Andrew blows out a breath, rubs his hands together for warmth, hoping Peter doesn’t notice his shocked amusement. “I think we best leave the intricacies of that question for another day, my son.”
5
AS I WATCH THE OTHERS WASH UP AFTER A HARD DAY of working the fields, I find myself reflecting on the orphanage, on this strange place we call home. The stone floors in the washroom seem almost new compared with the rest of the orphanage, the draining system almost modern. In many ways, the rooms we inhabit feel like a different world, which in some ways they are. Since the boys’ dormitory was built long after the original structure, which was made up of the chapel, the dining hall, and the private rooms （only a handful intended for priests）， the addition carries the odd feeling of an architectural afterthought.
The original structure was intended as nothing more than a home for traveling missionaries and a seminary for priests-in-training. When money ran thin, the church converted St. Vincent’s into an orphanage for boys, using the influx of church funds to build an addition atop the dining hall. A large washroom was added, complete with its own pump, long troughs for handwashing, and metal bathtubs that drain through a pipeline and into the fields. Three additional rooms were constructed—currently used as classrooms, a massive cloakroom, and storage. The dormitory itself, where the boys sleep and spend a majority of their time, was built at the south end of the revised structure. It is a broad, long room big enough to house thirty-two children, and is currently at capacity. A narrow crawlspace extends along the top of the addition, built primarily to ventilate heat in the summer and insulate heat during the long, harsh winters. Where the attic crawlspace meets the foyer, it connects seamlessly with the pre-existing, broader attic space, which is wide enough to be used for storage, and rests directly above the priests’ rooms on the north side.
To complete the addition, a wide staircase was constructed to reach the new upper level, the banister of which was spindled with thick oak dowels, terminating in a buttressed balcony that overlooks the building’s entrance and the wide, stone-floored foyer.
In the two decades since construction was completed, St. Vincent’s has housed hundreds of boys, and secured a sharp increase of annual funding from the church by doing so.
When I think about all the souls who occupied these rooms and hallways, it makes me feel as if I’m part of something larger—more than just the kids who have come and gone since I arrived, but the community of a thousand spirits that continue to linger here, even after their departure. Or perhaps St. Vincent’s is simply the place where orphan souls return. A beacon for wayward spirits traversing cities and farms and open lands, finding this place once more, the home with which they most readily identify.
A purgatory.
It’s quite easy to imagine the orphanage as a holding area where all the past orphan souls linger, shadowy and hostile, until called forward into the afterlife, or left behind for eternity.
As I pump water into the washroom trough, and the others bristle the dirt from the morning’s work off their fingers and from beneath their nails, I think about all those lost souls. I can almost feel them pressing around the living, urgent for touch, for warmth. But this is our time now, and as I visualize all the labor-tinted water running back into the crops we grow as food, the recycling of sweat and dirt and energy, I consider these boys—these children—who occupy the tacked-on building space. I scan their small faces, their fragile bodies, their clean, flesh-housed spirits. We are the ones who occupy St. Vincent’s. We are its lifeblood, its energy. We sanctify and secure this prison of restless souls. It’s we who work the land, who clean and maintain the structure, who provide pleasure and pain to the cycle of growth that is as visible in the bodies of the growing children as it is in the sky-reaching crops of the field.
Without us, I wonder, would the lingering spirits be freed, or damned?
“Peter! Pump harder!”
I push away my wandering thoughts and double my efforts as water sluices toward the faucets where soapy hands wait for rinsing. As eager as they are for lunch, they also know the importance of clean hands, of passing inspection.
Between cranks of the pump’s handle, I pick up a withered block of soap and clean my own hands, careful to get the dirt from the fingernails, the palms. I’ve only failed inspection once, many years ago, and the unpleasant memory of going all day without food is a constant motivation to never let it happen again.
Soon the boys filter out, make their way down the hallway toward the stairs. I give a cursory glance toward the open doors of the dorm but see no one. All the boys should be accounted for.
It wouldn’t do to be late.
I hustle down the stairs and across the foyer, past the chapel doors and the hallway entrance leading to the priest’s rooms, and through the wide-open doors of the dining hall.
Six equally long tables in two neat rows fill the room. Five boys sit at each one, save two near the back that seat half a dozen. No one wants these tables of six, because the food allotment is the same per table, so it simply means each boy gets a lesser portion. I’ve had to stop many an argument when a late-coming sixth member tries to find a seat, the others knowing it means food out of their mouths.
The places aren’t dictated, but the seating arrangement rarely changes. Groups form naturally in the orphanage, even with the frequent turnover we experience. Friendships form, similar personalities congregate. As the oldest and longest-tenured, David and I are the only ones who tend to move around, choosing the seats we want, moving a younger boy if needed. We are monitors of a sort. David, of course, would never admit to being in any kind of leadership role, but neither of us wants to see a child punished. There has been too much of that over the years. It makes one queasy just to think on it.
Today, I’m the last to enter. All the boys are standing, backs to the tabletops, as our two kitchen servants drop plates of bread, meat in a light gravy, and pitchers of water （milk is reserved for dinner exclusively）。 Everyone’s sleeves are pulled up past their wrists. Everyone’s arms are fully extended so that the tips of one boy’s fingers could easily brush the tips of another at the table adjacent. The boys will stay this way, holding their arms out, palms turned upward, until inspection is finished.
I make my way to the nearest table, stand next to the twins, who both look at me smiling, and I assume they’re pleased I’ve joined them for this meal. I nod back, then jerk my sleeves high and hold out my arms.
Palms up.
And wait.
I sigh inwardly, tired of playing my part for another of Poole’s tiresome rules.
Staring directly at me is Simon, who has stationed himself at the next table over. He rolls his eyes at me and I smile back, both of us hoping this part of the meal tradition moves quickly, as we’re all hungrier than usual after a tough morning’s labor.
Brother Johnson and Father Andrew do the inspections today. Andrew, thankfully, is on my side of the room. Johnson the other. Johnson glances my way wearing a significant frown, but I ignore him. The priests sit at their own long table at the front of the hall, which is slightly raised on a dais. All the seats face forward, face the children. Poole and White sit placidly, hands in laps, watching the inspection. Plates and bowls filled with food are dropped at the table behind me and Finnegan emits a weak groan of hunger. I feel the same way but try not to think about it. Not yet.