I was a gluttonous child. From their first tentative offerings of pap, my parents knew I wanted more. They could see it in the way I grabbed at the spoon and the bowl, the way my nostrils flared and I screeched when they were not ready with the next bite. They discarded The Common Sense Book of Baby and Childcare; clearly, Dr. Spock’s wisdom did not apply when it came to feeding their hungry girl. My parents were both physicians and they approached dinner like a science experiment: they steamed and mashed, boiled and puréed. They kept a chart of fruits and vegetables and attempted to rank my reactions from 0 (dislikes) through 5 (loves). Before long, their record was virtually meaningless—everything, it seemed, rated a 5. They gave up on spoon-feeding and placed little bowls and plates on the tray of my highchair. I gummed fruits from apples to yuzu, vegetables from asparagus to zucchini. I soon moved on to breads and meats, pastries and puddings. Before long, I ate everything: dark chocolate, soft cheeses, crustaceans, offal. There was nothing I wouldn’t try.
By the time I started school, I had developed the palate of a fifty-year-old gourmand. I relished the holidays and special occasions when my parents took me to Michelin-starred restaurants and French pâtisseries. I lived for their famous cocktail parties. They often hired a caterer who supplied platters of Greek delicacies—spanakopita, dolmades, saganaki, fried calamari and shrimp. Towers of pita and wide bowls of olives and feta. Trays of sticky baklava. I took mounded plates up to my bedroom for my own private feast. I ate until I could hold no more, then fell asleep with honeyed phyllo melting on my tongue.
I’d wake the next morning, bloated and sluggish. My mother, an otorhinolaryngologist, would pull an otoscope from the pocket of her lab coat, inspect my ears, and declare me Fit for duty! Even as a child, my mother’s belief that any and every affliction began in the ear baffled me. I knew my flushed cheeks, distended belly, and intestinal rumblings had their origins in the nose and on the tongue. But I didn’t dare offer a diagnosis.
My sole interest was food. School, friends, the piano lessons and art classes my parents persuaded me to try—none of these were as compelling. From the age of six, I hurried home each afternoon to cook dinner. A series of babysitters threw up their hands as I wielded kitchen knives and lit the gas stove. My parents were thrilled to be free of meal preparations, and fulfilled my every request for ingredients, equipment, and cookbooks. I became a culinary autodidact. I read Mastering the Art of French Cooking at seven; subscribed to Gourmet and Bon Appetit at eight. My ninth birthday present was a first edition of The French Laundry Cookbook, and when I turned ten, we made a pilgrimage to Keller’s Napa restaurant where I analysed and savoured every bite of the sumptuous meal.
By the time I was fourteen, I had a job washing dishes in an upscale bistro, and by fifteen I was working the prep line. I survived on little sleep, working late nights and rising early for school. I ran on exquisite food and adrenaline. The usual adolescent rites of passage—first kiss, driver’s licence, senior prom—were superseded by my compulsion to cook and eat.
It wasn’t until my late teens that I first experienced true hunger. My parents insisted I go to university. You need a degree, they argued. There’s more to life than food. Culinary school can wait. I tried to understand their reasoning, and enrolled in a General Arts program at North Campus, one of the grey, utilitarian satellites of the prestigious university downtown. I lived at home and rode the subway five days a week with the other introverts and loners. Monotonous lectures by uninspired professors dulled my senses and sapped my energy. The cafeteria’s chalky soups and tasteless sandwiches held no appeal, and I subsisted on packets of saltines and melba toast, crushed to gravel in my backpack. Even on days when I arrived home early enough to prepare a simple omelette or a croque monsieur, I had little appetite. The less I ate, the less I wanted. My face narrowed, my stomach flattened, my breasts and hips shrank, my clothes draped. I recognized almost nothing of my former self; even my scent was different.
I arrived home one evening and slumped on the couch next to my father, who was eating a bowl of Rocky Road and watching a news story about a community of nuns in northern Michigan. The Sisters of the Sacred Passion, a strict monastic order, was attracting young recruits by the dozens. A reporter followed the nuns through their day, as they processed two-by-two through the convent and into the chapel, practiced Gregorian chants, ate in silence in the refectory, worked tidy garden plots, and baked bread. A pretty, doe-eyed girl in a black habit looked into the camera and said, I searched and searched for a place I belonged and found it here, as a Bride of Christ. What more could I ever need? She was radiant and I was mesmerized. I wanted what she had. I was ravenous for it. I went to my room, found the website of The Sisters of the Sacred Passion, and clicked on Tell Me More.
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I took to convent life the way dough responds to yeast. I felt fuller and lighter. I loved the habit with its voluminous, concealing folds. I adapted easily to the strict schedule of work and prayer which filled every moment of every day. The Sisters of the Sacred Passion were contemplative nuns who devoted their lives to praying for the needs of the world, and the convent received hundreds of emails each day for petitions large and small. Most requests came with a donation, which supported our secure, if austere, existence. We offered up rosaries, novenas, and daily masses for everything from swift recovery from minor illnesses to the ecological health of the planet. I presume most of the sisters had a deep relationship with God or Jesus or the Blessed Virgin, that their devotions were profound and sincere. I could do little more than go through the motions, but what I lacked in faith, I made up for in dedication and self-discipline.
New sisters received instruction each afternoon from the stern Mistress of Novices. She directed us to pray for discernment, to ready ourselves for the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. She taught us to walk, eat, and work in silence. We were to reject the world, turn our hearts to Jesus, and practice strict custody of the eyes. Seeking eye contact was a serious infraction as it might lead to the more grievous sin of forming a particular friendship with another sister. The Mistress of Novices corrected even our most minor infractions by assigning cruel penances. There was often a novice kneeling in the corner of the refectory during dinner, or lying prostrate on the chapel’s cold, marble floor, or kissing the Mistress’s stiff leather shoes and begging her forgiveness. None of us escaped these humiliations.
Still, despite the harshness of convent life, I felt an inexplicable bond with my fellow sisters. For my first three months in the convent, I walked to chapel and meals side by side with a sister who was my height and, so far as I could tell, of slight build. Though we sat opposite one another each day in the refectory eating flavourless porridge for breakfast, thick soup for lunch, thin stew and bread for dinner, I kept my eyes downcast. I never saw her face. Then one day, she was gone, and another sister took her place.
The new sister was at least six inches shorter, and her shoulder brushed my arm just above the elbow when we passed through the chapel door. One morning, as I stared into my bowl, I felt the new sister’s eyes on me. Though I kept my eyes lowered, my cheeks burned with excitement and guilt. When I could ignore the sensation no longer, I looked up. It was the pretty, doe-eyed girl from the news program. Her gaze did not waver. Her brown eyes glistened like perfectly tempered Callebaut. I looked away and devoured the remains of my porridge. I had not felt such a hunger in many months. This hunger was different, not in the stomach, but lower, deeper. Not a growl, but a purr.
The Doe-Eyed Girl pursued me with her eyes. She stole quick glances in chapel and stared brazenly as we peeled potatoes in the kitchen. The Mistress of Novices caught her again and again. The Doe-Eyed Girl accepted each penance without protest. When she knelt in the corner of the refectory, I couldn’t stop myself from looking at her. The Mistress of Novices assigned me to kneel in the opposite corner of the room. Before long, The Doe-Eyed Girl and I missed more meals than we ate. I was hollow with hunger.
Each evening after compline, the professed sisters retired to their private cells and the novices climbed four flights of stairs to the dormitories. Screens partitioned the long, high-ceilinged rooms into tiny cubicles, just large enough for a narrow cupboard and a bed. We donned floor-length, white nightgowns, shimmying into them under our habits so as not to expose our bodies even to ourselves, then replacing our veils with snug cotton bonnets. We lined up and moved through the communal lavatory. Its two bathtubs and six sinks served our daily and weekly ablutions, cursory scrubbings and brushings conducted without benefit of a mirror. Because my bed was at the far end of the dormitory, I was always last, and often rushed to clean my teeth before lights out at precisely nine o’clock.
One evening, I was scurrying to bed just after nine. Blue moonlight beamed through the high transom windows. When I reached my cubicle, The Doe-Eyed Girl was standing beside the bed. Her eyes flashed in the near darkness. She took two steps toward me and her hot breath hit my neck. She plucked and tugged at the front of my nightgown, her hands icy against my skin. Her fingers moved between my thighs and I parted like an overripe apricot. I burst open and juice streamed down my legs. I dropped to my knees and pressed my face to the front of her nightgown. She smelled of pears and cardamom and sea salt. I began burrowing into her heavy cotton gown when, suddenly, she froze. I turned to see six sisters, a huddled choir gasping in unison, their mouths perfect O’s.
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The Mistress of Novices did not wait until morning to call our families. She left me in a bare room. Though I did not see where they had taken her, I sensed that The Doe-Eyed Girl was in the room next door. I ran my hand over the wall, the cool plaster a small comfort. The clothes I’d worn on my arrival to the convent were delivered, wrapped in brown paper, and I put them on. They were at least two sizes too big. When my mother saw me, she blanched. She did not bother to look in my ears, which I knew meant I was in a sorry state. Embarrassment and relief ran down my cheeks.
My parents drove me to a nearby hospital. The darkened ward was much like the convent dormitory. A nurse inserted an IV drip and I slept for days.
When I woke, my tongue was thick and my lips were crusted with dried blood. You’ve been fed, the nurse said. With a tube. Standard protocol for extreme malnourishment. Now you must eat. She set a small cup of yogurt on the tray in front of me. I averted my eyes.
I slept on and off. When I woke, my ankle was tethered to the bed with a wide strap. Standard protocol, said the nurse. Eat. It took all my strength to lift the spoon. Just as the yogurt reached my mouth, I heard a sigh from the next bed. I leaned over and pulled the curtain aside, and there was The Doe-Eyed Girl, her lips moving and her fingers twitching as she prayed the rosary in her sleep.
After a week in hospital, The Doe-Eyed Girl and I were released. The two of us put together were the size of one average girl, but our minds were clear and we were happy. We moved into a furnished studio overlooking a park. My mother filled our fridge with my favourite foods and admonished us to eat. The Doe-Eyed Girl took a job in a bakery, and I returned to school, but otherwise we were always together. It had been many months since either of us had seen our reflection, and we became mirrors for one another. We spent long hours learning the topography of each other’s bodies, our fingers and mouths affirming each freckle, anointing each fold. And then we ate. Half a sandwich, half a bagel with cream cheese, half a tin of sardines, half a wedge of brie, half a date turnover, half an orange, half a boiled egg, half a packet of cashews, half a ripe tomato with salt, half a yellow plum, half a chocolate-dipped strawberry, half a Brazil nut, half a grape.
For the first several weeks we lived together, I had difficulty falling asleep. I had become accustomed to the wheezy drone of the dormitory, and the quiet unnerved me. I began watching The Doe-Eyed Girl’s chest rise and fall, counting her whisper-soft breaths, until I faded into sleep. One night I woke with a start, and she was not in the bed, nor was she in the tiny bathroom. As I reached for my phone, unsure who to call or what to say, I noticed a figure in the park across the street. I could not see her face, but I knew it was The Doe-Eyed Girl. She wore a long white gown, much like the nightgowns we wore in the convent. She walked in a wide circle, and seemed to be talking to herself, her hands gesturing purposefully, as though she were picking apples from an invisible tree. It occurred to me that she might be sleepwalking, and I stifled the urge to rap on the window and call out to her. Then she turned and walked further into the park and out of my sight. Just before dawn, she crept beneath the duvet, pine-scented and damp. I feigned sleep, but I pulled her to me and warmed her body against my own.
Night after night, I watched her in the park. In time, I stayed in bed and waited for her to return. Each morning, I searched her eyes for an explanation, a glimpse into whatever spiritual or emotional fulfilment she sought in her nightly excursions, but they revealed nothing.
I came to understand that her doe eyes took more than they gave. Her gaze was hungry and she was insatiable. We shared delicious sex and food. But apart from her appetites, I knew nothing about her past. She had no family, no former lovers, no story, or so it seemed. Her every want was of the moment. And though I tried to give myself fully to her, I knew I could never satisfy The Doe-Eyed Girl.
I arrived home one afternoon, and she was gone. She’d taken her clothes and her toothbrush, nothing more. She did not leave a note. I wept until all that was left of me was a dried husk. Half was not enough for The Doe-Eyed Girl. I shouldn’t have expected it would be.
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The only time I permit myself to think about the convent, the hospital, my affair with The Doe-Eyed Girl, is on my drive home from work, in the quiet, sacred minutes before the daycare pickup. Stalled in traffic, I indulge. I wonder where The Doe-Eyed Girl might be now. I picture her living a happy, bohemian life in Paris or Lisbon or Prague, maybe working as a pastry chef, or singing in a club. I bring my hand to my nose, and I can still summon her scent: fermenting fruit, musky and sweet.
I stop at the daycare and collect She-Who-Asks-a-Million-Questions and we sing the theme from Frozen in the car. When we get home, a pot of Bolognese simmers on the stove, and the house is yeasty with rising bread. Vampire Baby, who sleeps only in the daytime, lies swaddled in his bassinet. My wife is asleep on the couch. Her candy-apple cheeks and the milk stains on the front of her t-shirt make me ache with desire. Before I can stop her, She-Who-Asks-a-Million-Questions leaps on the couch and buries her face in her mother’s stomach, then shouts, I’m hungry, Mama! What’s for dinner? I’m soooo hungry!
Renée D. Bondy (she/her) is a writer and educator. Her short fiction has been published in The New Quarterly and The Humber Literary Review Spotlight, and her début novel, [non]disclosure, is published by Second Story Press.
