Spring 2024 - Recrudescence

“Stitches

two in Vigo, one in Betanzos). During those sightings, Sister Elvira Lecumberri always wore pants and never had her habit on. Even before finishing our first breakfast, we’d already concluded that none of that meant anything: mere coincidences, hallucinations that attacked us when we were alone. So we returned to the task at hand. With our bones still sore from the bus journey and the second term ahead of us, we looked to Imogen. While all of us girls at the table awaited her insights, Imogen only watched, half-smiling. What is it? We asked her. What? But don’t you realize that you can’t smile in front of the nuns? You shouldn’t smile; this we had all known since the day we stepped through the gate. She said: But I’m not like you. I’m on a mission, or have you already forgotten? We turned our heads and saw Sister Elvira Lecumberri at the nun’s table, lifting a biscuit delicately to her lips. We sighed all at once, but we were always very sensitive anyway, returning to Polar after a holiday. Then the bell rang and we went to class. In terms of learning, it’s true that we didn’t learn much at Polar, but it would only occur to an outsider that we were there to learn; we were at Polar to be with each other. At breakfast a few days later, we were surprised to see Imogen getting especially close to Sister Elvira Lecumberri in the dining hall, and then again the next day and the day after. You’d better watch yourself, we said to Imogen later in the dormitory while she sat Indian style on the bed brushing her hair. Look, we weren’t going to mention anything, but wasn’t the goal of your little mission to report back to us? When you sit with Sister Elvira Lecumberri in mass, when she asks you to organize the needle boxes, what does she say to you? She must say something. She must tell you something.

Something, concedes Imogen elusively. But these things take

time. We were forced to admit that she was right.

She strung us along for weeks (she was clever that way, the pig). Then she started to tell us things, always a bit at a time. Look, she said to us in the dorm, putting on her know-it-all voice. Look, 165