The Lonely Hearts Hotel(3)
They were never quite certain when a blow might fall, but they were struck by the nuns for virtually anything. It was the nature of such a system of beatings that a child could never really determine when he was going to be hit—they could not predict or control it completely. In the wisdom of the nuns, the children were wicked just by virtue of existing. So it followed, really, that all their actions were wicked. And they could be punished for actions that, if committed by other children, would be considered benign.
Herein is recorded a brief summary of certain infractions that were the cause of corporal punishments, meted out to children from January to July 1914.
From The Book of Minor Infractions:
A boy raised his legs up in the air and made a bicycle motion with them.
A small girl looked at a chipmunk and made clucking noises in an attempt to communicate with it.
A boy was standing on one foot while holding his refectory tray.
A little boy was staring too quizzically at his reflection in a spoon.
A little girl was humming “La Marseillaise.”
A boy was stomping the snow off his boots in an overly aggressive fashion.
A girl had a hole in the knee of her stocking that she hadn’t darned.
A girl drew a smiling face on a zero in one of her math equations.
Seven children wiped their noses on their sleeves.
A girl could not resist the temptation of snow and grabbed a handful of it and shoved it in her mouth.
A boy managed to come to breakfast with every article of the clothing he was wearing inside out.
A girl claimed that she woke up in the middle of the night and saw a man with goat feet tiptoeing around all the beds.
Three children could not remember the name of the ocean between Canada and Europe.
A girl spelled out words in the air with the tip of her finger.
A little girl looked into the sun at an angle to make herself sneeze.
A boy pretended to pull his thumb off his hand.
A girl was treating a peeled potato as though it were a baby and hid it in her pocket to protect it from being boiled.
For reasons unknown to him, a boy decided to deliver his Confession in the voice of a duck.
? ? ?
IT WAS SAD for all the children. They were so in need of love. The beatings affected their self-esteem. Because they were beaten every time they found themselves lost in thought, they began to find that their minds were afraid to wander. Their little brains were not allowed to amuse themselves or to dally happily in the magical Elysium of the mind that was childhood. But Pierrot’s and Rose’s personalities both survived this cruel regime.
? ? ?
THE MOTHER SUPERIOR always took particular notice of the boys and girls in the younger group, the two-to-six-year-olds, who were lodged on the second floor. The first thing Pierrot and Rose had in common was the black cat. The Mother Superior was always trying to get rid of the black cat, which seemed to haunt the orphanage. It had spiky hair and looked as though it had just climbed out of a vat of tar and was miserable about its fate. There were days it could never be found. It would seem to just disappear into the walls. But one time she found it in Pierrot’s bed. They were asleep, wrapped up in each other’s arms like lovers. She chased it right out the window. She was sure that was the last time she would ever lay eyes on it.
And then she saw it again, talking to Rose. The little girl was crouched down and was speaking to the cat as though they were going over some very important business together. But Rose was so young she couldn’t even speak proper words yet. She was just uttering garbled, burbling noises. They sounded like water in a tiny pot bubbling over. The cat was listening carefully to what Rose said and then hastened out the door, as if to deliver the message to the insurgents.
When Pierrot and Rose were both four years old, the Mother Superior saw the two of them pretending that the black cat was their child. They kept kissing the cat on the head and handing it back and forth.
“You’ve been a naughty kit-kat. Silly bad thing. Dirty raggedy scamp. You’ll go straight to hell,” said Rose.
“Yes. You’ve been bad and whiny. You don’t get milk. No milk at all. No milk one bit. No milk for you,” insisted Pierrot.
“If you cry, I’m going to poke you in the nose.”
“Owww! Owww! Owww! I don’t want to hear it.”
“You smell bad. You have to scrub your paws. Bath time. Stinky creep.”
“Naughty sinner, naughty, naughty, naughty. With mud for paws.”
“Soooo shameful. Look at me. Mister Shameful.”
They had never been taught words of affection. Although the two had only known harsh terms and words of discipline, they had managed to transform them into words of love. The Mother Superior immediately made a note to keep the two children apart. Boys and girls were kept in separate dormitories and classrooms, but they played in the common room, ate in the same large cafeteria and did their chores outside in the field together. It was necessary to thwart all love affairs in the orphanage. If there was one thing responsible for ruining lives, it was love. They were in their pathetic circumstances because of that most unreliable of feelings. These affairs sometimes began years and years before the children themselves were aware of their affections, and by the time they became evident, they were impossible to uproot. So the nuns were all instructed to keep Rose and Pierrot away from each other.
Not these two delinquents, she thought. Not these two unlucky foundlings. They had already escaped death. And still they were expecting more.