A Woman’s First Day in a Convent

Nun | Zealous | Grateful | Statue | Lick | Attend | Film | Page | Recognize | Pomegranate

Peering through the front gate, before even letting me in, Sister Agnes made it clear she wasn’t a “nun.” “Sister,” fine. “Holy Sister,” even better. But never, ever a “nun.”

Inside, they dug through my bag like crows around a half-eaten order of curly fries. No introductions first. Just squawking and bickering over who got to keep the pomegranate body spray or liquid eyeliner. Zealous in defense of whatever trinkets they claimed as their own. I was grateful they didn’t unzip the side pouch, heavy with eight inches of something I didn’t need them to see, or use. A statue of some female saint I didn’t recognize looked on from a dusty alcove.

“The film plays at 7 o’clock,” Sister Frances said. A crimson smear of lipstick – my lipstick – was scrawled across her upper lip, put there by shaky hands that could no longer paint inside the lines. Her colorless, dry tongue tried to lick a gob of red from her front tooth before retreating behind uncapped teeth. And then, “You will attend.” Not a question, but a commandment.

I was shown to my quarters. The door shut quietly behind me. On a small wooden stand in the corner sat a Bible, opened to a page from Corinthians: “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.”

I closed the Bible, and unzipped the pouch.