AHMM, Jul-Aug 2005 Read online

  "It was like, for that one instant, I just completely flipped out,” he said earnestly. “That's justifiable, isn't it? Considering what she was up to. Coroner's got to rule it that way."

  Oh, so now he wanted me to take up for him. “There's one flaw in your story,” I said.

  "What?"

  "Chas has a rule. He sees lots of girls. But he never goes with married women."

  "Really."

  "Yessir.” We'd come to a scraped place in the vast clearing, with a pile of brush I was planning to burn. Bending awkwardly, I picked up a heavy piece of pipe that had been placed there—two-inch ID, maybe three feet long—and, winding up and stepping forward, swung at Bill's head with it.

  My aim was off and he tripped a bit and the pipe hit him without much force across his arm and shoulder. Crying out, he fell to the ground and rolled over on his back. I moved at him swiftly, utterly intent and focused, only remotely aware of his cries, and swung the pipe down toward his head. He dodged, so I missed, but I got lucky—the path of his frantic lunge took him right where I wanted him to be, at a swath of tall grass. Hurtling forward, he did not see the wood well lid until he was on it. And under his weight, with a grinding crunch, it caved in.

  He was on his knees, his back to me, and I clearly saw the recently resoled bottoms of his loafers as the lid crunched through. With a single sharp shriek, Bill plunged downward. His hands caught the mortared stone rim of the well and he dangled for an instant, struggled, panting, then slipped free. Thirty feet is a long way to fall, and an hour seemed to pass before I heard him hit. Could be the fall killed him, probably it didn't. I was already on my way to the backhoe.

  "Your theory was right,” I heard myself say. “It was the man you had wrong."

  Heating the coils, I fired up the Perkins diesel, rolled over to the mound of rocky fill, scooped up a heaping bucket, and rumbled the Oliver to the well mouth. Even if Bill had been shouting, I could not have heard him over the roar of the engine. Moving levers, I raised the boom, angled it over, and then tipped the bucket and plunged the first load of fill nice and clean down into the well. It took maybe a dozen more to fill it the rest of the way. I rolled the backhoe back and forth over the fresh earth to tamp it down, and then added a mound of topsoil on top, to allow for settling.

  Hervie and Chas ferried Bill's Galaxie 500 over to Garrett and left it in the parking lot of the regional airport, where it was found two weeks later. Nooch packed a bunch of Bill's clothes and stuff in a suitcase he found in the trailer, added some old cast-iron window weights from the scrap pile behind Dellow's, and sunk it in the sixty-foot center of the lake on his evening fishing trip. The inquest was put off for Bill's failure to show. Brian Haven asked questions around town, finally issued wanted-for-questioning bulletins, and Bill's name stayed on the wire for a while, I hear. But they never found him, because they did not know where to look.

  And before the snow flew that year, as the rough-in of my new log home was being completed, Chas drilled me a brand new modern water well.

  * * * *

  Where the old one was, grows now a black Italian poplar. It's done quite well in these forty years. I look at it every day from my hospital bed on the big screened porch, the place where I think about wars and friends and great-grandchildren, where the home health aide gives me sponge baths, where I count down the days leading to my liberation from this latest endless wait to be with Maura, and where our daughter Holly is about to come out to read to me and give me lunch.

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  Copyright © 2005 by Rob Kantner.

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  The Wall by Rhys Bowen

  "No man has entered these walls for more than a quarter century.” The mother superior's face, surrounded by its starched white wimple, was ageless and expressionless and appeared to have been chiseled from white marble. “Not even a priest. Not even a doctor,” she added. Her clear blue eyes seemed innocent enough as they looked directly at the young man, but he had the uncanny feeling that she was reading his thoughts. He had, in fact, just been thinking that priests and doctors must surely have been admitted to the convent in a quarter century.

  "The priest comes only to our chapel, which is, of course, outside the walls. And on the rare occasions when a doctor has been needed, our sick sisters are carried to the parlor, which is also on the other side. Thus we have remained apart and inviolate, in accordance with our foundress's command. We are, as you probably know, one of the stricter orders."

  "I don't know very much,” the young man said. “Only what I've heard in the village."

  "And what do they say in the village?"

  "That nobody who goes to the convent ever returns.” He grinned.

  "That is true enough.” The reverend mother nodded slightly. “Not one sister who has made her vows here has ever chosen to leave us. Not one in a hundred and fifty-five years. An admirable record, wouldn't you say?” She obviously didn't expect an answer, but went on. “We pride ourselves on our self-sufficiency. We grow almost all of our own food. We spin our own wool and weave our own cloth. We make our own medicines. Only once in a while do we come upon a task that cannot be performed by one of our sisters. You have been summoned for such a task, Monsieur Clement. Sister Perpetua is as good a handywoman as you will find, but she has no experience with bricks and mortar."

  "What exactly is it that you wanted doing, Reverend Mother?” Jacques Clement asked, fiddling with the cap that he clutched in his hands. There wasn't much that made him nervous, but the reverend mother's steely gaze fixed on his face was pretty unnerving.

  "Come with me,” she said. “I will show you."

  She held open a grillwork door for him to pass through. It clanged shut behind them. Then she set off at a great pace down a flagstoned cloister, the flapping of her sandals echoing back from the stone walls.

  "We have an unused chapel in the wing that once housed our infirmary. That whole wing is now in disrepair, and we lack the funds to renovate it. Actually, it is no longer needed, since our numbers are not what they were. But recently one of our sisters was struck by falling masonry as she attempted to sweep the chapel floor. I can't risk that happening again and have decided the only solution is to have it bricked up. I understand that you know how to work with bricks.” She turned back to address him.

  "I've done a bit of masonry, yes. But I'm really only a handyman. If you want anything fancy—"

  "Nothing fancy will be required and we have no money to pay for a master mason. You come highly recommended from the village, and I'm sure you'll prove quite satisfactory. Your father was a jack-of-all-trades before you, I understand. Did he teach you well?” She glanced up again.

  The young man smiled grimly. “Hardly a chance for that. He walked out on us when I was a little kid. Got fed up with village life and wanted excitement, I expect. It is pretty quiet in these parts, and my father had been a sailor and sailed around the world when he was young."

  "Really?” The reverend mother sniffed. “I understand that sailors are known to be unreliable. So you have now taken over the reins of the business, have you?"

  "My dad left most of his old tools behind, and there was no other handyman—and I seemed to have inherited the knack."

  "Have you also inherited the knack for wandering off?” Reverend Mother was gazing at him again, making him wish he had never accepted this job.

  "I'm not intending to stay in Saint Cyr all of my life, if that's what you mean. And I wouldn't mind seeing a bit of the world."

  "Would you be deserting those who rely on your support, the way your father did?"

  He smiled. “I'm still fancy free, Reverend Mother. No woman has managed to tie me down yet."

  "And your poor mother? Do you still support her."

  "She died a couple of years ago. Caught pneumonia. She never was very strong."

  The nun shot him another sharp glance, then opened a door at the end of the cloister. “This way, please. A
nd before we enter, I must warn you that you are not to speak to the sisters, or even look at them if they pass you in the corridors. We have chosen to shut ourselves away from men, and the sight of you may put temptation into the hearts of our younger sisters."

  She set off at a great pace again. Up a flight of steps and along a narrow hallway. A mere slit of window to his left, like an arrow slot in a castle battlement, revealed the landscape below, the neat patchwork of fields stretching down to the St. Lawrence River and blue hills rising beyond it in the distance. A string of barges was making its way upstream. He could make out smoke rising from chimneys in Saint Cyr.

  "Nice view you've got here,” he said, more to break the oppressive silence than anything else.

  "This is the only window within our walls with any kind of view on the outside world,” she said. “Our sisters come here to shut themselves off from the world, not to be reminded of it. Enough idle chatter. Hurry up."

  He wondered what the rush was to brick up a disused chapel, then decided that she wanted him out of the hallways before he encountered another nun. There was complete silence in the building. All doors that he passed were closed. More steps, more hallways. At last Reverend Mother stopped and indicated to her left.

  "In here.” There was no light in the chapel, and its vaulted roof was lost in gloom. It smelled damp and musty. Ferns had sprouted through cracks in the masonry. “This part of the building actually goes into the hillside, which made it a very unfortunate setting for an infirmary, as you can imagine. It was only after several sisters were lost to complications of influenza that the infirmary was removed to the front of the building where the healthful breezes blow up from the river."

  Jacques Clement thought of autumn squalls and Arctic gales and decided that the new infirmary situation might be as bad as the last, but he didn't say this to the reverend mother.

  "You'll want me to get supplies,” he said. “Take measurements today and then order bricks and mortar."

  "Everything you need is already here,” she said, “except for tools you no doubt have with you. You came in a vehicle—"

  "My pickup truck is outside. My tools are in it."

  "Excellent. Couldn't be better.” For the first time she expressed a nod of approval and Jacques felt pleasure flush through him like a student who has finally won over a strict teacher.

  "You will drive your truck in through the gates and park in the building on your right, which was once our cowshed when we possessed our own dairy herd. In it you will find the bricks and sacks of mortar as well as a wheelbarrow to transport them. You will go straight across the courtyard and in through the green door at the back. That way you have no need to disturb the daily routine of any of our sisters."

  She waited for him to nod in assent. “Do you think you will be able to finish in one day?"

  Jacques Clement inspected the archway. “I doubt it,” he said. “It will be heavy work transporting all those bricks across to start with."

  "In which case you will stay overnight. I'll have a room prepared for you in this wing and your food will be brought to you."

  "I'd rather go home, if you don't mind. It's only half an hour's drive."

  "And I'd rather that you didn't disturb the rhythm of our tranquility by driving your truck in and out of our enclosure. You will be quite comfortable. We do not put our guests through the rigors of our own chosen lifestyle."

  He opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it and gave a submissive bow.

  High in the tower a bell tolled. The reverend mother looked up. “The second office of the day. I will escort you back to the gate where you will find your truck. Come.” She spoke the word as one would to a dog and he trotted obediently at her heels. Along unseen hallways he heard the slap and swish of sandals and robes as nuns made their way to the chapel. It felt like being in a community of ghosts.

  He found the gate, the courtyard, and the cowshed as directed. The shed contained rusting farm machinery and old trucks, half hidden under tarpaulins. Why hadn't they sold them when they were no longer used, he wondered. Surely convents always needed money?

  Then he loaded bricks into the barrow and had no more energy for thought. Bricks in the barrow, out across the courtyard, in through the green door, and down the deserted hall. He repeated the process over and over until he was clammy with sweat and starving hungry. He wished he'd been smart enough to bring his lunch with him, but he hadn't expected to have to start work immediately. Did nuns eat at lunchtime? And more to the point, would they remember him?

  As if on cue, he heard the light tap of feet coming down the hall and looked up to see a young girl in a short black habit and veil coming toward him. She was bearing a tray on which there was a large bowl of soup, a hunk of dark bread, as well as cheese, tomatoes, and green onions. Beside it was a pitcher of water and a glass.

  "Your lunch, monsieur.” The young girl's eyes were cast down as she held out the tray. “Where would you like me to put it?"

  He scrambled to his feet. “Here, I'll take it.” Their hands brushed as he took the tray from her and he saw her blush. Then he realized with surprise that he recognized her.

  "It's Marie, isn't it? You live on a farm out Saint Denis way?"

  "Used to live.” She glanced up just long enough to make eye contact and gave him a gentle half smile. “I live here now."

  "Of course. Silly of me. But we met before. I came out to work on your grandfather's barn, and there was some kind of church festival going on. And you were serving some kind of food..."

  "Donuts,” she said, smiling more broadly now. “You ate several, I remember."

  He held out his hand. “I'm Jacques. Jacques Clement."

  "We're not allowed to shake hands, monsieur."

  "I'm sorry. Obviously not, if merely looking at a man can drive you to temptation. And if they want you to avoid temptation at all costs, how come they choose the prettiest and youngest nun to bring me my meal? Is this some kind of test?"

  She laughed then. “Oh no, monsieur. I was sent with your tray because I work in the kitchen and because I am merely a postulant. I haven't yet made my vows."

  So that explained the less severe habit.

  "How long before you do that?"

  "When the novice mistress thinks I'm ready.” She made a face. “I have too much spirit and stubbornness, I'm afraid. Taking orders from everybody doesn't come easily to me."

  "Me neither,” he said. “That's why I've always been my own boss."

  "You're lucky to have skills that enable you to be free like that.” She looked down at her hands. “I would otherwise have ended up as a wife, taking orders from my husband."

  "Not all men boss their wives around."

  "All the men I know do."

  "Is that why you came here, to escape from being bossed around by men?"

  "I did not come here to escape, monsieur,” she said frostily. “Please leave your empty tray at the end of the hall. I'll be back to collect it when I have time.” Then she walked away.

  He wanted to call after her, but restrained himself. It was none of his business if she wanted to shut herself away in this place. Perhaps she really had received a calling from God; who was he to dispute with the Almighty? But he couldn't help feeling it was a waste of those large dark eyes.

  He finished the food and got back to work. But he had scarcely begun when he looked up to see a shadow falling over him.

  "I forgot to mention one small matter,” Mother Superior said, making him believe that she had been eavesdropping on his conversation with Marie. “I would like you to leave a small opening in the base of your wall."

  "How small?"

  "Big enough to crawl through, just in case we ever needed to access the chapel again. You can do that, can't you? I mean the wall will stand with a small hole at its base?"

  "No problem,” he said.

  "Your lunch was satisfactory?"

  "Excellent, thank you."

  "We do
not believe in starving the body. A healthy body is essential for hard work and everyone in this convent is expected to work hard. I began as dairymaid, milking the cows each day at five o'clock in the morning. In wintertime my hands were covered with chilblains. I came here as a pampered daughter. I can tell you it was something of a shock, but I survived."

  "How long have you been here, Reverend Mother?” he asked.

  "Thirty-five years. I entered as a very young woman."

  "But you're not from around here, are you? Your accent sounds superior to us French Canadians, as if you came from France."

  "I did indeed come from France. From the port city of Bordeaux."

  "What made you come over here?"

  "This convent."

  "You chose this particular convent out of all the nunneries in the world? Why?"

  "Because I wanted to get away from France and because it suited my needs. I have never regretted my decision to come here."

  He found himself wondering if every nun actually was running away from something rather than running to the convent. Again, as if she could read his thoughts, she said sharply, “No, I was not running away. There was nothing unpleasant about my life at home, but nothing worth staying for either. But I mustn't keep you from your work, since you are charging us by the hour."

  Then she was gone, with a rustle of skirts and slap of sandals.

  Jacques worked on. Daylight failed and he could find no electricity in the hallway. When it became too dark to see he stood at the end of the hall, wondering what to do next. He could hardly go and find them without incurring the mother superior's wrath. Again, as if on cue, he heard the tap-tapping of light feet coming toward him and Marie appeared with another tray.

  "I couldn't find the light,” he said.

  "There is none in this part of the building. They used to use candles. We still have candles in our cells, but there's electric light in the main rooms of the new wing. You'll have to put up with a candle tonight, I'm afraid. It's down here."

  She led him back along the hallway and pushed open a door on her right. She put down the tray on the table by the door and swiftly lit a candle for him.