Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood [176]
Roz added sheep to Heaven. They would be outside the window, naturally. But she was glad to know about them. That meant dogs and cats stood a chance, too. Not that she was allowed to have either; they would have made too much trouble for her mother, who had enough things to do as it was.
43
Roz is late coming home from school. She walks by herself, through the failing light, in the snow that is falling, not very much of it, down through the air like tiny white flakes of soap. She hopes the snow will stay around until Christmas.
She’s late because she’s been rehearsing for the Nativity play, in which she is the chief angel. She wanted to be the Virgin Mary, but she’s the chief angel instead because she’s so tall, and besides that she can remember all the lines. She has a white costume with a sparkly gold halo made out of a coat-hanger, and wings of stiff white cardboard with painted gold feather-tips, held on by straps.
Today was the first day they tried it with the costumes. Roz has to be careful walking or the wings will slip down, and she has to keep her head up and facing straight ahead because of the halo. She has to go up to the shepherds as they keep watch over their flocks by night, with a big tinsel Star of Bethlehem dangling from a string over their heads, and hold her right hand up while they are looking afraid, and say, Fear not; for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. Then she has to tell them about going to see the babe in swaddling clothes, lying in the manger, and then she has to say, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men, and then she has to point, with her whole arm held out, and guide the shepherds across the stage to where the manger is, while the school choir sings.
Roz is sorry for the girls who play the shepherds, because they have to wear grubby clothes and beards that hook over their ears with wires, like eyeglasses. These are the same beards that get used every year, and they’re dirty. She feels even sorrier for the little kids who play the sheep. Their sheep costumes must have been white, once, but now they are grey, and they must be very hot.
The manger has blue curtains across the front. The shepherds have to stand in front of it until the choir is finished; meanwhile, Roz has gone around behind it and has climbed up on a stepstool, and is standing with both arms spread out. On her right side is Anne-Marie Roy, on her left is Eileen Shea; both of them are blowing trumpets, although they aren’t really blowing them, of course. They have to stand that way the whole time, while two little kids with cherubs’ wings open the curtains, showing stupid Julia Warden with her blonde hair and rosebud mouth and dumb simpering smile dressed up like the Virgin Mary, with a bigger halo than Roz’s and a china-doll Jesus, and Saint Joseph standing behind her leaning on his staff, and a bunch of hay bales. The shepherds kneel on one side, and then along come the Wise Men in glittering robes and turbans, one of them with her face blackened because one of the Wise Men was black, and they kneel on the other side, and the choir sings “Angels We Have Heard on High,” and then the main curtains close and Roz can put her arms down, which is a relief because it really hurts to keep them up in the air like that for so long.
After the rehearsal today Sister Cecilia told Roz she’d done very well. Roz had the only speaking lines in the whole play and it was important to say them clearly, in a nice loud voice. She was doing excellently and would be a credit to the school. Roz was pleased, because for once her loud voice wasn’t getting her in trouble – mostly when the nuns speak to her in public it’s about her rowdy behaviour. But while they were all taking their costumes off, Julia Warden said, “I think it’s dumb to have an angel with black hair.”
Roz said, “It’s not black, it’s brown,” and Julia Warden said, “It’s black. Anyways,