When their voices had died away, I crept out of my hiding place. My hands were shaking. I clenched my fists inside the sleeves of my jacket. Minutes later I was on Rue Jean Savidan. The convent was easy to find. The medieval building was an imposing sight, its facade touched by the pink dawn light. I’d been instructed to go down an alley at the side of the building and rap four times on a blue-painted door.
Even though I knew what to expect, it was something of a shock to find myself face-to-face with a nun. Her veil shadowed her face. She let me in without a word and led me down a passageway to a small, bare room containing only a table and a single chair. A wooden crucifix hung on the wall. Beneath were two hooks, on which the clothes they had prepared for me hung.
“Deshabillez-vous, s’il vous plait.” She sounded very young. “Je vais vous montrer comment porter les vêtements.”
“Merci beaucoup.”
She was offering to help me dress. She had no idea, of course, that I’d been a nun. And I couldn’t tell her. She turned her back while I took off my fisherman’s clothes. Before the habit went on, I strapped some of the equipment I was taking to the Resistance to my body. The plastic explosives, each of which was the size and shape of a large cigar, were sewn into webbing that allowed me to wrap them around my torso. When I’d finished doing that, I had to pretend not to know in what order to put on the various items of clothing.
Without looking around, the nun handed me a chemise just like the one I’d been wearing when I washed up in Mermaid’s Cove. There was a number stitched into the back of the neck. Two-three-six: lower than the one I’d been given as a novice. As I pulled the chemise over my head, I wondered how many nuns, over the centuries, this number had belonged to. The sleeve of the garment caught on the gun strapped to my left arm. I eased it over the metal barrel, wondering what the sister would say if she knew that she was helping someone who was not only carrying explosives, but a lethal weapon.
The next thing I put on was a pair of black woolen stockings, held up by elasticized garters. Then came an underskirt, and on top of that a wide-sleeved robe. Before the scapular could go over that, the first two layers of headgear had to be in place. I’d begun to tighten the strings of the skullcap when I remembered the transmitters. I needed to sew them inside the cap before the wimple and veil went on.
The nun went off to fetch a needle and thread. I looked down at the long black garments that swathed my body, so familiar and yet so strange, like a long-lost relative. I was glad that there was no mirror in the room. It was hard enough to justify what I was doing without catching sight of myself.
An hour later I was almost ready. I’d secured the radio parts inside the skullcap, and sewn the silk map between the two layers of the veil. My assistant helped me put on the wimple, which covered the skullcap and extended from my head into something like a large white bib over my shoulders and chest. On top of that she placed a stiff circular coif, to which she pinned the veil. Finally, she hooked a large wooden cross and chain around my neck and gave me a rosary to hang from my belt. And one more thing—a silver ring. I couldn’t look at it as I pushed it onto my finger. It made me feel the way I imagined someone would if they were married and had taken off their wedding ring to pursue a love affair.
“Comment vous sentez-vous?”
How did I feel? I didn’t trust myself to answer that question. I turned my head from side to side, trying to get used to the veil. I wondered how I’d managed all those years in Africa with the restricted vision. I hoped it would come back quickly, that knack of making small, frequent head movements to avoid colliding with people or objects. Doing it while riding a bicycle was going to take some practice.
Luckily there was a large inner courtyard at the convent. I spent a while riding around it, attracting curious glances from nuns on their way to chapel. When I felt confident enough to venture outside, the nun who’d helped me to dress asked me if I’d step inside the chapel because the Mother Superior wanted to give me a blessing.
The office of matins was just coming to an end. I could hear the singing before I reached the great wooden door with its curlicued iron hinges. The sound had a disturbing effect. My nerves were already stretched to the breaking point, and those ethereal harmonies, so sweet and so familiar, brought tears trickling down my face. I wiped them away with the sleeve of my robe. I didn’t want the Mother Superior to see me like that.
I waited at the back of the chapel until all the nuns had filed out. Then I was led up to the altar, where the Mother Superior was on her knees, praying. She stood up when she heard me coming—very sprightly for a woman whose face suggested she was in her late seventies. Her eyes were as pale and clear as the sea on a winter’s morning. I knelt and bowed my head.