""So," Sister Ursula said sadly, "I was writing what you call
a fictional story after all."
It was now mid-December, my grades were due,
and I was puzzling over what to do about Sister Ursula's still.
She had not turned in a final portfolio of revised work
to be evaluated, nor had she returned to class
after her final workshop.
And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't erase from my memory
the image of the old nun that had haunted me for weeks.
Of her face coming apart and the terrible recognition
of the willful lie that she had told herself over a lifetime.
So I decided to pay her a visit at the old house, where
she and five other elderly nuns have been quartered now
for nearly a decade, in anticipation of their order's
dissolution.
I had brought the gift of a Christmas tree ornament,
only to discover that they had no tree.
Unless you counted the 9 inch plastic one
on the mat in the living room.
Talk about failures of imagination.
In a house inhabited by infirm, elderly women,
who did I suppose would have put up and decorated a tree.
Sister Ursula seemed surprised to see me standing there
on her sloping porch, but she led me into a small parlor
off the main hall, "We must be very still," she said softly.
"Sister Patrice has fallen ill.
I am her nurse, you see, I am nurse to all of them."
In the little room, we took seats opposite each other
across a small gate-like table.
I must have looked uncomfortable because Sister Ursula said,
"You have always been very nervous of me,
and you should not.
What harm was in me has wasted away with my flesh," she said.
"it's just that I was bitten by a nun as a child," I explained.
[LAUGHTER]
Sister Ursula, who had said so many horrible things
about nuns, looked momentarily shocked,
and then she smiled, "Oh, I understand.
You made a joke," she said.
"I thought you might be, what was
that word the boy in our class used
to describe those like me?"
I had to think a minute.
"Oh a misogynist?"
I said.
"Yes, that," she said.
"Would you tell me the truth if I asked you,
do you like women?"
"Yes I do, very much," I said, "And I men,"
she said, "so we are the same.
We each like the opposite from us."
Which made me smile.
And perhaps because she had confided so much to me
about herself, I felt the sudden irrational urge
to confide something in return, something terrible perhaps,
something I believed to be true.
That my wife had left because she had discovered
my involvement with a woman I did not love who I had taken up
with, I now realized, because I felt cheated
when the book that I published in spring had not done well.
Cheated because my publisher had been irresponsibly optimistic,
claiming that the book would make me rich and famous.
And because I had been irresponsibly
willing to believe it.
So that when it provided neither fame or fortune,
I began to look around for a consolation prize
and found her.
I'm not a good man, I might have told Sister Ursula.
I have not only failed, but also betrayed those that I love.
If I said such things to Sister Ursula,
maybe she would find some inconsistency
in my tale, some flaw.
Maybe she would conclude that I was judging myself too harshly
and find it in her heart to say, you don't mean that.
But I kept my truths to myself because she was right,
I was nervous of her.
After an awkward moment of silence, she said,
"I would like to show you something
if you would like to see it."
She struggled heavily to her feet and left the room,
returning almost immediately.
The old photograph was pretty much as described, browned
and curled at its scalloped edges.
The womanly image at its center faded nearly
into white, but still beautiful.
It might have been a photo of young Sister Ursula,
but of course, it wasn't.
Since there was nothing to say, I said nothing, merely
put it down on the small table.
"You," she said, "You had loving parents?"
I nodded, yes.
"You are kind," she said.
"This visit is to make sure that I'm all right, I understand,
but I am wondering for a long time,
you also knew the meaning of my story?"
I nodded, yes.
"From the beginning?"
She said.
"No," I said, "not the beginning."
"But the young woman was correct,
based on the things that I wrote,
there could be no other interpretation?"
"Not that I could see," I said.
"And yet I could not see," she said.
There was a sound there, a small dull
thud from directly overhead.
Sister Patrice, Sister Ursula informed me,
and we got to our feet.
I'm needed, even a hateful nun is sometimes needed.
At the front door I decided to ask,
"One thing," I said, "the fire that destroyed the school?"
Sister Ursula smiled and took my hand.
"No," she assured me, "all I did was pray."
[LAUGHTER]
She looked off across the years though remembering "Ah,
but the flame," she said, her old eyes
bright with a young woman's fire,
"they reached almost to heaven."" Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]