Devil's Door

Sister Bertrada was snoring like a woman possessed. The snorts, trills, gasps and sudden silences, each followed by a piercing screech, bespoke a hideous battle with the forces of evil. To Catherine, wide awake in the next bed of the dormitory, it appeared that evil was winning. She tried covering her ears with her pillow but it was far too thin. How could the others stand it? Catherine peered down the row of narrow cots but could see no signs of wakefulness from the rest of the women. Beside her, there was a minor explosion as when wine ferments too long in the cask and suddenly erupts from the bung hole. Sister Bertrada should be grateful the pillows were so flimsy for Catherine was sorely tempted to smother her with one. Outside the rain dripped gently from the roof. It was the deepest part of night, Compline long past and Vigils nowhere near. All the women slept. Catherine lay awake and wondered why she had come back to the convent from Paris. She had not wanted to venture out of the cloister in the first place, but had gone at the request of the abbess, Heloise. However, in following that request Catherine had found that the world was something she could not hide from, however inexplicable or frightening it might be. And it had been both. In the three months she had been away, her world had been turned inside out. Her family, whom she thought she knew as well as the lines of her own hand, had proved to be strangers. People she loved and trusted had dark, unsettling secrets. Even, no, especially, her own parents. My mother has gone insane and believes me risen to heaven and worthy of her prayers and my father is a Jewish apostate. She tried thinking it calmly, but she couldn't yet. How could anyone? It was too absurd to even say aloud. Oh, why had she ever left the cloister? Outside the walls of the Paraclete, life had so many complications. Of course, one of the complications she had found had been Edgar. And that was not something she wished to avoid. She smiled in the darkness, remembering the reaction of the convent to her announcement of her intention to marry Edgar. Mother Heloise had been warned in advance in a letter from Master Abelard. She was doubtful, but sympathetic. But others were not so kind. "You think because you've gone and become betrothed that I will give up trying to save your soul," Sister Bertrada had told her the day she returned. "You are mistaken again, Catherine. Until you are wrapped tight in the marriage bed, I will keep up the struggle." Sister Bertrada had kept her word, watching Catherine every moment, catching every fault; catching faults that didn't exist; berating her for folding her hands incorrectly at prayer, for appearing at None in a torn robe. To remind her that there was no place for frivolity in a discussion of Saint Veronica, Catherine spent a day away from her books, embroidering the white crosses on the veils of the consecrated virgins instead. "You see what you'll lose by this willful act?" the novice mistress asked, holding up the veil Catherine had just completed. "Marry now, and even if you crawl back to us, as I believe you will, you will never be able to consecrate your virginity to God. You'll always be less than perfect in his eyes." Catherine forbore reminding her that their own Abbess Heloise had been married and borne a son before she became a nun. Did God love her less for that? Perhaps, a voice in her mind had whispered,How do you know who God loves? Catherine had admitted to herself that the affections of the Almighty were not known to her and held her tongue. Every day had been a new diatribe, every night a cacophonous concert. Sister Bertrada was a foretaste of purgatorial torment. And yet, Catherine was happy sNewman, Sharan is the author of 'Devil's Door', published 2004 under ISBN 9780765310347 and ISBN 0765310341.