The Celtic Knot

Mother Rosario

When all the girls finish filing into the school, Sister Eucharia comes back to the gate to let Kathleen in. Kathleen is sent straight to Mother Rosario’s office, where the head nun greets her icily, calling her “madam,” which is what she calls a girl when she means to show her displeasure. Everyone claims Mother Rosario is strict but fair, although Kathleen has never noticed the fair part.

Mother Rosario wants to know what Kathleen has to say for herself. Kathleen apologizes, trying to sound humble and contrite, since nuns like that sort of thing. But that isn’t what Mother Rosario means. She wants an excuse, and she tells Kathleen to speak up. If the girl has a good reason for being late, perhaps it can be overlooked just this once.

Kathleen thinks that must be the fair part, though it does her no good at all. She can’t possibly tell Mother Rosario that Mam had gone out in the night to attend a birth, and worse, that the mother in question was Liz O’Brien, who isn’t married. Unmarried girls aren’t supposed to have babies, and letting a thing like that slip to the nuns could bring shame and retribution down on the whole family and the neighbors besides.

Nuns don’t understand this sort of thing anyway. They have no children and they live in a convent. Birth and babies, getting her sisters’ hair brushed in the morning, helping Da make the breakfast, and what a disaster burning the porridge was—it’s all too difficult to explain. A nun who burned the porridge would probably just throw it out to the pigs and start again. Nuns don’t have to count out every slice of bread and every spoonful of oatmeal the way Kathleen’s family does.

Telling Mother Rosario any of it would only bring shame on the family. Nuns are notorious snobs, after all, and there’s the added complication that Liz O’Brien having a baby out of wedlock is exactly the kind of scandal the nuns would love to look down their noses at for years.

Helplessly, Kathleen offers that Madge fell and cut her knee. Mother Rosario sees straight through the excuse and points out that Madge fell because the girls were racing over the roads like corner boys, instead of walking at a brisk, sensible pace like young ladies. Kathleen tries again, offering that Patsy got grease on her blouse, but she can’t find a way to explain the whole piled-up tangle of the morning that caused it. Mother Rosario’s black eyebrows disappear clean under the white band that holds her veil in place. “Indeed,” she says, in a tone that means she doesn’t believe a word of it. So Kathleen admits the whole of it. They’d had fried bread for breakfast, and that’s how the grease had gotten onto Patsy’s blouse in the first place.

Mother Rosario is scathing, as though fried bread were some grand luxury and not simply what a family made when the porridge was ruined and there was no time left to start again. A confused Kathleen only manages to ask what she means, which earns her a sharp warning not to give cheek. “Sorry, Mother,” Kathleen repeats. She has already lost count of how many times she’s said sorry this morning. She admits she burned the porridge. Mother Rosario declares we’re finally getting somewhere. That was quite careless of Kathleen. Rattled, Kathleen tumbles into the whole story: she had to find Patsy a clean blouse, Da was singing some silly song, the girls were giggling, Eddy joined in singing, too, and she hadn’t slept the night before because she’d lain awake watching the kitchen clock, worrying about Mam being out and about oversleeping. Finally, Mother Rosario says that’s enough.

Kathleen stares at the floor, wishing it would open up and swallow her whole. She thinks it was her own fault, really. If she hadn’t stopped to ask Da that question about where the stars go in the daytime, they would have made it to school in time.

Mother Rosario’s voice turns thunderous. Will Kathleen stop blathering and making excuses. She adds that it doesn’t matter if it’s greasy or torn. The point is that Kathleen is laying all the blame for her own tardiness onto her unfortunate family, isn’t she. She counts them off: Madge and her knee, Patsy and her blouse, Da and his singing, even poor baby Eddy, everyone gets blamed except the one girl who was actually late. Kathleen tries to tell Mother Rosario that’s not true, but she’s just told not to contradict. Kathleen apologizes again, in a voice gone very small. She can feel tears running down her face, and she licks her lips and tastes salt. She only wants the nun to slap her hand already and let her go to class instead of dragging it out like this.

Mother Rosario rises and comes around the front of her desk. Like all the nuns, she wears a set of giant rosary beads at her waist, but as head nun she also carries a great bunch of keys and a wide, flat leather strap, the slat, which she uses to slap open palms. Kathleen squeezes her eyes shut, holds her breath, and holds out her hand, bracing for the belt of it. Three strikes on each hand is usual, and she hopes she won’t have to have more than that. It stings horribly at first and keeps stinging for hours after, though it doesn’t break the skin or leave a bruise, and a girl can even write again within the hour. But nothing happens. Kathleen keeps her hand out, waiting, and still nothing happens.

Kathleen opens her eyes. Mother Rosario is only looking at her, and when she speaks again her voice is almost kind. Mother Rosario tells her there’s no need for that, but she will have to see Mam. She can’t have girls coming late to school with no reasonable excuse and looking like the wreck of the Hesperus.

Kathleen looks down at herself. The wreck of the Hesperus, indeed. She’s still wearing the old clothes she threw on in the morning’s rush, having forgotten entirely to change into her school skirt and blouse. And with all the fuss of brushing her sisters’ hair, she never touched her own, which is tangled into knots she can feel under her fingers now. She must look a fright.

But that’s a small thing next to the real disaster, which is that Mam is being sent for. That’s the worst possible punishment there is, because it means Kathleen will be in trouble at home on top of being in trouble at school, with nowhere left that feels safe and free. No, Mother, please don’t, she begs. She’ll be good. She won’t be late again. There’s really no need to send for Mam. Mother Rosario insists she will be the judge of that.

Kathleen’s hand drops back to her side, and only then does she notice it’s streaked with dirt and dried blood from tending to Madge’s knee earlier, on top of the fresh tears. She stuffs it quickly up her sleeve before Mother Rosario can see. Kathleen doesn’t understand, the nun tells her.

Then the unbelievable happens. Mother Rosario reaches into the deep pocket of her habit and produces a huge, starchy, clean, blue-and-white-checked handkerchief. Kathleen can’t possibly put something so holy to her own nose and soil it, so she doesn’t take it, and Mother Rosario dabs at her tear-streaked cheeks herself, wiping at her nose and mouth with it, too, before pressing the handkerchief into Kathleen’s hand and telling her to keep it for the day. Kathleen nods, disbelieving, crumpling it between her fingers. She’ll rub it and scrub it and rinse it and starch it and iron it until it’s a perfect, crisp square again before she gives it back.

Now, Mother Rosario goes on, she only needs to see Mam to satisfy herself that everything is all right at home. She’s noticed that when a girl who is usually good starts misbehaving, coming late and giving back answers, it often means there’s trouble at home.

Kathleen wails that she doesn’t give back answers, which, Mother Rosario points out, she is doing right now. Kathleen swears it’s not, cross her heart and hope to die. There’s nothing wrong at home. She can’t bear the thought of the nuns poking their noses into the family’s private business and asking Mam personal questions. Mam would die of shame.

But there’s no arguing it. Mother Rosario will be the judge of that. Kathleen is dismissed to her class, told to tell her teacher, Miss Glynn, that she isn’t to be punished. Mother Rosario will speak to Miss Glynn herself, later.

Then, Mother Rosario opens a small, stripy pink tin on her desk and draws out a bull’s-eye. Kathleen’s eyes go wide, since sweets are a rare enough treat at home. She’s to suck it fast, so it’s gone by the time she reaches the classroom. Kathleen thanks Mother Rosario and pops the sweet into her mouth, and the peppermint flavor spreads immediately, deliciously, over her tongue. And she isn’t to worry, Mother Rosario adds, she won’t upset Mam. She only needs to talk to her. Kathleen should tell her to come in tomorrow, and it will be all right.

Kathleen manages another muffled thanks around the sweet, pushed to the side of her cheek with her tongue, and turns to go. Then she stops, asking whether Saint Patrick was really a Catholic, because if he was, she doesn’t understand how the Protestants ended up naming their own cathedral after him. Mother Rosario only shakes her head and says that’s too complicated for today. She’s as bad as Mam for evading a question, though at least she doesn’t say it’s a mystery, which is what nuns always say when they’re asked something about religion they can’t, or won’t, answer. Kathleen sighs, but she doesn’t argue.

Kathleen trots off toward her classroom, sucking the bull’s-eye as hard as she can, needing to get it down to a manageable size before she reaches the door so she can tuck it neatly inside her cheek and still speak clearly to Miss Glynn.