“I do not want to know who it is for. I don’t know this man and I cannot take anything from him.” She is standing now. “The novice has taken vows and will soon take others, and she is not allowed to receive letters.”
She spots the chaperone across the room looking over at them. The intensity of the conversation has attracted her attention. Zuana sits again and drops her eyes.
“But rest assured I will pray for his full recovery” she says more calmly. “And thank you for coming.”
“Please. Please.” The woman’s voice is low but clear. “It is difficult, I know, but this is a good man. I have spent weeks caring for him. He is not asking anything, only to say goodbye. He is going away and wants to wish her well. He will not bother her again.”
Zuana is shaking her head but it is partly to keep the woman’s voice out of her ears. There is great conviction in the way she speaks. If she was nursing you, you would surely be comforted by her strength as well as her gentleness. Or perhaps this love story has touched her heart. Certainly she would have reason to value love, for without the fondness of her husband a barren woman is easy enough to shrug off in favor of another.
“Have you read it?”
“No. But he is a good man, I swear.”
Now the chaperone has come up to them.
“How are you, dear sister?”
Zuana smiles. “Oh, very well, thank you, Suora Elena. Well, except for this sad news. This is Signora …Vesalio. Her husband was one of my father’s most talented students at the university. He is very sick and she has come to me for advice. But more than any remedy, I think, we must all pray for him.”
The sister stares at the woman, reading the humility in her dress as well as her face. “Rest assured, good woman, we shall add him to our prayers,” she says, smiling, and moves away.
Zuana keeps her head down, as if she is indeed in prayer. Opposite her, the woman holds her hands loosely clasped in her skirts. Under her palms Zuana sees the edge of the folded paper.
“Why me? Why do you come to me?”
“Because he said you were a kind and good nun.”
“He does not know me.”
“He seems to. And he was right. You are …kind and good. I wish I had known your father…” She trails off.
Zuana stares at her for a moment. Later she wonders when she made up her mind. Or perhaps she never did. Perhaps it was only her body that took the decision.
She moves her hands across the divide of their laps until they cover the woman’s own. She is pleased to note that their fingers are equally stained.
“Dear God, look down on Your servants here and help this young man back to health so that he may use his voice to praise You.” As Zuana says the words, the woman releases her grip on the letter and she takes it within her own fingers and holds it there.
“Amen.”
“Amen.”
Zuana pulls her hands back and folds her skirts around them. “You had better go now,” she says quietly.
“Thank you.”
The woman stands and moves swiftly away.
“Oh …Signora Vesalio.”
The woman turns.
“Tell your husband to try honey and cobwebs mixed with white of egg on the neck and face wounds. It will help to salve the scarring.”
Zuana does not immediately leave but sits, her hands folded over the letter, looking out over the room. She watches Suora Perseveranza, her body held upright to compensate for the belt around her middle, in animated conversation with a well-dressed married woman of similar age and features. At her feet a child, a sweet little girl with a mass of fair curls, is balanced against her knees, her mouth grubby with biscuit crumbs, her hand picking at the wooden rosary beads that hang from her aunt’s hips. How old is she, three? Four? Already too pretty to be the next nun of the family. But there is time yet. Come an attack of the pox or some disfiguring accident, or even a gradually perceived slowness of mind …
Zuana slips the letter up inside her wide sleeves and leaves the room and the sound of laughter behind her.
IN THE CHAPEL she takes her usual place in the empty choir stalls and sits, her heart pounding. She closes her eyes and feels the wood against her back, registers the cuts of the craftsman’s knife as a piece of walnut warehouse joins to a sliver of mahogany water. So much work here, so much devotion. After a while she opens her eyes to the frescoes on the walls around her. As it is wasteful to have candles burning during the day the chapel is illuminated only by the progression of natural light, so that different parts are highlighted at different times. For this reason the cusps of the seasons have always been special for Zuana, as from her place in the choir stalls the afternoon light then favors two particular scenes. Over the years she has come to know them very well. Now she uses them to help steady her mind.
