Echoes Page 0,74

until the daily examination of conscience, and then lunch. It was a full day, full of prayer and hard work. There was nothing about it that dismayed Amadea. She had known what she was coming to, and this was what she wanted. Her days and life would be full forever, and her heart light, in the bosom of Carmel.

When she entered her cell at ten o'clock that night, she saw the nuns whom she would share it with, two of them novices and another who was a postulant like her. They nodded their heads at each other, smiled, and turned the lights out to put on their nightgowns which were made of rough wool that had been washed a thousand times, and still scratched. There was no heating in their cells, and the gowns itched miserably, but it was a sacrifice they willingly made. They were to become the spouses of a crucified Christ, who had died on the cross in anguish for them. This was the least they could do for Him. Amadea knew she would get used to it in time. For an instant, she thought of the delicate silk and cotton nightgowns her mother had always made for her, and then reminded herself just as quickly that she would have to offer that thought up the next day during her examination of conscience. She could bring no such memories with her here. And whenever they intruded on her, she would have to do penance for it, and correct her thought as soon as it came to mind. She had no time to waste on mourning comforts of a past life.

She lay in bed that night, thinking of her mother and Daphne, and praying for them. She prayed that God would take good care of them, and keep them healthy and happy. And just for a moment, she felt tears sting her eyes, and reminded herself that she would have to pray about that, too. She was the monitor of her own conscience, and the porter at the door to her thoughts. She could allow nothing but thoughts of Christ in, as the Mother Superior had told her that day. She remembered them in her prayers, as she drifted off to sleep, and said a prayer for her grandmother who had died two months before and was in Heaven now.

And as she lay in bed that night, with Daphne lying next to her, having cried herself to sleep, Beata was thinking of her mother, too, and the child she had just lost to God. She prayed, as Amadea had, to keep her happy and safe. And then for no particular reason, she said a prayer for all Jews.

12

THE DAYS PASSED QUICKLY FOR AMADEA, FILLED WITH prayer and work. She was assigned to the kitchen and the laundry most of the time, although she worked in the garden once with Edith Stein. They had worked side by side in silence, and Amadea was just happy to be near her, and smiled at her from time to time. The thought came to her later that morning, in her examination of conscience, that she should have no personal interest in her. She avoided her thereafter, in an effort to clear her mind of the thought and what she knew of her, and admired in her, from the past. Sister Teresa Benedicta a Cruce was nothing more than one of her sisters in Carmel now, and not to be thought of as anything other than that.

She had regular letters from her mother and Daphne, and some small sense of what was going on in the world. The Nuremberg Race Laws against the Jews had been decreed in September, which made things even more difficult for them now. It gave Amadea something more to pray for. Her mother sent the entire convent oranges at Christmastime, which was an enormous treat. And in January the sisters voted to allow Amadea to begin her novitiate and bestowed on her the Holy Habit of Carmel, which felt like the most important day in Amadea's life. She was allowed to see her mother and Daphne in a brief visit after that. She beamed at them through the small grille, and her mother cried when she saw her in her habit, as Daphne stared at her.

“You don't look like you,” Daphne said solemnly. She was almost scared of her, but not quite. And Beata saw instantly how happy she was, which nearly broke her heart.

“I'm not ‘me.’ I'm