United Nations

The United Nations is mentioned in connection with the peacekeepers who find Lacey in Sierra Leone after soldiers have killed her family. They bring her to the sisters, beginning her life at the convent and a long silence about the violence she survived. The novel gives the organization no wider institutional profile; its significance here lies in this act of rescue and in the distance between physical safety and recovery from trauma.

The peacekeepers and Lacey’s arrival

Lacey is found hiding in a field by United Nations peacekeepers, who turn her over to the sisters. The intervention removes her from immediate danger and places her in a religious community that will become her home. In this account, the United Nations appears not through policy or command structures but through the concrete work of peacekeepers encountering a child left alone after her family is killed.

Rescue and the limits of recovery

The protection the peacekeepers provide does not mean that Lacey can remember or speak about what happened. She continues to believe that her family is alive in Sierra Leone, attending palace balls and riding polo ponies. Sister Arnette understands that Lacey’s mind has shielded her from the truth, and bears that knowledge without telling her. The episode therefore distinguishes rescue from healing: the United Nations can bring Lacey to safety, but the novel locates the longer burden of care and silence within the sisters’ community.

Narrative significance

The brief reference to United Nations peacekeepers connects Lacey’s personal history to violence beyond the convent and establishes the circumstances behind her arrival there. It also underscores how little of that history is visible to those around her: even within the convent, the full account is known only after a psychiatric report reaches the superior general. The organization’s role remains specific and limited, while the consequences of the violence continue through Lacey’s altered memory and the sisters’ responsibility for her care.