Don´t you believe in Providence? 

It was already after midnight when I went to bed. Yesterday I was watching a film on television: at the end of the Second World War, Russian soldiers had entered a Polish convent and had raped the nuns for several days.

The story begins when a novice goes in search of help to the French Red Cross because in the convent there is a sister who is suffering labour pains.

The doctor, in the first moment, says no, that she turns to the Polish Red Cross; but the image of the religious in the middle of the snow, on her knees, begging God for help, makes her change her mind and the two women go to the abbey.

Dear Fran, as you can imagine, the matter touched me very close as to turn off the TV and go to bed without more. Old feelings came to my head and a knot began to form in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to know how that would end. Much more motivation to follow the story had when I knew that the movie was based on real events.

Putting the finger on the sore. It deals with the tragic choice of these women who have to decide between religious sentiment and the desire for motherhood; I think an even stronger feeling, the strongest in a woman. How most of them opt for the first, but others want to raise and care for the baby even conceived without their will, and that moment, Fran, I can assure you that it is the hardest time we have to live those we engender because of a violation.

I was very impressed by the attitude of the abbess, don´t you believe in Providence? She asks the sister mother of the novices after having abandoned some babies in the middle of the snow field, at the foot of a cross. I wonder, can you be more alienated?

Once the mother superior authorizes the entrance of the doctor to attend the births —a Jewish colleague would also help; in a matter of life or death, religion or belief must remain behind the door— everything had to be done with the maximum and shameful discretion. No one should know what was happening amongst those four walls.

At this crossroads is where the doctor is, and her attitude is crucial in the development of the plot. She, with the support of the mother of the novices  —who suffers twenty-four hours of doubt and a minute of hope—  and after discovering the revolting action of the abbess and having to certify the death by suicide of one of the sisters who had taken care of one of the babies murdered by the ‘director’ of the religious community, conceives a plan to humanize the work of these nuns...; but note I won´t spoil you the end in case you have the chance to see it.

Yes, I will tell you that I have inquired a little about this doctor and I can tell you her name: Madeleine Pauliac.

Y. a.

Mary