Thirty Girls. Susan Minot

I

       1 / Thirty Girls

      THE NIGHT THEY TOOK the girls Sister Giulia went to bed with only the usual amount of worry and foreboding and rubbing of her knuckles. She said her extra prayer that all would stay peaceful, twisted down the rusted dial of her kerosene lamp and tucked in the loose bit of mosquito net under the mattress.

      The bed was small and she took up very little of it, being a slight person barely five feet long. Indeed, seeing her asleep one might have mistaken her for one of her twelve-year-old students and not the forty-two-year-old headmistress of a boarding school that she was. Despite her position, Sister Giulia’s room was one of the smaller rooms upstairs in the main building at St. Mary’s where the sisters were housed. Sisters Alba and Fiamma shared the largest room down the hall and Sister Rosario—who simply took up more space with her file cabinets and seed catalogues—had commandeered the room with the shallow balcony overlooking the interior walled garden. But Sister Giulia didn’t mind. She was schooled in humility and it came naturally to her.

      The banging appeared first in her dream.

      When she opened her eyes she knew immediately it was real and as present in the dark room as her own heart beating. It entered the open window, a rhythmic banging like dull axes hitting at stone. They are at the dorms, she thought.

      Then she heard a softer knocking, at her door. She was already sitting up, her bare feet feeling for the straw flip-flops on the floor. Yes? she whispered.

      Sister, said a voice, and in the darkness she saw the crack at the door widen and in it the silhouetted head of the night watchman.

      George, I am coming, she said, and felt for the cotton sweater on the chair beside her table. Sister, the voice said. They are here.

      She stepped into the hall and met with the other nuns whispering in a shadowy cluster. At the end of the hallway one window reflected dim light from the two floodlights around the corner at the main entrance. The women moved toward it like moths. Sister Alba already had her wimple on—she was never uncovered—and Sister Giulia wondered in the lightning way of idle thoughts if Sister Alba slept in her habit and then thought of how preposterous it was to be having that thought at this moment.

      Che possiamo fare? said Sister Rosario. What to do? Sister Rosario usually had an opinion of exactly what to do, but now, in a crisis, she was deferring to her superior.

      We cannot fight them, Sister Giulia said, speaking in English for George.

      No, no, the nuns mumbled, agreeing, even Sister Rosario.

      They must be at the dormitory, someone said.

      Yes, Sister Giulia said. I think this, too. Let us pray the door holds.

      They listened to the banging. Now and then a voice shouted, a man’s voice.

      Sister Chiara whispered, coming from the back, The door must hold.

      It was bolted from the inside with a heavy crossbar. When the sisters put the girls to bed, they waited to hear the giant plank slide into place before saying good night.

      Andiamo, Sister Giulia said. We must not stay here, they would find us. Let us hide in the garden and wait. What else can we do?

      Everyone shuffled mouselike down the back stairs. On the ground floor they crossed the tiled hallway past the canning rooms and closed door of the storage room and into the laundry past the tables and wooden shelves. Sister Alba was breathing heavily. Sister Rosario jangled the keys, unlocking the laundry, and they stepped outside to the cement walkway bordering the sunken garden. A clothesline hung nearby with a line of pale dresses followed by a line of pale T-shirts. Dark paths divided the garden in crosses, and in between were humped tomato plants and the darker clumps of coffee leaves and white lilies bursting like trumpets. A three-quarter moon in the western sky cast a gray light over all the foliage so it looked covered in talc.

      The nuns huddled against the far wall under banana trees. The wide leaves cast moonlit shadows.

      The banging, it does not stop, whispered Sister Chiara. Her hand was clamped over her mouth.

      They are trying very hard, Sister Alba said.

      We should have moved them, Sister Rosario said. I knew it.

      The headmistress replied in a calm tone. Sister, we cannot think of this now.

      They’d put up the outside fence two years ago, and last year they’d been given the soldiers. Government troops came, walking around campus with guns strapped across their chests, among the bougainvillea and girls in their blue uniforms. At night some were stationed at the end of the driveway passing through the empty field, some stood at the gate near the chapel. Then, a month ago, the army had a census-taking and the soldiers were moved twenty kilometers north. Sister Giulia had pestered the captain to send the soldiers back. There was never more than a day’s warning when the rumors of an attack would reach them, so the nuns took the girls to nearby homes for the night. They will be back, the captain said. Finally, last week, the soldiers returned. The girls slept, the sisters slept. Then came the holiday on Sunday. The captain said, They will be back at the end of the day. But they didn’t return. They stayed off in the villages, getting drunk on sorghum beer.

      The Jeep had been out of fuel, so Sister Giulia took the bicycle to Atoile. From Atoile someone went all the way to Loro in Kamden to see if the soldiers were there. No sign of the army. She sent a message to Salim Salee, the captain of the north, who was in Gulu. Must we close the school? she asked. No, do not close the school, he answered by radio. When she arrived back at St. Mary’s it was eight o’clock and pitch black and still nothing was settled. Sister Alba had the uneaten dinner there waiting for the soldiers. Sister Rosario had overseen the holiday celebrations and gathered the girls at the dorm for an early lights-out.

      The banging had now become muted. The garden where the nuns stayed hiding was still, but the banging and shouting reached them, traveling over the quadrangle lawn then the roof of their building and down into the enclosed garden. Across the leafy paths at the entrance doors they could see George’s shadow where he’d positioned himself, holding a club.

      I don’t hear any of the girls, said Sister Fiamma.

      No, I have not heard them, said Sister Giulia. They could make out each other’s faces, and Sister Giulia’s eyebrows were pointed toward one another, as they often were, in a triangle of concern.

      What’s burning? Sister Guarda pointed over the roof to a braid of red sparks curling upward.

      It’s coming from the chapel, I think.

      They wouldn’t burn the chapel.

      Sister, they murder children, these people.

      They heard the tinkling of glass and the banging stopped. Instead of being a relief the sound of only shouting—of orders being given—and the occasional sputtering of fire was more ominous.

      I still do not hear the girls, said Sister Chiara. She said it in a hopeful way.

      They waited for something to change. It seemed they waited a long time.

      The shouts had dropped to a low calling back and forth, and finally the nuns heard the voices moving closer. The voices were crossing the quadrangle toward the front gates. They were nearby. The nuns’ faces were turned toward George where he stood motionless against the whitewashed wall. Sister Giulia held the crucifix on her necklace, muttering prayers.

      The noise of the rebels passed. The sound grew dim. Sister Giulia stood.

      Wait, Sister Alba said. We must be sure they are gone.

      I can wait no longer. Sister Giulia took small steps on the shaded pathway and reached George.

      Are they gone?

      It is appearing so, George said. You remain here while