John the Pupil Page 9
I would like some eggs, Brother Bernard said.
• • •
We have found our way again, returned to the pilgrim route. We are not always welcome. The truth we represent does not reflect well on the comfortable prelates of the towns. Some gates are closed to us and we sleep outside, in the shelter of the city wall.
When we preach, Andrew begins, I proceed, and Bernard makes response, and in such a way we gather and hold a congregation.
The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Lift up your hearts.
We will lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord.
It is right and just.
A deformed beggar called us mad. Or he may have been calling himself mad. It was difficult to understand the tongue he spoke. I was looking anyway at the watchtowers the lords of the region have built on to the ramparts of the town. I could not decide if this was to guard the town from its enemies or to watch over their own people.
In the morning we were permitted entry through the gate. We begged for alms and received food, which we ate on the city ramparts looking over the valley towards the mountains, whose tops, like rough broken knifes, cut into the clouds, which bleed and stain the mountains white; and the heart sinks with dread and the mind lifts with wonder to gaze upon places so high, where, it is a superstition to think this I know, God seems to be closer.
• • •
We took a path away from the road to follow a track of sage. My companions did not understand my excitement, but I was able to persuade them to follow, although I had to keep persuading them. Maybe it was because of the enthusiasm with which I delivered my argument, but it was as if the universe had to be perpetually made and remade, and my companions would only heed my direction if I gave the argument perpetually. When I relented, they dawdled; when I argued again, we walked faster. I told them that this is a treasure, never found in our country, seldom in this one. I told them that this had been found and planted and it had flourished under wise oversight. The sage grew thicker the further we had gone away from our road, which we could no longer see behind thorn trees and bushes of monk’s pepper.
And now we have arrived at this garden, and nothing could be more pleasing, judiciously moderated plenty, there is wisdom here and peace, the earth and the heavens mapped out, in miniature.
The gardener is Father Gabriel, who is a man of modest manner, white-haired, beardless. He possesses the power my Master calls fascination. A superior soul impresses another, a superior intelligence impresses its inferiors, some say that through such an impression one could throw a camel into a pit by sight alone.
His herb garden is plotted in rectangles which are full of treasures. Sage, rue, southernwood, poppy, pennyroyal, mint, parsley, radishes, and, for love’s sake, on the other side of the wall, gladioli and lilies and roses. The fruit trees are in bloom.
At the centre is a perfect square with a round pool and a pentagonal fountain, demonstrating mathematical order and divine grace, earth and spirit, an Eden.
I do not know if I could find this place again. We stumbled upon it, at the end of a day, following a track of sage.
Where is the promised treasure? Brother Bernard said.
I have it in my bags.
He has enchanted you.
My companions are impatient to leave. It is as if they are my Master’s chosen messengers and I am the additional one, their cause of vexation, who needs to be told of his obligation.
• • •
The villagers are timid of Father Gabriel’s power. They do not like to come to his garden to see its foundations. On our second day a young woman did come to consult him, escorted by an even younger man, who walked several paces behind her and never spoke a word. But, every few days Father Gabriel makes a tour of outlying villages to visit the sick and the declining.
He invites me to accompany him. The invitation does not extend to my companions, who occupy themselves in a show of making preparations to leave.
Father Gabriel and I walk together, away from the garden, which he takes one look back at before our path departs from it, as if he were confirming the mark of it in his memory in case God should decree that he never sees it again.
We are taken into an old man’s house, which is divided into small sleeping quarters. The stable, which is part of the house, beside the kitchen, underneath the loft, contains straw for the donkey and a blanket for the old man. He used to sleep in the main house, before his eldest son got married. His wife still sleeps in the main house, in the same bed as one of her unmarried daughters. It was this daughter who took us in there to tend to her mother, white hair loose, face ennobled by her disease. Purified through pain, she was like a paper lantern; her soul, about to be untethered, shone through the skin.
Father Gabriel made a medicine for her, of iris flowers and caraway seeds broken in wine and after taking it she shivered, and he asked me to hold her, and I held her. I have never held a woman before. She was so narrow and light as if her substance was made of air. My touch made her shiver and she kept on shivering and I made to let her go but Father Gabriel instructed me to keep holding her and he said that was half of the medicine.
• • •
The full moon rises over Father Gabriel’s garden. We sit on the highest elevation, a chair of raised turf, where we look over the whole garden and then, therefore, the universe. The mind moves on wings as the Lady Philosophy of Boethius promised, mounting the air and soaring beyond the clouds, rising to the eighth sphere of stars. And maybe beyond, the Primum Mobile, and all of this is God, my home, my source, my ending.
The master gardener has no urgency about him. There is a comfort in his presence as if he is in harmony with his own trees. And how I should like to stay here, to tend the land, to make things grow, to listen to the complaints of the village people, to heal them.
In the distance, I see my companions walking again along the track of sage towards our former road. They are bent under the weight of the bags they carry, which used to be divided amongst three.
Stay here, the wise man says.
And who knows what he has known and what he has been before he became holy. A shovel is heavy; a sword is heavier. I do not believe that it is entirely his labours on the land that have made him so strong.
You are good at this. I have prayed for the Lord to send labourers into His harvest.
He looks over the walls of the garden, towards mountains and clouds. My companions stumble and go on.
The harvest is great, but the labourers are few. And I shall need a successor.
I tell him that I am sworn to my Master’s will.
Let your companions fulfil your mission. I will teach you all I know. One man in a thousand might be capable of receiving my instruction.
I would not be here were it not for my Master.
And yet, I find it hard not to compare these men, and the match is made not entirely to Father Gabriel’s prejudice. He has patience, good humour and strength; his heart beats in rhythm to the seasons. And my Master, he always stands outside, with his anger and envy and pride.
I am invited to remain here, to learn the skills of husbandry, to meditate here and to work here, and nothing could be more accordant. There is wisdom here, and peace. You are the seal of the image of God, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You have been in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: the sardius, the topaz, and the jasper, the chrysolite, and the onyx, and the beryl, the sapphire, and the carbuncle, and the emerald: gold the work of your beauty.
I feel unburdened. I can trust my companions to satisfy the commission, or at least attempt it, without stint.
Father Gabriel quotes the word of Saint Anthony,
Sit in your cell and your cell shall teach you all things.
I must fulfil my mission.
And wise Abbot Luan, Dig and sow that you may have wherewith to eat and drink and be clothed, for where there
is sufficiency, there is stability, and where there is stability there is religion … Hunger is too hard a stepmother to learning.
In this little Eden, these loved squares of earth are a pathway to the celestial kingdom. The flowers, the herbs, even the monksbane. My Master would approve the rhubarb and rue.
I may not. I am bound to complete my mission.
He asks me to tell him the nature of my mission, and I am put into confusion. His fascination demands the entirety of truth and yet something inside of me wishes to withhold, as if once released of it, I shall be emptied.
My Master has written a Book. I am bound to deliver this Book to its intended audience, its reader.
Who is?
I may not say.
What are the contents of the Book?
Truth. Wisdom. The meanings of past and future times, the details of the construction of devices that some men might call miraculous. These are just some of the contents of the Book.
He looks at me. I may not look at him. He could overpower me if he chose, with his body or his will.
He quotes another,
It is in the cloister that Bernard of Clairvaux says, the monk comes to find the Heavenly Jerusalem, the true destination of any and all pilgrimages.
I have read him. My Master has shown me his writing.
What then is the city?
It is like being back in the friary, performing for the Principal and visiting dignitaries. Except here the only audience is Father Gabriel, the owls nesting, his garden.
The city is itself only an image, a figure of the future Heavenly City: and the journey to it is made not by proceeding with feet but with feelings –
And if you could? Would you stay?
I would be tempted.
I am not tempting you. I am offering you something. Nature surpasses art without strife or anxiety. But maybe I still suffer from vanity and it stretches this far: I do not wish my flowers to die or my walls to come down. Without care, any place can become like any other.
My name is John the Pupil. I do not have the right to change teachers. No man can serve two masters. Maybe I can return, after my mission is complete.
You have made your choice. We will not see each other again, Father Gabriel says.
I will have to travel fast to catch up to my companions.
As it is written, And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of delights, to till the earth from which he was taken.
And if I have been enchanted, as my companions said, then nothing is as I see it.
Through the senses, as through windows, vices creep into the soul. Therefore, remove yourself from the temptations of the city and of nature; gaze not upon those agencies of sin that might ensnare you; even to meditate upon the pleasant rivers and streams, where the birds chirp and living pools mirror the sky, and the brook babbles on its way, and many other things entice men’s ears or eyes; lest through the luxury and abundance of plenty a soul’s strength be turned to weakness, and its modesty be violated. For indeed it is unprofitable to gaze frequently on that whereby you may one day be caught, and to accustom yourself to such things as you shall afterwards scarce be able to lack. Plato himself, though he was a rich man, whose costly couch Diogenes once trod under his muddy feet, chose the Academe, a villa far from the city, and not only solitary but pestilent also, as the proper place for the study of philosophy; that the assaults of lust might be broken by the anxiety and frequent presence of sickness, and that his disciples might feel no other delights save in those things that he taught them.
• • •
Saint Thomas of Canterbury’s Day
The martyr, at whose shrine we have worshipped, suffered for the Church, in a church, a holy place, at sacred prayer, among his priests, in order to illustrate both the holiness of the one who suffered and the cruelty of his persecutors.
There are many miracles attested to Saint Thomas. By his merits, the blind did see, the lame did walk, the deaf did hear, the dead were brought back to life. A bird that had learned to speak was being chased by a hawk, and cried out the phrase it had been taught, Saint Thomas, help me! The hawk fell dead and the bird flew on.
As for the saint’s killers, the wrath of God dealt with them. One gnawed his fingers to bits; others became slavering idiots; some were stricken with paralysis; others went mad and perished miserably.
After days in the garden, our feet have healed and we have grown softer again. The way is hard, uphill, rest only in a shepherd’s shelter. We walked towards the mountains and it was as if they refused us. They grew no larger, although it appeared to me that we were getting smaller.
We all have sticks now. I think that Bernard has his eye on mine, but I know that if I offer to exchange them, he will think himself to have the worst of the bargain.
This morning, when finally the mountains had consented to allow us to reach them, we had spread out. It was unspoken, but it was one of those cases, that occur increasingly often, I think, when we are content to walk alone with the company only of our own thoughts, while knowing that our companions are not far from hand. I came upon Bernard. He was standing still, looking up at the mountains and pulling at his nose. It took me a little while to understand that he was weeping. I had not thought him capable of such holiness.
Brother Andrew’s injuries slow him down, and therefore us. We had intended to cross the mountain into Italy all in one day of climbing but the condition of Brother Andrew does not permit this. Or maybe it would have, if we had found the way to the pass. But we did not, we climbed to what had looked to us like the pass, but we ended beneath a steep cliff and we had to climb down again.
It is cold on the mountainside even with the brightness of the sun that shines on the stones of this shelter that a thoughtful shepherd has made. There are worlds in each stone, the lines in the rock look like rivers, the lighter patches of brown are fields and woods, the darker are mountains, the darkest are towns, and we are at a dark curve of brown at the top of the world. I could look at it for hours but the light is fading, there is snow under my feet, and I am shivering from the cold and cutting these marks on scraps of parchment without being able to see the words I am making. Brother Bernard keeps stealing from me, but, in guilt or self-reproach, he returns the pages he has defaced, and now that I am running out of writing materials again, I use pages again from before, and I write these words over the shapes of monsters that Brother Bernard has drawn.
Earlier, looking at the mountains, he said to us, It makes you believe that there was a race of giants who lived here.
I did not answer him because Brother Andrew had gathered a handful of snow which he pressed together and then threw at me. I did the same, hurling a handful of snow back at Brother Andrew, as did Brother Bernard. The three of us battled in the snow in this manner until we could no longer find any snow to gather.
And then come and accuse me, said the Lord. If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow. And if I be washed with snow waters, my hands shall shine so clean.
Saint Kilian’s Day
Our holy precursor Saint Kilian travelled to Rome with his companions. And from there he went on to Germany, where his preaching converted a great lord. But after he warned the lord that his union to his wife, who was his own brother’s widow, was unlawful, the vengeful wife took advantage of her lord’s absence to dispatch her soldiers to the town square where Kilian was singing the praises of the Lord with two companions. Kilian exhorted his brothers not to resist the martyr’s crown, and they were all three immediately beheaded. When the lord returned, he asked the whereabouts of the servants of God. His wife feigned not to know. But the matter was soon discovered, for the assassin, running about in all directions, complained that Kilian was burning him with a dreadful fire. The assassin tore himself apart with his own teeth. His mistress too soon expired.
My companions and I discussed martyrdom. We all said that we would welcome it but in my unworthy heart I did not believe any of what was said, le
ast of all by me. Brother Andrew, despite the condition of his leg and skin, is too tied to life and the world to cast away either of them. And Brother Bernard, while still a mystery to me, he will always be a mystery to me, alike to a figure carved out of the mountain we climb or one of those trees whose monstrous cousins his imagination compels him to draw, is a part of the world even if his place in it is as much a mystery to him as it is to us. And I am just beginning to gain a fuller love for Creation, because something happened to my senses in Father Gabriel’s garden, they were exalted, enlarged (Brother Bernard would say enchanted): I am now able to see the world in its details, to look through Brother Andrew’s eyes, to apprehend the will of God as it traced creatures in the mountain forest, drove clouds across the sky, touched my skin.
We were praying outside our shelter, and this should not be the case but it is, it is easier to give thanks to God on the mountain than in the valley. Brother Andrew threw off his cloak and jumped into a pool of water abutted by rocks and he urged me and Brother Bernard to do likewise. To demonstrate my love for Brother Andrew, I lowered myself into the cold water. Brother Andrew splashed at me and together we splashed at Brother Bernard until Brother Bernard, alone on the rocks, wetter on land than he would have been in the water, finally consented, complaining, to join us.
We were trying to see our future path up through the mountain, and the water that washed us fell down and broke over black rocks that hung over our pool, and the way up looked so evident, but then it had done so yesterday when the mountain confounded us and we had to turn back on our path. We were hungry and cold and lost, but we were joyous, led by Brother Andrew who always loves to be immersed in water. And this is when we became aware of two figures watching us.
The sun was behind them and the shadows they cast over the water made us even colder. We were naked, immodest, like beasts or children. We were also defenceless against the malice of enemies. They wore blue tunics with hoods to cover their faces, and they carried heavy sticks and their shadows were lengthening over us as they reached the side of the pool.