My parents were still talking to the Orlichs. As I moved closer to Marianne, while still maintaining a safe distance of about a foot and a half, I saw Mr. and Mrs. Pawlowski approach them. The group enfolded my parents, and everyone immediately looked at me. Their voices lowered even though I couldn’t hear what they were saying to begin with, and in their murmur I heard someone say “immense disappointment.” The phrase leaped out at me like a jackrabbit.
The church began to fill—the hefty butcher, straining in his suit, with his wife and three girls like something out of a fairy tale; the moron with a flattened face, who brought his widowed mother sorrow, and who also had a persistent cough that often interrupted holy contemplation; the Stopkas with young Emily and her older, tomboy sister, who was at that time twenty-two and neither married nor dating, and who I am sure is a lesbian somewhere now and surely happier than I am—all the people came in, and Marianne put her hand in mine, and I squeezed it, mostly from terror, but hoping that she would interpret it as affection. “Look,” she said, the interior falling to a hush, “let’s make room for our families.”
Though she never said so, my return to St. Jadwiga also sparked Matka’s next suggestion: that I spend time tutoring Marianne in Latin. She was interested in Latin, and the local girls’ school, St. Agnes, wasn’t an institution that placed much importance on the education of young women other than to make them amiable brides, or maybe nuns. And I’m sure that Mrs. Orlich had a hand in the arrangement, too, ending in a conspiracy of study sessions that doubled as playdates, with Marianne and me being lightly supervised in living rooms while our mothers sat at someone’s kitchen table and drank tea or wine.
In the beginning there was the bright spark that was Marianne; next there was the magnetism that drew us together and prickled my skin; and then, finally, the intimate conversations that served as kindling for a bonfire.
She wasn’t naturally gifted at languages. Her grammar was awful, and she found it difficult to retain almost any amount of vocabulary. Still, I liked spending time with her, this girl who brought beauty into my life and kept my afternoons from being long and empty. Later I realized that this—to not have to ask for anything from a person, and to be contented still by her existence—is a great gift, and one that I wish I’d appreciated more when I had it.
On one of those infinite, limited days, in the early weeks of summer, Marianne asked, “Do you think I would make for a good nun?”
“A nun?” I thought of the nuns at my school in their habits, smacking students with rulers. “I can’t imagine you living that kind of life.”
The corner of her mouth twitched, and I hurriedly added, “But what do I know? The only nuns I know are the ones at school, and I’ve never known anyone who’s become one.”
“I know how ridiculous it sounds.”
“No, not ridiculous,” I said, knowing that I’d disappointed her, and she rolled her eyes at me.
That summer, Marianne spent an inordinate amount of her time in St. Jadwiga, praying for hours, and when she wasn’t praying, she was helping Father Danuta with feeding and clothing the poor. Marianne didn’t tell me any of this herself; I learned of it from Mrs. Orlich, who had become attached to Matka, and now came to our house two or three times a week to see my antisocial mother.
“That girl,” Mrs. Orlich said, “will be the death of me. Of course, we consider ourselves as observant as any other family in the neighborhood, but this is an extreme Bunny and I just don’t feel comfortable with.”
Matka said, “It can’t hurt for her to do some charity.”
“It’s not just charity. Of course I’m fine with charity and good works, but she prays for hours, too. The amount of time she spends praying, she might as well be praying for everyone in Greenpoint, one at a time. And she keeps mentioning joining a convent after she graduates.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that. It’s not unheard of for girls to be intrigued by a religious vocation when they’re young. I imagine it’s a phase.”
“What if it’s not? She’s a beautiful girl. She ought to be going on dates and daydreaming about what to name her beautiful children.” Mrs. Orlich sighed. “At least she’ll have less time for these things when school begins again.”
In the meantime Marianne would call, rarely and randomly, and ask if she could visit. I always said yes. When she arrived on the stoop, her forehead damp and her armpits charmingly sweaty through her blouse, I’d fall for her all over again. The thought of her in a convent, unreachable, gave me a knotted stomach and a sudden inability to breathe.
On one of these visits she followed me into the kitchen, where I poured her a glass of iced tea. She had a few swigs. “Where’s your mother?”
“Headache. She went up to bed a few hours ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“She’ll be all right—she gets them in summer when it’s too hot out, and I bring her damp washcloths for her head. How’s your day been?”
She said, “I helped Father Danuta for a few hours, cleaning out the Sobczak house. Then he told me to skedaddle before I got heatstroke.” Her glass was now empty. “Thanks for the tea.”
Mrs. Sobczak had died a few days prior. I knew her as the old lady who wore the most elaborate hats in church, and had been a widow since she was barely twenty and saddled with two kids, who later died in the Great War; I doubted Marianne knew anything about her. But I was proven wrong when she continued: “I tried not to get depressed about it. Father Danuta said she was beloved by so many people—and so she wasn’t lonely, even though her husband and sons had died—but as I was going through her house I kept thinking, This is the hallway she went down every day, or This is the stove she boiled hot water on, and I couldn’t help but imagine her in that house, doing all of those things alone for so many years.”
“I think about growing up and being alone all the time,” I said. “You’re my only friend.”
When I said this, I was certain that I was also Marianne’s only friend, and yearned to hear her say so in return. Instead Marianne continued, as if she hadn’t heard me: “When I told Father Danuta what I was thinking, he said, ‘Well, Mrs. Sobczak had Christ with her. She had faith to keep her company, just as all of God’s children do.’”
I’m not sure what I said to her then. I probably waited for her to change the subject, or maybe I put her glass in the sink and went to the broom closet for a box of checkers. I knew better than to ask her if she believed fully that Christ kept Mrs. Sobczak safe in all that emptiness. I wish I could tell that girl now that mortal love is no bulwark against loneliness.
Those curious months came and went like the seasons I’d marked them with. One moment she was the Church Girl, which was Marty’s unclever nickname for her, and the next she was no closer to the religious life than any other neighborhood girl. My neuroses loosened their grip—on Sundays Matka still picked out my clothes, but I no longer needed her to dress me. I grew brave enough to glance at myself in mirrors, or shop windows, and see my true and rapidly maturing self. I attributed these blessings to Marianne, my guardian angel, whom I would walk to my house from St. Agnes for Latin and board games and whatever else entertained us. I interpreted her change from Church Girl to regular Jane as a sign that in the battle between the nunnery and the sacrament of marriage, the latter had won; I only hoped that it meant I had won, too.
Then during geometry class one of the sisters came to fetch me, a rare interruption. I was too nervous to ask her why. The halls were long and empty, dotted with too-short water fountains, and we silently walked through clouds of foul air erupting from the boys’ bathrooms.
Mr. Pawlowski was sitting on one of the leather benches outside of the principal’s office. He