Again she smiled. It's another kind of intensity, I said, something wholly unlike the making of music. I see the crucial difference.
I thought of David's words to me about his early life-how he had sought the thrill in danger. She was seeking the thrill in utter self-sacrifice. He had sought the danger of the occult in Brazil. She sought the hard challenge of bringing health to thousands of the nameless, and the eternally poor. This troubled me deeply.
There's a vanity in it too, of course, she said. Vanity is always the enemy. That's what troubled me the most about my... my chastity, she explained, the pride I felt in it. But you see, even coming, back like this to the States was a risk. I was terrified when I got off the plane, when I realized I was here in Georgetown and nothing could stop me from being with a man if I wanted it. I think I went to work at the hospital out of fear. God knows, freedom isn't simple.
This part I understand, I said. But your family, how did they respond to this promise you made, to your giving up the music?
They didn't know at the time. I didn't tell them. I announced my vocation. I stuck to my guns. There was a lot of recrimination. After all, my sisters and brothers had worn secondhand clothes so I could have piano lessons. But this is often the case. Even in a good Catholic family, the news that a daughter wants to be a nun is not always greeted with cheers and accolades.
They grieved for your talent, I said quietly.
Yes, they did, she said with a slight lift of her eyebrows. How honest and tranquil she seemed. None of this was said with coldness or hardness. But I had a vision of something vastly more important than a young woman on a concert stage, rising from the piano bench to collect a bouquet of roses. It was a long time before I told them about the promise.
Years later?
She nodded. They understood. They saw the miracle. How could they help it I told them I'd been more fortunate than anyone I knew who had ever gone into the convent. I'd had a clear sign from God. He had resolved all conflicts for all of us.
You believe this.
Yes. I do, she said. But in a way, it doesn't matter whether it's true or not. And if anyone should understand, you should.
Why is that?
Because you speak of religious truths and religious ideas and you know that they matter even if they are only metaphors. This is what I heard hi you even when you were delirious.
I sighed. Don't you ever want to play the piano again Don't you ever want to find an empty auditorium, perhaps, with a piano on the stage, and just sit down and . . .
Of course I do. But I can't do it, and I won't do it. Her smile now was truly beautiful.
Gretchen, in a way this is a terrible story, I said. Why, as a good Catholic girl couldn't you have seen your musical talent as a gift from God, a gift not to be wasted?
It was from God, I knew it was. But don't you see There was a fork in the road; the sacrifice of the piano was the opportunity that God gave me to serve Him in a special way. Lestat, what could the music have meant compared to the act of helping people, hundreds of people?
I shook my head. I think the music can be seen as equally important.
She thought for a long while before she answered. I couldn't continue with it, she said. Perhaps I used the crisis of my mother's illness, I don't know. I had to become a nurse. There was no other way for me. The simple truth is-I cannot live when I am faced with the misery in the world. I cannot justify comfort or pleasure when other people are suffering. I don't know how anyone can.
Surely you don't think you can change it all, Gretchen.
No, but I can spend my life affecting many, many individual lives. That's what counts.
This story so upset me that I couldn't remain seated there. I stood up, stretching my stiff legs, and I went to the window and looked out at the field of snow.
It would have been easy to dismiss it had she been a sorrowful or mentally crippled person, or a