"'And so, I became a Catholic', began the second installment
of Sister Ursula's story.
And again, I scribbled nice opening in the left margin
before hunkering down.
I had had students like Sister Ursula before,
and they had inspired the strictly enforced 25-page limit
in all of my workshops.
I noticed that for this second submission,
she had narrowed her margins, fiddled with her font,
wedging the letters more closely together.
And the spacing didn't look quite double, maybe 1.7.
Venial sins.
Having had no religious training prior to entering the convent,
Sister Ursula was, for some time,
unable to recite prayers with the other children,
further evidence, if any were needed,
of the moral depravity inherent in being
the offspring of a whore.
She discovered that it was not an easy task,
learning prayers to the cadence of public ridicule,
but learn them she did.
And though the rote recitation was, in the beginning,
a torment, it eventually became a comfort.
Most of the prayers that she fought to memorize
were adamant about the existence of a God
who, at least in the person of the crucified Christ,
was infinitely more loving and understanding and forgiving
than the women he had led to his altar as his brides.
To be loved and understood and forgiven
seemed to Sister Ursula the ultimate indulgence.
And thus she became a denizen of the convent chapel,
retreating there at every opportunity from the taunts
and jeers of the other children, the constant crowlike
reprimands of the nuns.
She liked the smell of the place--
damp, cool, clean-- especially when she had it to herself,
when it wasn't filled with the bodies of stale old nuns
and sweaty children.
Often, she could hide in the chapel for an hour or more
before one of the side doors would finally
creak open, momentarily flooding the floor with bright light.
Then the long, dark shadow of a nun
would fall across Sister Ursula where
she knelt in prayer at the foot of the cross,
and she would have no choice but to rise and be led back
to her torment, often by a twisted ear.
In addition to the authorized prayers she memorized,
Sister Ursula composed others of her own.
She prayed that Sister Veronique, who
had suggested that she had no father
and who worked in the convent stable,
might be kicked in the head by a horse and paralyzed for life.
She prayed that Sister Joseph, who
used her command of the kitchen to ensure that the charity
children were given the poorest food in the smallest
quantities, might one day slip and fall
into one of her boiling vats.
Required herself to spend most holidays at the convent,
Sister Ursula prayed that the children
who were allowed to go home might
perish in railway accidents.
Sometimes, in an economical mood she
prayed that the convent might burn to the ground,
and the air fill with black ash.
She saw nothing wrong with offering such prayers,
particularly since none of them, no matter
how urgent were ever answered.
She felt a gentle trust in the Jesus of the Cross,
who hung above the main altar of the convent chapel.
He seemed to know everything that was in her heart
and to understand that nothing dwelt there
that wasn't absolutely necessary to her survival.
He would not begrudge her these prayers.
In truth, Jesus on the cross reminded Sister Ursula
of her father, who she knew had never
wanted to see her packed off to the convent,
and who missed her every day, just as she missed him.
Like Jesus, her father was slender, and handsome, and sad,
and unable to find work.
And he was married to a woman who was his shame.
He was, like Jesus, stuck where he was.
Yet if the prayers she struggled to memorize were true,
there was hope.
Had not Jesus shed His crown of thorns, stepped down
from the cross to become the life and salvation
of the world, raising up with Him the lowly
and the true of heart?
Sister Ursula, when she wasn't praying
that a horse kick Sister Veronique in the head,
fervently prayed that her father might one day be free.
The first thing he would do, she felt certain, was come for her.
And so every time the chapel's side door
opened, she turned towards the harsh light with a mixture
of hope and fear.
And though it was always a nun whose dark silhouette filled
the doorway, she held tenaciously to the belief
that soon it would be her father standing there.
One Christmas-- was it her third at the convent school?--
Sister Ursula was summoned to the chamber
of Mother Superior, who told her to ready herself for a journey.
This was a full week before any of the other students
would be permitted to leave for the Christmas holiday,
and Sister Ursula was instructed to tell no one
of her impending departure.
Indeed, Mother Superior seemed flustered,
and this gave Sister Ursula heart.
During her years of secret, vengeful prayer,
she had indulged many fantasies of dramatic liberation,
and often imagined her father's arrival
on horseback, his angry pounding at the main gate,
his purposeful stride through the courtyard
and into the chapel.
Perhaps Mother Superior's anxiety stemmed from the fact
that her father was already on his way
to effect just such a rescue."