Image courtesy of Chistopher JL. Shared via a Creative Commons license.
—-
They had held hands for a long time secretly behind the sweet lime bushes, the scent causing them to forever remember that first encounter. She would pick the small berries, her fingers massaging the fruit gently, caressing them until they popped; the silky oil oozing out: that fragrant neroli. They kissed tentatively, mouths like open letters spilling out and drawing in small histories. Their uniforms were a problem, for they could not un-robe though their incandescent flesh yearned for a deeper contact. So their hands sought each other, fearfully charting a course relying on starry intuition and a map of questions.
The statue of the Virgin Mary gazed down upon them generously as she did at all the other blossoms in the garden. Irena imagined that one day her blue robes would flutter imperceptibly and she would sprout the most immaculate wings, lifting decorously, certainly graciously, finally escaping into the sky. Then both would turn to the other, the air suddenly charged with a honeyed caution, like a hive about to swarm, to look, to touch once more the downy flesh exposed. Sarojani would say, once in that crucible of judgement, it was a mistake, it was a path taken by misguided youth, but Irena could not forget. There were no other paths for her.
Fifteen years later they saw each other across the street where the masquerade band had stopped to rest; both dressed in skimpy bikinis, playing mas in a Carnival band. Sarojani had long since migrated to Miami, marrying an engineer and boasting two beautiful daughters. Irena had remained resolutely single with many friends; she traveled regularly, partied hard, had lovers aplenty. She was an artist, and lived beyond the walls of society. Yet seeing Sarojani swathed in gold and ancient blue, she felt compelled to approach her. At first Sarojani’s eyes registered fear as Irena approached her, but in an instant it faded. They fell into a stylized greeting, the kiss on cheeks, the loud exclamation, laughter coming easily like a rum and coke. In the end they exchanged mobile numbers playing that game of cauterizing the past.
On Ash Wednesday whilst lying on Maracas beach, Irena received a text from Sarojani inviting her to lunch. She accepted and they arranged a time and a place. After, she felt like a fish cast on a rocky beach, lungs already busted, but gasping for air.
***
Inevitably Sr. Marie Therese found them kissing, the most innocent of acts. A forlorn silence fell upon the school. A lightning bolt of fear rippled through the corridors as pupils hurried to their classes, whispering under their breaths, the gossip zinging upon invisible wires from lips to ears. Canvas shoes shuffled into the Principal’s office, where desolate sobs echoed, finally lost amongst the dusty books encased as they were in the one erudite glass case. Words and words, letters and spaces in between, commas and full-stops and much more, written over centuries, gleaned from ancient wisdom, and somehow renewed, sparkled between these pages, but nothing was there to cast even a glimmer of light on Irena and Sarojani.
The principal, Sr. Ignatius Loyola was true to her name, stoic and unrelenting, a Latin scholar no less. She sat erect; her thighs closed tight to any pleasure or to any pain of creation, her nose wrinkled as if something abhorrent had entered the room, its stench rank and sulfurous. She sneered; revealing two over-lapping teeth forever discoloured. Her eyes were sharp as talons.
***
On Friday, three days after the Carnival revelry the two women met at a new stylish restaurant on Ariapita Avenue, the jalousie-shutters were half-closed like a bride’s eyelashes, and the ferns gushed sheepishly, hiding the secrets of many a clandestine affair. Their table was cosy, with a pristine white table cloth, whilst the cutlery and glasses shone upon their lips.
‘Well it’s been awhile.’ Sarojani spoke first after the perfunctory greetings. ‘I am leaving on Sunday and thought after all this time we should meet.’
Irena nodded in assent. ‘Heard you had moved abroad. I wondered about you.’
Sarojani took a sip of water, ‘In a nutshell, working in real estate, two beautiful daughters. Here I have photos.’
Sarojani took out a small portable album and they both looked at the photos. Irena didn’t have to pretend. They were two beautiful girls, looking successful and confident: Sapphire and Floris, beautiful names as well. Both women felt the ice break, the hidden and frozen set free, flowing together, hitting and bumping each other, but swirling nonetheless free.
‘Heard you are quite a name here, saw one of your exhibitions. You’re good.’ Sarojani continued carefully putting away her photos. Irena had noticed that her husband was strategically missing from an entire album of photographs.
‘That’s a real compliment coming from you. I believe you.’ Irena responded, marshaling a mass of voluptuous hair into a pony-tail. ‘Bought anything?’
They both laughed. She continued playfully, ‘I can’t eat if you don’t buy.’
Sarojani looked at her steadily. What she saw was that distant girl, cinnamon-coloured skin, framed by a luxurious mass of hair. She lowered her eyes, avoiding the burnished lips forever like forbidden fruit and whispered, ‘I bought Convent Girls.’
Irena saw the light struggle in Sarojani’s eyes like the last rays of a setting sun, fighting against an inevitable movement: a contest in which night would win.
Irena stumbled on; ‘You are not happy?’ it was more a question than a statement, as many thoughts tumbled into Irena’s head causing her to falter on the rim of a great crevasse. Luckily at that moment the waitress appeared, a bubbly woman with spindly arms and legs. Irena reined herself in.
‘Well ladies are you ready to order? Today we have flying fish in beer batter!’ her voice rising upwards.
***
It was not a view commonly held by nuns at the time, so Sr. Ignatius Loyola would not have considered herself an ambitious woman. On the contrary she felt destined, selected if you like, not only to be the scholar that she was, but to be principal of this flag-ship school, and to some higher purpose like the the bride of Christ. Chosen, to be a beacon, certainly: a light and of course to bring others to light, not by her own will but by that Divine hand leading her.
All must be made clean. Every morning she scrubbed her traitorous flesh with the hard bristle; preparing herself from the flesh upward. Next the routine followed: the heart with the Eucharist, then the mind in liturgy. Yes always upwards for the work at hand, to be an instrument and secretly to dare to be Christ’s vicegerent, pure and untainted. Looking at these two scruffy girls before her she felt her skin itch from the animal sweat they exuded. They seemed moist and putrid to her, bringing with them decay and darkness.
“Extra ecclesiam nulla salus. Outside the Church, no salvation,” She thought.
She would act swiftly and she would act carefully. As custodian of all this power, laid directly in her hands, she would act on God’s behalf: what else was there to do?
***
Without delay the women ordered the flying fish in beer batter, and the question of Sarojani’s happiness remained unanswered until the waitress left. Finally she spoke, her hands reaching for the knife and fork, moving them around on the table so that they formed a kind of tableau of what lay behind her words.
“What is happiness? It is not a hee-hee, haa-haa moment that you imagine when you are young. You see when I am playing mas I am happy, I am free. I feel the music coursing through my veins, the rum hits me here,” Sarojani touched her stomach. “Here in my belly, and I am moving like a comet, no a shooting star.’”
She raised her hands upwards as if in praise, “Boy that’s when I am happy.”
She stopped talking for awhile, her face turned away. Then she continued haltingly, “When my two girls were born, I felt the same, like I was shooting off through space, thundering.”
“What about your husband? Do you love him?” Irena asked, fearing she had gone too far. Maybe Sarojani would leave. She saw her reach for her hand bag, but instead she took out some pills and took one with some water.
“Jimmy is a good man. Faithful. But if you are asking am I still in love, the answer is no,” Sarojani said slowly, her hands placed firmly on the table. Irena noticed they were large hands with long slender fingers, veins showing strength and age rippled up to the wrist, which was narrow and fragile. And there glittering on her wedding finger was a massive diamond ring.
“We were once in love, but I was so young. I wanted to do right by my family, you see. And you know sometimes I am glad I did, cause I have those two wonderful girls.”
The food arrived, the fish curled and crisp on a wispy salad, French fries served on the side like golden soldiers. It all looked good, and both women, ate quietly, relishing what was before them.
“What about you? Would you say that you are happy?” Sarojani asked Irena.
***
“Girls, look at me. Veritas vos liberabit, the truth will set you free. Do you understand?” Sr. Ignatius stared at the two girls sitting before her. One completely disheveled, her body crumpled and whimpering, the other staring ahead stony faced like a sailor searching for a distant star. However this did not daunt Sr. Ignatius. On the contrary her experience had taught her not to welcome any confrontation with the Adversary. Be wary, yes, and keep logic as your faithful sword.
“Do you understand me? I want the truth!” She exclaimed. This time both nodded.
“Good.” She paused, took a breath and continued, “Sr. Marie Therese tells me she found you two kissing, on the mouth. Is that correct?”
Sarojani nodded.
“Is that true Irena?”
“Yes.”
“Yes whom?”
“Yes, Sr. Ignatius Loyola.”
“Now that’s better.” Again she paused and placed her hands in a collapsed prayer position. “Respect, it’s not too much to ask, is it?”
Both girls nodded and assented. Sr. Ignatius continued, ‘Now what else have you two been doing?’
Both girls were silent.
“Come on now. Touching?”
“Yes, Sr. Ignatius.”
“Where Sarojani? The arms, face, breast? Where?”
“Everywhere Sister.”
“Everywhere? What do you mean Sarojani?”
Sarojani looked at Irena, but her eyes were cloudy, pouring sand, smashed like pebbles on a beach.
“Tell her Irena, tell her. You started it.” Her words popped open like carbuncles.
“Breasts and arms Sister….and…and…” Irena answered.
“Yes Irena?” Sister Ignatius leaned forward, her eyes peering stonily over her spectacles.
“Our private areas Sister!” Sarojani almost screamed.
It was Sister Ignatius’ turn to be silent. As she leaned back in her chair, her glasses reflected a sudden meager beam of light that had shifted through the window, blinding both girls to her eyes. She imagined these two girls together touching, a feeble eroticism tugged gently at her sleeve, but Sr. Ignatius Loyola was not a novice in the battlefield. She knew the Adversary was certainly crafty. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus: Lord help her and Lord have Mercy on the souls of these two.
“I see. Now did you two enjoy this touching?” She pursed her lips making sure to indicate to the girls what displeasure was to be felt having to listen to these unsavoury details.
***
The restaurant hummed with the chatter of the lunch-time crowd. Irena put down her knife and fork and took a sip of the long icy cocktail of fruits that stood before her, the glass rimmed in pebbles of cold sweat.
“Am I happy? Well Sarojani I don’t know. I have it all as they say but there are days I get home and I wonder ‘what is it all about?’ so I make myself happy.”
Irena sighed softly, then chuckled, “Then I force myself to be present, but I haven’t been truly happy, free as you called it since the day we were together in that grotto, hiding from the entire school…”
She looked at Sarojani, her eyes an open book of invisible words. “No not sexual enjoyment, but a freedom…no I have never been that happy.”
Sarojani placed her hand over Irena’s.
“I betrayed you,” she cried. “I betrayed you, my dearest friend.”
“We were just kids, Sarojani.”
Sarojani wiped her eyes with a napkin and shook her head in denial.
“Kids? I don’t think that’s an excuse. I betrayed us and I never got the chance to say it. I know it’s too late for sorry, but…” she stumbled on blindly, “Listen I’ll tell you something. Jimmy and I, we live as friends. I know who I am. For some time now I have known I did something wrong. He knows …he knows something isn’t right but what can I say Irena? It’s like your painting, the one I bought: it remains in its package, hidden in the basement.”
She lowered her head searching, “What we did haunts me. Was it good…was it right I mean? Does it haunt you?”
Sarojani felt utterly foolish asking these questions but she was compelled; like a mechanism in a time-piece she ticked on, her eagerness to know unstoppable.
Irena considered this question. She had never attempted to judge the ‘goodness’ of what she and Sarojani had felt or done, but the shame had stung. The shame of something private violated. Not a day went by when she did not calculate that public disrobing and the impact it had on her life, but she had chosen to acknowledge that the truth of what she felt was her truest being. Times were changing, people were more accepting. She no longer felt she was raging against a force of nature. Yes you had to be careful, like most women the threat of rape was always there especially for a single woman living on her own. Men still approached her, challenged her as if they had something extra-ordinary sexually that would change her. She didn’t want to disclose all this to Sarojani. In the end she answered simply.
“Yes it haunts me but I feel what we are and what we did was good, despite all that was said to us…or even by us.”
***
Sr. Ignatius saw the Adversary loom up at her within her office, ready to strike. She repeated her question steadily and calmly.
‘Did you girls enjoy this touching?’
Sarojani was the first to reply, “Yes, Sister.”
Good little Sarojani. There was hope for her yet. Sr. Ignatius also knew that in these matters it was best to speak simply to these children.
“Now listen to me carefully. This is not good. It is sinful what you two have been doing. Do you understand?”
Sarojani nodded, but Irena, she noted, remained determined. The serpent was coiled tightly around her heart. So Sr. Ignatius prayed for the right words to set her free.
“First Father will hear your confessions. Your parents will have to be informed and then we can decide how to move forward. For the time being you will be placed in different classes. I do not want…”
“I do not want confession Sr. Ignatius,” Irena interrupted clearly and loudly.
“What did you say Irena? You will not have confession? Are you aware you are an abomination in God’s sight at the moment and you are placing your soul in mortal danger? Marriage is the only holy sacrament available to us women: marriage to a man or to the Church,” She stressed the word man, and then continued.
“In this way you can be an instrument in the hands of God, either to create a family or to serve as I do,” She opened her palm as if it were a doorway, then just as quickly raised them and shook them dismissively as she continued.
“This touchy-feely nonsense you two have been engaged in will not be tolerated. You will have confession Irena or you will be asked to leave this school where you can do as you like but the teachings of the Church offers you light. I say it all the time: Extra ecclesiam nulla salus. Would you prefer to live in darkness?”
“You nuns and priests think you are holier than thou but you are not!”
“You don’t know what you are saying! I can see you are determined to lose your soul, so it doesn’t surprise me that you have also lost your mind!”
“I will not confess to any stinking priest,” Irena’s voice shuddered at the enormity of what she was saying.
“What are you talking about?”
The precipice was there, all she had to do was jump.
“You think priests don’t touch girls?”
Sr. Ignatius paused. The Adversary had struck; his venom sharp and lethal. She would have to strike back. She thought quickly.
“Sarojani you can go back to class,” she commanded softly. “I would like a private word with Irena.”
Sarojani left the room. She paused once to look back, and whispered, “It was a mistake Sister, ” her eyes shining with the bovine sweetness that Irena always loved.
Sr. Ignatius shooed her out with her hands, “Go.”
***
Irena had paused in her comment, their dishes lay empty and the waitress had returned to clear up. She offered desert and returned with a menu which the women looked at briefly.
“What’s more,” Irena continued, “it’s not what’s said but what isn’t said. The silence is like a void which you must live in, a prison if you do not conform to what is expected. To some extent, art sustains me, liberates me at times from that prison. Without it I would have shriveled like some dusty leaf. As Picasso said, ‘Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.’ Well in my case I think that’s true.”
The waitress returned.
“Give us some time,” Sarajoni responded, and then she addressed Irena.
“You know my parents took me out of school. Shuffled me around before sending me abroad. I never heard about you, until your name started appearing in newspapers. What happened in that room after I left?”
***
“Now Irena, I hope you know what you are talking about,” Sr. Ignatius stood up and came around her desk, standing in front of it, like a guardian.
“Yes,” Irena said softly.
“Yes what…?” Sr. Ignatius echoed.
The silence roared in both women’s ears, a lance entering their very souls.
“Has someone touched you….a man…..a priest?”
“Yes.”
“Have you told your parents?”
“No. He says they won’t believe me.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Yes.”
“Who is this priest?”
“Our parish priest….a friend of my parents.”
Sr. Ignatius Loyola gave a heavy sigh.
“Irena, this is an elaborate lie if I ever heard one. I personally don’t believe you.” She shook her head from side to side. “For a long time now both Sr. Marie Therese and I have had our eyes on you. Your promiscuous behaviour has been noted. This corruption of Sarojani will not continue.”
Irena tried to interrupt but Sr. Ignatius closed her eyes and continued louder, “However it can be forgiven.”
“But it’s true Sister,” Irena said. The tears coursed hot and corrosive, scorching her heart. That man’s hand burned her, inched its way up her thigh, touching, stroking her towards desolation. It had happened once and she would not allow it to happen again. There was no safe place, no safe place from the void that swallowed her afterwards.
Sr. Ignatius droned on, “We will discuss this with your parents but your lies can damage a man’s life, so think carefully what you will say. You cannot palm off your behaviour by besmirching someone’s character.”
“But it is true Sister!” her words fell unto stone, consumed by a hollowness that pushed her out of her chair. She ran out of that nun’s office, ran and ran, out the school gates, ran in tears and blindness, falling and falling, the precipice having no end. When she finally stopped, she was so far away that she just decided it was best to walk home.
‘They made me go to confession. They told my parents everything but Mum and Dad were so afraid of the nuns, they caved in. I know they believed me but had to keep up appearances, so they stopped inviting that man to the house, but he was never accused. I realise now they appeased their guilt by giving into me. Paid for everything I wanted. Art school in London, holidays to anywhere in the world, flat in Diego Martin, everything paid for as if this would rescue me, and funnily it did in some way. London … well it freed me; art saves me from insanity. Recently my mother has begun to accept me, but she cannot reconcile it with her Christian beliefs.’ Irena felt spent, she has poured out all the poison that had been dammed up inside her for so long. It formed a bitter pool in front of her.
***
“You are the bravest, brightest thing I’ve ever seen,” Sarojani’s voice broke. She continued to hold Irena’s hand.
Sarojani and Irena gazed upon each other, their eyes rimmed with tears, their naked selves rising out of their bodies, spreading such unsullied kaleidoscopic wings. They levitated, but just…
“Despite all, we are here,” Sarojani’s voice cracked like a sheet of ice, fissured.
“And we exist and we breathe, and live and love,” Irena completed.
The waitress returned for desert.
“Shall I come back?” she asked, sensing the moment.
“No we are having desert!” Irena exclaimed.
The waitress smiled encouragingly.
Sarojani ordered, not taking her eyes off Irena, ‘Chocolate. Just feed us chocolate.’
The two women spooned chocolate into each others’ mouth, just two friends having lunch. They exited the restaurant and as they stood on the pavement about to say goodbye Sarojani spotted a humming bird, its slender body hovering magically above a hibiscus. She exclaimed, ‘Look!!’ her face relaxed and brimming with excitement.
They looked at this wondrous bird as it dipped its beak into that fiery red chalice of nectar. Suddenly Irena reached out and placed a tentative hand on Sarojani’s arm. She didn’t flinch or move, but drew closer. Sarojani placed her hand in Irena’s hair and releases the pony-tail clip. Irena’s hair cascaded down a halo of tight curls. And then she kisses her, in the holy sunlight. Simultaneously their arms surrounded each other, as a nova of fire erupted roaring, bellowing. Their wings reached upwards towards an open sky and Irena remembers a Latin phrase she had read somewhere:
Amoris vulnus idem sanat qui facit. Love’s wounds are cured by love itself.
—-
Dawne Gowrie-Zetterstrom began writing at the age of 8 years old, and loved words because of her grand-father who was a storyteller and her father who was prone to compulsive recitations of poetry. She studied Creative Writing with Earl Lovelace as her tutor. Her stories have appeared in Anansisem and The New Local. She has recently completed a novel entitled Bridgewall.