Birgitta the Nun

Part 58 - The Envelope

She pushed her head through the marvelous hole, into the darkness of the wall - only to see nothing. It was too dark. Not even a contour would reach her eyes and she felt blind. Of course she hadn't brought a flashlight, by no means, and she reproached herself for being such an eager fool.

A cat stepped out of the darkness. It passed into the brightness of the corridor without further ado, as if noticing neither Madeleine nor the broken wall. A whisk of its tail, then it was gone, scuttling away along the hallway. Madeleine was dumbfounded. How was that even possible? What prevailed in there anyway?

She pulled out her head from the darkness and removed the rope from around her neck. A lasso was the point, but a triple knot would have to do. Then, aiming at the chandelier above her head, she swung the rope in the air and sent it away. It fell upon the crown and made a decent anchor. She hesitated - but only for a second - then pulled her hardest. The chandelier jumped off its hook, following the rope, and went down. With a terrible rumble, it crashed to pieces on the floor, sending the nun into the air with a yelp.

When the commotion had settled, Madeleine snatched a still burning candle from the broken crown. She lifted it in front of her face and made ready for a second attempt.

And in she went - the whole of her - inside the wall. She turned left and right, directing the flame of the candle before her, up and down—but saw nothing but bricks and building material. She could find nothing. Not even a secret door, or a mousetrap. Of course, there was no need for mousetraps, the monastery harboring plenty of cats, but still—Madeleine thought she deserved at least some little meaningless reward for her efforts. Her operation so far turned out a dreadful waste of time.

The cold sweat on her brow turned into hot perspiration. Salt beads rolled down her forehead, persistently finding their way into her eyes. She wiped her face with her sleeve and backed out of the wall. She did not look, but put one foot behind the other, letting her heels decide the way. And so she stepped right onto, and into, the strange painting.

The frame split in half and the canvas tore under her heel with a heartbreaking screech. In a way, this sound frightened her far more than the thunder of the skewer against the wall. She had now destroyed something, not a simple brick wall or a common chandelier, but something valuable and irreplaceable.

She bent down and fussed over the pieces, trying to fit them back together. But the frame was hopelessly cracked and the canvas beyond repair.

Madeleine sank to the floor. With her back against the wall she closed her eyes. What a mess. What destruction she had managed—what a disastrous, chaotic hell she had created for herself. She opened her eyes and took in the scene. The chandelier lay in a sorry heap in the middle of the corridor, the wall was halfway torn down, and the former painting was now good only for firewood. And hovering above it all - over Madeleine and over her well-made collection of debris - was a fine layer of dust, as on any demolition site.

Madeleine frowned. Then, in a fit of agony, still sitting by the wall, she lifted her foot and kicked the sorry painting. A corner of the frame flew down the hallway. It hit the wall before it landed with a sad thud on the stone floor. At the same time, a piece of paper sailed through the air. It glided in front of Madeleine's nose, caught her attention, and landed on her lap. It was an envelope, wrinkled and gray by age, just now deciding to leave its hiding place inside the painting.

Madeleine stared at the uninvited guest. Her head filled with ideas, with new hope. She reached out to touch it, but changed her mind and let her hand fall. She had interfered enough already. She had caused enough destruction. This letter obviously didn't belong to her and she had better leave it in peace. But she knew she had gone too far to stop. The opportunity to have second thoughts and consider consequences had passed—

She snatched the envelope from her lap and gave it a thorough examination. She could find no address. Nor a name or a message. The letter seemed to lack a receiver, though it was sure sealed tight. She took up the candle and held it close behind. Something appeared beneath the surface, almost visible. She turned to the chandelier and gathered a heap of candles - and now something showed through the paper-layers. The envelope seemed not to contain a letter after all, but a single, unfolded piece of paper.

Incidentally, the envelope grazed one of the candles and caught fire. Madeleine could not believe her ill-luck. She jumped to her feet and swore at her misfortune. The burning envelope danced between her hands - back and forth, back and forth. It scorched her fingers and she threw it to the floor. Then, in a panic she stomped the small fire out.

And so her destruction was complete: even the poor envelope lay now in ruins. Everything she had touched so far on her mission had either crumpled, cracked or burned.

She picked the sorry letter up and stroked its scorched edges with her finger. Then she tore it open.

The small piece of paper inside the envelope turned out to be a very old cheque, set for a very large sum of money. Madeleine didn't understand. She read the cheque several times, but still couldn't make sense of it. This was no gold treasure. It was a simple cheque, signed with a proper - but illegible - name, and put into an ugly envelope. How unromantic.

Madeleine couldn't help but feel disappointed. Then again, the numbers on the cheque amounted to something staggering. Especially the zeros—there thronged a whole lot of zeros.

A penny seemed to drop - a cheque seemed to fall into place. And Madeleine had an idea. This was her gold. She let her teeth sink into the paper and tasted its symbolical carats. Yes, this would do: this would take her a long way.

She braced herself and took off down the hallway. She had no idea where she was heading, only that she was in a terrible hurry. Now, she would save the monastery.