Spring 2024 - Recrudescence
“Stitches
who did charity work would never be told to measure and cut their clothes against their own bodies. We heard about fascism the same way we heard about so many other things: vaccines, catastrophes, factories—matters for our fathers and brothers, those of us who had them. It didn’t escape us, though, how plump and handsome some of our fathers made themselves for their discussions about fascism, as if they were living their second youths; they brushed their hair back, shaved closely, and bought new suits. One or two younger men kept watch in the streets and, if we went with them, other women eyed us jealously. The world is going to change, our brothers would say by way of explanation, but our older brothers said so many things that we didn’t pay much attention. We brought some of what we’d gleaned back with us to Polar after Christmas break, but so well disguised that it barely amounted to anything. The nuns didn’t want to hear a peep about fascism. Once, years before, the school was almost shut down because of fascism, and since then they were much more careful. An inspector had come. She was quite arrogant, well buttoned up into a dark coat with a belt at the waist. Back then, we were still young and we gathered behind half-open doors to watch her pass by, watch how she spoke first with Sister Dolor, then with Sister Mártara Junior, then even with the less powerful nuns: Sister Mártara Senior, Sister O’Malley, Sister Chinta, Sister Radegunda. When she went to speak with the latter, Sister Dolor and Sister Mártara Junior’s eyes bugged out in horror. Sister Radegunda, even though she was paralyzed from the waist down and spent nearly all her time in her room, had studied in Hildesheim as a novice and liked everything with a whiff of Germany: magazines, old languages, old music. The inspector went to Sister Radegunda’s room and asked to see the magazines. She saw them and didn’t respond in any significant way, but Sister Dolor and Sister Mártara Junior got nervous and said: Nothing like this will ever enter Polar again. At least not if we can help it. We, innocent nuns that we are, can only 157
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