Beka Lamb by Zee Edgell

Author:Zee Edgell [Edgell, Zee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Novela, Drama, Histórico, Juvenil
Publisher: ePubLibre
Published: 1982-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

Deep in thought, Beka flopped the wet mop on the slimy vomit already hardening on the floor. Rattling rosary beads startled her and she looked up to see a tall, old nun observing her from the chapel door nearest the altar. Transparent hands with thick knuckles and curling blue veins, fingered wooden rosary beads looped around the broad leather belt encircling her waist. Each rosary bead was the size of the coco plums that ripened on lush green bushes growing in and amongst the ancient graves at St George’s caye.

Water tumbled through Beka’s head making her slightly dizzy, and she was on the island waiting for Toycie and the pelicans were flapping their wings as they sailed slowly over the sea. Beka’s face was one big ache, but she tried to smile at Sister Bernadette who taught straw handicrafts when Beka was a small pupil at the elementary school near Holy Redeemer Cathedral. Everyone said Sister Bernadette was going crazy.

‘Not a very nice job is that, my dear?’ the nun asked, enunciating her words slowly and carefully as from long practice. Sister Bernadette picked up the aluminium bucket and brought it with a clank nearer to where Beka rubbed at the splatters.

‘I don’t mind,’ Beka replied, mopping carefully so that the water would not mar the varnish of the prie-dieus. ‘My friend threw up.’

‘She wouldn’t mop it up, you know … too much the Brahmin that one.’

‘Excuse me, Sister Bernadette?’

‘Stopped me teaching … said I was talking politics, frightening the children. You aren’t afraid of me, are you, my dear?’ The nun resumed her stance at the chapel door, but her voice had gone soft, slurry and sad. Yellowed teeth showed through wrinkled lips briefly.

‘No, Sister Mary Bernadette,’ Beka replied with conviction.

It was true. She wasn’t afraid of Sister Bernadette who used to be patient with her clumsy attempts to plait straw into mats. But she was certainly afraid of Sister Virgil.

‘Twenty-five years I’ve been in the colony … she’s only just come. It’s because I’m Irish you know?’

‘Excuse me, Sister?’

‘Not teaching, I may go mad in truth … may the Sweet Jesus help me,’ and she bowed her head.

‘I’m a little bit, too, Sister,’ Beka said. ‘Is everybody?’

But Sister Bernadette did not hear. Clasping the rosary against her breast she resumed whispering her beads, genuflecting to the altar cross, before walking across the chapel to kneel at a far prie-dieu.

Beka returned the rinsed out bucket and mop to the black cook in the convent kitchen, unpinned her beanie and hurried to class. She was barely in her seat when Father Nuñez entered the classroom to give his weekly catechism lesson. The girls rose as one and said in a loud, overly respectful chorus,

‘Good morning, Father.’

Father Nuñez was a Belize mestizo, well known as a pious man, who whenever he made the sign of the cross lingered over and savoured every syllable of the accompanying prayer.

‘Good morning, girls. Please be seated,’ he said in his hoarse voice, waiting, hands

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