.”
