Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(5)

Then Sister Geppetto confessed all, and, weeping, begged the Boss Nun to tell her how she could earn forgiveness.

“The workmanship of this puppet is the best of all your carving,” said the Boss Nun. “All the other puppets were used in a play to delight the people, excite their wonder at the story of Christ, and thus glorify God. What was the purpose of this puppet?”

“To satisfy my own vanity, and to be the child that I will never have.”

“So this puppet represents worldly pride and your last doubts about your vocation as a nun?” asked the Boss Nun.

“I fear that it is so.”

“Then let us set you free from that fear,” said the Boss Nun. “Yet I cannot bear the thought of burning something so beautifully made.”

“Oh, I beg you not to burn it, for that would be like burning my own child. Don’t you know that I have heard this baby’s voice inside my head? He begs me to set him free and let him play with the children.”

“Then that is what you must do,” said the Boss Nun.

That very night, the Boss Nun led Sister Geppetto to the town square. At this hour, no one was there. Geppetto used her carving knife to cut all the strings, one by one. Then she laid the Baby Jesus beside the well at the center of the square.

“Oh, thank you,” said Baby Jesus.

“This will not end well for you,” said Sister Geppetto.

The Boss Nun had not heard him. “Did he speak to you?”

“He thanked me for his freedom.”

“Then the words you told him are the words God could say to all humankind, were it not for the sacrifice of his Only Begotten.”

Geppetto kissed the forehead of the inert Baby Jesus and wept as the Boss Nun took her back inside the convent.

The next night, the Boss Nun took her back to the square. They walked all around the square but did not see the Baby Jesus puppet, until finally they stopped at the town’s well in the middle and Geppetto heard the Baby Jesus calling out to her.

“Oh I am broken!” he cried. “Tie a string to me and raise me out of here!”

“He’s at the bottom of the well,” said Sister Geppetto. “And he’s broken.”

“You hear his voice?” asked the Boss Nun. “You believe this?”

“He never lied to me,” said Geppetto.

The Boss Nun looked as if she had much to say, but at last all she did was turn the crank and raise up the bucket full of water. The puppet was not in the bucket.

“Please let me try again,” said Geppetto. “We only need to get the bucket under him. He’s wooden, so he must be floating.”

So patient and understanding was the Boss Nun that she stayed with Sister Geppetto until she raised up the Baby Jesus on the third try. All the puppet’s metal joints were bent, though none had fully come apart; one wooden arm was broken, but the cloth of the shirt plus a few splinters held it in place.

“And still he speaks to you?” asked the Boss Nun doubtfully, as she examined the puppet to assess the damage.

“He weeps in pain,” said Sister Geppetto, “and he also says that freedom is a strange gift, because without strings he had no power even to protect himself.”

“Nor have any of us,” said the Boss Nun. “Have you also learned this lesson?”

“I have learned that when I do not obey the rule of my order, I have no power to do good, but only power to do harm, even when I meant it to be good.”

“Then this puppet of Baby Jesus has done its work and completed its mission in your life. I will pray for the Spirit of God to cease quickening this puppet so you no longer hear its voice. But I will let you keep this wooden body as a reminder of all you learned.”

All I learned, thought Sister Geppetto, and all I loved, for this Baby Jesus was the god of my idolatry and all that I will ever love so completely in my life.

Seventy-five years later, having served long years as the Boss Nun herself, Sister Geppetto died as a feeble old woman and, according to instructions that she left, a certain old broken puppet was laid beside her body in the coffin when it was lowered into the ground. Only then did anyone remember that yes, it was Sister Geppetto who carved the puppets that were used in the Christmas pageant every year. But as for this puppet, which had never been a part of the show, no one knew what it had been made for, or why it was broken, or why she had kept it without ever repairing it.

Five women from neighboring apartments rushed to the Ochoa apartment to tell them that a car from the International Fleet had stopped in front of the building. “The man asked if you lived here!” they reported, and soon variants also were said: “The man asked about Dabeet.” “The man is here to take Dabeet to Fleet School.”

Dabeet knew that it was barely possible that the man had spoken Mother’s name, and that all the rest was people leaping to conclusions and telling Mother what they knew she wanted to hear.

By the time Hyrum Graff, Minister of Colonization, came to their door, he was out of breath, and there was nowhere in the apartment for him to sit, because neighbors were occupying every surface and leaning against all the open wall space.

Graff stood leaning on the doorframe, a younger man in a much crisper uniform standing near him. “Four flights is a long way up for a fat old man,” said Graff.

Dabeet said nothing.