Teresa, My Love: An Imagined Life of the Saint of Avila

I know you like the back of my hand, in fact, and you hardly need me to tell you why: because of Gratian. Yes, him again. (Pause.) Not knowing how to become a nun, you became depressed, and started haunting churches, looking haggard. An old white-bearded Carmelite did his best to convince you that God had already made you strong, since you’d survived your decomposing family, but that wasn’t enough, you were on the lookout for something else. What could it be? (Smile fades. Lips.) The arrival of young Fr. Gratian on the scene lifted you to seventh heaven. You went to him for confession at least twelve times — oh, I know every detail! — you stalked and harassed him, in fact. (Vehemently.) He was wary of pretty airheads like you, I made sure of that, I wrote to him endlessly on that topic, as on many others.…Finally a lady interceded for you, and the painful richness of your soul was comforted: you clung to him like a limpet, determined not to let go!

(It would take a lot more to dislodge that little pest of a Beatriz.)

BEATRIZ DE LA MADRE DE DIOS. It was the feast day of the Holy Trinity, 1575, when you came to Seville, Madre, that I ran away from my parents’ house to take refuge in the convent. I was your first novice, remember? You made me eat properly, I put on weight, I made peace with my mother. A few days after my profession of faith, my father resigned himself to die, and Mother came to join me at the convent.

TERESA. Nothing ever made me so happy as to see mother and daughter devoted to the service (effortfully turning over, stares at her for a long time)…the service of One who proved so generous toward them.

BEATRIZ DE LA MADRE DE DIOS. Mother and I? Or do you mean you and I, Madre?

TERESA. Mothers and daughters, you know, can never be reunited in this world. (Rubs finger over lips.) So much passion, so much rivalry, with love thrown in; and love is at its murkiest between a mother and a daughter. But there is a way to solder them, the only way! Remember what I am about to tell you, hic et nunc. Were female cohabitation possible at all, it is only possible in the name of His Majesty, a Third Person: that’s what the true, Catholic, Roman, and Apostolic religion teaches. Will you remember that? I hope so, for your sake! As for the rest, between ourselves.…(Nose, lips.) Some of the father confessors God sends us are deplorably frivolous, in my experience. (Reading from Way.) “If this confessor wants to allow room for vanity, because he himself is vain, he makes little of it even in others.”⁴⁴ Be forewarned! (Pause.) You aren’t obliged to agree with me. In reality, Sister, you are quite incapable of having any opinion on this subject. Besides, these gentlemen are inclined to render us mistrustful of one another, it’s well known.…(Gravely.) Why do you suppose I wrote a whole chapter about you, the twenty-sixth of my Foundations? It was because I knew the story would gratify him, who adored you. Of course I mean Fr. Gratian, who else? A foundation, you see, rests upon a host of stories like that, what did you think? (Tries mechanically to adjust veil, forgetting that she is bare-headed.) And it has a great deal to do with raptures, something else I daresay you know nothing about. Ah, they are impossible to resist, and cannot be disguised. On those days I am like a drunken man, I entreat God not to let it come over me in public! As for the lascivious feelings that come afterward, and that other people have mentioned to me, I pay no attention to them and I advise you to do the same. (Knowing smile.) Actually, I have never experienced this.⁴⁵ The truth is that I am so cheerful at departing at last toward His Majesty that I can confess all these trivialities to you, trivial creature that you are. But how I always distrusted you! (Rueful smile, followed by nausea.)

(Three knocks at the door. Who is it? Who wakes La Madre from her coma?)

TERESA. Let me go in peace! Dear God, You will not despise a repentant heart? (Lifts beseeching eyes heavenward.)