The Loud Silence of Francine Green (15 page)

The girl who shared my desk smelled like moth balls and the onion sandwiches she ate for lunch. Her hair was tightly braided and, even on this warm spring day, her sweater tightly buttoned. I'd seen her around the playground, sitting by herself, kicking in the dirt. Nobody liked her. Still, I thought I would be friendly and tell her things and help her adjust to eighth grade and Sister Basil, but she looked down at her desk and not at me even once.

"Let's see how well you new girls know your catechism,"
Sister said. "You," she said, pointing to a girl behind me. "What do we mean when we say God is eternal?"

The girl stood. "When we say God is eternal," she said, "we mean that He always was and always will be and always remains the same."

Sister Basil nodded. "What do we mean by the Blessed Trinity?" she asked a girl standing in the back.

"When we say the Blessed Trinity, we mean one and the same God in three divine persons."

Sister looked slowly around the room. "You," she said to my desk mate. "What is your name?"

"Mumble, mumble," said the girl, looking down at the desk.

"Stand up," I whispered to her. She shuffled to her feet and rubbed her runny nose but still did not look up.

"What is your name?" repeated Sister Basil.

"Mumble mumble Patsy mumble," the girl said.

"Well, Patsy, tell us what holy chrism is."

Patsy said nothing.

We'd been asked these same questions for eight years now. I knew all the correct responses. I wrote the answer on a piece of paper and shoved it toward her. "Psst, Patsy," I whispered, "look." But she just stared down at her feet.

Sister continued. "What do we mean by the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ? How does the Church remit the temporal punishment due to sins?" Her voice got louder. "What is the superabundant satisfaction of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints?"

I was afraid to "Psst" any louder, because it might attract
Sister's attention, so I just sat there. Patsy didn't move a muscle. I could see tears hit the floor at her feet. "I dunno," she said.

Sister Basil's face shone red with irritation, and then she smiled. It appeared she and her trash can had already found next year's victim. She didn't even have to wait until September. Lucky Sister Basil. Poor Patsy.

"What
do
we mean by the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ?" Sophie asked on the way home. "What kind of passion?"

It hadn't occurred to me that someone might not know. "Passion as in suffering and dying," I said. "Like Jesus did. Or martyrs. Or really strong religious feelings like saints have."

"I always thought saints were meek, obedient, and quiet, above it all. The opposite of passionate."

"Are you kidding? Think about martyrs who got burned at the stake because they loved God so much. Or worried about Jesus until they bled or fainted or foamed at the mouth." I got up to pull the cord for our stop.

"Yuck," Sophie said. "Would you ever do that?"

"I'm not a saint."

"But can you imagine feeling something so deeply that you'd do something that strange?"

"Not me. I might get into trouble." I couldn't imagine caring about anything so much that I wouldn't worry about trouble. Not me. Joan of Arc, maybe—so passionate and brave and un-Francine-like. But not me.

I was invited for Chinese takeout at the Bowmans' on
Sunday. My mother says it's a waste of money to pay a restaurant for food when she can cook perfectly well, and my father won't have anything Chinese in the house because of communism, so I'd never eaten Chinese food before. This was quite an occasion for me.

"Chop suey Francine?" said Sophie as she passed me something in brown gravy. "Egg foo yung?" Something else in brown gravy.

Actually, both dishes tasted a lot like something my mother would cook. I didn't say that to Sophie. She would know it wasn't a compliment.

After a few mouthfuls of brown gravy, I went into the kitchen for a glass of water. I hoped the Chinese had other things to eat besides this or they'd be invading America for the food.

When I returned to the table, Sophie was holding a spoonful of strawberry Jell-O and saying, "So I asked her, Where in the Bible is there a rule about wearing a hat to church?' and she said, 'You think you're so superior and smart, but you're not. You're going to Hell, and how smart is that?' I tell you, those girls have no brains. I mean, do they think God really cares who wears a hat? Don't these questions occur to anyone else?"

"Harry? Sophie? Hello?" someone called from the door.

"Come in, Jacob," Mr. Bowman said. "Grab a plate and join the feast."

Mr. Mandelbaum came in through the open door and sat down. Ignoring the food, he ran his hands through his hair, leaving it sticking straight up. "The FBI had me in for
questioning again, Harry," he said. "Why are they hounding me? I voted for Harry Truman, and I think Stalin is a stinker. I'm a good citizen. Why can they do this? Shouldn't I be protected from—"

"What do you mean, protected?" Mr. Bowman asked. He shook his head slowly. "Remember, this is the country that imprisoned a hundred thousand of its citizens because they were Japanese, that makes its Negro citizens in the South use separate rest rooms, restaurants, and schools. There is little protection here for those who are different, especially now when everyone is so afraid." He reached over and touched Mr. Mandelbaum's arm. "I'm worried about you, Jacob."

"The worst of it is, I can't work," Mr. Mandelbaum said. "First time since I was fourteen. Stage, screen, radio, I've done it all. And now no one will touch Jacob Mandelbaum. Or even Jack Mann." He smiled sadly and patted his stomach. "I might get a little hungry from not eating, but I could stand to lose a few pounds. It's my work and my friends I couldn't stand to lose. What else do I have?"

"Baseball," I whispered. I was scared to death by all this talk, but I wanted to give poor Mr. Mandelbaum some comfort.

"Ah, Francine, my darling, baseball, yes. Even the FBI can't take that away." He was silent for a moment. I could see his hands trembling. "So tell me, Harry," he asked in a small voice so unlike his regular bellow, "I'm really in danger? They can do this, ask me about my politics? Question my friends? Keep me from working? I broke no law."

Mr. Bowman got up and closed the front door. "It's happening all over. We're supposed to have rights—the right to work, to teach, to circulate ideas without interference, to protest over bad laws—but it doesn't seem to matter. Be careful, Jacob. Be very careful."

Fear had come into the Bowmans' house like fog, silent and clammy, making me shiver. None of us wanted strawberry Jell-O after that.

We were standing in the hallway,
preparing for the May procession in honor of Mary, the Blessed Virgin. The large statue in the vestibule had been scrubbed and polished until it shone. The nuns walked among us, distributing flowers to each girl, to be laid at the feet of the Mother of God, whose month this was.

Susan Murphy had been elected May Queen, but when she climbed up on the ladder in rehearsal to crown the statue, Sister Basil finally got a good look at the riot of flowers on her uniform skirt and unelected her. In her place Sister appointed—no, not Mary Agnes, thank you—Florence Bush. Her pale face shone as she took her place at the end of the procession.

The rest of us lined up by height. Sophie stood a few girls ahead of me. I was shocked. I had always thought she was much taller. Had I grown a lot this year, or had Sophie always been shorter than I and I never noticed because she
seemed so strong and invincible? I heard her call to Sister Basil, "Sister Rott ... uh ... Basil, may I ask you something?"

"Not now, Miss Bowman," Sister said.

"Not ever, Miss Bowman," I thought.

But Sophie persisted. "It's important and has been weighing on my mind."

Sister gave her a reluctant wave of permission.

"Sister, is it wrong of me to participate in this event if I'm not sure I believe in God? Is it a sin or a sacrilege or something?"

We all stood as still as the Virgin's statue. Not believe in God? Catholic girls aren't allowed not to believe in God. It had never occurred to me to question His existence.

Sister did not say a word, so Sophie continued. "If I don't believe in God, and I'm not sure whether or not I do, then I couldn't believe in His Holy Mother, and I wouldn't want to offend or insult people who do believe by acting as if—"

"Miss Bowman," Sister said, hissing the's through her teeth, "that is enough. Go back to the classroom."

Sophie went, muttering "Sorry" to me as she passed.

Not believe in God? I didn't know exactly what I thought about God myself. I mean, He wasn't doing such a good job of running the world, letting people invent the bomb and be cruel to one another and kill one another, but I liked thinking
someone
was in charge.

When I was little, I thought that God was like Santa Claus, all white and rosy, taking care of us and giving us whatever we needed. Now sometimes He seemed to me like
Sister Basil in a beard, punishing people and damning them to Hell. Other times, when the world didn't seem so bad, I pictured God as Mr. Bowman, the way he looked on Saturdays in his baggy corduroy pants, pruning his roses and humming his happy song. That was the God I loved, the one who tended His people like Mr. Bowman tended his roses.

But whatever God I pictured, I always believed He was there. I couldn't imagine not believing at all.

Sister Basil clapped her hands, and we girls began to sing "On This Day, O Beautiful Mother" as we shuffled forward to lay our flowers at the feet of the Mother of the God who might or might not exist.

When we returned to the classroom, Sophie was sitting quietly at her desk, staring straight ahead. Sister Basil did not acknowledge her but walked to the front of the room while we all took our seats. She stood looking at us for a moment, and then she spoke. "They are punished in Hell," she said, "who die in mortal sin. I want you to imagine the worst pain you ever felt. Now multiply it by a thousand, a million, a million million. That is the pain of Hell." She paused a minute to let that sink in. "And even worse than the pain is the knowledge that it will never ever end."

She paced up and down, swinging her rosary. "Girls, such are the wages of sin. Do not think, 'I will confess and repent before I die and thus be saved from Hell' It may not happen. No one knows the manner or the hour of his death. You say, 'Oh, what does it matter if I miss Mass just this one time?' or 'This meat looks too delicious to pass up even if it is Friday' or 'I will let him kiss me even though it is wrong
for it will make him like me,' and the next day you are hit by a bus and spend the rest of eternity in Hell."

No one said a word. The only one likely to interrupt at this point was Sophie, and she was sitting straight and silent.

"The consequences of sin are the pains of Hell," Sister continued. "And the worst sins, the unpardonable sins, are doubt, denial, despair—denying not only the goodness of God but His very existence. There is no forgiveness for that.

"Today one of you started on the road to Hell. Saving your souls is the most important job I have, and in her case, it appears, I am failing."

She stopped and looked around. We made not a sound. A dark shadow had settled over the classroom, and I could almost smell sulfur and ashes and the singed hair of the damned. "Class dismissed," Sister said.

Sophie and I grabbed seats in the bus. "Do you believe all those things Sister said about Hell?" she asked me.

"I guess so," I told her. "All priests and nuns talk about Hell, although only Sister Basil is so, well, descriptive. Nobody who died has come back to tell us for sure."

I used to think the best thing to do would be to go to confession and then walk out of the church right in front of a bus in order to be sure to die without sin and avoid the torments of Hell. But if you did it deliberately, it would be suicide, a mortal sin, a fast ticket to damnation. One would have to innocently wander in front of the bus, truly expecting not to be hit and killed, and then just be lucky.

"What about God?" Sophie asked me. "Do you believe in God?"

"Well, sure, I believe in God. I know there's no proof, but still I believe. Otherwise it all seems so confused and chaotic. I guess that's what they mean by faith." Sophie started to say something, but I went on. "Sophie, I
want
there to be a God, so don't argue with me."

"If there is no God," Sophie said, "there is no Hell, so I'm going to pray there is no God."

"Who will you pray to?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. It's very puzzling."

Artie grabbed me
as soon as Sophie and I walked into the kitchen. "Francine, a clown tried to eat me!"

Even feeling as I did about clowns, I wasn't sure I believed him. "How? Where?"

"Daddy took me miniature golfing and I hit my ball and it was supposed to go in the clown's mouth, but it went far away somewhere instead and I couldn't find it and when I looked by the clown I tripped and my foot went in his mouth and he wouldn't let go." Artie jumped up and down with excitement. "Firemen came and killed the clown with hammers and axes and finally he let me go and he died."

"Are you okay, Artie? Are you hurt?"

"No, but we can't play miniature golf there anymore. The man said."

Ever since Artie's sleepwalking episodes had become more frequent, my father worried that Artie was becoming a
sissy. "Too many females in this boys life," he said. "Time to make a man out of him." And he began a campaign.

The week before, they had gone fishing at the pond in Griffith Park. Artie didn't catch any fish, but he caught a dog. His hook got caught in the curly hair of a tiny poodle and they couldn't get it out. When my father took his pocket-knife and cut the dog's hair to free it, her owner cried. Then Artie cried and they came home. It seemed to me that Artie's road to manhood would not be easy.

"What are you doing now?" I asked him, examining the mess at the kitchen table.