Marie Louise Habets

Marie Louise Habets (1905-1986) was the Belgian nun and ex-nun fictionalised as Sister Luke (Gabrielle van der Mal) in The Nun's Story, a bestselling 1956 book by American author Kathryn Hulme. Audrey Hepburn portrayed Gabrielle van der Mal in the 1959 Fred Zinnemann film The Nun's Story.

Accounts

Hulme’s 1966 autobiography Undiscovered Country describes Hulme and Habets’ first meeting in 1945. Both were volunteers with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) an international project working to resettle refugees and others displaced by World War II.

Hulme recalls in her autobiography how, at a training camp in northern France, she became aware of a Belgian female colleague who spent most of her time asleep. Even when awake, the woman, a nurse, was taciturn, solitary and preoccupied, almost antisocial. In time, however, the Belgian nurse revealed herself as a diligent worker, a good friend, and a woman with a secret: she had just left a convent after 17 years of struggle with its holy rule. She felt burdened and depressed by a sense of having failed.

Zoe Fairbairns’ article The Nun’s True Story and Fairbairns’ radio play The Belgian Nurse, broadcast in 2007 on the BBC, tell the story of how Habets’s story became Hulme’s bestseller and how the two women became partners and shared a home and a life for nearly 40 years.^[1][2] Their parallel lives are explored in The Nun and the Crocodile: the Stories within The Nun's Story, a paper given by Debra Campbell at the Women and Religion section of the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting on November 21, 2004.

Hulme papers

Documents relating to Marie Louise Habets can be found among the Kathryn Hulme papers which are held at the Beinecke Library at Yale University in the USA.^[3]

These include a report by Habets about a repatriation transport from the displaced persons resettlement camp at Wildflecken, Bavaria, which set off for Poland on April 30 1946. The report is written in English, which Habets did not speak fluently at the time; it was probably translated by Hulme. Read in conjunction with Chapter 14 of Undiscovered Country, it shows the high value placed by Hulme, an American who had not lived under enemy occupation, on the first-hand knowledge, experience and powers of observation of her Belgian colleague. There is also a report by Habets on caring for tuberculosis patients at Wildflecken.

The papers also contain a small number of press interviews given by Habets around the time of the publication of The Nun’s Story and the launch of the film. Habets appears to have been ambivalent about publicity. This is seen in Hulme’s letters to friends and business associates where she frequently refers to Habets’ reluctance or downright refusal to talk to the press or be photographed. But the interviews are there anyway, including an undated (probably 1956) interview in Glamour magazine, in which Habets describes her post-convent difficulties in reacquiring such skills as clothes-buying, money management and drinking alcohol.

There is an undated (probably 1957) interview from The Boston Globe, probably condensed in The Readers Digest, which outlines Habets’ war service between leaving the convent and joining UNRRA

She became attached to the Belgian army which in turn served with the British forces. She aided the wounded and dying when the first V-bombs were fired at Antwerp by the Germans. Scarcely had the tide of the German advance in the Battle of the Bulge been blunted and turned than she was nursing the American wounded who held Bastogne and survived.

In an interview from The Honolulu Advertiser dated February 15 1963, Habets describes a brief "return" to convent life. Some 19 years after her departure, she attended a refresher course for nurses which involved her sleeping overnight in a convent. She acknowledges that the idea gave her "the shivers" - she thought she would have to sleep in a dormitory with cloth partitions but was relieved to have a single room, albeit an austere one. Haunted by her vow of poverty, she was reluctant to ask for anything, even a glass of water. She describes nuns as "wonderful, dedicated women." Like most of the other interviews, this one carries photographs - not snatched paparazzi snaps, but professionally posed pictures of an apparently willing subject.

There is also a partnership agreement dated 17 April 1959. In signing this, Hulme and Habets acknowledged the existence of their partnership since they first discussed the writing of The Nun’s Story in 1953. It provides for all literary profits to be shared equally between them, and all properties to be owned in equal shares. In the event of a dispute, however, Hulme had primacy. (There is no evidence that this provision was ever invoked.) In spite of the joint ownership, Hulme’s books and articles continued to appear under Hulme’s sole authorship.

Later life

In 1960, Hulme and Habets moved to the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where Hulme continued to write, with Habets’s support and assistance. They grew tropical fruits, bred dogs, rode horses, had friends to stay, gave talks, and socialised among the other Kauai expats. They remained Catholics, and Hulme continued her involvement with the work of the mystic G. I. Gurdjieff. Habets did some nursing, though mainly on a private basis for friends. Hulme and Habets travelled widely, sometimes together, sometimes independently.

Novel vs. life

Anyone who, inspired by the integrity, rebelliousness and self-assertion of Gabrielle van der Mal, goes to the Hulme papers looking for signs of Habets as a religious or sexual revolutionary, will search in vain. Comments attributed to her in interviews show her as socially conservative (though tolerant) and a staunch admirer of nuns, her one regret being that she herself was not strong enough to remain one. If she and Hulme had any criticisms of the Catholic Church or convents, they kept them out of their archive. If they were aware of or interested in women’s liberation or lesbian/gay liberation, they show no sign of it, though clearly they lived openly as a couple, and were acknowledged as such by friends and business associates. Numerous letters to Kathryn Hulme, from friends and business associates alike, contained among the Kathryn Hulme papers, include greetings to Habets, enquiries about her health and activities, plans for social events in which she is to be involved as Hulme’s partner - the normal stuff of communication among friends who are relaxed about each other‘s status. A handwritten note from Habets to Hulme dated 3 November 1975, begins "darling" and ends "I love you. Warmest kisses."

Death and afterward

Habets died in 1986, five years after Hulme. Having inherited the literary estate, Habets, in her own will, shared it out among members of her own family, members of Hulme’s family, and six nuns, who cannot be traced. The resultant confusion makes it unclear who owns the rights, and who can give permissions. This is probably why The Nun’s Story, along with Hulme’s other books, remains out of print.

Bibliography

K. Hulme, Undiscovered Country, Atlantic Little Brown, 1966

See also

• Monica Baldwin

References

1. ^ The Tablet, Jan 6 2007, "The Nun's True Story", Zoe Fairbairns
2. ^ BBC Radio Four,The Belgian Nurse, Zoe Fairbairns Jan 13 2007
3. ^ Kathryn Hulme Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

External links

• Works by or about Marie Louise Habets in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Persondata
Name	Habets, Marie Louise
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1905
Place of birth
Date of death	1986
Place of death