Hiroshima Dreams

In second grade, I receive a card in the mail, telling me which catechism teacher I will have. As soon as I open the envelope, two words come into my mind: Matt Perino. I half expect to see his name printed on the sheet of paper. “Sister April,” I read aloud.

Sally comes in and grabs a cookie. “Mom’s peanut butter cookies. Almost as good as a Big Mac. What are you reading?”

“Oh my God.” Sally groans and collapses onto the floor, like the cookie has poisoned her. “Sister April, queen of the ruler.”

I picture a queen on a throne, but that doesn’t seem like a nun. “Why do you call her queen of the ruler?”

“Every time. Once, it was for talking. Once, for wiggling in my seat. Once, I stuck my tongue out at her. That was worth it.” Sally draws a picture of a nun on the card, ruler in hand, then she adds an arrow into her heart.

“And let the parents know that I was getting into trouble? Not on your life. True, Mom and Dad don’t hit, or punish much, but one look at Dad’s disappointed puppy dog look puts me in a bad mood for days. You’re just lucky Sister April got into trouble.”

“For the hitting. Some kid did have the guts to tell his mom. The mom complained to social services. Child abuse. It was a very big deal. It was even in the newspaper. Father Donnelly made her stop.”

Sally cracks up at that. “Don’t worry; the only thing you’ll be is bored. I personally challenge you to stay awake when she goes on and on in her droning voice. It’s worse than church.”

“You would. It’s so pointless. And Mom makes out it’s, like, the only place you can pray. But you can pray anywhere. You can pray on the toilet if you want to, while you’re pooping.”

“For a house that’s ours; for nicer clothes; for a laptop; a cell phone; to be prettier; for Walker Briggs to notice me; to be more popular; to get that outfit in the window of Limited Too.”

“Not enough. And when I remember, I pray for forgiveness and poor people, blah, blah, blah. But I usually don’t remember. What do you pray for?”

Dad drives me to the church in his pickup truck. There are tools under my feet: saws and sledgehammers, an orange hard hat. The smell of his cab—paint and turpentine—reminds me of the salon, of working and knowing your place in the world. Why, I wonder, if I know things about other people, do I never know anything about myself? Like what my future will be.

“I wish I’d just taken the side streets instead of this ‘shortcut’ of your mom’s,” Dad complains.

“I don’t pray, really. If I was going to pray, I’d pray that everything stays the same, that we’re all healthy and happy like we are now.”

“She converted to my religion when we got married, not that I asked her to. And she’s taken to it like I never did.”

“But you’ve told us lots of stories about visiting Ireland and about your mom and dad and stuff. So it’s, like, we know more about you.”

“Stories can be something that add to your life, like a garden and windows add to a house. You know my parents both died when you were a baby. They were in a car accident. My stories keep them alive for me. But some people feel trapped by their stories and they want to break free of them.”

I try to picture myself with curly red hair and blue eyes. If I looked like that, I would not be me. I would be a girl who talks loudly, like my dad does, whose eyes laugh, like his, who everyone likes.

Because the girl who is like the one I imagine—loud, funny, confident, American—is one I know very well, and she looks Japanese: Sally. The most popular girl in school.

“Sally was pulling your leg, Lin. I went to elementary school with Sister April. Did you know that?”

“I doubt she remembers me. Hey, look, the police are here.” He jokes, pulling in behind a squad car. “Better in front of me than behind me.”

Matt jumps out of the car, tosses a wave to his dad, and dashes up the steps. I get out of dad’s truck and follow Matt, slowly. “Bye, kiddo,” Dad calls after me. “Good luck.”

The classroom is in the parish house, but to get there, we walk through the church, dipping our fingertips in holy water, and making the sign of the cross.

As I follow the other kids, I look at each painting of the Stations of the Cross: Jesus betrayed by Judas, dragged away by guards, his crucifixion and resurrection. This is God, I tell myself, but it’s hard to understand, like translating Japanese. I can’t figure how the sounds of one language match the meanings of another.

I prefer the statue of Mary with her open arms and palms up, as if she will give to anyone who asks. That makes more sense.

While some of the nuns wear gray skirts and white blouses, Sister April wears a traditional habit, black and floor length. She has dark brown eyes and fierce black eyebrows.

She tells us to fold our hands and place them on the Bibles in front of us, then she talks about nuns, the different kinds of things they do. She only looks at the girls. It’s like she can see us in a row marching toward the convent.

In the old days, she says, there were nuns who bled from their hands out of sympathy with Christ. There was a nun who dreamed music then awoke to compose it, even though she never played an instrument.

Even though it’s cold outside, the room is boiling. I can’t imagine wearing a heavy black dress in here. “A nun’s life is devoted to prayer and good works, to turning inward to the spirit . . .”

After a day in the classroom, my eyelids are droopy. I feel like I’m floating, and as I drowse, a story unfolds like a movie in my mind. I see a young woman sitting at a wooden table by herself. She is thin, maybe fourteen or fifteen, but I know it is Sister April. The house is empty and silent. There is a knock at the door. She stands, picks up a suitcase, and moves toward it. I am filled with the sadness that was hers.

Whack. My head jerks up. I look around to see whose hand was hit with the ruler. The girl in front of me picks up her Bible, which has dropped to the floor. “Sorry.”

“Because suffering is the shortest path to the heart of God. There is a saying, ‘Even when the door of God is closed, his window is open to tears.’ In suffering, we meet God.”

Sister April folds her arms. “Not really. Although it’s joy to suffer. Yes, I think Jesus had a joyful suffering.”

“You don’t have to raise your hand every five seconds. We are in conversation. You may speak.”

“It’s a form of prayer. And prayer is a brief release from the torment we experience, which is Christ’s torment.”

“Do you mean suffering that people bring onto themselves, like you deciding to be poor and live with those other nuns and eat bad food? Or suffering that happens to people without their choice, like war? I mean . . . which is the better suffering?”

“It’s not good. That’s for sure. My aunt is a nun at St. Christopher’s and I ate with them. The food was all starchy and boring. The meat looked and tasted like a gray sponge. The pasta was overcooked. The salad was iceberg lettuce.” He grimaces. “There were no spices, no oregano or rosemary or garlic. I mean, how come the priests get to live in the big house? Why do they get good meals and wine and a housekeeper and fancy robes? Father Price eats lamb and steak every night.”

“Of what matter is food to the spirit? It is a better person who eats gruel and mortifies the flesh than one who indulges and lives for pleasure.”

“If God made good food,” Matt says loudly, “like melon, eggplant, Asiago cheese, cannelloni, and garlic, isn’t it a sin not to enjoy it?”

Matt looks at Sister April like she’s just asked the stupidest question in the world, like, Why are you a boy? “Because I’m Italian!”

On the way out, the other boys slap Matt on the back and congratulate him on upsetting Sister April and getting us released early.

“But I didn’t get my questions answered.” He nods to me. “Don’t you wonder about these things? I mean, how do you make sense of it all?”

I want to tell him that maybe we don’t have to make sense of it. The Virgin Birth. Christ’s mortification. God as a parent who allows his son to suffer. Those stories are like the koans Obaachan tells. You meditate on them, let them flow through you. And then, maybe, you understand. But it can’t be explained in words, any more than you could explain a feeling, or a piece of music.

“Don’t ask her.” Mary Stevens pulls her eyes to make them thin. “She’s Chinese. She doesn’t even speak English.”