The man nodded, then thrust his long-handled spade into the shal ow trench, grunting like Monica Seles on a first serve.

"Par poucesr I yelped, grabbing the shovel. By inches! I repeated the slicing motion I'd been showing him al morning. "We want to take it down in thin layers." I said it again, in slow, careful French.

The man clearly did not share my sentiment. Maybe it was the tediousness of the task, maybe the thought of unearthing the dead.

Tomato soup just wanted to be done and gone.

"Please, Guy, try again?" said a male voice behind me.

"Yes, Father." Mumbled.

Guy resumed, shaking his head, but skimming the soil as I'd shown him, then tossing it into the screen. I shifted my gaze from the black dirt to the pit itself, watching for signs that we were nearing a burial.

We'd been at it for hours, and I could sense tension behind me. The nuns' rocking had increased in tempo. I turned to give the group what I hoped was a reassuring look. My lips were so stiff it was hard to tel .

Six faces looked back at me, pinched from cold and anxiousness. A smal cloud of vapor appeared and dissolved in front of each. Six smiles in my direction. I could sense a lot of praying going on.

Ninety minutes later we were five feet down. Like the first, this pit had produced only soil. I was certain I had frostbite in every toe, and Guy was ready to bring in a backhoe. Time to regroup.

"Father, I think we need to check the burial records again."

He hesitated a moment. Then, "Yes. Of course. Of course. And we could al use coffee and a sandwich."

The priest started toward a set of wooden doors at the far end of the abandoned church and the nuns fol owed, heads down, gingerly navigating the lumpy ground. Their white veils spread in identical arcs across the backs of their black wool coats. Penguins. Who'd said that? The Blues Brothers.

I turned off the mobile spotlights and fel in step, eyes to the ground, amazed at the fragments of bone embedded in the dirt floor.

Great. We'd dug in the one spot in the entire church that didn't contain burials.

Father Menard pushed open one of the doors and, single file, we exited to daylight. Our eyes needed little adjustment. The sky was leaden and seemed to hug the spires and towers of al the buildings in the convent's compound. A raw wind blew off the Laurentians, flapping col ars and veils.

Our little group bent against the wind and crossed to an adjacent building, gray stone like the church, but smal er. We climbed steps to an ornately carved wooden porch and entered through a side door.

Inside, the air was warm and dry, pleasant after the bitter cold. I smel ed tea and mothbal s and years of fried food.