Come to the Edge_ A Memoir - Christina Haag [8]
The teaching methods began to change, too. We were still drilled on multiplication tables and French verbs; we still curtsied every morning and were silent on the stairs. But now there were journals for everything, and Arts Days and Medieval fairs; and if, instead of writing a paper, we wanted to paint a picture or put on a play or design a costume, we could. For Ancient History one year, we trooped to Central Park and scraped around in the dirt by Belvedere Pond pretending to be Sumerians. The sixties had seeped through the walls, and what we learned was love and not to hide our light under a bushel.
When I started at the school, more than thirty years had passed since Otto Kahn’s death, but remnants of him were everywhere: a painted ceiling thick with leaves, a frieze of Greek muses, a grandfather clock like the one Drosselmeyer covers with his cape in The Nutcracker, and the shapes of waves on stone. Doors carved in lion faces, parquet floors perfect for dancing, and in the library, a flight of hidden steps up which Kahn, it was whispered, lured young actresses to the master bedroom (now a classroom) above. But at the top of the second-floor landing, between the library and the chapel, there was a painting of a young woman in a salmon-colored gown that reminded us of why we were here. It is a copy of a Renaissance-style fresco from the convent of the Trinità dei Monti in Rome.
Mater Admirabilis, Mother Most Admirable, she is called, and Our Lady of the Lily. The original, painted in 1844 by a young postulate of the order, was venerated and said to perform miracles, and in her small chapel above the Piazza di Spagna, words of thanks are carved in marble and etched in silver. Replicas of this Madonna can be found in Sacred Heart schools throughout the world. Ours was tall and had an arched frame. Set low to the ground, it rested on a platform of graduated steps so that even the smallest girl could approach. Unlit white tapers stood at either side, and on her feast day, the nuns placed flowers.
She’s called Mater, but if you look closely, past the ease and self-possession, you can see that she’s not yet sixteen. A girl. Through the columned arch behind her, dawn is breaking. She sits on a wooden chair, with a distaff on one side and a lily on the other. In her resting hand is a spindle, and at her feet, a book. Her dress is simple but ornamented. Beneath her is an elaborate floor of colored marble. She’s the picture of contemplation, but she has not turned from the world; the hair that falls from her veil is curled, and behind her lips there is a secret. She wears a crown of stars, but it’s before all that. Before she is Queen of Heaven, before the Annunciation and the Assumption, before the Magi and the star and the flight to Egypt. Before the wedding at Cana. And well before a body is handed down at the foot of the cross. Before grief.
I first saw her when I was four, and I liked her at once. She was pretty and she wore a pretty dress. But soon I knew her effect, the kind some have over small animals and storms. I felt watched over, loved without judgment or requirement. I felt allowed. It was to her I aspired, not the nuns or the priests or the images of suffering. I wanted to know her mystery only. In lower school, we passed her at least four times a day, shuttling from one stone staircase to another. I knew her then, knew her face, the way she appeared to blush in certain light and that her eyes were downcast but pleased. From the middle of a line of girls, I would always