Sister Pauline
Sister Pauline’s beaked nose twitched and her hands pounced as she stooped down and pulled the wax paper square from my tunic pocket. She unwrapped my soggy salmon sandwich and held it up for my grade one classmates to see. They tittered and she frowned. “This is serious, very serious. The principal will have to be told.”
I said nothing, but hung my head and stared at my scuffed brown oxfords and the navy leotards bunched at my ankles. Around me, children whispered and giggled as one boy plugged his nose in an exaggerated way. My hands clasped each other behind my back in the hope that Sister Pauline wouldn’t use the strap.
“Sister, Sister, look at my chain.” Pamela, a classmate with a pixie face, an elfin manner and a very rich father, held out her perfect paper chain. Red, green, red, green, on and on the loops went.
Sister’s face lit up. “Perfect, Pammy. Just perfect. It’ll have a special place at the top of the Christmas tree, near the angel.”
She thrust the sandwich into my hand. “Here, throw this out. When I think of all the starving children and see you willfully wasting food, I lose all hope for your soul.” She shook her head.
Hurrying to the green tin can, I buried my sandwich under wet paper towels and long curls of pencil shavings and returned to my desk. I too, worked on my paper chain, hoping to create one that Sister Pauline would admire, but I couldn’t get it right. I kept forgetting to alternate red, green, red, green and the smelly brown mucilage kept oozing out of the bottle and smearing the paper, the scissors and my hands.
Abruptly, Sister Pauline announced it was time for the school Christmas party, and she began gathering the festive chains from the desks. Glancing at mine, she left it there and told us to form a double line. We joined all the other classes and the whole school marched in two rows of blue tunics, white shirts and grey flannel pants. Along the windowless corridors we trudged, through canyons of dingy walls and flaking plaster, past the cast iron heaters that hissed hot dry air at us as we filed by. At the gym door, an ancient nun directed the oldest, tallest children to sit at the front and sent the youngest, smallest students to the rear of the room.
Overseeing the noisy chaos was Mother Elaine, the principal of St. Angela’s. She possessed the sweet face of the saints on my holy cards and the voice and manner of a shrew. “Be quiet!”, she screamed. “Stop this talking now.” As the hum of childish voices dimmed, she made one final threat. “If I don’t have instant silence, all gifts will be sent to the orphans at Merrymount.” The hum stopped. The choir began the carols and children murmured under the cover of “Hark the Herald”.
Even I, nervous and apprehensive about what would happen next and what if I did something wrong, began to feel excited about Santa’s imminent arrival. The choir broke into a chorus of “Jingle Bells” and suddenly there he was. Decked out in patchy red velvet trimmed with straggly white fur, with a slightly askew beard and looking much like the school janitor, Santa plopped his sack onto the floor. Without a single ho, ho, ho, and with a thick Polish accent, he began to mispronounce names and distribute presents.
While Santa stumbled over name after name, I watched the other children so I would know just how to act when it was my turn. As child after child traipsed up, took their gift, thanked Santa, returned to their seat and tore open the paper, I began to relax. I started to feel safe, connected, as if I finally belonged. I forgot my fear of the nuns with their rustling black habits, their clicking wooden rosary beads and the thick leather straps hidden in the folds of their robes. I forgot my fear of the other children with their strange games and rituals, their cutting words and sharp laughter. Around me I heard the sounds of torn paper, ripped boxes and squeals of pleasure, and I waited.
The pile beside Santa was getting smaller and smaller. A few parents had already arrived to pick up their children. Then Santa picked up the last present and called out Mother Elaine’s name. With flushed cheeks, she accepted and then turned on the beatific smile she reserved for priests and parents and wished us all a Merry Christmas. I kept waiting for someone to notice that I had no gift and miraculously produce one. But no one did.
My father was amongst the last to arrive and he and I rode home in our usual silence. I was too ashamed to tell him what had happened. Santa must’ve found out about my salmon sandwich and decided I didn’t deserve a gift. Later that evening, my much older sister asked what Santa gave me at the party.
“Nothing.” I looked down and started to cry.
Dad was always at his best in a crisis and he sprung into action. He phoned the convent and tongue-lashed Mother Elaine, whom he’d known before she took the veil. Two of my unmarried uncles dropped by and hurried to Eatons when they heard my story.
I ended up with an exquisite blue and white china tea set. It was fragile. It was beautiful. It was what I had always wanted. And I hated it. I’d look at it and finger the cool glazed porcelain and I’d remember sitting in that hall, surrounded by tissue paper and laughter and feeling so alone.
I finished grade one at St. Angela’s, but my parents didn’t send me back. And I guess that’s probably the best gift they ever gave me.
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Susan Shuter’s writing has been published in the Globe & Mail, Dalhousie Review, and Descant. She now lives in Thunder Bay.
Susan Shuter is my aunt, and I’m publishing a series of her unpublished writings—stories, memoir, and essays on Send My Love to Anyone. Read more Susan Stories.
Your story is a devastatingly accurate look at intentional cruelty and the theft of joy. It reminds me of when I brought a new snowsuit to school for show and tell. We were poor, and that suit was a huge deal for my family. My teacher simply looked at it and said, "Too bad it is such an unfortunate colour." In an instant, my pride was turned into shame. You captured that sense of conditional worth perfectly, the way authority figures can make a child feel "wrong" for simply existing with what they have. Like your china tea set, some things are hard to look at because they only remind us of the moment, we were made to feel small. Thank you for this deeply poignant essay.
Thank you for sharing these stories. The details are so vivid, I felt like I was in the room with her...and my heart broke sitting just beside her, witnessing the abuse and neglect of a child.