Chapter 7 -we're skipping 6

Sister Marie-Francoise, sheltered in the piousness of her habit -wool frocks and starched white wimples, threads through the streets of Casablanca, between the signs of glitter and excrement, through familiar strangeness, in a labyrinth of irreconcilable dichotomies. Her light steps, steady and determined. Yet her eyes, comfortingly green on the surface, if anyone was inclined to look deeper, were brimming with sadness.

She stops in front of 8 Rue Rouchd’s entrance, where four little boys are playing with colorful marbles. She says “Bonjour,” and waits for the children to move from the doorway, before entering the French designed-and-built structure, probably from the forties, that was never renovated, despite its fissured walls, faulty plumbing, and archaic wiring. She takes a deep breath and begins climbing a crackled but solid stairway.

Heading upward, past humidity’s ravaging touches, she wishes she were someone else, with a completely different life, one with real problems, one with less burdensome weaknesses. There is so much turmoil inside of her, waiting, waiting for a chance to be released, and the spiraling narrow stairway isn’t helping at all. It is as if each step is taking her closer to the throbbing source of an incipient, and most discomforting, doubt she’d rather not confront. But, she is who she is, and why should it be otherwise, when neither discomfort nor doubt is novel to her? She’s been this way since the beginning, and even before the vows.

There are questions that cannot be ignored. She’s tried her hardest to dismiss them, but they just keep on coming back, louder each time, like echoes in some infernal cave. She tries to justify, but her mind is blurred with regret. She tries to be strong, but her will has long been consumed in a vacuum of helplessness. She wishes she could make this world of worries stop from spinning inside her head, but doesn’t really know how.

Someone, or something, inside of her, is banging against the thin walls of her serenity, shaking her convictions, stirring her certitudes, shouting, “Where is the peace you were searching for?” “Where is the passion you should feel?” “Where is the grace you’re supposed to emulate?” Then there are the facts, as rigid as steel, unbreakable chains holding her pinned to the moral intransigence of responsibility.

Sister Marie-Francoise moves upward, upward, because she knows her role. She knows what is expected of her, and how it all came to be defined. Certainly, she didn’t have a say, and no matter how much she spins this tale of hers, she’ll keep on finding nothing but causes, external and mostly beyond her control. So, it is left is silence. Unfortunately, silence isn’t a solution. In fact with enough time it becomes part of the problem, the way it has. Then there is no way no to hide. All the tricks have been used and not of them will work again. Still she climbs, chocking in a cold silence that hurts so bad she wants to stop, turn around and run back down to the light of day.

Yet, the nun no matter how lost refuses to give in. She goes on, defying every demon hiding within. A dying heart, up there, on the third floor, in apartment #5, needs her assistance. A frail wrinkled body, once strong and lively, a feeble mind, once alert and vibrant, sitting patiently in front of a window, awaits her arrival, her care, her tenderness, her compassion. Today, as much as yesterday, Sister Marie-Francoise wants to turn around and run away, yet she doesn’t.