HER HANDS #10

Please note. There are descriptions of religious beliefs and practices contained in HER HANDS. They are intended for use as setting, cultural context and character development. They are not intended to promote or criticize any religious belief or practice.

HER HANDS

Chapter 5

Installment 9

Scenes 37-40

Chapter 5

After the Mother Superior had dressed down Sarah, Sister Claire came up beside Sarah as she was delivering her mug and plate to the kitchen galley for washing. “Let’s go for a walk.” Sarah’s friend’s voice lifted her from a dim sadness that had settled into her following the reprimand. It would be good to be with Sister Claire, away.

The late November sky held a band of gold along the western horizon where the sun had just completed its descent. Banks of steel gray clouds pressed down upon the light. The sky directly above was black with the night already. The air was cold in the lungs of the two women standing on the hospital doorsteps, each breathing deeply. Sarah’s eyes were shut, Sister Claire’s were open, gazing on the effect of the last light on the village square. She was not inclined to declare it beautiful. Instead she said. “It is hard to leave behind a day like today. How is it possible that what I am filled with is just this day?”

Sarah nodded, opened her eyes, “Let’s walk.”

With that they headed for the western entrance to the courtyard, to the light. Sarah extended her stride. Sister Claire did as well, a laugh escaped from her. They looked at each other in motion and smiled wantonly. Yes each of them thought.

They were quickly out of the courtyard, their legs extending fully with each powerful step. The night air stung their faces to glowing. They gulped in the air. They wanted no words, they wanted no commands. They wanted no thoughts of those horribly confused men, they wanted no responsibility. They wanted their stinging skin, and their beating hearts, and their roaring lungs, and their reaching legs and swinging arms, and their heaving ribs and breasts, and their eyes to take in the electric lamps and settings through the windows of the wealthy, and the kerosene lamplit humbler settings of the poorer villagers at the edge of town. They charged on, the golden thread of last light before them, then simply a muted glow and they were beyond the village. Then there was only the dark, the reach of the town’s light and activity behind them.

A kilometer further, without signal they stopped, heaving. It was impossible. To be destroyed and ecstatic so completely in one day was more than any person could endure. Each of the women felt that at some profound level, yet neither had the words in that moment. A huge sob escaped Sarah. Tears poured from her eyes and she sobbed again. Sister Claire whimpered and her anguish escaped her with fierce tears and the need to hold her suffering sister, and to be held. They turned to each other. They embraced each other powerfully, the need was so great. They pulled each other close, clutched each other, held on to the strength of the other and the consolation. The consolation was a liquor overflowing the confines of their hearts. Their spirits swelling, they held each other’s head, their faces. They kissed. Their lips found their mates, yes their mates, and they pressed together. Each breathed the air from the other, tasted the tears of the other. In this night that, for an infinite fragment of time, contained only the two of them, inseparable, until their minds alerted to the fact of their lips, and their fingertips touching, and their garments, and their desire. Their sex ignited. Sister Claire, more familiar, welcomed the charged heat. Sarah, unfamiliar, was confused by the small rage of want that had arisen. She said, “It’s…”

Sister Claire finished, “Impossible.”

They separated, bonded from that night forward.

The two women walked in silence in the direction of the village, each full of what had just occurred: the powerful sensual impressions; the emotions attending their embrace; the touches, the kiss. Glee filled Sarah and Sister Claire both, lifting each of them skyward, their feet barely touching the country highway. The unbound happiness tamped to detailed reflection on the wide ranging sensations. At nearly the same moment, each of the young women was struck by the awareness they were returning to the village, to the hospital, to their quarters in the dormitory and the convent. Sister Claire took Sarah’s hand without a word. They continued in silence in stride.

Sister Claire spoke soon thereafter. “Before I entered the convent my name was Joan.”

“May I call you Joan? Just between us.”

“I wish that you would.”

Sarah felt a roaring need to understand why Joan had entered the convent. She asked.

Joan slowed. Sarah slowed with her. Joan responded. “It’s a beautiful thing, at least it was for me, the idea of dedicating my life to the love of Jesus, to put that love to use as a nurse…” Her words hung in the chilled air. They walked, she continued. “I was sixteen when I felt the calling.” Another pause.

Sarah softly, “I’m seventeen.”

Joan smiled, “So maybe you understand what a calling is. I think you must. It is no secret you are an amazing healer…”

Sarah stammered. Joan noticed her embarrassed reaction. “No, you don’t realize that, do you?”

“No, I…” Sarah was uncertain what she might be referring to.

Joan stopped suddenly as did Sarah. They were still holding hands. The nun looked into Sarah’s pitch black eyes set deep in her milk white face set against the cloud sheathed night sky, all else invisible. She searched Sarah’s face, took both Sarah’s hands in hers, and spoke in a stern whisper. “Forget everything I just said to you.”

Sarah, lightheaded, “About?”

“About being a remarkable healer. Banish that thought. That thought will get in the way of what you need to do.”

Sarah grew more lightheaded, did not know how she then came to kiss Joan on her lips; a long tender kiss. She felt Joan’s spirit entering her. Joan poured herself into Sarah.

They parted, barely. Together in this night. Joan spoke. “Dedicate yourself.”

Sarah felt a tingling luminescence throughout her body: she was a healer. She was meant to treat the afflicted. That was all. There was no thought beyond that.

Joan’s words reached Sarah. “You are glowing.”

Sarah closed the small distance between them, still holding Joan’s hands. She placed her mouth by Joan’s ear and whispered. “Thank you.”

The night chill imposed itself. It was time to continue back. They walked briskly, not holding hands. During their return Joan shared that she was from Pont du Gard; that she had three sisters and a brother, all younger; that she hoped this war would end soon so it would not claim her brother; that she was twenty years old; that she had kissed two other girls before she entered the convent and one since she had become a nun, “And now you”; that it made her feel wonderful; that a boy cousin and a boy classmate had tried to make her kiss them “and do other things” but she didn’t like it; that she decided she didn’t want to bear children with a man and that a life dedicated to Jesus was a very fine thing and that, besides, being an old maid looked like a miserable life.

Sarah responded by sharing that she was from a farm not far from Rouen ; that she had two younger brothers; that her father had suffered a terrible threshing machine accident when she was young, perhaps four years old, which left him with a stiff limp; that she loves her mother and father very much and enjoyed her life on the farm; that her father was in constant pain, she suspected, because her mother often placed warm compresses on her father’s neck, back and groin; that she watched her mother prepare poultices with herbs from the garden, fields and forest; that she had never kissed a girl “until now”, which she liked very much – she blushed as she gushed this admission; that a boy cousin had kissed and touched her, which was awkward; that she had kissed a boy on market day and had liked it; that she thought she would like to bear and raise children – she didn’t feel confused about saying that.

The distance to the village closed quickly and the two women were soon at the town’s edge, full with the evening and all that had been shared. They had barely paid attention to the sounds of the cannon fire and exploding ordinance from the distant front.

Sarah and Joan separated, putting some distance between them as they walked through the settling town. Wood smoke anointed their path. They approached the hospital, each compelled. Why? Neither thought to consider this place was the cauldron that had formed them, that had pressed them together. Those weren’t words they would have used, yet describes what they felt.

They entered the hospital through its massive oak doors. They stood a few feet within the foyer, a marbled chamber empty of all others. The wails and moans echoed from the ward, down the hallways, reaching them. Each wondered how difficult this first night must be for these men, how each night must hold its own terror. Joan thanked God she served during the day. Sarah wanted to know these men when the sun was not present to hearten them. She offered a small prayer, imploring Jesus to comfort these afflicted.

Neither woman wanted to go any further into the building, nor to stay any longer. Joan touched Sarah’s hand. Outside, at the top of the steps, they only whispered, “Au revoir.” Sarah looked up at the clock in its tower: past nine. Joan followed Sarah’s gaze; the time meant she had missed evening prayers. She left hurriedly in the direction of the convent. Sarah turned south for the dormitory.

The sleeping hall was dimly lit. Enough light entered the room through the transoms above the doors at either end of the room so that Sarah could find her way to her cot. She silently changed into her flannel nightgown and settled beneath her wool blanket. She gave thanks for the warm comfort against the room’s chill. Her body gave thanks and eased into the comfort. Her eyelids lowered, as all felt right in this unthinking moment.

“Where were you?” Cecile whispered across the space between their cots.

“I went for a walk.” Sarah chose to say no more. She wanted to be left alone.

“We had a meeting. Well, not really a meeting, just we nurses aides. Here. We wished you were present.”

Sarah didn’t want this, whatever this was.

“We think you should represent us. Because you understand.”

Sarah was cornered by Cecile’s words, they would not leave her be. She responded, her honest reply. “No, I don’t understand.” She did not say whether she would represent the aides, speak on their behalf presumably to Mother Clothilde and whomever the General was sending to oversee the hospital. Instead she whispered, “I’m terribly tired, Cecile. I need to sleep.” She had managed a firm tone that informed her friend the conversation needed to end. And it did, which slightly amazed Sarah, at her power because she was quite certain Cecile wanted to continue. She listened to the other woman toss and shift in her cot. She sensed others in the dark had been listening.

Sarah was left with her awakened thoughts and her memories of the evening. She re-imagined so much, so many of the touches, frequently returning to the first moments of their first kiss, elating with the power of her body, their bodies, fully alive. That alone was enough. She needn’t ask “what next?” That was not a question asked in war. Sarah knew intuitively that was a dangerous, maddening thought. If she were to have asked herself, she would have answered “tomorrow”, as that was all.

Sarah slipped to sleep. Her dreams were formless anguish laced with strains of enlightened peace. She thought a dance, movement, the interplay within her, surrounding her, beyond her. She was of it. When slumber thinned to near wakening Sarah was glad she was warm and whole.

***

Some of the sets of notes were coherent but one set stood apart for the hints of insight and introspection.

“She is not a child.” Mother Clothilde murmured as she read the typewritten notes Sarah had taken on Bernard. She didn’t know what to think of Sarah’s observations of a man said to be tormented by his combat experience. Sarah’s comments made no sense to the nun, yet she did not dismiss them completely. She conceded that the young nurse’s aide wrote in a manner far beyond her years. As she continued reading, the thought crossed the mother superior’s mind that these journals will be heading to the generals and colonels of the SSA. She was briefly vexed that she may be held responsible for Sarah’s writings, as well as the musings of the rest of her nurses. She crossed herself and implored the Lord in a breath. She reminded herself that the Inspector General’s instructions were clear: to simply forward these transcribed journals and await further instructions. The nun felt her burden lift. However, Sarah may still present her own burdens, being an upstart who insisted on thinking regardless. She seemed incapable of being otherwise. For a moment Mother Clothilde was curious about the child but she checked herself; she thought it best if she didn’t allow Sarah to take a hold of her. The lines between them needed to be clear, so when the day came when she received the Inspector General’s instructions on how the wounded were to be ministered to, and she would be needing unwavering adherence to those instructions from all of her staff, no exceptions. Not the girl or her followers. “Her followers”: that phrase echoed in the tired nun’s mind.

The hour was late, her eyes were heavy but Mother Clothilde could not release the thought that her staff might not be compliant. It will not do. It cannot be. The mother superior slept fitfully.