MY ONLY FOOD. My only sustenance. When she is not thinking of the stale bread she is thinking more and more about the host, constructing the moment, wondering what it might taste like on a clean conscience. Even as a child, when she tried to be good she was often distracted by small sins of thought, itching like fleabites on her soul. But it is different now. Now, with nothing else in her life to long for, she begins to long for this: the sacrament, laid out like a banquet in her imagination, the tang of the wine, the incomparable melting sweetness of the host on her tongue. But only if she keeps herself pure for it.
So the days begin to blur together, and under Suora Umiliana’s tutelage she waxes fat while she grows thin.
Meanwhile, through the parlatorio come mangled rumors of visitations, changes, and troubles inside other convents in other cities, so that many nuns bow their heads in prayer and give thanks to God that here in Santa Caterina they are not so oppressed.
Many nuns …but not all.
ON THE THIRD Sunday of Lent, after two weeks of confinement and penance, the novice Serafina is given leave to attend mass and take communion, and so rejoin convent life.
Zuana takes her place early in the chapel. She has not seen her former assistant since the morning of her recovery. The girl arrives supported on the arm of young Suora Eugenia. Even at a distance Zuana is disturbed by what she sees. The girl is hunched and withdrawn, eyes to the ground, each step small, considered. Beside her Eugenia stands slender and proud. Like a number of the younger nuns, she has been much affected by the story of the illness and semi-miraculous recovery, and now seems content to offer herself as the novice’s acolyte rather than her rival. They make an arresting pair: the convent’s two songbirds, both in their way highly strung, both worn thin by the intensity of being alive. How susceptible the young are to such storms of emotion and drama, Zuana thinks. It is as if their very hearts beat faster than those of others. She keeps an eye on them as they settle in their seats. Theirs has been an entrance as much as an arrival, and she is not the only one watching through half-closed eyes. There will be no further rebellion. The abbess’s words sound in Zuana’s ears. As Madonna Chiara will be the last to take her seat, she is not here to witness this moment—which is unfortunate, for it is perhaps something she should take note of.
Except …except, Zuana thinks, while I know this young woman to be a dissembler of extraordinary talent, there is no deception in what we are seeing now, surely? How could there be? Installed in her choir seat she looks so small, curled in on herself, eyes dull, her expression almost dreamy. If, on top of her drug-induced voiding, she is starving herself more than the allotted penance, there will be precious little stamina for deception in her now. A better confessor would never have imposed such a rigorous penance, for young girls are known to be more susceptible to the drama of fasting than their older counterparts.
Still, it is possible some good will come of it. She thinks of Suora Magdalena, dried up in her bed like a piece of salted meat. While she represents the extreme, degrees of hunger are necessary—even beneficial—to convent life. In readiness for the host, Zuana herself has not eaten since last night, and there is a familiar, almost pleasurable hollowness in her stomach. For those who find themselves distracted by the world around them, fasting can be a wondrous tool. Indeed, this is the time of year for it: Lent after Carnival. Carne vale, farewell to the flesh. Most of the nuns will be feeling the growl of hunger in their stomachs at some time in the weeks to come. Disciplining the body to free the soul: with the convent still so upside down there will be those who will actively look forward to fasting as a way of returning to a state of greater calm.
When they are all seated, Father Romero enters, flanked by the sacristan sister and the chosen choir nun who will aid him in the business of the mass. In contrast to the ceremony celebrated in the public church, mass in the convent chapel is an intimate affair: a simple altar set below the great crucifix, with the nuns gathered in their choir stalls close by; the greatest privilege as well as the greatest pleasure.
