After the Wilderness
By Gordon Kearns
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Chapter 10
Charles "Chuck" Wohl, unmarried, thirty year old all-around maintenance man for Bollinger's, leaned against the little guard shed by the entrance gate. The work staff of Bollinger's rotated duty at the gate on a twenty-four hour basis. After several unpleasant fraternity raids a few years back, it was thought best to keep the entrance watched full time. During his tour of duty, the gate attendant always remained fully dressed in a neat light blue uniform with navy blue epaulets and pants piping. He didn't carry a sidearm, but there was an alarm set up with the county sheriff's office in case of emergency. Of course, the attendant had a direct line to the front desk in the lobby. He also kept an up-to-the-minute list of guests and expected guests to verify the legitimacy of visitors.
On the other side of the railroad type crossing gate (operated from inside the guard shed) Officer Harry Waterman of the California Highway Patrol sat on a folding chair he borrowed from the shed and chatted idly with Wohl. Officer Lindsey Martin strolled into the scene and joined them.
Officer Martin: "You can start your 'four off' now, Harry."
Officer Waterman: "How's it back at the trailer?"
Martin: "As you'd imagine: stuffy. You think Gillette would let us tap into the generator?"
Waterman: "He's got bigger things on his mind tonight than a few uncomfortable police grunts."
Martin: "Know what you mean. The propane's still holding up though, enough to make yourself a can of soup --if you clean the pot. Remember, you gotta use the creek. No water in the trailer, you know."
Waterman: "Do you get the feeling we're excess baggage around here?
Just the ten of us to cover the whole damn forest, and the roads and highway too."
Martin: "And a base camp trailer without power or water. It's almost like they want us to be discouraged."
Chuck Wohl: -You have to know I appreciate you guys. Gate duty is hairy enough as it is. Without you around, I might end up in that creek you do your pots in."
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Martin: "Don't get too comfortable. The word just came down that tomorrow we're supposed to stick to traffic control. Most of us will have to work the turn-off at the state highway. There'll just be you and me, Harry, to handle the resort's access road. We're just supposed to push stalled cars off the road ...keep traffic going as best we can. Though I doubt anybody'll be able to get through to the gate. I figure the ten thousand New Crusaders ..."
Waterman: "Probably a hundred thou by tomorrow."
Martin: "Maybe not. I hear Gillette's requested traffic be held off at the state highway starting tomorrow. He's afraid if the crowd grows it'll get out of hand." He chuckled. "Out of HIS hand ...that's what I think he's afraid of." A beat. "Either way, there'll be no traffic at this end to worry about. Even if they do come through, these little roads will gridlock in short order."
Waterman: "Did you hear the speech tonight?"
Martin: "Yeah; ominous, wasn't it?-
Wohl: "You said it! What do you think's going to come off tomorrow? Think they'll crash the gate?"
Waterman, laughing: "You'll be off-duty by tomorrow."
Wohl: "Maybe; but for some reason absenteeism is running pretty high these days. "
Martin: "I doubt they'd expect you to hold your post against this mob."
Waterman: "Your best bet would be to get out of here tonight. Absenteeism would be better for your health, too."
Wohl: -Yeah, I know." A beat. "The Bollinger's have always been decent with me ...with all of us." A beat. "I'll probably stay."
Martin: "Now that's loyalty. But futile. You couldn't stop them if they decided to come through."
Wohl: "Yeah, I know."
A pause.
Waterman: "These four ...the ones Gillette's going after. You know them?"
Wohl: "The one: Rachel Bollinger --she's one of my bosses. I saw Patty Flanery. Didn't get a chance to talk with her. She's just a kid, you know ... only seventeen, I think."
Waterman: "Seventeen?"
Wohl: "Yeah, just a kid, like I said; goes to some private Catholic school upstate, I think. Her mother, Marianne Flanery ...the only time I ever saw her was when she drove by me a few minutes ago." He laughed. "And on my little twelve inch t.v. in the shed. I never met this Patrick. He's some kind of a legend around here ...well, both him and Marianne Flanery are a legend. They must've. had a real hot affair a long time ago --way before my time."
Martin: "What do you think --are they witches?"
Wohl thought for a moment, then: "The story goes that Patrick was able to appear and disappear sort of magically. I don't know about that. No cauldrons or devil-worship that I ever heard. He was ...well, a young kid in love with his Marianne. I don't know how she could be a witch. She drove here in a regular four-wheel car. If she's magical, you'd think she'd have taken an easier route in. And Patty --Patricia --like I said, she's just a kid." He paused. "But the famous red-head, I know her. If she's magic, it's something new ..."
Martin: "The Reverend said the kid taught her how."
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Wohl: "Maybe. I know Mrs. Bollinger ...we all called her by her first name, Rachel... I know Rachel was always pretty good at regular magic --you know: rings, card tricks, disappearing coins, and juggling. What's for sure, though, is she was one of the nicest human beings you'd ever want to know. She'd always be doing nice things, like covering for us if we had to leave early and stuff. And she was always ready to talk with any of us. She sure wasn't a snob. Just a kind, friendly ...a warm sort of person. If you knew her you'd like her. I'd guarantee it." A beat. "Jesus, I'd hate to see anything bad happen to her. Gillette sounded pretty rough. It sounded to me like they'd like to kill her. That would be awful. You don't think they'd try something like that, do you?"
Martin: "The way it is ...the way the governor seems to want it, the crowd is on its own. With only a couple of us --on traffic duty, at that -- there's no control... or even symbols of control. And listening to that speech; well, if he keeps working on the people that same way, I think he'll have them in a frenzy tomorrow." A beat. "Yeah, it could happen. Someone could get hurt ...maybe killed."
Waterman: "I'd say you're right. I think he's out to kill one of them."
Wohl: "That's crazy."
Waterman: "Maybe so. There might be other motives; I don't know. But I do think he's out to kill one of them. And like Lindsey said, he's got the crowd worked up ...things could really blow up tomorrow."
Martin: "There's no way just a couple of us could stop them. My advice to you, Chuck, would be to make tracks tomorrow if the crowd starts to move."
Wohl: "Yeah ...I guess so. But ...if something wrong is going to happen, a guy can't turn his back on it. Seems there should be something ... I don't know if I'd have the courage ...but there should be something " He looked into the faces of the policemen. "What about you guys?"
Martin: "Instructions are to stay with traffic ...but ..."
Waterman: "We can't stand by and watch somebody get murdered ...we're the police, for God's sake."
Wohl: "Like you said, there's no way you could stop them."
A beat. Then Watermen: "But we're the police, for God's sake."
Broadview, California, east and south of Santa Cruz on Monterey Bay, near the famous State Route 1 --hilled, tree'd, and mansioned; and site of St. Mary Magdalene Academy for Girls --rich girls. Run by the Sisters of St. Mary Magdalene at the Cross, the academy offers a classical, no nonsense, high-powered high school education with uncompromising discipline in an austere environment. The 120 students are required to reside full-time in a dormitory from September through May. Parents may check their children out on Sundays and on Saturdays for special occasions, except for the one Saturday per month designated.as "Cleaning Day," for which every girl has the duty of dusting, scrubbing, waxing, and polishing an assigned area of the school or its attached buildings (not including the cloister wing, which is the responsibility of the teaching sisters). Of course, the students must clean and spiffy-up their own areas every morning before obligatory mass attendance. This includes their dorm rooms, bathrooms, and recreation rooms.
Every day begins at five o'clock with one of the teaching nuns ringing a hand bell through the dorm halls. After wake-up come toilettes and area clean-up. The girls then go in silent lines to the Sacred Heart Chapel for mass at six-thirty. Breakfast follows in the cafeteria in the dormitory wing. All meals are begun and ended with prayer. The girls may talk in subdued tones with their direct neighbors; conversations with others must await free periods.
The class day runs from eight forty-five to four o'clock, with a half-hour out for lunch. Extra-curricular activities (sports, drama, choir, etc.) and free time carry on to dinner at six.
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After dinner until eight-thirty is sacrosanct study time. The girls are free from then to lights out at ten.
Saturdays and Sundays, except for "Clean-up Day," are considerably more loosely scheduled (mass, mealtimes, and lights out never vary). Often the girls are offered special field trips on week-ends (museums, the symphony, public library, etc. --and now and then baseball, basketball, or football games).
As mentioned, the students are subjected to a strict, classical curriculum: Latin, Greek, ancient history, classic literature, religion, music, art, and music and art appreciation. They also receive a rigid dose of sciences, mathematics, business education, economics and home economics, and on and on.
Rough? Absolutely. Worse than West Point? Perhaps. But the graduates here aren't by any definition cream-puffs. Students come out of Mary Magdalene ready to handle life, leadership (family or business), and anything the Ivy or any other league demands. The alumni are an elite, proud bunch -- deservedly. Besides, there is a plus side to life at the academy: the relationship the Magdalenian nuns maintain with their adolescent charges. There is no such thing as an anonymous student at this school. These teachers know their children inside and out. There is no faculty table during eating times; the teachers mix right in with the students. Study time also finds the good sisters mingling in the dormitory helping, advising, and offering mature advice. No teacher is ever out of reach to a student. A.A. is their code -- Always Available. In the end, graduation day is always teary, because for every teacher every graduate is her child.
Mary Magdalene, by the way, is totally religious staffed --highly, highly unusual in private parochial schools these days. Not surprisingly, most of the faculty themselves were students here. Every graduating class produces, even in these times, at least a couple postulants --not as many as in years before, but sufficient to insure a totally religious faculty for some years to come. One thing: rarely does a girl who starts religious training after four years at the academy pullout later because of the harsh life of the convent --they are quite inured to holy discipline.
The building that houses St. Mary Magdalene Academy for Girls well befits the school's austere theme. It's one of those old towered brick buildings erected in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Built in the shape of an "E," the upper and lower horizontals hold the students' dormitory and religious cloister respectively. The middle horizontal includes the high-vaulted Sacred Heart Chapel. The vertical "back" of the "E" includes the classrooms and offices (the gymnasium is located in a newer, less imposing out-building to the rear). The floors are shiny, echoing hardwood throughout. The only carpet is at the main central entrance --for wiping wet shoe bottoms. The windows are tall. The ceilings are high. The lights should be brighter. The heat in the winter is adequate. There is no air-conditioning (but there is a great cross wind; the school sits on a good-sized hill facing out toward the ocean).
In the dormitory there are two girls to a room, two rooms to a lavatory, one shower room with enclosed stalls to each of three floors of twenty dorm rooms each. There has never been a year since its inception that the academy was less than filled to capacity. There is ever a waiting list (money assures nothing; ALL students come from money --but it doesn't hurt to come from a family with a tradition of attending Mary Magdalene).
If a woman were ever elected President of the United States, it would not be unlikely for her to be an alumnus of the academy.
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The principal of St. Mary Magdalene Academy for Girls, a position she had held for the past eleven years, was Sister Daniella. She in no way resembled the usual literary or dramatic depictions of members of the sisterhood: you know, stern, yet warm-hearted; or giddy-religious who react coyly to bad words; or tough and worldly-wise; and so on. Sister Daniella was an efficient administrator, a knowledgeable educational leader, and a diplomatic liaison to the public. She was highly intelligent. She taught with enthusiasm for the subject and the students. She had a good perception of and sensitivity for the adolescent girl. She was patient almost to a fault, was rarely rattled, and never raised her voice. Sister Daniella was not and had never been an insulated angel. As a devotee of the gossipy National Post, she kept up with all the big news and gossip on the outside. She was a late profession, taking her final vows at thirty-five. She never, never discussed her years between graduation from the Academy and becoming a postulant -- except for necessary statistical data: college degree (Bachelor's and Master's in Education from California-Berkley) and a couple years teaching in Indian schools in Nevada). Of the rest, she would only ever say she didn't take on the life of a nun until she became one.
At the time of Patricia's "recess" at Bollinger's Resort, Sister Daniella was a slim, young looking fifty-four in good physical condition. She was one of those people who waste little time in sleep. She never retired before 11:30 p.m., and she always arose by four (without an alarm). She maintained one unvarying routine throughout the school year. Every night of the week beginning about 10:15, she took a walking tour of her domain, starting in the girls' dormitory and finishing in the Chapel. With a nod to propriety even at this late hour, she would be dressed in the prim manner of her order exactly as you would see her in the midst of her daytime official duties: white blouse with a sleeveless brown vest-jacket, unpretentious brown shoes, brown skirt to just below the knees, and brown head-scarf laid in neat pleats to the back and secured to her head behind her exposed ears with a white whale-bonish plastic band, which in the darkness of her nightly stroll almost took the aspect of a saintly halo. In better light you could see the beginnings of her ungrayed brunette waves as they tucked themselves under the band. These evenings she generally wore a hand-knit brown shawl against the occasional autumn chills. Through the dormitory she'd randomly open doors to make sure the night was proceeding normally. Out of place sounds were always investigated --not as a check on the girls' nighttime behavior, but out of a deep concern for the welfare of her charges; she never took the security of the building for granted. But Sister Daniella was also wise enough to know there are times when not to hear things. She would often pass a door through which the muffled sounds of teen-age giggles could be discerned. At the same time, she was ever alert to the muffled sounds of tears, to which she always responded. She had been known to take a girl to the chapel for a long into the night session of advice, solace, or support. Everyone knew of Sister Daniella's nightly wanderings, and occasionally a girl has slipped out of her room to catch up with the good sister because of a need for such help.
On this Sunday, Sister Daniella had just closed the door to Patricia Flanery's room. Patricia's roommate Allie Sanders was snugly cuddled in the lower bunkbed. The upper bed was still neatly made --and empty. Sister Daniella leaned against the wall outside the door. She missed Patricia -- Patricia's presence. There was something, well, cold --incomplete --about the building with Patricia absent. Not that the girl was such an ebullient personality. Quite the contrary. But there was an aura --a warmth about the seventeen year old that just her being
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there brought the old building to life. Or was it that Sister Daniella had allowed herself to become too ... attached to the girl, that the warmth Patricia brought was to the heart of the nun? Sister Daniella could not let that happen; such are the things that undermine the primacy of religious purpose. She smiled to herself; like Scarlett O'Hara, she'd think about that "tomorrow."
Then she made her way to the Sacred Heart Chapel. She unlocked the heavy door and entered, and pulled the door closed behind her, the latch click echoing loudly about the tall walls of the gothic styled room, now eerily shadowed in the red exit lights and perpetually lit vigil candle. She flicked the switch for the hanging amber glass lamps above the Mary and Joseph altars flanking the main altar. The darkness of the chapel was only minimally relieved, but they helped. Of course, Sister Daniella could probably have made her way blindfolded, that well did she know this holy room. After genuflecting before the altar, she strode up the two steps leading to the marble table. There was really nothing requiring attention. Still, as she did every night, Sister Daniella circled the table, straightening an imaginary crease in the cloth, moving the giant red missal an inch, checking that everything was in readiness for tomorrow's mass. It was never not ready.
She genuflected again, moved down the two steps, and stood by the communion rail (also marble) and looked out over the darkened pews, which in less than eight hours would be filled with the bottled electricity of teens over-playing holiness, not realizing it's impossible to improve on the natural innocence of youth. She sighed, but not from fatigue; rather, perhaps, from the dominating quiet ...or her aloneness. That's when she heard a strange little rustling behind her ...and a stranger, high-pitched, adolescent "Ouch." One can't know precisely what Sister Daniella expected to see when she turned around to face the sound, but very definitely this was not it. The rarely rattled principal of Saint Mary Magdalene Academy for Girls ...was rattled.
Patricia Flanery --her pure, total nakedness exotically illuminated in the red-tinted chapel --Sister Daniella's protege, the unassuming Patricia Flanery --legs splayed awkwardly in front of her --was sitting in nude sacrilegious splendor on the cloth atop the marble altar table.
Patty scooted over to the edge of the table, jumped to the floor, and stood with a sweet smile before her beloved mentor. "I'm sorry about that. Mostly I do pretty well with my landings. I guess my concentration was a little off."
Sister Daniella was trying desperately to un-rattle herself. "What ... where ...I..." She inhaled deeply and slowly exhaled --and regained much of her normal composure. Slowly, she took off her shawl and moved toward the nude girl. "Here, Patricia, put this on. It's ...a ...chilly in here this time of year."
Patty jumped back against the table. "No! Please ...I'm fine. I don't need ..."
The nun hesitated, her resilience in the face of life's unpredictablity was gradually returning. "Of course." She laid the shawl on the communion rail.
Patty: "Does it bother you very much that I don't have any clothes on?"
Sister Daniella, now almost completely recovered, smiled warmly. "Not in the way you're probably thinking. However, I am ...human --believe it or not --and, well..." Still smiling, she shrugged her shoulders. "Let's at least make ourselves comfortable." She stepped away from the altar and took a seat in the first pew. Patty, sliding the shawl out of the way, sat on the communion rail facing the nun.
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Sister Daniella was a patient woman, who knew how to exert heroic efforts to maintain her aplomb in ...such circumstances. Aplomb: hiding behind a facade of coolness while your inner turmoil threatens to tear a hole through your chest. So she sat and waited as Patty nervously furrowed her forehead in strained thought. Finally, she said softly to the girl, "When you have a lot that needs saying, don't feel you have to put it all in the first sentence."
Patty smiled a bit.
"Why don't we just sort of talk along --get the words rolling, so to speak; perhaps it will come easier," the nun said. "There's one thing I'm curious about --well, many things, actually --but let's start easy-like. How long were you here before I came in?"
"I wasn't. I came in after you."
"After me? But ...oh, through the sacristy entrance." A beat. "But that's bolted isn't it?"
"I don't know. I didn't come in that way."
"I don't understand. I know I heard the lock snap in place when I came in the front door; you couldn't have come in that way --not without my knowing, anyway."
"I didn't come in the front door, either."
Sister Daniella's confusion was rapidly increasing --but she held to her aplomb.
Sidestepping the issue, Patty sighed lightly and, looking into the woman's eyes, asked, "What ...what do you have to give up? To join the order, I mean."
Sister Daniella almost instinctively straightened her back. "We've talked about this, Patricia. You don't really 'give up' anything. What you do is give yourself, your whole heart and soul to Jesus ...through your deep love for him. Love isn't 'giving up' things. Love is 'giving' things."
Patty frowned and sighed again. She looked down at the floor.
The nun relaxed and allowed herself to rest against the back of the pew. "I'm sorry, Patricia, let me start over," she said with a kindly smile. "Of course, there are the normal vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. And there are the rules of our particular order, which include, for one thing, giving up your family ties. All your love must be reserved for Jesus. The church literally becomes your mother. You can retain no outside loyalties. You may never visit home or see your family except for special reasons as approved by Mother Superior, usually only for a death in your immediate relations or an extreme emergency. That's the hardest rule according to some of the girls. In our work, we're given a fair amount of leeway --choice. The order takes advantage of our natural interests and talents. Your math and science skill, as an example; you'd be permitted to carry on with that, I'm sure. But you'd be doing it for God's purposes. I'm a teacher, so teaching is the God's work I do. But, yes, we do have to curb many of our 'outside' inclinations." She laughed. "We're very rigid in our dress code."
Patty blushed --unseen in the limited light --but didn't otherwise exhibit any embarrassment over the comment.
Sister Daniella continued. "We must not miss our daily prayers: our canonical hours --wherever we happen to be at the time." Pause. "Of course, we submit to the wishes of our superiors in all matters --the vow of obedience, you know."
Patty: "The dress code ...Could I pray in the chapel the way I am tonight?"
Sister Daniella: "You ...would want to do this?"
Patty: "Suppose I did."
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Sister Daniella: "Now Patricia, be serious." She looked at the nude girl sitting so casually on the communion rail. Patty had diverted her eyes again, disappointment in her expression. "I... can't think of an explicit rule that says one can't pray in the nude in the chapel... or anyplace else. The Church has things to say concerning modesty; I suppose these would apply."
Patty: "In the middle of the night ...alone?"
Sister Daniella: "Nudity in and of itself isn't the point, Patricia. The human body is God's creation and, as such, is beautiful. Certainly, in particular circumstances nudity is necessary: bathing, doctors' examinations, some classical art; and there are primitive cultures where it's the norm -- though very few exist today. In our modern American culture --and especially in the culture of St. Mary Magdalene Academy for Girls --nudism is quite definitely not the norm. Being unusual, the question then would have to be turned around: 'What would be the purpose of the nudity?' It's hard to imagine in what way it would be appropriate ...here. The key issue would be whether or not it would represent a violation of the vow of chastity."
Patty: "How would being nude at night, alone, violate the vow of chastity?"
Sister Daniella: "If the nudity excites any feelings --however slight --of lust on the part of the nude person --or any witness --then chastity comes into consideration. So the question 'Why' can be a decisive consideration. In the end the question would have to be asked of Mother Superior. I don't think she would give you the permission; in fact, I'm sure she wouldn't. But whatever, her decision would be final."
Patty: "But if she weren't asked."
Sister Daniella: "In the first place there are few secrets in a community such as ours. Sooner or later someone would find out. But most important, You would know. The fact that you asked me the question means it is a question about which there could be more than one interpretation. You would not presume that decision unto yourself. In our community, one's own conscience is one's strictest guardian." A beat. "Tell me, child, how much of an issue is this nudity thing with you?"
Patty rose and turned to face the altar. As Sister Daniella stared at the girl's back --an artist's composition of quiet light and loud shadow: straight-across shoulder blades; hints of ribs; softly rounded spinal crease; and muscular-lean buttocks, hamstrings, and calves --the words, "or any witness," reverberated through the good nun's thoughts.
Still facing away, Patty asked, "Could you tell me ...would you tell me: who is Sister Daniella?"
The woman brought a hand up to slowly and softly rub her lips with her forefinger. The two remained as they were for two or three full minutes. Then Sister Daniella, with a soft, almost private laugh, spoke: "Mathilda ...but everybody called me Tilly." A beat. "Do you think I look like a 'Tilly'?"
Patty turned around and moved to the divider in front of the first pew. She knelt on the floor and rested her forearms on the top of the divider as she studied the woman's face. "Tilly. I think that's a ...pretty name."
"You're a diplomat, Miss Flanery." She leaned forward and touched Patty's cheek. "Tilly Sanders --what you ought to know is I've never stopped being Tilly Sanders. That's very important. Everything Tilly Sanders was, Sister Daniella is. I didn't become a different person when I took my final vows." She took Patty's hands in hers. "Child, you're going to be uncomfortable kneeling on the hard floor like that. Come and sit by me." A beat. "I promise I won't sneak a shawl on you." Patty smiled and moved around to sit by Sister Daniella Tilly
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Sanders. She sat like a child on the wooden bench, her left leg drawn up so that the side of her knee and calf was actually on top of the seat and her toes tucked securely behind her right knee. Her left elbow leaned on the seat-back, her cheek resting in the palm of her hand. She was looking directly at the nun. Sister Daniella kept a more sedate pose, looking ahead and periodically turning her head to face the girl when she felt eye contact was called for.
"What I said ...it wasn't exactly right," she said abruptly. "I have to tell it ...true to my dear little friend Patricia, who sits so vulnerable and naked beside me." She sighed almost sadly. "I did indeed stop being Tilly Sanders." She looked to the confused Patty. "But that was long before I became a nun. I'm going to let you in on my secret; you'll be the only person in Mary Magdalene to know about my 'in-between years.' Mother Superior knows, of course --up in the convent in Sacramento."
"Your 'in-between years'?"
"When I was an adult civilian, so to speak --before I entered the order. While still in college I traded in 'Tillie Sanders' for 'Myra Silvers' --better for stage recognition, I thought."
"Stage recognition? You were an ..."
"You bet. I was a live, board-treading actress. Drama was my minor at Berkeley. Worked in the repertory for most of my time in school. Did everything from Emily in Our Town to Hamlet's Ophelia. I even had a couple bit parts in real movies. In school I had a special love for improvisation, where acting and creativity are most intertwined. After graduation and two years teaching on the reservation, I went 'big time'. Would you believe, I played the prostitute in Hot'l Baltimore!" Patty laughed heartily at this revelation.
"Patricia," she continued in a more serious tone, "You can't imagine the thrill of stepping out onto a stage and making a thousand people truly believe that for a few hours you are a prostitute ...or the crazy sister of a crazy melancholy Dane ...or a dead young bride revisiting a moment in her childhood. Or the even greater thrill of moving the audience --massaging their emotions --so that they cry or share the fear or feel the excitement of the fictional person you present to them. And speaking of excitement: there's nothing to match the backstage electricity that charges you as you wait the cue to step out on stage and be someone else --while all around you the other actors step on and off the stage, and electricians and prop men and directors and assistant directors silently do their frenetic things behind the curtains. And best of all: when it's all over, when the lines have all been read --when you finally move to the footlights to soak in what you hope is the audience's delight with your performance; and you hear the applause cascade from the back foyer to the pit --Patricia, Heaven can't improve on that." Her words seemed to be roiling up myriads of related memories in the softly speaking Sister of Saint Mary Magdalene at the Cross. She paused a moment enjoying before deciding where to pick up next.
"They're a special people ...the stage-folks, I mean. It's a community more esoteric than the religious. Between jobs there only exists 'When's the next audition?' You wish the world for your friend ...your roommate. But the tacit dog-eat-dog nature of the business is understood and accepted. When you're working, all your concentration is on the production at hand: the audiences, the inner gossip, the run of the show ...that was our eternity, you know: the run of the show."
Patty: "Was there ever a 'one special person'?"
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"Don't get too greedy for secrets. But yes, there was ...rather, there were 'one special persons.' You work and dream and suffer so closely ..." she smiled to herself. "But commitments were in their own way understood to be 'run of the show.' You can never take a 'Hit' for granted. Sooner or later ..." She again lost herself in warm musings. Patty noticed a tear slip over the lower eyelid as the nun stared unseeing at the altar.
"If you were so happy in show business ..."
"Feelings don't lend themselves to logical analysis." A beat. "I always had this little ...mouse whispering in my ear. I could hear his voice back even before I was a student at the Academy --back in grade school... he began talking to me that early. Frankly, Patricia, I don't really know if it was the attraction of the life of a nun --I suppose there is a certain ... romance to the idea. There was a movie when I was still very young: The Song of Bernadette --perhaps that's what first enchanted me about the religious life. Or maybe at such a young age I recognized a calling. I like to think it was my love and devotion for Jesus that verified my latent whole-hearted desire to dedicate my life to him.
"There was no particular 'event' that finally inspired me. I didn't even attend mass regularly --blase kid, working Sundays, a tinge of guilt perhaps for my ...unrestricted life-style --whatever. There just came this time ... I guess I was in a mood of introspection --I was between 'one special persons.' It was just that suddenly I knew the sisterhood was what I wanted. I waited out the run of the show I was in at the time --to make sure. But there was and would never be a doubt."
Patty: "Did you change your mind about the stage?"
Sister Daniella: "Oh, no. And the convent never did take the place of the theatre in my heart."
Patty: "I ...I don't understand. How could you decide ..."
Sister Daniella: "I suppose that's the point. That's the heart of your question, 'Who is Sister Daniella?' I had to choose between two directions, both with a hold on my soul. That's what life ...what growing up is about, Patricia. It's seems sad ...so wrong, wrong; but in the society of people one has to choose. One can't pursue two passions at once --and do each the justice a passion deserves. People try sometimes, and appear to do all right. But with me, show business and the religious life of a Magdalenian cannot co-exist. Maybe if I were an artist, but even then I'd have to adapt my art to my religious discipline."
Patty: "You always directed our class plays."
Sister Daniella, laughing. "Sweet reminders; like Christmas cards. It's not the same as playing the prostitute in the Broadway production of Hot'l Baltimore."
Sister Daniella faced the girl, holding Patty's chin affectionately in the palm of her hand. "The important, important, important thing is that in making my choice, I did not give up being an actress."
Patty frowned in confusion.
Sister Daniella: "I am as much an actress as I ever was. My love for the stage is unabated all these years later. God, it would be nice to pretend myself into the persona of a role, to soak in that applause cascade one more time. The sacrifice I made in becoming a Magdalenian was not doing the thing I wanted to do in the deepest part of my soul. I am an actress. I gave up acting. If I had become another person, there would have been no sacrifice. But I sacrificed ...I still am sacrificing. The way I see it, though, is that my pain cannot compare to the pain our Jesus had to have felt when he sacrificed his life for us." She dropped her hand to her lap again, but still looking into Patty's eyes: "Now it's your turn, it seems. And I don't think 'nude prayer' is all there is to it."
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Patty smiled, a tear running down her cheek. "No ...it's part of it ... but there's more ...lots more." A beat. "I met my father."
"Oh?" Sister Daniella was acquainted with Patty's circumstances.
"My mother arranged it so I could meet him. That's why I haven't been at school the past week. We got together at a ...resort downstate." A nervous Patty switched position so that she was now sitting on pew front board with her feet propped on the seat next to Sister Daniella. The nun smiled at this bit of audacity in a child who until a week ago was shy almost to a fault.
"I'm going there tomorrow --I'll see him again then. He ...taught me things about myself I never knew. Things I should know, I think. What it does for my future, I don't know yet. I suppose I still have the same decisions ...your 'growing up' decisions ...the same ones I had before ...but with one more added, I guess. But now I know more about myself; I have something to weigh a decision against. It's still not easy. You helped me; you taught me what making a ...commitment is."
Sister Daniella continued smiling. She said nothing.
Patty, abruptly: "I... guess I'd better go now." She laughed lightly. "People would think it funny if they saw you in the chapel talking to a nude student."
Sister Daniella: "Please, Patricia, don't ever hesitate coming to me here ...like this." A beat. "Before you go, won't you pray with me for a moment?" A chuckle. "Then you'll always be able to say you prayed in the chapel nude one night."
Patty kissed her mentor on the cheek and the two of them kneeled side by side facing the altar. As they prayed, Sister Daniella suddenly became aware that Patty was no longer there. She looked all around the room, but the girl was nowhere to be seen. She hadn't crossed in front to the sacristy, and there was no sound of her slipping out of the pew or unlatching the big door in back. Perplexed, the nun sat back on the bench shaking her head slowly.
Like magic, she thought. The girl came like magic, and now she left like magic. Then a frown came to Sister Daniella's brow as she remembered the news on the t.v. in the girls' dormitory after dinner -- the story about the naked red-head who was mysteriously appearing and disappearing all over the world ...and that crusade. Sister Daniella put her fingers to her lips, suddenly very concerned for her young friend's welfare.
She quickly left the Sacred Heart Chapel and hurried to the recreation room in the cloister. She turned on the t.v., taking care to keep the volume low so as not to disturb her fellow nuns. Then she nervously watched and listened to the news update and the tenth re-run of Reverend Goodman Gillette's speech. She became more and more agitated with every phrase he uttered.
One hundred cars --freights, reefers, tankers, tri-tiered auto transports, piggy backs, three diesels in tandem, and mini-caboose --like schoolboys running an asphalt street to the corner confectionery, they called boisterously to each other as they charged inexorably across the spiritlesssalt flats toward Salt Lake City. The engines jogged easily along the unvarying level landscape with little aerobic stress, coasting mostly on self-conceived momentum. The night showed no lasting interest in its passage. Three cars behind the tandem, on the catwalk atop a freight filled with California citrus, Patty Flanery sat in a bemused lotus position absorbing the philosophic stillness of this uncluttered scene. The train trundled on and on as Patty tested how long she could maintain her stoic pose against the unpredictable rocks, bounces, and vibrations of her impudent perch. Boredom set in after twenty-five miles, and the girl whooshed invisibly on ahead of the lead engine and far beyond the horizon.
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The highly restricted Morman Temple in Salt Lake City was visited this night, though had there been a thousand witnesses, none would have seen her. Patty zipped straight down the center aisle barely three feet off the floor; then, after a quick fly-through of the Tabernacle, she was again heading east toward the Rockies. Toward the Rockies, and up and over them and through and around and around the natural icons of the Garden of the Gods --and eastward, eastward.
Wheaten hosts bivouacked prudently silent under the aegis of rich partisan soil, awaiting the insistent vernal reveille to muster, golden uniformed, in vast arrays covering the endless round-topped earthen dunes of Kansas plain. In a sprawling four bedroom ranch-style home, a hard-muscled, tanned farmer and his yet beautiful wife slept deeply in spite of the typically vigorous day they would face by dawn. Their visiting three pre-school grandchildren slept well in the two rooms located on either side of the master bedroom. The youngsters would stay with the older couple until Thursday when their parents would join them for a warmly anticipated Thanksgiving feast. For now, none was aware of Patty Flanery, who bounced lightly across a fertile hilltop less than three hundred yards from the house. "Whoops" and "Yips" and childish giggles accompanied handsprings, cartwheels, cakewalks, and dizzying circles from hedgerow to gravel road. Then she skipped lightly down the road while singing "A-tisket, a-tasket, my green and yellow basket" over and over.
Teasingly, she followed the guard down the lonely, lonely main hall of a giant shopping mall in Kansas City --lonely, yes; there's nothing lonelier than an edifice whose purpose is human commerce ...without people. Through JC Penney and on east.
Atop of the Gateway Arch --center piece for a metropolitan area encompassing nearly two million people: a catenary form six hundred and thirty feet tall --atop the Gateway Arch, beside the slow-motion air-safety beacon, Patty Flanery stood like Peter Pan, legs apart and hands on hips, embracing the sleeping inhabitants, the sleeping streets, and the sleeping brown river --black now to give reflecting canvas to the running lamps on an up-stream plodding tow. Patty smiled proudly over her domain, her own never-never land.
Now she sat nestled in the crook of a seventy foot high limb where it joined the trunk --at this height yet sufficiently sturdy for Patty's weight. This oak-emeritus could easily bear such a charming test, even though, like man, it was day-by-day dying from the inside out. Now her world was the Irish Wilderness ...and a vaulted sky, the low red moon its vigil candle, sufficient to the task of tending the naked forest ...and its naked guest. Her head nodded slowly, and her eyelids relaxed. It had been a long day for our sprite. However, she shook her head resolutely. Just a little while longer, she thought. Then she vanished from her aerie and bodied out again in a clearing near the bottom of the hill over which the stalwart old oak presided with profound dignity --the abandoned camp Patrick had shown her that first afternoon.
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She strode about the remnants of the camp. She could feel a warmth emanating from the ground. It was a warmth she had experienced periodically since she learned her heritage. Patrick had explained it as a phenominum typical in sites where a people's feelings had at some time in the past run deep. "The aura" he had called it. It was very strong here. And Patty was quite aware of its significance in the midst of these woods. It was here that Patty's race had come to a most dramatic climax.
After brushing a thin layer of dust from the now idle sleeping bag, Patty made herself comfortable as she inspected the tape recorder and bag of used cassettes that were also left behind. Patrick had explained that the human in the group around the campfire that night, the schoolteacher Robert, had been keeping a journal of his holiday hike in the woods on this recorder. As it turned out, it was a journal of his last days on Earth. Patty was surprised to find that after being exposed to the Ozarkian elements for the last two weeks there was still some life remaining in the batteries, so she ejected the cassette in the recorder and replaced it on its flip side where it would be ready for playing. Patty assumed these to be the last two sides recorded that night. She was interested in those moments of decision when Robert and the seven last known heirs of her culture determined to leave their home planet for a dangerous, perhaps fatal, trek to an impossibly distant and possibly hostile star system. One by one she experienced the reliving of the deep feelings that motivated their choices.
She heard the cynical couple Angela and Charles opt to take their child William and join in the society of affluent humans. And a Frances and Edward make the same choice because of their wish to raise children in the more involved manner of the outside world. Patty smiled to herself when she heard her father's voice declining the trip ...on the basis of his advanced age; Patty knew the more to the point unspoken reason Patrick chose to remain. Another couple, Denise and Jeffrey --also elderly by racial standards -- regretfully remained behind. As did the once-king Dennis. In fact, it was Dennis who closed out the tape for Robert, who himself had chosen to leave with his new friends because of his dedication to the welfare of children. He wouldn't let such young kids as these set forth on such a perilous adventure alone. He was also influenced by his personal attraction to one of the girls, Kathy, a very young adolescent with the typically mature genes of her people.
As one side of the tape and then the other played out, Patty listened to the child Kathy revel in the excitement of the journey. And an eight year old Matthew revel equally in the aspect of pioneering a new world, a world not burdened by the restrictive traditions that somehow took over Earth. A very young boy named Sean saw the Earth as sooner or later killing him, both physically and in spirit, because of what he was. He preferred the chance of dying while striving to live than waiting around for it to inevitably happen. Mary, eight years old, chose to go because of her unyielding loyalty to her friends, though she was filled with fear of the unknown. Patty heard the girl Eileen --Patty's own age, someone who might have been her friend had she stayed --she heard Eileen steadfastly hold to her commitment as pilot, even though it would mean giving up her beloved studies. Steven, Kathy's twin brother, looked on the whole thing as the chance of a lifetime to fill his thirsty mind with a world of knowledge (his attraction to the Pilot Eileen didn't hurt). Finally, she listened to the words of the wise beyond her years, seven year old Deirdre: "... there would always be people who'd try to decide what I could do ...What good does it do to have a brain if other people decide for me what I may or may not do? ...There are just two things I really, truly want to do: fly around in my wave and live out in the open naked, with my body covered only by sunlight, moonlight, or
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starlight. I wouldn't be able to do these things on the outside ...I miss my parents (Frances and Edward, whom she left for her independent state when she was five --as was natural for all children of the race). There are times I wish I was back with you so --you could hold me when I'm scared or hurt or lonely, or for no reason at all. But I know what being free is, and I don't want to give it up."
Dennis finished Robert's journal for him, and evidently passed away shortly after. As he put it: "I don't have the energy to wave anywhere else. That's okay. This is a nice place to spend a few hours --or so" No other sounds were heard as the tape ran itself out.
It must have been a full five minutes before Patty finally moved. Slowly, she fished around in the bag of cassettes until she found one still sealed in its original container. She took it out, put it in the recorder, and brought the microphone to her mouth.
"Hey, you guys! You forgot me." A beat. "A week and a half, that's all. You could've just as well waited another week and a half. I feel like the last of the Mohicans." A beat. "Would I have gone along, you ask?" A beat. "Would ...I have gone ...along? Well, I just might have, okay? ...and I might not have. But you don't know, I really might have gone with you to that star nineteen hundred light years away." She looked up through the leafless branches, and sighed. "You really thought the outside world was so bad that you ...went to another star, for gosh sakes?" She picked up a stick and traced the word "Freedom" in the ground at her feet. "'I know what being free is, and I don't want to give it up.' That's what Deirdre had said on the tape. 'There are just two things I really, truly want to do: fly around in my wave and live out in the open naked, with my body covered only by sunlight, moonlight, or starlight.' Patrick said we don't have to 'do' anything." A beat. "He said we don't have to have goals. Eileen gave up her life's interest in physics and math because she was committed to the responsibility of being a Pilot. Did she surrender her freedom? or did she reach a higher freedom by not being bound by her own goals? That's the way Sister Daniella thought. Suppose Eileen had chosen not to be bound by her commitment; then wouldn't she have retained the freedom to pursue her interests?" Another sigh. "'To fly around in my wave and live out in the open naked, with my body covered only by sunlight, moonlight, or starlight.' Is this what freedom is made of?"
Patty shut off the recorder. Then she lay down on the sleeping bag and dozed into a deep slumber. In the morning she intended to get to the resort in time to intercept Rachel on her dawn jog. Patty missed her friend and was eager to see her again. As usual for her life in the open, Patty would be awakened by the first signs of daylight. But she would be in no hurry to depart. The two hour clock difference between here and Bollinger's gave her a safe buffer.
Chapters: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18
To Homepage and Table of Contents: The Universe in 700 Words or so
After the Wilderness - Copyright 1990 by Gordon Kearns