Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [115]
“And where might John Haskell be now?”
“I do not know,” Olympia says.
The sister clucks and shakes her head. “You understand that this cannot be done quickly.”
Olympia’s heart leaps. Does that mean that securing the child might be possible? “Yes,” Olympia says, and perhaps she smiles.
“And that the child may not be here at all.”
The sister scowls at Olympia, causing Olympia to recompose her features. “I have prayed that this will not be the case,” Olympia says, realizing at once that the sister will not much credit her Protestant prayers.
“You will almost certainly need legal advice,” the sister says.
“I wish to know if the child is well,” Olympia says. “And I wish to know . . . his name.”
The sister nods her head slowly. What might such a woman’s life be like? Olympia wonders suddenly. A life of celibacy and prayer, of service to others. Would the natural longings for love be so great that one would always feel the loss, or did longings evaporate with religious devotion?
“Many of the children are placed out before the mother can come back for them,” the sister says. “Occasionally they are adopted by legal means. Why have you waited all this time?”
“It is only recently that I could even consider such an action,” she says.
“The gift of a child is a very great treasure,” the sister says. “Do you think that a girl who has sinned should be rewarded for her foolishness with such a gift?”
Olympia opens her mouth to speak, but she cannot answer her.
The sister rises from her chair. “I wish you to remain here,” she says, and leaves the room.
• • •
Olympia sits in her wet skirts and waits for the Catholic nun to return. The room grows chillier, and Olympia shivers, from fear or from the cold or from the aftermath of fright, she cannot tell. She has nothing dry to wrap around her. Rain beats against the tall windows, the sills of which are at the level of her chin. The walls are painted brown, and the paint shines with all its nicks and dents in the electric lights. Behind the sister’s desk is a large ornate cross with a suffering Jesus.
The journal with its papers — papers of differing sizes and colors — sits on the sister’s desk. If she looks in that journal, Olympia wonders, will she find the name she is looking for?
She gets up from the chair to walk around the room to warm her limbs. Her skirts still stick to her thighs, and she has to peel them away from her. She is shivering badly now, and she wonders what is keeping the sister so long. Where exactly has she gone?
The sister knew the name of John Haskell. Of this Olympia is certain.
She walks to the window and looks out at the steady rain that has followed in the wake of the thunderstorm. Then she turns and studies the office, the tall oak filing cabinets partially lining one wall, the many books in a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. The only chair for guests, the one she has sat in, is severe and spartan, and Olympia thinks that the nun must not encourage many visitors.
Her teeth begin chattering, and she clenches them. She searches for a heat source, sees a radiator behind the sister’s desk, but when she goes near to it and feels it, she discovers it is only lukewarm. Still, she thinks, lukewarm is better than nothing, and she leans against it. She is so cold that she no longer cares if the sister catches her behind her desk.
She listens for the sounds of children, but can hear nothing. Once, however, she does hear the clicking of heels along the stone and returns to her chair, but it is a false alarm, and within moments Olympia finds herself leaning on the radiator again. Where are the children? she wonders. Are they housed in this cold, granite building? Surely not. However can this be a children’s home? She does not want to think about it. She has an unpleasant image of children’s cots lined up against a wall, like those of soldiers in a field hospital.
The sister is gone for so long that Olympia begins to imagine she has abandoned her altogether. She wonders if she should go in search of her. She stares at her desk,