There were lots of small jobs to be done around the chapel: preparing not only all the clothes the priest had to wear, but also the communion wafers and the cruets—two glass jars, one for the wine and the other for the water. The wine turned into the blood of Christ, who was the same baby Mary had, only now he was grown.
Sor Teofilita told me I didn’t know how to clean the corners, and when they were dirty, that was where the Devil lived. It was already late. Sor Teofilita went to sleep, and I stayed to clean the corner where the wine was kept—a corner that, in truth, I hadn’t cleaned. In that corner sat a large barrel sent by the Pope, the one who kept the keys to St. Peter in that town far, far away. Of course I was frightened—what if I found the Devil?—but Sor Teofilita had told me that he took only those of mortal sin, and I wasn’t one of those. So I started to clean. I found a bottle and removed the cork. I put my finger inside, tasted it, and liked it. I found a glass, filled it, and had a drink, and then many more; I felt as if I were another person, and in the end I fell asleep on the floor. The German priest was the one who woke me. I saw him kneeling beside me, using his hand to cover my body with blessings. He took me by the hands, lifted me gently, then edged me out of the sacristy. As I left he said, “Don’t tell anyone. Not the girls, not the nuns.”
That day Mary performed a miracle. Neither the nuns nor the girls realized I hadn’t slept in my bed, and I had to confess because it was the Devil who made me drink that wine.
But that wine was also kept by the nuns in other, very beautiful and colorful glass jars, with glass tops, which they saved for “important” visitors. It was essentially Father Bacaus’s leftovers. That was his name—Bacaus—though the nuns said it differently from us; we had a hard time pronouncing it. But I haven’t told you: that priest had almost no hair on his head, and was dirty, very dirty, with a black cassock I hadn’t seen before on anyone else, so old that threads hung from the edges of the sleeves. It was also too small, too short for him, and you could see his hairy legs because he didn’t wear socks and his shoes were raggedy and old. The Mother Superior said he dressed that way because he was a saint, a real saint.
Sor Teofilito told me that the wine was sent from the Pope’s house far, far away; that on the feast of Saint Peter we sent the Pope gifts made by the girls because all the popes are Peters, because they’re like Sor Doorkeeper, the one who guards the keys to the church day in and day out, and that’s why the priest drank the wine the Pope sent; and that his country was called Germany; and his name, as I said, was Bacaus. Since he was a saint, he drank only three drops of wine and left the rest in the jar, and the nuns put it in other jars, which, as I said, were also made of glass of various colors.
The priest Bacaus gave very long sermons that we didn’t understand, but because they told us constantly that he was a saint, we had to listen to him until many of us had fallen asleep.
That day was the feast of Saint John Bosco, the one who’d brought the community to life. The nuns were his children; and he, like the nuns, was in charge of the poor children and the dogs who didn’t have a family. That Bosco was dead already, but he was still known as a saint.
Mass was led by two priests, with singing by the girls. I worked for a week to prepare, and only Mary saw everything I had to do. Wash all the floors, clean the images of the saints from head to toe; the Christ too had to be cleaned, and I was always anxious about cleaning his wounds, because Sor Teofilita told me dirt and grime were more likely to gather there. I don’t know why, if he was in such bad shape, they left him hanging on the cross. I also had to polish all the candlesticks, set up more flower vases, the big ones, and take out the vestments for the two priests—not their everyday clothes but other, more beautiful outfits, shiny from every angle, with many gold ornaments. These vestments weighed much more than the others, so heavy I had to let them fall before I could hang them up. They were only for holidays, and there were even extra layers for the blessing. We had to help dress the priests, and I couldn’t manage to hang everything by myself. Everything was special for the holidays: the goblet was prettier, the cruets prettier. The chapel was transformed.
For the past month, the girls who sang had come to the chapel every afternoon with the Mother Superior. She played the harmonium so beautifully it made me sad. But the Mother Superior made the girls repeat the same song over and over, or sometimes just short sections of it, and she’d get furious and yell that they were out of tune. I forgot to ask Sor Teofilita what out of tune meant.
That day all of us, nuns and girls, walked fast, all in a hurry. Sor Teofilita, so kind, had found me a brand-new uniform, which she gave me as a gift. The old one was getting ragged and short and was starting to feel tight around my chest. Communion came, and we stood up all at once, and it seemed to me the other girls were very happy. I looked at the keys that Sor Teofilita left on her seat and touched them very gently so they wouldn’t make a sound, but when I touched them my entire body shivered with cold. Sor Teofilita turned and said, “Go get the censer.”
I ran, relieved I hadn’t stolen the keys.
After the mass with the two priests, another priest was sent because the saint from Germany was sick. The new priest was very young, and all the girls and the nuns said he was very handsome. All day long I heard the word “handsome, handsome.” I was told it meant “pretty.” He was from a village called Spain, and those gentlemen from Spain were the ones who’d brought us God, Mary, and all the saints we had in the chapel. He spoke more clearly than the old saint. When I brought him his breakfast, I said, just as the nuns had taught me, “Good morning, Reverend Father,” but he didn’t say anything in response.
The little room where the priests had breakfast opened up to the rose garden, where the fat lady lived. The room was very pretty, with lots of light, and in one corner there was a large statue of a saint so big it almost reached the ceiling, and that saint was called Saint Christopher. He was a little old, and he also had a son, but he didn’t carry him like Mary carried Baby Jesus, who was also her son. Saint Christopher sat his son on his shoulders, and held him with one arm. The saint looked rushed; one of his legs looked as if it were walking, and even his head seemed to push forward. A nun had told me that the statue had been there for a long time because it was so heavy that no one had been able to move it up the stairs. I didn’t like that saint because he always looked to be in such a hurry, and one can’t pray to or speak with a saint who’s in a hurry.