3.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
NEW YORK CITY
MARCH 1, 2011, 7:30 A.M.

She knows the man’s important but she can’t remember his name. The girl is standing in front of a long desk, wearing a plain, very loose-fitting, institutional gray shift with her shoulders slumped forward and her hands clasped in front of her, elbows tucked into her sides. Even sitting down, the man is very large, enormous, in fact, and he’s leaning forward, talking to her, not looking her in the eye but right at her chest. She can’t make out what he’s saying. She’s been bad, she’s misbehaved, she’s going to need to be punished, that’s all she knows.

She can hear him now. He’s even bigger than he was before, telling her to stand up straight, to pull her shoulders back. Why is she wearing that shapeless garment? Pia remembers that she’s fifteen or at most sixteen and this is the head of her school, and it’s as if she’s at the back of the room, watching this girl who is her but not her. He pushes his chair back and stands up. Coming around the desk, he approaches her with a cruel, lustful smile. “Pia . . .” he orders. “Pia . . .”

“Pia . . . Pia . . . !” Pia sat up in bed and breathed a deep sigh of relief. Her T-shirt was sticking to the sweat on her back as she stretched forward, listening to George calling to her from the other side of the door. She let him in and hurried to get dressed, vowing that she’d remember to set the alarm that night. Her internal clock used to wake her up at six without fail but the last couple of weeks she’d had trouble sleeping, suffering from a number of recurrent nightmares. She felt exhausted. She’d not had nearly enough sleep. After visiting with the mother superior, she’d gone back to Rothman’s lab. By the time she’d gotten back to her dorm room and crawled into bed it had been 4:23 in the morning.

As she dressed, she found herself mulling over the meeting with the mother superior, and she shared some of it with George on the way to the medical center.

“I’m glad you went,” George said as they walked in the crisp morning sunshine. “I mean, you were never going to join the order, and I can’t see you in Africa doing whatever missionaries do nowadays. I’ve never known any nuns, but I can’t imagine you’re the nun type.” From one of their four lovemaking events, an erotic image of a satiated Pia naked in bed flashed through his mind. He noticed Pia shoot him a look, and he cringed. Could she read his mind? It wasn’t the first time George had this worry.

“I don’t think becoming a nun and taking the vows would have been a problem for me, George. I’m not even saying I’ll never do it. I’ve seen how life is at the convent, and it’s very peaceful. It’s different from the world out here. The sisters support each other. It’s safe.”