Zuana said nothing, for there was nothing to say. They stood silently their hands close together, resting on the wood of the workbench. Tomorrow she would be here alone, the room her own domain again. The things she had grown used to over these last weeks—the girl’s quickness and curiosity, the unpredictable, unexpected companionship that had developed between them— all this she will grow used to being without again. That is how it must be.
The girl flexed her palm downward so that her fingers splayed out across the wood. There was a dusting of flour on them at points where the treacle had stuck and acted as a glue. Despite the work they were still lovely, fine and tapered, the nails smooth and pink, with perfect pale crescent moons rising out from the cuticles. In contrast, Zuana’s own fingers looked more like newly dug vegetable roots, thick and stained. Staring at them side by side, it made her think of the youthful moistness of the girl’s cheeks, as she had loosened her headscarf the first morning, and the plump softness of her body as she had supported her from the floor to the bed that first night. Though there was less flesh to her now (an excess of emotion and the repetition of convent food had sculpted her more finely), she was still lovely. Yes, along with the clubfooted and the squinty-eyed, Our Lord takes the most luscious young women into his care to keep them from the defilement of the world beyond …the spiritual treasure of virginity. The words of Saint Jerome came into her mind: If you walk laden with gold, you must beware of a robber. We struggle here on earth that elsewhere we may be crowned. For those novices who enter yearning for God, it was an inspiring text. Though why Zuana should have thought of it now she did not quite understand.
Beside her, Serafina’s breath was like a fluttering sigh. Zuana glanced across at her, and as she did so she registered the girl’s right hand moving again, rising slightly, then falling, the last three fingers coming to rest lightly on the back of her own.
Zuana snatched her hand back sharply, as if the touch had scalded her.
“Oh—I am sorry.” The girl’s voice was light, surprised by her surprise. “I only wanted to show you …I mean—”
“Show me what?”
“What you have done for me. My hand. Where I hurt it yesterday on the treacle. See?”
And now Zuana was seeing. Or, rather, she wasn’t. For there was nothing to see. The back of the girl’s hand was clear, the skin smooth, no sign of a blister or a mark of any kind.
“It’s healed. See? No burn, not even any marks where Suora Magdalena grabbed me with her nails. Your ointment is miraculous.”
“It is not meant for burns. I gave it to you to bring out the bruises from your penance.”
“Oh, but they are gone, too.” And the girl’s face lit up, as if the healing had somehow gone deeper than her skin. “Really. I am completely healed.”
But Zuana was not thinking of her ointment now. She was seeing instead the old woman’s face, hearing that strange, pearly voice: He said I am to tell you that, whatever comes, He is here and will take good care of you.
Was the girl hearing it, too? Sweet Jesus, look after this child. Do not burden her with more than she can bear. Zuana, who was not prone to prayer creeping up on her unannounced, found herself suddenly unnerved.
“Come. There is no time for chatter,” she said roughly. “You roll the last lozenges while I start packing them.”
If Serafina felt rebuffed, she did nothing to show it; simply dropped her head and moved her hands back toward the treacle.
When the noon bell started to sound it was the girl who left the bench first, washing her hands in the bowl in readiness for chapel and wiping them on her apron cloth before taking it off and putting it carefully back on the hook on the wall where it came from. Habit. Familiarity. It does not take long to establish itself.
“God be with you, Suora Zuana,” she said, bowing her head humbly and offering the customary sisterly greeting as if it were something she had done all her life, rather than the first time she had spontaneously used it.
“And with you, novice Serafina.”
They were now dismissed from each other’s company. Yet she did not leave.
“I–I think I will be required at choir practice this afternoon.”
“Yes. I would think so, too. I wish you well with it.”
“I …I have a book to deliver back to you. On correspondences and remedies. You said I could borrow it, if you remember. I shall bring it later, if that is all right.”
Zuana nodded. The girl moved to the door. Then turned.
“It was most interesting …the book, I mean. I am sorry not to learn more.”
And then she was gone, leaving Zuana glancing at the shelf for the place where the volume had been and wondering why, although she remembered making the offer, she could not remember Serafina’s taking it.
“SUORA ZUANA?” IN her chambers, the abbess’s voice is gentle now. “Is all well with you?”
“What? Oh, yes, yes. I am sorry. My mind is full at the moment.”
