The Slow Natives by Thea Astley

the external annoyance. She shifted roly-poly against the polished oak of her stall and tried not to see the core of discontent. Through the chapel door in deliberate inattention she looked across the downlands.
    There was, she knew, no chronological equivalent for that past season of acid frost and snapping winds, the black veils curling in the blue-white weather, the ring fingers with chilblain cushions, the toes swollen and reshaping the black shoes; no equivalent for the purple frost-lines against aqueous sunrise or the desolate settings beyond the range to the south; no equivalent for the time spent on the clauses of the Treaty of Utrecht or the causes of the Counter-Reformation; all those months made unbearably longer as if a bell had begun to chime its statement to her outraged ears by Sister Matthew’s voice, attitude, manner of walking, eating and—God forgive the presumptuous human outrage—even of praying. For pray she did in her dry cool tones, assiduously acidulously distorting the Latin that was one of her own teaching subjects with Italianate vowels of maddening length that trailed all over the chapel, syllables behind.
    Like Sir Roger, but not as lovable.
    The pale closed lids forbade criticism; the ginger hands clenched God between them and made you afraid of your irritation. Even Sister Philomene, whose elderly body inclined dangerously to one side as it moved its gravity-defying path through dormitory, refectory, and chapel, was not nearly as maddening. She was old, cranky, and prejudiced, but the other was virtuous, cold, and frightening. She told her beads in no uncertain manner. Sister Beatrice envied that sureness, that confident belief in the infallibility almost—no, surely that was unfair—of her smallest action.
    Mother Rectress rose and the community rustled to its feet. Guimpes crackled, beads chattered brief aspirations and, on the way out of the chapel when they must pass, their eyes regarded each other briefly and turned away lest God split the husks off their souls as if they were nuts and reveal each dazzling kernel of love-hate to the other.
    Reverend Mother, a square-jawed intellectual (frozen grey eyes, cheesy skin, two higher degrees and fluent Italian) beckoned Sister Beatrice into the downstairs office. Reverend Mother painted a little, abstracts by taste but icons and medal containers worked in blanket-stitched leather through necessity. Fleurs-de-lis and bouquets of Lisieux roses, scrolled rosary cases and imitation-skin missal holders—all would later be sold absurdly cheaply at convent fêtes. A glass-fronted press in the corner of the room held many of these objects, all executed with a kind of standard workmanship and love-lessness but the same mania for perfection that she was also giving to a translation of sections of the
Inferno
suitable to be used with senior pupils. The manuscript sections of this lay beside the neat piles of scapular cases. Reverend Mother took little credit for either.
    â€œCome in, Sister Beatrice,” she ordered, “and close the door. I have something to discuss with you.”
    Even through the closed door the busy silence of the community’s movement along the passage came with its swirling voluminous displacement of air, the subdued voices, cool fingers, white skin, fanatic cleanliness, and a vocal detachment from the world.
    â€œHow did the examinations go this morning?”
    â€œSatisfactorily enough, I think, Reverend Mother.”
    â€œI don’t want mere passes, you know, Sister. I want high passes.”
    â€œYes, I know.”
    â€œWell?”
    Sister Beatrice went quite red. “I can’t say. You must make allowance for examination nerves.”
    â€œMmmm.” Mother St Jude regarded her calmly for some moments.
    â€œWould young Eva Kastner suffer in that way?” she asked drily.
    â€œEva? Oh, I don’t imagine so.”
    â€œThen you think she would have