The Other Side of Midnight

She turned to the Sister and said, "What place is this?"

The Sister silently shook her head and motioned for them to wait there. They watched as she turned and walked toward an old stone building at the end of the compound.

"She's gone to get Bela Lugosi," Catherine whispered.

Beyond the building toward a promontory that rose above the sea, they could see a cemetery framed by rows of tall cypress trees.

"This place gives me the creeps," Larry said.

"It's as though we've stumbled into another century," Catherine replied. Unconsciously they were whispering, as though afraid to disturb the heavy silence. Through the window of the main building they could see inquisitive faces staring out at them, all women, all of them dressed in black.

"It's some kind of religious nuthouse," Larry decided.

A tall, thin woman emerged from the building and started walking briskly toward them. She wore a nun's habit and had a pleasant, friendly face.

"I am Sister Theresa," she said. "May I help you?"

"We were just passing by," Catherine said, "and we were curious about this place." She looked at the faces peering from the windows. "We didn't mean to disturb you."

"We are not honored with many visitors," Sister Theresa said. "We have almost no contact with the outside world. We are an Order of Carmelite nuns. We have taken a vow of silence."

"For how long?" Larry asked.

"Gia panta--for the rest of our lives. I am the only one here permitted to speak and then only when necessary."

Catherine gazed around at the large, silent courtyard and repressed a shudder. "Does no one ever leave here?"

Sister Theresa smiled. "No. There is no reason to. Our life is within these walls."

"Forgive us for troubling you," Catherine said.

The Sister nodded. "Not at all. Go with God."

As Catherine and Larry walked out, the huge gate slowly swung closed behind them. Catherine turned to look back at it. It was like a prison. But somehow this seemed worse. Perhaps because it was a voluntary penance, a waste, and Catherine thought of the young women she had seen from the window, walled up here, shut away from the world for the rest of their lives, living in the deep permanent silence of the grave. She knew she would never forget this place.

NOELLE AND CATHERINE

Athens: 1946

21

Early the following morning Larry went down to the village. He asked Catherine to join him, but she demurred, telling him that she was going to sleep late. The moment he left, Catherine got out of bed, hurriedly dressed and went over to the hotel gymnasium which she had investigated the day before. The instructress, a Greek Amazon, told her to strip, then examined her body critically.

"You have been lazy, lazy," she scolded Catherine. "That was a good body. If you are willing to work hard, Theou thellondos--God willing--it can be good again."

"I'm willing," said Catherine. "Let's see how God shapes up."

Under the tutelage of the Amazon Catherine worked out every day, going through the agonies of body-contouring massage, a Spartan diet and grueling exercises. She kept all this from Larry, but by the end of the fourth day the change in her was noticeable enough for him to comment on it.

"This place really agrees with you," he said. "You look like a different girl."

"I am a different girl," Catherine replied, suddenly shy.

On Sunday morning Catherine went to church. She had never seen a Greek Orthodox mass. In a village as small as Ioannina she had expected to find a little country church, but to her surprise she walked into a large, richly decorated church with beautiful elaborate carvings on the walls and ceiling and a marble floor. In front of the altar were a dozen enormous silver candelabras, and around the room were frescoes of Biblical paintings. The priest was thin and swarthy with a black beard. He wore an elaborate gold and red robe and a tall black hat, and he stood on what looked to Catherine like a sedan chair on a raised platform.

Along the wall were individual wooden benches and next to them a row of wooden chairs. The men sat in the front of the church and the women in the rear. I guess the men get to Heaven first, Catherine thought.

A chanting began in Greek, and the priest stepped down from the platform and moved to the altar. A red curtain parted and behind it was a lavishly robed, white-bearded patriarch. On a table in front of him stood a symbolical jeweled hat and a gold cross. The old man lit three candles tied together, representing, Catherine supposed, the Holy Trinity, and handed them to the priest.