When the dismissal bell rang at 3:00 on the appointed day and the rest of the class stumbled in their haste to flee the building, Lisa, Michele, Julie, and I remained smugly behind, excited at the prospect of following Sister Dorothy up that final flight of stairs.
We took the staircase at the opposite end of the building from the frightening crucifix; on this shadowy landing a less frightening statue of the Blessed Mother stood beside the locked convent door. Jangling through her key ring, Sister Dorothy found the one that opened the secret portal. Cautiously and suddenly timid, we followed her into the convent.
The brightly lit kitchen and the bracing scent of pine cleaner welcomed us, dispelling the gloom of the landing. We glanced around. A long, sturdy table of pale, polished wood, with a large bowl of apples, oranges, and pears in the center, dominated the room. Light from ceiling fixtures spilled across the buffed floor and dissolved down a hallway of closed doors—the nuns’ bedrooms. With deep disappointment we learned we would not get to see them, but we understood. A long school day had just ended, and we imagined the sisters savoring some solitary moments in their sacred space.
Whatever else we saw of the living quarters, nothing made more of an impact than the sight that gripped us as we stepped onto the rooftop patio—their backyard in the sky.
Looking eastward over rooftops and roadways into the distance, we were captivated by the sight of the Hutchinson River and a network of creeks and inlets, peaceful and still, reflecting the blue-violet of the dusky sky. Low stratus clouds floated over the scene, drifting patches of deeper violet. Sage green marsh grasses turning autumn gold arched sideways, their muddy banks exposed by low tide.
Overarching this natural splendor stood a structural masterpiece: the Hutchinson River Parkway bridge. A section of the drawbridge was visible from my bedroom window, but from here at the top of the school we looked down on the breath-catching sight of its full expanse—seven spans, support columns, the control tower, and the yellow warning gates in their upright resting position. Beyond the bridge and the trees of Pelham Bay Park lay Eastchester Bay, Orchard Beach, and the open waters of Long Island Sound—but these were lost in the purple dusk and the distance.
Just south of the drawbridge, the towers of the New Haven Railroad trestle rose above the flat landscape like black steel filigree against the sky. On the New England Thruway and the Hutchinson River Parkway, two ribbons crossing each other and slicing through the marshes, cars caught shards of setting sunlight and shot them into our squinting eyes. All was hushed; the speeding cars made no sound as they slipped along the highways.
Although 205 acres of those marshlands had been filled in a decade earlier for a short-lived amusement park called Freedomland, a good part of the land once occupied by the Siwanoy people was still the habitat of wildlife, birds, and sea creatures. But we knew that construction of a sprawling apartment complex called Co-Op City had recently begun. More of the coastal waterways were being filled in, and the development would not stop with Co-Op City. The marshlands would eventually disappear under a shopping mall.
Later it occurred to me that the splendor we had been privileged to discover that afternoon was what the early residents of Westervelt Avenue had seen from their front doors every day, until the houses on the eastern side of the street were built. For me, seeing this vision from what, at the time, could have been the highest point in the northeast Bronx, was to discover a new facet of my borough’s character, another side to its asphalt personality.
And so our tour ended. What had started out as a quest to uncover the mysteries of convent life ended with another discovery. My friends and I walked home, descending Allerton Avenue in the twilight. We faced east, just as we had from much higher up, and though we looked for the beauty of the landscape, our street-level view ended where the New England Thruway met the horizon. Headlights and streetlights became silver sparks in the violet dusk, creating a different kind of beauty enhanced by the rising round moon hovering above.
Despite the strangeness of the walk home at this late hour, subdued without the usual crowd of other school kids, our spirits were high. We had spent the late afternoon in the private company of the teacher we loved. We had seen that mysterious place at the top of the school, something no other kid in the class had done. Now we could picture where the sisters graded our test papers, where they ate their meals, where they stepped outside for fresh air and sunshine.
I think each of us must have had the same fleeting thought as we headed home that afternoon: Imagine being a nun.
© Barbara Cole 2020. All Rights Reserved.