The Border of Paradise: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

it’s so good to see you,” she said, her face brightening, and she grabbed my hand. I was so surprised by her warm skin that I flinched and almost pulled away, but she drew me close to a pew, and let go to briefly kneel and make the sign of the cross before scooting deep into the center, where she patted the wood beside her for me to sit down.
    My parents were still talking to the Orlichs. As I moved closer to Marianne, while still maintaining a safe distance of about afoot and a half, I saw Mr. and Mrs. Pawlowski approach them. The group enfolded my parents, and everyone immediately looked at me. Their voices lowered even though I couldn’t hear what they were saying to begin with, and in their murmur I heard someone say “immense disappointment.” The phrase leaped out at me like a jackrabbit.
    The church began to fill—the hefty butcher, straining in his suit, with his wife and three girls like something out of a fairy tale; the moron with a flattened face, who brought his widowed mother sorrow, and who also had a persistent cough that often interrupted holy contemplation; the Stopkas with young Emily and her older, tomboy sister, who was at that time twenty-two and neither married nor dating, and who I am sure is a lesbian somewhere now and surely happier than I am—all the people came in, and Marianne put her hand in mine, and I squeezed it, mostly from terror, but hoping that she would interpret it as affection. “Look,” she said, the interior falling to a hush, “let’s make room for our families.”

    Though she never said so, my return to St. Jadwiga also sparked Matka’s next suggestion: that I spend time tutoring Marianne in Latin. She was interested in Latin, and the local girls’ school, St. Agnes, wasn’t an institution that placed much importance on the education of young women other than to make them amiable brides, or maybe nuns. And I’m sure that Mrs. Orlich had a hand in the arrangement, too, ending in a conspiracy of study sessions that doubled as playdates, with Marianne and me being lightly supervised in living rooms while our mothers sat at someone’s kitchen table and drank tea or wine.
    In the beginning there was the bright spark that was Marianne; next there was the magnetism that drew us together and prickled my skin; and then, finally, the intimate conversations that served as kindling for a bonfire.
    She wasn’t naturally gifted at languages. Her grammar was awful, and she found it difficult to retain almost any amount of vocabulary. Still, I liked spending time with her, this girl who brought beauty into my life and kept my afternoons from being long and empty. Later I realized that this—to not have to ask foranything from a person, and to be contented still by her existence—is a great gift, and one that I wish I’d appreciated more when I had it.
    On one of those infinite, limited days, in the early weeks of summer, Marianne asked, “Do you think I would make for a good nun?”
    “A nun?” I thought of the nuns at my school in their habits, smacking students with rulers. “I can’t imagine you living that kind of life.”
    The corner of her mouth twitched, and I hurriedly added, “But what do I know? The only nuns I know are the ones at school, and I’ve never known anyone who’s become one.”
    “I know how ridiculous it sounds.”
    “No, not ridiculous,” I said, knowing that I’d disappointed her, and she rolled her eyes at me.
    That summer, Marianne spent an inordinate amount of her time in St. Jadwiga, praying for hours, and when she wasn’t praying, she was helping Father Danuta with feeding and clothing the poor. Marianne didn’t tell me any of this herself; I learned of it from Mrs. Orlich, who had become attached to Matka, and now came to our house two or three times a week to see my antisocial mother.
    “That girl,” Mrs. Orlich said, “will be the death of me. Of course, we consider ourselves as observant as any other family in the