The Nun, I   By Melissa Tawn   Being a nun can become habit-forming.

My decision to enter a convent was motivated by fear. It is true that I am a sincere Catholic, and that I have always admired those who dedicate their lives to God, but that was not the impetus that lead to my decision. Fear was.

My name, now, is Sister Agatha. Before I entered the Convent of Ste. Genevieve of the Roses, where I am now Mother Superior, my name was Henri Dumont. My father, Hippolyte Dumont — the “Red Tiger of Tolouse” -- was a fire-eating Socialist deputy and ardent supporter of the government of Léon Blum. When Blum’s government fell, he saw the handwriting on the wall and fled to England, where he later spent the war lecturing and broadcasting in the French language for the BBC (and feuding with Charles De Gaulle, whom he despised, much to the delight of Winston Churchill, who cheered him on behind the scenes and protected him from De Gaulle’s wrath). My mother had died when I was born and I was an only child. My father had urged me to follow him into exile, but I believed that I was in no danger. After all, I was a meek and harmless research student of medieval music, studying the manuscripts kept at the Convent of Ste. Genevieve of the Roses, far away from the city and its affairs and intrigues. I was totally non-political. Even if the Germans invaded again, I would not be worth detaining, let alone arresting.

How wrong I was. Obviously the Germans felt that holding me in jail would be a way of pressuring my father to cease, or at least tone down, his vitriolic anti-Nazi propaganda. One day, I was busy looking through manuscripts in the convent library when Sister Maria told me that there was a man from the Gestapo at the gate, backed by several soldiers, asking for me. With great effort, the mother superior managed to convince him that I had not come to the convent that day and that, in fact, they had not seen me since last Thursday. The men left, but it was clear that they would be back. It was also clear that it would be suicidal for me to return to my room in the village, which the Gestapo had, no doubt, located by now and where they were probably waiting for me.

The convent of Ste. Genevieve of the Roses is quite small — at the time of these events it numbered only 23 sisters — and its buildings are so insignificant and undistinguished that they managed to escape the attention of the zealots of the Revolution and were neither sacked nor turned into stables or public baths, as happened to so many monasteries and convents throughout France in those unhappy and antirelgious times. Its only real claim to distinction is its superb library of medieval musical manuscripts, the existence of which was still not known to the general public, and which I was one of the first outside researchers to examine. In fact, it took a very long time to obtain the special dispensation from the Pope himself which allowed me to enter the convent’s library — hitherto closed to males — to pursue my studies.

After the Germans had left, all 23 of the sisters convened in the chapel to discuss what was to be done. Convents are not, of course, run on any sort of democratic principle but the mother superior felt that the matter was so grave that all of the sisters should be consulted and that consensus on a course of action should be arrived at, if at all possible. I was asked to wait in the library, and food was brought to me. The door was locked from the outside.

The convocation took a very long time, during which I tried to concentrate on my work and not think about the predicament in which I found myself. Finally, after several hours, I was summoned to the office of the mother superior.

“After praying for divine guidance, we considered all of the possible alternatives, and we have decided,” she began, “that asking you to leave this house would, most likely as not, mean death for you, or at the very least imprisonment and torture. We cannot have that on our consciences. You are a good person and a good Catholic. On the other hand, having you stay here is also very difficult. As you know, we live isolated from men. Indeed, you are the first male who has even penetrated as far as the library, and that is only for a few hours a day. Certainly no man has ever found shelter in this house. Such shelter would be very hard to provide, in any case. We have no crypt or hidden spaces in which you could hide. Should the Germans return and insist on conducting a search, they would have easy access to every place in this building. Therefore your only hope to hide here would be to ‘hide in the open’, as it were — to appear to be one of the sisters of our house. That too will not be very easy to do, but the sisters are willing to allow you to try it, if you wish. However, you must agree to live the part fully. In order to avoid detection by the Germans, who may show up unexpectedly at any hour, you must totally immerse yourself in the role.”

She went on and reemphasized that I would have to agree to appear and act like one of the sisters at all times. The sister-herbalist would concoct a paste which, after several applications, would permanently remove the hair from my face and my body. One of the other sisters, who had been an actress before she decided to take the veil, would coach me in the demeanor and body movements of a woman. My voice — which was rather high — would probably not be a problem, though she would also have to learn a woman’s inflections and various modes of speech. I would need to learn the rules of the convent and the behavior expected from the sisters. I would be expected to attend all prayers and perform all duties imposed on me.

I had no choice, and I knew it.

And so I became Sister Agatha. It took me several weeks to feel comfortable with my name and role. The paste the sister-herbalist provided did work, and by the end of a month I had no more facial or bodily hair. The mother superior also provided me with several sets of snug rubber underpants which I was to wear at all times, which would force my “extra part” to lie tightly between my legs and not be visible. Heaven only knows where she obtained them. At first they were uncomfortable, but I have now gotten so used to them that I doubt if I could live without them. When I wore a habit, I looked just like any of the other sisters, and after a while I talked like them too, and before long I thought like them. A convent is, after all, a very small and closed community and one soon knows all of the likes and foibles of each of the members. We all accommodated each other because there was no alternative but to do so. Praying and singing helped relieve the tension of living together and helped bring us closer to each other. I was assigned to the duty of cataloging the music library, something which I had come here to do in any case.

As predicted, the Germans returned several times — usually without prior notice — and conducted searches for Henri Dumont, and each time I managed to avoid detection. They often threatened the nuns with dire punishments, but my sisters kept my secret and did not give me away.

The war was hard on Ste. Genevieve of the Roses, though the convent building was never physically damaged. The convent’s income came from rent which farmers paid to use its land. But during the war many could not pay — and least not their full debt — and we certainly would not go to the German courts to force them. Fortunately, we were often able to receive foodstuffs or coal in lieu of cash payment. Also, part of our land was commandeered by the German army for use as a depot to store tank fuel and spare parts. Fortunately for us, the commander of the depot turned out to be a Catholic from Bavaria who was sympathetic to our plight. While he could not pay us money — it was not in his budget — he did also manage to give us foodstuffs and other commodities which he skimmed out of the depot’s stores and which kept us going, though barely.

During the war, we lost twelve sisters, half of the house’s members (counting me). Some of them died of old age or other natural causes, a few had to renounce their vows and return to their homes in order to take care of younger brothers and sisters who had suffered the loss of one or both parents. One sister had been caught outside the convent talking with a local shopkeeper who, it turned out, was also a leading member of the local Resistance. She was taken and tortured by the Germans, and later hung.

Twelve sisters! That is all we were when the American army finally liberated us. We had clung to each other physically, emotionally, and spiritually during the worst of times. We shared meager bread, we held each other in the nights when despair or fear crept through the shuttered windows and stalked the passages of the convent. We gave each other hope, we gave each other love. We were sisters in every sense of the word.

As a long line of American jeeps and trucks snaked by the convent, the mother superior called me to her office. “You are free, Sister Agatha, to become Henri again. You need hide no longer.”

I looked at the floor and said nothing. With eyes brimming with tears, I looked at the crucifix on the wall and uttered a silent prayer. Then I turned to her. “Henri died at the beginning of the war, Reverend Mother. He is no more. I am Sister Agatha, a bride of Christ and a sister among the poor sisters of this house. I beg your permission to remain here with you.” Then I broke down and began to cry.

The mother superior hugged me close her chest. “God works in mysterious ways beyond our comprehension, Sister Agatha. You have, indeed, been a most pious and virtuous nun, a credit to this house and beloved by all of the sisters. Before I called for you, I dared hope that I would get precisely this response from you. But the decision you have taken is a very grave one. I am therefore ordering you to spend a week of penance and fasting, searching your soul and your conscience. If, at the end of that week, you still wish to remain a sister of this convent, then far be it from me to turn you away."

At the end of the week, I was more determined than ever. In the convent I had found contentment and fulfillment, serving my God and my sisters. There was nothing in the outside world that called to me. And so Sister Agatha remained a nun of the convent of Ste. Genevieve of the Roses.

We had hoped that, after the atrocities of the war, there would be a wave of religious feeling in Europe and that pious women would flock to the convents of France, and particularly to ours. Such did not turn out to be the case. On the contrary, the war seemed to have spawned in its aftermath a wave of secular feeling and revulsion against the Catholic Church (perhaps in light of the rather ambiguous moral stance taken by His Holiness the Pope with respect to the Nazis). A few young women, mostly homeless refugees or orphans of the war, joined our house, but not enough to regain our prewar numbers. Several older sisters also left, for one reason or another.

By 1950, our number had stabilized at 16 nuns — a very small number. Then in that year, the mother superior, who had gently and firmly guided the house through the rigors of the war and the uncertainties of the postwar years, passed away peacefully in her sleep. After a period of mourning, the sisters of the house met in silent conclave to choose a new mother superior. (The choice would have to be ratified by the bishop, but that is usually automatic.) Each nun prayed for divine guidance and then placed a piece of paper on which she wrote her choice into a special silver urn. By a vast majority, one sister was chosen — me!

I cried and tried to find the words to explain that I could not accept the position. But the words did not come. Many of the current sisters had entered the convent after I arrived; they never met, or heard of, Henri Dumont. If I told them the story now, would they understand and accept, or would they force me to leave the only place on this planet I could call home and the only real family I have? Would they leave, and perhaps cause the entire convent to disintegrate? I asked the sisters for a period of 24 hours before I made my decision on whether to accept their mandate. During that time, I prayed and fasted almost continuously, searching for an answer. I beseached the Virgin, before whose image I prostrated myself, to guide my steps and, so it seemed, she smiled back on me in comfort and love.

And so I became mother superior of the Convent of Ste. Genevieve of the Roses. After obtaining permission from the Church authorities, I negotiated a contract with a famous publisher to publish a series of facsimiles of some of our more precious musical manuscripts, a move which not only brought fame and considerable income to the house, but also brought a stream of new sisters. We now have over thirty nuns in residence. We are in the process of negotiating contracts with several distinguished recording companies, which should increase our fame even more, as it has done to those monasteries that have cashed in on records of Gregorian or Ambrosian chants sung by their choirs. Our future looks very bright.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Transsexuality is always assumed to have a significant sexual aspect, whether recognized or not. The object of this story was to try to imagine a scenario in which a person chooses to transition from a male to a female gender role but in which sex plays absolutely no part. While the sexual escapades of cloistered nuns are a familiar and often overused motif of fiction from the Middle Ages on, I am working here on the premise that it played no part in the Convent of Ste. Genevieve of the Roses. The sisters, including Sister Agatha, are exactly what they purport to be — virgins by choice dedicated to the service of their God. Do not read into this story what is not there.