She finds herself feeling sad—yes, sad is the right word—for no reason. It is as if for the first time in her life her own company is not enough. She prays, of course, each and every day, but often her mind slips in and around the words, so that they never rise high enough for Him to hear.
The healer in her has witnessed such things in others; convents are full of nuns who become lethargic or tearful or distraught by turns. Winter sadness. Summer madness. Monthly moon cycles, or the more persistent melancholia that comes with their ending. There are as many terms for it as there are states of mind. The stricter nuns—the novice mistress and Suora Felicità (even her name marks her out as immune)—regard it almost as a rebellion against God and counsel stern treatment of work and prayer. But over the years Zuana has tested and used other remedies. Her father’s books are full of them: infusions, pills, borage steeped in wine, Saint John’s wort, fumigants of incense and hypericum, with mandragora and poppy syrups to ease the insomnia that often accompanies such distress. Then there are other treatments that involve neither simples nor compounds: kindness, sympathy, a little relaxation of the rules of solitude. In the darkest cases the best is a combination of all of these. Prayer, work, sleep, and care: God, nature, and man working together as they were meant to.
Of course Zuana is not so distressed herself. Nowhere near. More likely she is simply tired. She disciplines herself through duty. The parlatorio needs more perfumed herb tablets to place on the brazier during the concert, and she busies herself preparing them. When ordinary prayer does not work, she uses recitations from the psalms.
“The voice of the Lord is powerful, I will praise Thee, my Lord, with my whole heart, and show forth all Thy marvelous works. ”
She says these particular phrases over and over again under her breath, wrapping them around her like a blanket, leaving no room for the cold drafts of distraction to slide in around the edges.
“For God is good, His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endureth to all generations. ”
AFTER A WHILE, the simplicity and the repetition bring her a certain calm. Like tonight.
Somewhere outside the walls a muted roar goes up. They must be lighting the Carnival bonfire in the piazza in front of the cathedral in time for the sunset. Her father took her to see it once when she was very small. There were so many people they could barely move, and he had to hold her up amid the crowd. She remembers that the smoke made her eyes water and her throat sore. At least she thinks that is what happened. Recently she has noticed that she is less sure of things she was once certain about, as if her life before the convent is slipping away altogether. Her father’s face, for instance: the broadness of his forehead, the shadows under his eyes, the way his bottom lip always seemed a little pulled downward by the weight of his beard. All this she had assumed was imprinted in her forever. Only, sometimes when she studies the face of Christ on the cloister crucifix, she could swear she sees the same features in Him too, as if the familiarity of one face has simply blended into another.
In contrast, there are a few memories that have become, if anything, almost more powerful. Like the stone carvings in the Ferrara cathedral. There must have been twelve of them, one for each month of the year, but if she closes her eyes there is one she can still see as clearly as if it were in front of her now. In it, a small naked child is crouching on all fours under a goat, suckling from the animal. She can see his mouth, clasped almost lewdly over the fat teat, the fullness of his stone cheeks, the roundness of his belly as the milk pours into it. It surprises her, the power of this memory, for in other ways she does not care much for children; certainly she is not one of those nuns who yearn for the babies they could never have, bringing in Jesus dolls in their dowry chests or imagining themselves taking the suckling baby from Mary’s arms and offering Him their own breasts instead. Nevertheless this less than holy child—with its evident greed for nourishment—has stayed with her.
She pushes back her books and closes her eyes. These are hardly thoughts befitting an infirmary sister with a history of convent infection to write up. If she cannot work she should be praying. Why is it that her mind spirals away from her so easily these days?
The voice of the Lord is powerful …
She closes her eyes.
The voice of the Lord is full of majesty …
By the time the knock comes at her door she has managed to pull herself deep enough inside the words, so that she at first does not hear it.
I will praise Thee, my Lord, with my whole heart.
It comes again, sharper.
