I knew all about ‘sin’, and had no problem being called a sinner. For as long as I could remember, I’d been bad. It was extraordinary to hear that Mary-Mother-of-God, no less, was on the case, praying for sinners like me! I reckoned things just had to get better from then on, and I was very particular about saying the right number of prayers in the right order as soon as I knew how. If I’d been able to get my hands on a rosary, I’d have twiddled my way to holiness and superior happiness in a flash.
We also got to sing a song every morning, and I loved singing. I was always singing under my breath at home. Mom hated it. ‘Stop that bloody humming; you’re such a freak!’
My exposure to religion had been minimal before Catholic school, mostly as a babysitting service when Dad wanted a quiet Sunday morning with his paper or Mom needed a priest to hold her hand and tell her that everything would be all right. Mom was a Methodist and Dad an Anglican; that was his excuse for never going to church with us. Well, not quite never—sometimes he took us at Christmas-time to the old Dutch Reformed Hall at Paradise Beach, when he wanted to make a point that we were all ‘spoiled rotten’. By forcing us to go to the service, he could deprive us of the all-important gift-opening session for that much longer, which is what Christmas is all about if you’re not religious, so I didn’t know why he was always so cross about it. I reckoned he punished himself just as much as us with the service, because he was always even grumpier after it than before. The whole thing was in Afrikaans, which only Mom understood.
At the convent, we filed to mass once a month, snaking our way to the Roman Catholic Church that separated the convent from the Brothers’ College, where Simon and Steven went to school. The Church was like none I’d ever seen before; it brought glamour, and the suggestion of access to another world far from Welkom. Candles glowed en masse in gold and white, a visible symbol of invisible prayers and longings apparently wafting their way to a God who cared—or, rather, who couldn’t care less, if reality was anything to go by. An honesty box stood guard, requesting a fifty cent donation per candle. Blue and square and modern, the box contrasted starkly with the olde worlde glamour of velvet cushions, golden incense baskets hanging from the ceiling, and statues in various sad poses gilded by the candles’ glow.
A lot of special hand-signs went on in the church, which I mimicked badly on purpose, for my own amusement. A sign to the priest as you entered the building always had me in fits of embarrassed giggles; I felt ridiculous about having to pay any kind of homage to the large brown hairy man who stood so severely accepting genuflections from hundreds of young girls.
The Catholic girls were made to kneel at the feet of this man to accept the ‘real body’ and ‘real blood’ of Jesus, which they ate! I would look around in horror, always expecting someone to step in and stop the madness, but it seemed everyone else found it a very normal thing to do, and my lack of reverence became just one more reason to disdain me.
I didn’t care. I was glad I wasn’t a Catholic and a cannibal. I’d distract myself by counting the lit candles to calculate how much money there was in the blue box. Like a sticky note pinned to my brain, part of me was hatching a rainy-day plan to get my hands on some of it, somehow, someday.
The big brown hairy priest huffed and puffed at us through wafts of incense smoke. He was terribly serious about our purity. ‘Jesus wants you for himself. He doesn’t want defiled, used women, loose women; he wants holy women, like the Sisters, women who honor him with their body, their whole life.’ The round brown figure inclined his head to the row of Sisters, their black and white heads bowed in humble chastity. ‘This is a choice you must make now, before the world gets to you and devours all that’s worthy of His love.’ Did he look straight at me? I squirmed under the perceived spotlight of his gaze. ‘Who knows? You may be a very special one, receiving the marks of his suffering on your own hands and feet, testimony that He has chosen you for Himself forever.’
The thought of being chosen gripped me—I longed to be chosen, to be wanted. That Jesus might mark my hands or my feet with a sign would mean I was very special. I thought about what the priest had said for the rest of the day, considering the pros and cons of being marked for Jesus; it was probably going to be painful, eek! But I’d be so special that no-one would ever dare to pick on me again. And, not least, I’d be the envy of everyone I knew.
I lay in bed that night, arms and feet extended out over the edges of the bed so blood wouldn’t stain my sheets, terrified by the hope that Jesus would pick me, must pick me. Okay, Jesus, you can mark me. Please mark me. But don’t hurt me too much, and don’t mess the bed, or Mom will be furious. But please mark me! If you do, everything will be all right forever, because no-one would dare to pick on someone who has your special marks.
Nothing happened. I began to feel a little foolish, then embarrassed, and then angry. Having denied me a magic moment of transformation, I had the unsettling feeling that I didn’t really like Jesus anyway, both for the cannibalism thing and for having to hurt people by placing marks on them. Most of all, I disliked Him for not choosing me. I folded myself up under my doona despite the heat, so that there’d be no doubt about my rejection of Him—I hoped Jesus would look down and feel that rejection.
Spending so much time in a religious environment was throwing up a lot for me to ponder and take in. Not least was Sister Bemvita, who took morning prayers, claiming that when people prayed, they were transported to heaven, to the very presence of God. That was her explanation for why we should keep our eyes closed while praying; we dared not open our eyes and look into the face of God.
The implied challenge occupied my mind for weeks until I worked up enough courage to keep my eyes open during morning prayers. Once again my body and mind were charged with fear at the potential outcome of my desire to experience the reality of the religious world so tantalizingly on offer.
But nothing happened. I was just in a classroom with a bunch of girls who had their eyes closed so they wouldn’t know they weren’t going anywhere.
My indignation at being duped compelled me to speak up to our scripture teacher in front of the whole class, to inform her that things were not as she’d told us. ‘Sister Bemvita, when we prayed, no-one went anywhere. I looked. Everyone was still here—you, too!’
My statement was met with shocked intakes of breath, not only from the class of girls but also from Sister Bemvita. Her deep intake of air was evidenced by the swelling of her enormous chest inside her white blouse, one button of which gave up the battle and snapped in half, revealing that nuns, too, wore lacy bras. Gasps turned to sniggers, and Sister Bemvita turned a bright, ready-to-explode red under her black veil. ‘Kate MacKay, the devil is on your shoulder and speaking in your ear, and you are listening to him. You have the devil on your shoulder. Get out of my classroom and present yourself to sister Ignatia’s office immediately!’
And so it began again, my first visit to a principal’s office. I’d already had a lot of experience in a principal’s office at my previous school, so I wasn’t scared, but I was bummed: kids who get sent to the principal’s office are never popular, and I’d done nothing wrong. I hesitated, staying in my seat and trying to stare her out; perhaps, I reasoned, she’d change her mind and I wouldn’t have to go. But—‘Out!’—at a glare and a thrust of a chubby finger toward the door, I was on my feet, dragging them across the courtyard, counting my steps. If I ended up at the principal’s door on an even number, everything would be all right; if I got there on an odd number I’d be in trouble; so I fidgeted my steps to end on an even number. Armed with this omen of good fortune, I knocked on the door.
I’d seen Sister Ignatia around the school, but had never spoken to her. She addressed assembly each week, always dressed in the formal long black robes of her denomination, her hands held firmly together, fingers crossed as though in constant prayer. At other times she glided about