The thought made Séraphine grin
like a schoolgirl, which she quickly fought back down. A servant of Christ
must always bear in remembrance the solemnity of the cross, she reminded
herself. But the solemnity of the cross was hard to focus on when the sun was
this warm, melting off the early morning chill, and the sky was this clear and
blue, allowing little streams of sunlight to fall through the budding trees and
over the squat, homely rooftops of the town. The light sparkled brilliantly off
the surface of Canal Guînes, which burbled along with her hummed hymn and kept
apace with her brisk gait toward the local Carrefour supermarket.
A child ran, giggling, toward her
on the cobblestone path, his mother calling after him. He was looking backward
and didn’t see that he was about to—
Bump! Before Séraphine could
maneuver away, the boy collided with her right side and, with serendipitous
clumsiness, swiped the coin pouch with his shoulder right out of her pocket and
onto the street. The small copper pieces flew everywhere.
The boy’s mother gasped and
shrieked, “Gabriel! Oh, my goodness!”
She hurried up to the scene of the
accident. It was Catherine Lemaigre—Class of ‘81. “Madame Séraphine, I am so.
Sorry. I—”
Séraphine smiled. “Oh, no, no, Miss
Catherine, it is quite alright.”
“We shall pick up every last coin,
won’t we, Gabriel?” The young mother shot her son a glare more deadly than a
laser beam.
“Chère, c'est bien,” she replied.
Normally, she would have said something different entirely to the young mother,
but not today. Nothing could disrupt the magnificence of today.
Séraphine, in as distinguished a
manner as she could, hiked up her habit and attempted to stoop down, grunting mightily
as her bending over compressed her girth upon itself.
“No, please, allow us, Madame,”
Catherine protested, grimacing.
“It’s… really… no…” With a mighty,
final grunt, Séraphine managed to grab a single coin, then stood back up,
heaving. “Problem…” she finished, her face now red.
She leaned against the stone
barricade between the street and the canal as Catherine and her son silently
finished gathering the coins. Gabriel
stared for a while at the heaving nun until his mother shot him again with the
laser beam.
The francs were returned to the
pouch, Catherine gave Séraphine a final, miserable grin, and the little family
ran off down the street.
Séraphine sighed, straightened out
her habit, and glanced around. Across the little canal, a man seated at the
outdoor cafe with a newspaper and coffee was staring at her—it looked like Jules,
the constable—Class of ‘69. Her steel blue eyes narrowed instinctively at him,
and he quickly ducked back behind his paper.
Just wait ‘til the competition, Séraphine,
she comforted herself. They’ll see.
Some greyish, dumpy clouds had flopped
in front of Séraphine’s brilliant spring sun by the time she reached Carrefour
a couple minutes later. They distilled the light unpleasantly on the zucchini
piled in pyramids and the heads of cabbages that looked sleepy and distant.
She sighed heavily, then entered
the already open door of the supermarket.
It was crowded inside Carrefour
today. Crowded and noisy. People bustled about the aisles, baskets overflowing
with goods. There was a pervading air of anxiety that struck Séraphine as quite
odd. It’s the same feeling she had gotten at the post office yesterday, and
that she had gotten when she had sung with the women at the infirmary on Sunday.
“My, what a busy day!” she
exclaimed, thinking she was dropping a major hint at everyone to inform her
what was going on. But the people within
earshot only turned, reverently nodded and mutter something like “Oui, Madame Séraphine,”
then went back to their scurrying about the shelves.
She tried again.
“I haven’t seen commotion like this
in here since Monsieur Duclos switched the morphine and aspirin tablets by
mistake.”
Nothing. She frowned. What in the wo---! Ah, of course! Everyone
must be getting ready for the competition. And her presence must have inspired
some anxiety in the poor townspeople, knowing the greatest pie crafter in Guînes
was now in their midst.
Her smile returned at last and she
made her way among the sea of townspeople to the produce in the back.
She had looked forward to this
moment for months: the moment she would decide what kind of pie she would make.
She had all the other ingredients already at the abbey, but she had wanted to
make this special trip early this morning just for the fruit. She had been
debating between rhubarb and peach, but she had been clandestinely toying with
an American apple. Ooh, how fiendishly uncouth that would be!
She browsed the fruit, wafting in
their scents and probing them with her finger like some kind of scientist,
until she came to the last cart and laid eyes on its contents. In a perfect,
splendid pyramid, a hundred or so bright, red, plump cherries sat, staring
salaciously at her. She blushed. She had never seen anything so titillating in
all her life. She could’ve sworn a white shaft of light fell on them from a
skylight above.
“Great is the LORD and most worthy
of praise,” she murmured rapidly, gazing upward. “His greatness no one can
fathom.” She looked back at the cherries. One winked at her. She was sweating.
“One generation will commend your works to anothertheywilltellofyourmightyacts.”
She rushed those last words, snatched
one of the flimsy plastic baskets provided for the fruit, and started stuffing
handfuls of the corpulent beauties in.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Séraphine
dumped fifteen cartons of cherries onto the counter, very much out of breath
and sweating like mad. She dabbed at her brow with a handkerchief, and then fumbled
with her habit pockets for the pouch of francs.
“Mon
dieu, what lines you have today!” she said cheerily as she searched. “So
many people, so much commotion, so much baking… Ah! It’s exciting.” She
produced the coin pouch and looked up at the person at the counter, smiling
warmly.
An
acne-besmirched young man with hair much too long, chin scruff much too sparse,
and a nose ring stared vacantly back at her.
Still
smiling, she courteously continued. “Must be a… fun challenge for you as the
grocer!”
You
could hear the sound of a distant train howling in the empty expanses of his
expression. Nothing.
She
kept smiling, panting from holding that many cherries for that long. “Would
you, uh… would you kindly ring them up for me?” She offered.
“Can’t.”
Séraphine
blinked. “…Pardon?”
“Can’t.
The scanner’s broken, I’m three minutes past my break, and this is too many
cherries.”
Séraphine
fought with all her might to keep her smile, straining so hard her eye
twitched. I will not lose composure again. A servant of Christ must carry
the love of God to all.
“I
see.” She cleared her throat, preparing to tackle each of these issues one by
one. “I believe I saw you scan the last patron’s goods without issue, no?”
“Nope.”
She
blinked again. “…Sorry?”
“Nope.
I just made up a number and ran his card.” He sniffed. “It was probably close
enough.”
She
frowned and shook her head. “You… what--?”
“Anyway,
I’m going on break.”
Flabbergasted,
Séraphine wracked her brain to find words, but ended up just returning his
vacant stare. She looked back at the other people in line. They averted their
gaze and shuffled their feet. She turned back to the teenager and finally, she
managed, “Well? Are you going on break, or aren’t you?”
“I’m on
break right now.”
“Really.
Just standing there. Staring off into space like a… a pigeon?”
“Mmm,
yeah, I’d say that’s a good way to put it.”
“You
don’t want to at least sit?”
“I’m
good.”
“Have a
snack?”
“Nah.”
“A
smoke?”
“Do you
mind? I’m trying to relax.”
Séraphine couldn’t believe her
ears. “Well, then I shall leave my cherries here until you get off break!” she
replied defiantly.
“No,
that won’t work, see, because that’s far too—”
“—many
cherries, I heard you. What does that mean? You don’t want my patronage?”
“Not if
it involves counting all those cherries.”
She was
losing it. Who was this young man? His sloppily pinned name tag just
said GEORGE. She’d never seen him before. She’d certainly never had him in
primary school at the abbey. His family must be new in town. This thought gave
her one last shred of grace to hold onto.
“Young
man, you must not be aware. Come 5 o’clock this afternoon, Guînes, the town in
which we all live, will be having its first ever baking competition—”
“Cool.”
“—which
competition is both being officiated and attended by my fellow sisters at the
abbey and myself, who have been working hard every morning—”
“Awesome.”
“—to
make sure this is PERFECT, which includes being able to purchase cherries for
our pies which have to be PREPARED and BAKED in time, and if they aren’t—”
“Sweet.”
“—I’LL
MISS MY ONE CHANCE TO PROVE TO EVERYONE I’M NOT A HORRIBLE, NASTY OGRE! Now,
listen here!”
She
seized George by the collar of his shirt, fire burning in her eyes. “Ring up my
cherries now, or mark my words, I’ll take these cherry baskets and---”
No one
in Guînes had ever heard a nun refer to that part of the body in that way
before. They had also never seen a nun—or anyone—rip open a locked cash
register drawer and try to shove coins into it and then run off with fifteen
baskets of cherries in her arms. Similarly, they had never seen a nun pelt a
young man and innocent bystanders with bright, red, stolen fruit as she bustled
out the door and through the streets of town. And they had certainly never seen
a nun wrestled to the ground by Jules the constable, cuffed, and stuffed into
the back of a police car.
Yes, it
was a day of firsts for the people of Guînes. A baking competition wasn’t one
of them.
(This was obviously completely different from anything else on my blog, but, hey, I finally wrote a short story that I'm proud of--something I've been wanting to do for years--so I thought I might as well share it here!)
This short story is under full copyright of Anderson Paul Spendlove. All rights reserved.
