The White Garden (12 page)

My white stones, white as sugar, smooth as marzipan, my bones, my marzipan bones. I took a stone into my mouth and I licked it, and then I sucked it. I tried to crunch it with my teeth but I became afraid. I imagined splinters of broken teeth filling my mouth, flooding my mouth with blood and bone and tooth and stone, tooth and nail. I went at the pebble tooth and nail. I swallowed the pebble whole, took into myself the shining egg of the moon. It stays inside me, in my pure and echoing self, swilled from side to side by the tides of time that swell and ebb and flow and boom through the watery hollows of my eggshell self.

I moved all the other stones together, touching each other and I touched them and taught them, those students of purity. Beware the open mouth of me, I whispered to them, going up very, very close. Their perfect little invisible ears were open to suggestion and they took in every eerie word I said. Watch out for me, I

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said to them. I will eat you up at the drop of a hat. I will open up my wide red mouth and grip you in my clean white teeth

— such pearls of wisdom — and lash you with my rolling raving pointed slippery lying tongue. I will swallow you if you are not careful. Watch it. I devour. I put some of them inside my own most secret part, closed over them and lay for a while listening to them. I pushed them this way and that, and I was filled with a strange and warm sweet pleasure. And time stood still as stone, and before my eyes the things of the world became bright and sharp and vivid. An unbearable, almost unbearable, light surrounded every thing in sight.

On the train, the compartments were named after different
saints. Ours was St Martin, and several people referred to Papa
as Monsieur St Martin which sounded very sweet.

In Switzerland we saw the snow-covered mountains, and I
rejoiced at the sight of my beloved snow. I love, love, love snow!

I saw it as an omen for the good outcome of our pilgrimage. All
my life the pure white snow has heralded for me moments of the
greatest significance. We saw waterfalls and valleys filled with
ferns and purple heather. I sketched the chalets and the graceful
churches and the calm mirrors of the lakes. These scenes were, I
knew, but a foretaste of heaven.

And next, Italy! In Milan I climbed to the roof of the marble
cathedral. Celine came with me and we saw beneath us the
whole city where the people moved to and fro in busy lines like
the ants in our garden. Then Venice, where the air was filled
with a silence broken only by the shouts of the gondoliers and
the splash of their oars. Oh, Venice is charming and splendid

— but it seemed to me to be very gloomy. There I saw the fright-ful cells of the underground dungeons, and I saw the Bridge
of Sighs which is given that name because prisoners would
sigh with relief at that point in their journey from the prison
dungeons to the place of death. Death was preferable to impris-onment in the cellars of Venice. Afterwards we went to Padua
where we venerated the holy relic of the tongue of St Anthony.

And in Bologna we venerated the body of St Catherine whose
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face is marked with the kiss of the Child Jesus. How I longed for
such a mark, such a kiss.

Am I marked? Am I marked by a kiss? I kissed Violetta; she kissed me. She was my father; I was her daughter, and we kissed the way they do, fathers and daughters. True fathers and daughters — with passion. I think of Violetta sleeping, a picture of death, of beautiful violet death. She marked me with a kiss and then she slept, and she takes my voice. She takes my voice; I take her voice. I am not myself. No, I am no longer myself. Poor Therese, they said, she is not herself. She is not listening. She is not taking anything in. Not eating. Not drinking. Not thinking.

Not winking, blinking, nodding. Not nodding off, not sleeping.

But Violetta is sleeping, sleeping now far, far away. She took my voice away with her, and I am not myself. Violetta has roamed far from me, and she has my voice in her heart, leaving me, deaf and dumb Daphne, alone and silent by the edge of the sighing sea.

When we came to Loreto I was completely enchanted. There,
in the Italian town of Loreto stood the holyhouse where Jesus
had lived when he was a child. How wise of the Blessed Virgin
to transport the house from the perils of the Holy Land to this
quiet, primitive place of rest. I meditated on the miracle of a
house that flies from one country to another, that transports
its sacred stones across oceans and mountains. I gazed on the
walls where Jesus had gazed, and I placed my rosary in the dish
that he had used. The house is enclosed in the Basilica which is
like a casket of white marble surrounding a precious diamond.

I burned with the desire to receive the Bread of Angels inside
the house itself rather than at the altar of the Basilica. I was
told that it was not possible to fulfil this desire, but when Celine
and I were in the Holy House we met a priest who had a special
privilege to say Mass there. We explained to this priest that we
wished most fervently to receive Jesus in the Holy House, and
he immediately called for two Hosts to be placed on the paten
for us.

In Rome we visited the Colosseum. I trembled as I stood

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before the arena where the martyrs shed their blood for Jesus.

I longed to kiss the ground. But I learned that the level of the
soil has been raised so much since early times that the true
surface of the arena lies eight yards below the earth. Piles of
rubble cover the ground, and there is a barrier which prevented
us from entering. However I discovered a place where Celine
and I could get in, and we rushed forward before anyone could
stop us. We ran down to the sacred spot marked by a cross
where the martyrs died. We knelt, and my heart beat fast as I
pressed my lips to the dust reddened by the blood of the first
Christians. I begged that I too might be a martyr, and I felt deep
within me that my prayer was answered. We picked up a few
stones and climbed back up the perilous slope to where Papa
was waiting.

I pressed my lips to the dust on the cold stone pavement, and all the stones were lying still and flat in the pattern of the honeycomb. Stone honeycomb. Honeycomb won’t you be my baby. Honeycomb be my own. Just a hank of hair and a piece of bone made of walkin’ talkin’ honeycomb. Or however it goes. I closed my eyes and I saw the hexagons fitting into each other, repeating and repeating in a most wonderful way, in a most dreamy colour — they were not grey, but pearl, mother-of-pearl, gleaming in the moonlight that fell on the pattern like honey, like milk and honey, peaches and cream. With my lips to the dust of the stone pavement, I saw with an inner vision the beauty of the world as the strict pattern of the honeycomb, and I imagined I could hear the language bees speak to each other.

I can watch the bees for hours as they work among the flowers and make their beelines for the hive. I love insects of all kinds, and I am not afraid. I am afraid of spiders. Perhaps I am a kind of insect, wary of my great enemy. I love the wings of insects, the lacy symmetry and the glassy panels. I stand very still and let the praying mantis walk along my arm. I love the tickle tickle of a bee walking in the palm of my hand. If you believe they will not sting you, they will not sting. I have stood among the lavender in my pale blue dress and I have let dozens of bees stick to me and walk about on me. I whisper their Latin name
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—
Apis mellifera
— very pretty — as they bumble along on my skin and my clothes. Once I did a project on bees and I spent hours and hours of bliss in the nuns’ garden ‘doing my research’. One of the Sisters was terrified I was going to die from a sting. When she was at school a girl did an essay on bees and apparently did get stung and nearly died. I found that very exciting. And the names for things — perhaps I should have studied medicine — oedema, bronchospasm, dyspnoea, pruritus, ana phylaxis. I used to make up songs with those words. Bright clothes and sweet perfumes attract
Apis mellifera
.

And people who are susceptible to bee venom turn yellow and get purple and blue marks under their eyes. They are giddy and hear strange noises and see strange sights. These facts made me long to be ‘susceptible’, wishing always to hear strange noises and see strange sights. I wore a bright purple dress from the theatrical wardrobe but nothing happened.
Apis mellifera
just came walking all over me without so much as a little kiss. I like to capture butterflies and look at them, at the shapes and patterns and colours, at the bloom. Then I am sorry. I am not meant to catch them, to be so close to them. Let them flit among the flowers. Flit.

Papa was astonished by what we had done at the Colosseum,
but he did not chide us, for he knew that we were compelled by
our love of God.

We went also to the Catacombs and there Celine and I lay
down together in the ancient tomb of St Cecilia, and we carried
off some of the earth sanctified by the holy relics of the saint.

From this time St Cecilia became my favourite saint.

We lay down together on the mound that was the grave, our arms around each other, and I whispered ‘Violetta’ and she whispered ‘Flower’. We were two flowers in the graveyard.

Two secrets in a whisper. Violetta traced a V with her finger in the dust of the path beside the grave, and then I traced a V

beside it and it was a Double-You. Me and You makes Double-You, Double-Me. Trouble me. This was friendship, but this was trouble. We were heading for trouble, big trouble. Double

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Trouble. We gave each other small mirrors, and when we were apart and lonely, we could look into the mirrors and know that the Double-You was there. Sometimes this sounds ridiculous.

We were very young.

We were very sincere and vulnerable with a sense of the dramatic. Sometimes I have snatches of glimpses of the girl I was.

Sometimes my head aches. I am not the girl I was, but I have my mirror image of my other self. This is so very complicated and it makes my head ache so. I have had my brains fried by the doctor, dictator, dickter, trickster, triste and sad and bad and mad. Fried brains are bad. Fried brains on black bread. Very bad. Come home to me, Violetta; Violetta, please come home. If I smash my mirror, will Violetta come?

In the church of St Agnes I met again a friend from my childhood, little St Agnes. I asked the guide if I could have a relic
of St Agnes to take back to my dear sister, Mother Agnes of
Jesus. But the guide refused. However, God took a hand, and
placed a relic freely at my feet. As I stood gazing at a mosaic
that dated from the time of the martyrs, a small fragment of red
marble fell from the picture and lay winking beside my shoe.

I knew that St Agnes herself had given me a souvenir of her
house. I put the marble in my pocket and took it back to France
with me.

I held in the flat warm palm of my soft white hand, the hand of a girl-angel. I held a fragment of dark purple marble.

A scrap of Violetta’s heart. This she gave me in exchange for one of my white stones. I place the heart of Violetta in the centre of the circle of the stones and stare and stare until I move into a trance. Then I see and know and almost understand. I sit for hours in the shadows of the convent garden, sometimes playing on the swings we used to play on when Violetta still was here. I sit in silence and contemplate the image in the mirror. Is it me?

Is it you? Is it Violetta? I hear the children playing — Sophie!

Sophie! — in the distance. I see sometimes bright flashes of their clothing, and I imagine I can smell the daisy softness of their hair. Moonbeam children, Sophie and Jane and Sebastian. I
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think they must be the doctor’s children. With the way we play, night and day, me and the doctor, I could become the mother of the doctor’s children. I wonder. I wonder how that would be? I stare at my eyes in the mirror and I think of Sophie, Jane, Sebastian and their brothers and sisters, my baby babies, Violetta and Violetta and Violetta, the Violetta triplets. ‘I am God,’ he would say, ‘Doctor God, and this is my wife, Therese, and these are the Violettas.’ What a funny idea.

I longed for and dreaded the day when I would see the Holy
Father, Leo XIII himself. My very vocation depended on this
meeting. Everyday I waited for news from the Bishop of Bayeux.

No word came. My only hope of entering the convent at fifteen
lay with the Holy Father. I had been forbidden to speak to
him, but I determined to disobey. I trembled at the thought of
speaking to the Pope in front of the cardinals, archbishops and
bishops who surrounded his holypresence. I also knew that the
Vicar-General of Bayeux would be there and would try to stop
me from speaking.