Two Crosses (23 page)

The men murmured as they squinted at the slide to see a small cross hanging around the red-haired woman’s neck.

“Jean-Claude will find her again soon. We have lost the mother and her daughter and their harki slime. We will not lose anyone else. It’s only a matter of time!”

It was barely dawn when Gabriella appeared at the parsonage. Mother Griolet opened the door slightly, peeking outside to see the unexpected caller.

“Gabriella! My dear child. What in the world …
Entre, entre.
” She pulled Gabriella into her apartment, shutting the door as several dead leaves blew into the corridor.

Gabriella stood before her, trembling, her hair tangled and eyes swollen and red. A thick gray wool sweater covered her flannel nightgown, and her feet were bare inside a pair of thin bedroom slippers.

“Child, look at you! You’ll catch your death running around dressed like that.
Mais alors!
Come back to the den!”

Mother Griolet scurried through the hallway with Gabriella following. “Here now. Take a seat on the couch. I’ll bring you a quilt and some coffee.”

She stepped quickly back into her room, where she gathered up a thick quilt in her arms and smoothed her short silver hair.

She hurried back into the den and surrounded Gabriella with the quilt. “The coffee will be ready in a moment, dear. There are tissues in the bathroom if you need them.”

Gabriella sat quietly on the couch, huddled like a wounded puppy.

“Here now.” Mother Griolet set a small tray with two steaming bowls of coffee on a low table in front of the couch. The rich, enticing aroma of the hot drink filled the room as the church bell chimed six times. Mother Griolet pulled up an old wicker rocking chair and sat in silence beside Gabriella.

Minutes droned by, broken only by the sound of Gabriella’s sniffling. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater and curled herself up more tightly on the couch. She stared at the black coffee and the swirling steam.

Finally she spoke, her voice choked with emotion. “She was raped! Raped! Mother was raped, and you knew!” Her voice exploded with a vengeance. “You let me go to that house to remember! You have known all along.” She turned, her eyes streaming with tears, to look at the older woman. “You and Mother! She sent me back here to relive her nightmare! Why did no one ever tell me?”

Gabriella sobbed uncontrollably, and her thin body shook violently under the quilt. Mother Griolet came to her side, cuddling her in her arms like a wailing baby.

“Dear Gabriella. I’m so sorry. Yes, you’re right. I knew about the rape.” She squeezed her lips together and closed her eyes. Tears lined her wrinkled face. “It’s hard to know, sometimes, what is best told and what left unsaid.”

Gabriella sat up and pulled herself away from Mother Griolet’s embrace. She spoke softly into the air. “A burglar. An Arab. He surprised Mother nursing Henrietta in the den. I don’t know where Jessica was, but …” Her voice quavered. “But I hid … I hid behind the door.”

Suddenly Gabriella seemed not to be with Mother Griolet. She screamed, “No! Stop it! Stop it! Mother is yelling, she is screaming. ‘Gabriella! Get help!’ She is screaming, and then she is not screaming anymore. And the man … the man picks himself up off Mother. He tucks in his shirt and zips his pants. And he leaves.” She turned to face Mother Griolet.

“I saw it all. And I never said a word. I couldn’t scream. I hid and watched the man …” Her sobs increased. She stood quickly, letting the quilt fall to the floor, and ran toward the hall.

Mother Griolet listened as Gabriella heaved and sobbed in the bathroom. The nun cried and rocked herself, whispering softly, “My God, my God. Come, Lord Jesus, and comfort us now.”

Sunlight streamed through the windows in Mother Griolet’s den. The bell had long since chimed seven times. Mother Griolet sat beside Gabriella, praying and crying with her. Gabriella’s tears had finally stopped.

Now Mother Griolet spoke. “Gabriella, your mother didn’t know you saw, nor did I. A neighbor found her. She heard the baby wailing on and on and came over to see what was wrong. She called me, as she knew your mother and I were friends.

“When I got there, your mother was already at the hospital. The neighbor had Henrietta. Jessica had been playing at a friend’s house. And you …” Her eyes met Gabriella’s. “You were in the garden, playing in the mud. That’s where the neighbor found you. When you saw me, you hugged me. You had been crying, but we thought you were afraid because of the police. Dear child, I had no idea that you saw it all.”

“Why didn’t Mother ever tell me she was raped?” Gabriella said.

Mother Griolet massaged her temples and sighed. “The doctor advised against it. He said you were too young to understand. She was trying to do what was best for you.”

“But … later. She could have told me later, when I wasn’t too young—not too young to know what happened. To understand that Ericka … that Ericka …” She could not continue.

“She would have told you, Gabriella. But things turned out differently. You were only twelve when—”

“When Ericka died. I could see she didn’t look like the rest of us. But I never once thought … I didn’t remember! I had no memory of the rape until yesterday. No idea!”

“That is quite normal, dear. Such violent abuses are often hidden away until a woman is grown. Locked away in the memory.” Mother Griolet paused. Then, looking out the window, she continued, “Afterward, it was too painful for your mother to speak of Ericka. She couldn’t see how telling you everything would help.”

“Father knew?”

“Of course. There was never any question for either of them that she would keep the baby. Gabriella, it was really this terrible circumstance that bonded your mother and me. We had only known each other a month when it happened. I helped her through the grieving process. And then, when she found out she was pregnant …” She sighed heavily. “Such a difficult time. But you all left soon after. Back to Senegal. Of course, we corresponded.”

The nun reached for Gabriella’s hand and squeezed it. “She loved Ericka just like the rest of you, Gabriella. And she knew what a jewel that baby sister was for you. She didn’t see what good it could do to bring up the past.”

“And then Ericka got sick and died, and it didn’t matter anymore,” Gabriella said sarcastically. “And I never would have known if I hadn’t decided to come back here. That’s why Mother was worried. She was afraid I might remember. That’s why she gave me this cross!” She yanked it out from under her nightgown with such force that the chain snapped and the cross fell to the floor.

“Now, dear, calm yourself—”

“I will not be calm!” Gabriella yelled. “I can’t sweep away a nightmare … a nightmare I never knew existed. Do you expect me to just get over it? Just like that?”

“No, no. You could never just ‘get over it.’ It will take time. Much time.” Mother Griolet reached out and touched Gabriella’s sleeve. “I will be here to walk through it with you, as I did with your mother. If you want.” She hugged Gabriella to her breast and let her cry until the young woman closed her eyes and fell asleep in the old nun’s lap.

The church bell chimed eight o’clock, and Mother Griolet quietly slipped out of the room.

By the time Mother Griolet returned to her apartment, Gabriella had gone. The quilt lay folded on the couch, and the coffee bowls were still untouched. Mother Griolet sat down, breathing heavily. She massaged a leg and then pulled it up with difficulty to let it rest on the small coffee table. “I’m afraid, Lord, that Gabriella will have a hard time with this, with forgiveness. She has that temperament, fiery like her hair. Oh, I know she deserves to be angry. Life is so unjust! Only, please,
Mon Père
, give me the strength. And the words. And the ears to hear.”

Her eyes fell to the floor where the Huguenot cross still lay, the chain half hidden under the couch. Mother Griolet reached down and picked it up. She held it in the palm of her hand, fingering the dove that dangled from the end of the cross.

“You have come back to remind me, haven’t you?” She spoke to the treasure in her hand. “An unconventional Catholic nun once bought you for a grieving friend. ‘Come to the cross,’ that nun said. ‘That is the only way. There is forgiveness.’ And now that same old nun must remember her words for a very scared young woman. And remember for herself.” She touched the cross to her lips and closed her eyes.

“Lord Jesus, I come to Your cross today as every day. And I say, forgive me if in keeping this secret I have brought unnecessary pain on Gabriella. You know that was never my intention. I’m a stubborn old woman, but I’m trying to take up my cross daily and follow You.”

The cross hung from its broken chain, swaying back and forth in Mother Griolet’s hand as she prayed. A burst of sunlight invaded the room. Mother Griolet opened her eyes to see hundreds of spots of light dancing and shimmering across the wall. At first she didn’t detect the source. Then she touched the cross. Immediately the bright spots of light twirled through the room, imitating and expanding the soft movement of the cross.

A sparkle returned to Mother Griolet’s eyes as she watched the play of light against the shadows. “I am the Light of the World,” she quoted. “He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” She slipped the cross into the pocket of her robe and pulled herself off the couch.

Gabriella skipped all of her classes. She wandered restlessly through the streets of Castelnau. The two pains au chocolat that she had bought after changing her clothes at Mme Leclerc’s grew stale in their paper sack. She caught a bus to Montpellier and rode all the way back to the west side of town. She walked to the mission house and stood outside across the street for two hours, numbed by the biting chill of the wind. The cold stung her eyes, but no tears flowed.

She took a stone from the sidewalk and threw it forcefully into the road. It hit the pavement, yards shy of the house. A bus stopped down the street, and she ran to jump on. For another hour the bus roamed the streets of Montpellier. Gabriella kept riding. She didn’t know where she was, and she didn’t care.

Suddenly she thought of David’s words.
I survived, but I died doing it.
She hadn’t understood him then, but now she knew what he meant. Surviving could be a living death. She closed her eyes and dozed off.

Sometime later the bus driver gently shook her awake. “
Mademoiselle
, it’s the end of the line here. You must get off.”

Obediently Gabriella descended from the bus. Children were shouting gleefully in a nearby school playground. Cars lined the street in the late-afternoon traffic. She stepped into the road, and an angry horn blared. She looked up to see the driver gesticulating and cursing as he swerved to miss her. She stepped back onto the sidewalk and walked until she came to another bus stop.

The comforter was pulled up around Gabriella’s neck, but still she shivered in her bed. The lamp on the nightstand gave the only light in the room. Somewhere in the apartment, the telephone rang and Mme Leclerc hurried to answer. Her voice was muffled, but Gabriella knew that Mother Griolet was calling to ask about her.

The Bible on the nightstand caught her eye. Turning on her side, Gabriella let the book fall open to where a letter lay within its pages. She lifted the letter out of the Bible and unfolded the single page.

Dearest Gabriella,