# CONVENT IS PRISON

To count: easy thing. To count right: that's different. One, two, three, up to thirty-one smelling-sour-rag ones, skinleather and false teeth. Old folks. Same face. So, to count right and count easy are the same thing.

Until another jumbles in the rocking chair.

To Sister Gabriela, the abbess, I asked if there was an extra. "Marica," she spat, "don't go acting silly."

So, it turns easy, but not right, to count thirty-one elders in the morning and thirty-two before sleep.

Since no talent nor calling there is, Sister Gabriela says its my duty to count. That way, it is known if a foul one died in the bathroom or sores in bed. The other two sisters, but younger, switch bottoms-diaper, shine the skinleathers and prepare rice and beans. I count and count. And I keep counting thirty-two only at night.

And I despair because, if not even one I stand, less one more. Slobblers, misshapes, cardboards almost without life. They vomit and pig themselves. The sisters say that from God comes the command to love thy neighbor. Those neighbors are not; they are husks. Convent is prison.

I paid mind to find the stowaway. I note on scrap paper, toilet paper, marks: which old shitling is a she, which a he, who sounds and who don'ts, who's chair-only, who not even speaks. Proper-name interests me not. A wrinkle's name matters least. And that though the abbess has insisted, since I arrived, that I learn them. I just bob yes and take advantage that they say I am dull. And that is the reason the mister who occupies half of mama's bed sent me here.

Also because he stole half of mine _too_.

Mama found him in hardly no pants. She took him to her room and then she said to me: "That you go of nun, María del Carmen, because he can't keep his wants in." They got me with struggle: I wasn't going without kicking. The mister dragged me to the convent door, where abbess already was. With bucketfuls numb-cold-water they shined my hair and body. Brown wool over shoulders and a white cap. I became the third of the sisters, of the youngest. The elders, scattered in the yard, nightmare the mine. A bunch of bats blistering in the sun.

And every day I count and I count. And every day one, two, three, thirty-one. Until not. And in some days I already had my list of marks. I painted the jumbles with chalkstick where the sores wouldn't see them. Napes with marks. Thus, I counted not disorder, but first one, then two, then three. Thus the thirty-two will be without mark.

But before sleep, disaster: old ones no chalk on neck-back. All erased and all thirty-two again. I thought and thought in and happened in my head ideas: ribbons, little papers, flags. That too could the thirty-two take off to not find him. I thought and I thought until I knew: cut.

Next sun, I entered, before all awake, in rooms with peeling knife, took from the kitchen. And with injected medicine excuse, I cut a crosslet in thirty-one forearms of husks. Thirty-one only. Scab-mark that, if removed, the scar remembers. I went back to my own.

On morning, I made like I just waked up along with the others, I offered to shine them all (thing that nobody wants, but they said, pious, that they false want), and wipe bottoms under magic words for them, the other nuns: "Thus I want to serve to God, the father, son and holy ispirit." Gabriela, the abbess, impressed by my humility. "New vocation of service," christened. The scheme was so they wouldn't see the crosslet. I took the morning to finish and I dressed them. My mark in all went unseen; my mark in all except in the thirty-two, who'd come without.

At night, disappointment. Thirty-two with crosslet. Did the stowaway notice and he, with his own peeling knife...? Impossible, I hidden well the mark. Unless the others be accomplices. I check again, to be sure. Surprise: none has it. Smooth and clean skin. I see them with the same demonic eyes with which I looked at the mister: full of disgust. All doze, dying for another night. 

And a throat-chuckle pulls me from my head.

I turn. A husk, man, beret and gray pants. He is the one of the laugh. In wheelchair, well awake; while the others, dead asleep. He raises sleeve. There the mark.

---Sleeve up anyone you want ---he coughs.

I grab first at hand and raise sleeve. There, cross.

---Down the sleeve and see again.

I obey. The second time, there is no crosslet. I throw that stick-limb. And I walk backward.

---Devil-one?---I murmur.

---No, but we are from same place.

The bereted rises. He is tall, quite, and moves young-much though his face is old-old. He approaches. This one smells no sour-rag one. This one smells of rotted beast. He makes sneer and I suppose that is a smile. The teeth are green. He approaches more.

---Hush. Up to there and no more ---I demand and I take a cane; I threaten---. Else we go by fists.

---I have watched you from a long time, Marica. From a long time back. You hate the old ones. You hate the nuns. You hate your stepfather and your mother. You hate the convent. Convent is prison, isn't?

---Just no like of how they smell, nor how they feel. The abbess, not see her never more is no problem. Younger nuns, they are unimportant. Mama. Mama? Mister, to that one, by bites I'd tear the finger from his belly. But hate, I think I hate not anyone.

---I offer you a deal; or vengeance. As you want to see it. I been trapped so long here and I need an exit. And you too. I can make that the two of us escape, but I need that you begin with this plan.

---This deal. Is it not soul's doom?

---Depends on who you deal with. To me, my only interest is to escape.

---What? Knock down wall and done.

The other squints. He angers.

---If I was from this world, of course that will be. But I am not and my rules are others. I need, so, to fly from here. But I have no wings.

---And how you take me out from here?

---I say to you; I have no wings, so I need other thing to fly. What you think of some balloons?

---Of that, here, none.

---And those?---he points old men and old women. He points flat skinleathers.

I look, look and look and understand not. He mind-reads. He takes out white powder, an envelope, from his bag.

---With this, the guts swell up and float. We tie them from the neck and nothing more; the legs will be the steering wheel, and one goes to wherever. You win because, to go where I want, I need many balloons. I calculate thirty-one. And I would want three more  spares.

---Spare?

---The nuns, then.

---Abbess and the sisters...

---If nobody is in the convent, besides you, you can go. Grab the keys, open the door and you are done. You go, like me, wherever.

Worked his plan. In theory. I ask more.

---And die the skinleathers, when balloons?

Steady he sees me. Serious. Frozen.

---It is only the exchange---he says---. You put all this bag in the rice and by night they are already inflated. Deal?

Outs skeleton hand. I doubt, but I take it; I take it because not here nor with the nuns nor with the skinleathers am I. No. Never. On the other side, there among my things and my house, yes. Convent is Prison. 

And in my hands the little white powder.

Un-Devil goes and sun comes in. The night entire I stayed there. The skinleathers disappeared. I run to their rooms and all are asleep. The nuns, eldest and younger, already arose. I go to the kitchen. One sor batters the rice. To paddle is tiring and more if it is for so big a troop. I tell her: "God care you, sister. I paddle. You rest, in that armchair. That much I lack still to be saint." The nun smiles. She goes. I paddle and paddle and I mind not to be seen while I mix the powder.

At breakfast, I ignore rice. I give-gift it to another skinleather. "To you lacks, dearest. Not to me." I ignore also beans and tortillas. Lest it be that the powder splattered to that too. All the day, without bite. At question of the abbess, I reply: "Vow of fast, sister. Only today. The sins press heavy." Abbess blesses me.

The time slow until that, at night, I count the old ones. Before the escape, there is the routine. I count thirty-one and appears the Un-Devil thirty-two, drags the nuns, cattle-like. He leaves them in the center of the room. He looks at me and counts in low voice "three, two, one." And the skinleathers and the nuns inflate. They sound like rubber. They inflate and inflate. Eyes pop, red, blood and snots. Their habit and sweaters break to bare-skin. To bare-skin like long time no, because they say that abbes the habit she removed not even to shine. They fill the room. Their inside air takes our outside space. Un-Devil runs and takes out rope. He ties necks and drags the balloons to the yard. I count while they rise: one, two, three, thirty-one... thirty-two, thirty-three and thirty-four. The spares.

Un-Devil rises well slow. Laugh shows, alike dog free on street. He looks at me. He is happy as child. It gives me joy that he exits, because then I too. But right then I see that no: that neither in my things nor my house am I. There half the bed is of the mister; of mine and of mama's; that not will change. Never.

---Take me---I demand---. Convent is Prison. But also the other: world is prison too.

Un-Devil doubts, clicks mouth and outs skeleton-hand for second time. I take it and we rise. I wink to him while I take his waist. He clicks mouth again. His beret falls and I follow it with my eyes to the roof of the convent; never I saw it from above and it turns tiny tiny. I see the house of mama and of the mister at far. Then, the houses of the neighbors and the rancherias. The convent and the house of mama join together, erase, merge. And farther, a stream to which I think I went before. Then, not even that, only a green bedsheet, next to another brown bedsheet and another blue bedsheet. Then, white bedsheets.

I stop looking down and look up. And to count right and easy become again the same. In the air, we are one, two, three... thirty-four, and thirty-five and thirty-six.