Michael Russell - The City of Shadows

As he followed the nun the length of the building, he was assailed by whistles and shouted propositions. Black-robed nuns appeared as if from nowhere to discipline the laughing women. By the time he reached the end of the laundry, order had been restored. The nun brought him into an office where the Mother Superior stood, fingering her rosary beads with a ferocity that had nothing whatsoever to do with prayer. Two startlingly large sisters, who wouldn’t have disgraced a rugby front row, stood shoulder to shoulder before a closed door on the far side of the room. Mother Eustacia looked at Detective Sergeant Gillespie with profound irritation.

‘Are you responsible for this?’

‘Responsible for what, Reverend Mother?’

‘I see, you’re a fool as well as an incompetent.’

‘I understand there’s been a mistake.’

‘Yes, a mistake. You do know this woman isn’t pregnant at all?’

He was thrown by this unlikely non-sequitur.

‘The reason she was in custody — ’

She cut him off.

‘We haven’t been able to examine her. We did try. I have a nun in the infirmary now as a result of the subsequent assault. However, she seems as aggressively confident about her condition in that respect as she does about everything else. I am, therefore, inclined to believe the woman.’

He was still puzzled. It didn’t make much sense of soliciting a miscarriage from Hugo Keller, let alone getting arrested for doing it.

‘Why did you bring her here, Sergeant?’

‘I didn’t bring her here, Reverend Mother.’

‘I don’t care which clown drove the car! She gave your name.’

‘As far as I know she was brought to the convent by Special Branch. A Sergeant Lynch I think. Or maybe someone else. They’ve got so many incompetent fools there it’s hard to pin them down. Women’s welfare isn’t their usual line of work, although they do specialise in dirty laundry.’

She looked at him, tightening her lips.

‘You’ll keep a civil tongue, Sergeant. Just get her out of here!’

‘Did she tell you who she is?’

‘Yes, Sergeant, she certainly did. And what she is!’

The Mother Superior offered no explanation and he could see that she wasn’t about to enlighten him. She nodded at the two nuns who were standing guard in front of the closed door. One of them opened it. In the small, cell-like room beyond the woman from Keller’s clinic sat on the edge of a table, smoking a cigarette. Her hair was dishevelled. Her clothes were torn in several places. She stood up and walked out into the office. Stefan could see that there was a bruise on her face. As she passed them the guardian nuns, despite their size, looked distinctly uncomfortable. It wasn’t physical fear. It was as if her proximity threatened them in some almost spiritual sense. The woman smiled with the insolent confidence she had shown when he was trying to question her at Pearse Street Garda station.

‘Do you know what she is?’ said the Mother Superior darkly.

‘What … she is?’

‘A Jewess, Sergeant!’

Mother Eustacia spoke the word as if she was still struggling to believe it. Stefan was unsure what would be an appropriate reply. He was mildly surprised; simply because it was information he had no reason to know. He glanced from the Reverend Mother, who was staring at him with wide-eyed indignation, to the woman, who was smiling. She seemed to be enjoying this. The look in her eyes made him want to laugh.

‘Well, in that case it’s even more of a mistake, Reverend Mother.’

The woman moved closer to him, drawing on the cigarette.

‘I’m glad they sent you, Sergeant. I didn’t like the other two.’

‘Did they do that?’

She wasn’t sure what he meant. Then she glanced down at herself, realising what he was looking at. She laughed.

‘Oh no, the sisters tried to give me a vaginal examination.’

The two big nuns gasped and then both crossed themselves. Stefan was startled, not so much by the words as by the matter-of-fact tone. Well, it was no more than a description of what had happened after all. But it wasn’t how a woman should speak, not anywhere, let alone here. The Reverend Mother pinched her lips more tightly.

‘You won’t shock me, young lady. I’ve known too much of the foulness of the human heart to be shocked by anything you can say.’

‘I’m sure. From what I’ve seen, you’ll be quite the expert.’

Mother Eustacia processed ahead of Sergeant Gillespie and the woman, with the small nun on wheels beside her, back through the laundry. Work continued all around as they walked, but the eyes of every one of the grey-clad laundry workers followed the figure of the woman. Her hair was still a mess; her clothes were torn; her face was bruised. But she walked with her head upright, her dark skin still somehow reflecting the warmth of a sun that would never find its way in through these windows. As they approached the door to the courtyard the small nun who had brought Stefan in scurried ahead to unlock it. The Reverend Mother turned to the woman. Her anger and indignation were undiminished. The very way this woman carried herself was another insult. But there was one weapon Mother Eustacia had left that would put her firmly where she belonged. She fixed her eyes on the woman, and with a look of almost infinite compassion she prayed for her.

‘Almighty and eternal God, who dost not exclude from thy mercy even Jewish faithlessness, hear our prayers, which we offer for the blindness of that people; that acknowledging the light of thy Truth, Christ, they may be delivered from their darkness.’

‘I’m afraid I prefer my darkness to your light.’ The woman looked back at the laundry, at the pasty-faced girls and women, still working, but all watching her so intently. ‘You evil old bitch.’

Mother Eustacia slapped the woman hard across her face, with all the irritation, anger and humiliation she had felt welling up within her. But the woman barely blinked. She laughed as if the Mother Superior had just handed her a victory she hadn’t realised she even wanted. And there wasn’t a split second between that laugh and the sound of her hand striking the Reverend Mother’s face in return, quite as hard and quite as full of anger. There was complete silence in the laundry. No one spoke. Work had stopped. Every eye in the laundry was on Mother Eustacia, though the Reverend Mother seemed unaware of anyone else now. In her long years as the mother of this convent she had slapped many, many women, but no one had ever dared to hit her back. She turned slowly towards Stefan.

‘What are you going to do, Sergeant?’

‘I’m going to do what you told me, Reverend Mother. I’m going to get her out of here. As requested. For the rest, I think I’d call it quits.’

He grabbed the woman’s arm and pulled her away. The nun on wheels was holding the door to the courtyard open, bog-eyed and fearful as she still stared at her Mother Superior. No one else moved. Then there was a sound. It was a clap. It was followed by another clap, and then another. Then there were more. The sound of slow clapping, from every girl and woman in the laundry, filled the building. The nuns turned back to their charges, shouting at them to stop. But they kept on. The Reverend Mother walked slowly back towards the office, as if she didn’t hear the noise at all. The women’s clapping grew even louder now. They would suffer for it, of course; but it would be worth it. Nothing would erase this moment.

As Stefan drove out of the convent and the high gates closed behind them, the woman brushed her hair back from her face. She looked at him, smiling, as if this sort of thing happened every day.

‘So, am I under arrest?’

‘I don’t think so.’