The Process of Beatification

Our knowledge of her life’s end is limited.
Many witnesses perished, others – perhaps the most important,
Died shortly after the war. Further: secrecy reigned.
Yes, the Vel d’Hiver. Refashioned waste bins
Brought to safety four children (though
Two hundred of them remained). In the hostel
She established years before, bed and sustenance
Awaited escaped prisoners of war. A small printing press
Fashioned identity papers, affirming the bearer
Belonged to the proper race. Incidentally, warders
Did permit – if but ocasionally – comfort for
Those condemned to death (a traditional rite,
Never revoked in that quartier, since the Gauleiter
Came from a Catholic family). Some sources state
She once spoke with a young girl in a cell,
Who angrily proclaimed: ‘This is rubbish –
There is no God. Because if there were,
He would release me from this prison.’ The nun
Knew only too well that God lay in
A bomb crater’s abyss; in a pit, a bullet through the back of the skull,
Rotting beneath the tundra’s lichen.
She therefore removed her nun’s habit. Instructed the prisoner
To conceal her hair, skirt and shoes.
Then she sat on the bed; turned her face from the door.
The guard, arriving a moment later,
Accompanied the timid black-cloaked silhouette
To the gate. No documents were checked.
We located the rescued woman a bit too late.
Her long life: spent by a railway’s embankment.
Beyond her window, freight cars clattered by –
Smoke pervaded the lungs’ bronchi. Rainy mornings she ran late.
Rushed to work over sidewalks strewn
With dirty leaves. One hour into the city,
To an office – that at the outset, offered income,
But like so many, went under with the world’s
Downturn. At the end of every month
The bills were daunting. The family was divided –
But then, it was hardly a family. An adopted daughter soon departed,
Failed to write. Yolks hissed in the frying pan. Each night
The mirror showed: spreading wrinkles, flaccid breasts, protruding
Violet veins. Solitude, the body’s slow decline.
By the way, alcohol did its job as well.
As before, she mechanically made up her lips.
At night, in dreams, she sometimes saw the prison. During the day,
She tried not to recall it, then ceased to remember the whole affair –
Due to Alzheimer’s (to tell the truth, a sort of salvation).
No doubt, someone might ask: was the price too high –
To exchange fates with one of thousands, like a penny,
Or postage stamp embossed with an illegible face?
We do not know how the nun perished. Perhaps
The gas chamber; perhaps injection by phenol.
Her own sins aren’t hard to enumerate. A youth spent like Mary
Magdalene. Her own children unable to find their way.
Some occasional verse. Frequently bored at Mass –
She was known to chain-smoke Gitanes,
Unbefitting of her nun’s habit. But one thing is certain:
She never asked herself if it was worth the price.
As the Lord, whose place she fleetingly took, never asks.