Disclaimers, acknowledgements, notes, warnings, etc: Please see Chapter 01.
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The Sound of Music Chronicles
Part I
The Twelfth Governess
Chapter 09
When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window
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"How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Maria?
A flibbertijibbet!
A will-o'-the wisp!
A clown!
Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But how do you make her stay
And listen to all you say?
How do you keep a wave upon the sand?
Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?"
Rodgers and Hammerstein – How do you solve a problem like Maria?
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"Reverend Mother?"
The Reverend Mother did not raise her eyes from the Captain´s letter, which she had been re-reading, and once more she prayed both for guidance and in hope that she was making the right decision, by choosing to send Maria to him.
"Reverend Mother?" the voice called again.
She met the ever-serene face of the Mistress of Novices, and wondered, as she usually did, if Sister Margaretta had ever been angry, as her face was just so ethereal.
"I am sorry, Sister Margaretta, please forgive my lapse in manners," she said apologetically. "It´s been fifteen years since I have accepted God´s mission of being Nonnberg´s leader. If anyone told me all those years ago that one day I would worry so much about my lambs, I certainly would not believe it." She sighed. "Oh well – is she here already?"
"Yes, she is waiting outside." The younger woman replied. The Reverend Mother knew that the weight of hers decision was clearly visible to her.
"Please, send her in," was the gentle command. "Let us solve this problem once and for all!"
While Sister Margaretta left, an image came to the Reverend Mother's mind – a girl, waiting outside, in the dark, austere hallway that led to her study. Although she was far from being an ordinary girl, in every sense of the word, she could not help but wonder: Was she prepared for the task she was about to be given? Never before did Maria have to handle so much responsibility, but then, she had been completely on her own since she was hardly more than a child, hadn´t she? Most importantly, if she were successful in her mission, would she have become prepared to take her vows and be a nun? The only certainty the Reverend Mother had was that sending her away would provide them both with the answer to all those questions. But whether those answers led to the Maria´s happiness and to the fulfillment of her mission in life – God´s will – was yet to be seen.
She heard Sister Margaretta´s voice just outside the door. "You may go in now, Maria."
Maria stepped into the semi-darkness of the study, and shut the door behind her. She looked unusually subdued and composed – very unlike the girl who had barged into the courtyard coming from an outing in the mountains the previous morning. The black wimple hid her usually disheveled dark blond hair, and only a hint of her short bangs could be seen. Her eyes seemed too big for her face, and they looked at her warily, cautiously, but without any trace of fear. Her face was slightly flushed, as if she had run from wherever she was when she had been called, climbing the stairs two steps at once to reach her study. To the Reverend Mother, Maria looked very much like an innocent child, full of exuberance and yet, cautious of her surroundings.
"Come here, my child," the Reverend Mother encouraged, since Maria stood just inside the room, unsure of what to do next. The little encouragement was all Maria needed. She hurried over to the Abbess knelt down and quickly kissed her hand. "Please, sit down" She gently commanded her lost sheep.
However, if the Reverend Mother thought for a moment that Maria would do what she was told for just once, she was mistaken. The girl immediately began to talk.
"Oh... Oh, Reverend Mother, I'm so sorry. I just couldn't help myself. The gates were open and the hills were beckoning and before I…"
"Maria, I haven't summoned you here for apologies," she said, trying to stop the flow of words.
"Oh, please, Mother, do let me ask for forgiveness," she pleaded.
"If it would make you feel better..." There was one thing the Mother knew with certainty about Maria – that her guilty conscious over any minor mishap would lead to a deluge of words from the young woman.
"Yes," Maria replied, hardly waiting for the Reverend Mother to finish. "Well, you see, the sky was so blue today and everything was so green and fragrant, I just had to be a part of it. And the Untersberg kept leading me higher and higher as though it wanted me to go right through the clouds with it."
"Child, suppose darkness had come and you were lost?" The nun was obviously concerned. The Untersberg?! How did that girl manage to walk all the way up there and back before noon? It was quite far from the Abbey. No, she could not have gone that far. Yet, this was the same young woman who could be in the bell tower one minute and at the dinner table the next.
"Oh, Mother, I could never be lost up there," Maria said effusively. "That's my mountain. I was brought up in a mountain just like it. It was the mountains that led me to you."
"Oh? How so?"
"When I was a child, I would come down the mountain and climb a tree and look over into a convent´s garden. I'd see the sisters at work and I'd hear them sing on their way to vespers." Maria stopped for a moment, and then added, helplessly. "Which brings me to another transgression, Reverend Mother. I was singing out there today without permission. And yesterday as well."
"Maria, it is only here in the Abbey that we have rules about postulants singing," the Mother Abbess reminded her.
Encouraged because she was not being scolded, Maria continued.
"I can't seem to stop singing wherever I am. And what's worse, I can't seem to stop saying things. I... everything and anything I think and feel."
"Some people would call that honesty," the nun tried to reassure her.
"Oh, but it's terrible, Reverend Mother! You know how Sister Berthe always makes me kiss the floor after we've had a disagreement?" Seeing the Mother's acknowledgement, she continued, "Well, lately, I've taken to kissing the floor when I see her coming - just to save time."
The Reverend Mother rolled her eyes, making a mental note to talk to Sister Berthe about the unusual penances she had been inflicting upon some of her charges. At that moment, she decided it was time to talk to Maria about what she had planned for her. She decided to be as stubborn as the girl sitting before her, and ignore the little voice inside her…
"Are you insane? You are sending a girl who cannot stop singing and talking to a brooding widower with seven children who runs his house with the same kind of military discipline he applied in his submarines."
Yet, at the same time, another little voice assured her that there could be nothing more… right.
"Maria ... when you saw us over the Abbey wall and longed to be one of us, that didn't necessarily mean that you were prepared for the way we live here, did it?" she questioned.
Fearing that the Reverend Mother was asking her to leave, Maria tried to convince her to allow her to stay.
"No, Mother, but I, I pray and I try. And I am learning. I really am."
Well, she did make an effort – the Reverend Mother had to acknowledge that. Only that, in Maria´s case, whatever extra effort she tried to make led to disastrous results. So much so that she found herself constantly in trouble. For instance, when she had been told, in her first days at Nonnberg, that whatever task she was given had to be done quickly and efficiently – Maria had taken the rule to heart, and began using the banister to go down the stairs, instead of the steps – and this after she had been caught climbing down a window using a rope made of old linen cloths.
"I was only trying to save time," she had defended herself innocently, apparently unaware that the she was not supposed to break her own neck in the process.
And her escapes to the mountains… the last time she had been caught Maria had said that she would rather praise the Lord by gazing at His wonderful creations and singing at the top of her lungs, than to spend an hour and a half praying in Latin, and assisting at daily mass without uttering a word… The Mother had acknowledged then that Silence was a virtue that she feared Maria would never possess.
"And what is the most important lesson you have learned here, my child?" the Reverend Mother asked.
"To find out what is the will of God and... to do it wholeheartedly," Maria answered dutifully. There was also an unmistakable tone of relief in her voice, as if she indeed had expected to have been summoned there for some other reason.
The answer, although sounding like coming from a book she had memorized, was given with absolute honesty. One of the first things the nuns had learned about Maria was that she was a terrible liar.
"Even when it is extremely difficult?" she prodded.
Maria shrugged. "Even so, of course!"
Satisfied the, Reverend Mother stood up decisively.
"Maria, it seems to be the will of God that you leave us," she stated.
"Leave?" Maria exclaimed, open mouthed, jumping from her seat. Gone was the flush in her cheeks – Maria´s face went white. She looked like her worst nightmare had come true.
"Only for a while, Maria."
Maria clutched her hands together, in a desperate, pleading gesture.
"Oh, no, Mother! Please don't do that! Don't send me away! This is where I belong. It's my home, my family. It's my life," the girl pleaded. There was a look of utter despair in her eyes.
My life, she had said. But had this girl know what a life meant? – the Reverend Mother asked herself.
"But are you truly ready for it?" she asked Maria.
"Yes, I am." There was more exuberance than confidence in her tone - a sign to the Reverend Mother that her decision had been correct.
"Perhaps if you go out into the world for a time, knowing what we expect of you, you will have a chance to find out if you can expect it of yourself."
"I know what you expect, Mother. And I can do it. I promise I can!" The girl exclaimed, in near panic.
"Maria," the Mother Abbess kindly, but sternly, admonished her.
"Yes, Mother." She sank back in her chair. "If it is God's will," she added dutifully, but not very convincingly.
"There is a family near Salzburg that needs of a governess until September…"
"Until September!" Maria tried to interrupt, frightful of the length of time she would be away from the Abbey. Away from her home, away from the safe confines of the Abbey's walls.
"… to take care of seven children."
"Seven children!" was the prompt exclamation.
"Do you like children, Maria?"
"Oh, yes, but seven…?" she sounded almost – horrified.
"I will tell Captain Von Trapp to expect you tomorrow."
Maria distractedly touched the short fringe that had escaped from underneath her wimple, giving the Reverend Mother an odd, inquisitive look.
"Uh - Captain?"
The Reverend Mother wondered if she had ever heard the Captain´s name. Considering her age, Maria had been hardly more than a child, but in those days the von Trapp was spread in every newspaper in Austria. When he successfully sunk that French battleship, people talked about it in every corner. Even her, as a cloistered nun, had heard about him. Maria could not have lived in such isolation that she had never heard of it, not even once. Yet, so much had happened in Austria since those glorious days that now it seemed like they were a lost time. A new Austria had emerged, a Republic, not an Empire, and most people wanted to forget about the past with its lost glories and simply not remember it. That someone like Maria had never heard of Captain von Trapp should not actually surprise her.
"A retired officer of the Imperial Navy," the Reverend Mother explained. "A fine man and a brave one. I thought perhaps you might have heard from him."
Maria frowned.
"No, I don´t think I have. We were very isolated in Tyrol. When the news about the war reached us, they were already old. Please, do tell me about the Captain, Reverend Mother."
"His poor wife died several years ago leaving him alone with the children." Maria still remained silent, gazing at the Reverend Mother quizzically. "He wants someone who is reliable, and can handle them. Two boys and five girls. I believe you can, Maria."
Maria´s mind seemed to have frozen after she´d heard the first bits of information. Her new employer a Captain. Maria´s mind seemed to be stuck in the word.
"A sea captain?"
"Is there a problem, Maria?" The older woman looked up from her writing.
"No, I mean… Oh, Reverend Mother, I don´t know. I am just a girl from the mountains. I don´t know how to… I have never even seen the sea. And now you want to send me to a Captain! What if I am to suffer from seasickness?"
The Reverend Mother laughed.
"Maria, you will be at his home in Aigen, not out on the open sea." The woman couldn't help but smile at the young woman's insecurities.
"The Imperial Navy…," she whispered. "Oh dear. Maybe… maybe he is very mean… I mean, very stern," she said.
"His home isn't one of his warships, Maria. Besides, a little discipline wouldn´t hurt you at all. What is important is that you will be able to help him. Now, I understand he's had a most difficult time managing to keep a governess there."
"Uh - why difficult, Reverend Mother?"
"The Lord will show you in His own good time."
Maria, apparently resigned with her fate, rolled her eyes.
"God bless you child. No go, and do what you are about to do wholeheartedly," said the Reverend Mother, touching Maria´s head.
"Reverend Mother…" Maria hesitated.
"Yes, Maria?"
"Before I leave, may I have your permission to take my guitar along with me?"
"Your guitar?" The woman was a bit surprised at this request.
Maria sighed. "Unless I can sing, I may not be able to do better than... half-heartedly."
The Reverend Mother smiled and nodded. Somehow, she believed the young woman spoke the truth.
"All your clothes have already been given to the poor, but I am sure this one will fit," said Sister Margaretta, entering the postulant´s room, carrying a suspicious looking grey bundle.
"Who is this Captain?" asked Christina, while Maria was taking a good look at her new frock. She felt sorry for her friend. The fabric looked coarser than the material they used to make their habits, and very itchy.
"If he was indeed an officer of the Imperial Navy, I am sure my parents know all about him," said Theresa, a bit smugly, while they were helping Maria to change from her habit into the dress that Sister Margaretta had brought. "The name is very familiar to me. If there was time I could write them and ask."
"Maybe he swears and chews tobacco," Christina wondered.
"Sure! If no one can stand to be at his place there must be a reason," Maria mumbled. "I have no idea why the Reverend Mother thinks I will be any different, but…"
"Maria!" Sister Margaretta, who had been silent so far, warned her.
"I am sure he was the gentleman who came to the other Abbey the other day!" Theresa exclaimed.
"No, I don´t think it was him," Maria said, her voice muffled by the thick grey dress which was now stuck around her neck. "Even from the back, he did not look at all like a sea captain," she added.
Sister Margaretta intervened again.
"Now girls, stop this nonsense. He´s just a poor, grieving widower with seven children, there is nothing to be afraid of." She took a step back to have a look at Maria. "Oh, I think it is very pretty. Elegant, don´t you think? I hope this is not too worldly."
Maria looked down at herself, forlornly. The grey dress was quite a sight, and it was a little too big for her. A burlap jacket, and a wide-brimmed weather hat, which to Maria looked more like a fireman´s hat, completed her dowdy attire. Poor Sister Margaretta – she had not left Nonnberg in decades, no wonder her sense of fashion was so… altered. Christina seemed to agree with her wholeheartedly, but Theresa giggled.
"Oh God…," Maria exclaimed, only to notice Sister Margaretta's shock at her exclamation. She continued, trying to hide her blasphemy, "… please guide me to the life I am supposed to lead." Those were the only words that would come to her quickly, paraphrasing the Reverend Mother's reason for sending her out into the world.
"I don´t understand why I can´t wear my habit all the time. It would be much more practical," Maria grumbled, realizing that the dress was just as uncomfortable as it looked.
"The Reverend Mother thinks this would be more appropriate," informed Sister Margaretta. "You are going to work for a noble family, Maria. Besides, she believes our habits can be intimidating to some people, most of all children."
Maria sighed.
"Oh yes, the children. I am sure the Reverend Mother is right about this, and I will trust her better judgment. But do you think she would mind if I took my habit with me, just in case? I would love to wear it to Mass, or whenever I come back here for a visit."
"Oh, I am sure she won´t mind," said Sister Margaretta. Hastily, Maria rushed to the closet she shared with the other girls, grabbed her clean habit, made a shapeless bundle with it and stuffed it into her carpetbag.
"Are you ready now, Maria?" the nun asked.
Was she? Would she ever be ready to face anything outside those walls, most of all widowed sea captains and seven children? And without her habit, wearing that awful looking grey dress?
Sister Margaretta sensed her disquiet.
"Don´t worry, Maria. Remember what the Reverend Mother always says – when the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window." Maria forced herself to smile. "Just… be yourself, and all will be fine."
Maria frowned slightly – was the nun trying to find humor in the situation? All she had been told since the day she arrived in Nonnberg was not to be herself? Maria looked at her in confusion.
"God Bless you, Maria," said Sister Margaretta, with a beaming smile, touching her face.
"Thank you," she murmured.
"Hurry, Theresa, we´ll be late for benediction," Christina said. And then, to Maria. "I think it is goodbye, for now."
"For now, yes," Maria replied, as if to reassure not only her friends, but herself as well.
"Come visit us soon, please" said Theresa.
"As soon as I am able to," promised Maria, "Good bye."
"Grüss Gott!" she whispered, as the door closed behind three people who were the closest thing to a family she had ever had.
A/N: The final part of the dialogue between the Reverend Mother and Maria was extracted from a deleted scene from the original script.