by Jane Anstey
“Not to mention creating bad publicity,” Jeremy suggested with a wry smile.
Jan looked at him for a moment, and then nodded. “Yes, of course you are right.” He sighed, and there was a wealth of past experience in the sigh. “It is hard not to do that, to cover up the truth, when you know how badly it might reflect on something you care for deeply.”
He drew a breath and straightened up. “Brother Luke,” he said, “please take Brother Andrew away to the infirmary now and look after him there. Keep him under sedation―I take it that was a sedative you injected?”
The infirmarian nodded. “Midazolam. As big a dose as I dared. He won’t wake for a few hours, but I need to monitor him anyway, old man that he is. Those sedatives can be dangerous―but it seemed the only thing we could do in the circumstances. Lucky I keep some in stock.”
“Good. Keep watch over him, then. Even when he wakes, I do not want him to go anywhere until I have had a chance to speak to him and decide what care he needs next.”
“He needs sectioning, in my opinion,” Simon observed, with some force.
“That may be,” Jan agreed. “Do not fear. Brother Luke was a doctor in secular life, as you may have guessed. I will arrange whatever medical attention Gabryjel requires. He is my responsibility, as one of the brothers here. He is, or was, also my friend.”
He led the way out of the library, leaving the big burly infirmarian and the little wiry doorkeeper to follow, carrying the stretcher they had fetched from the infirmary, with its occupant tied securely to it. Mike looked longingly at the manuscript wrapped in its bag, lying untended on the desk.
“Shouldn’t we bring this manuscript with us?” he asked. “We don’t want to leave it around for someone else to steal.”
Jeremy glanced at Jan, who nodded. Mike went back and picked up the precious bundle, holding it in his arms as protectively as Brother Andrew had. Jan ushered them out of the library and locked the door behind him.
“Come to my office,” he said. “The very least I can do now is to offer you some refreshment.”
“And an explanation,” suggested Jeremy. “I think you owe us that, too.”
Thirty
The police arrived while Jan was still making coffee, and as Brother Anselm was away from his duties helping to settle Brother Andrew in the infirmary, the abbot went out to the door and interviewed them personally. Jeremy, looking out of the window, saw they were uniformed rapid-response officers. Somewhat to his surprise they seemed to accept Jan’s reassurances and soon drove away, turning off the blue emergency lights on top of the vehicle as they did so.
“How on earth did you manage that, Jan?” he asked when the abbot returned. “They were like limpets when I was dealing with them last year.”
“I told them the emergency had been defused by myself and others, including you, Simon, and that no significant harm had been done to anyone.”
Simon rubbed his shoulder when he heard this, and heard Jan laugh. “You yourself said it was only a scratch. I told them the monk who had caused the commotion was mentally ill and receiving medical attention on site. You had not actually reported what was happening, so they went away, though I had to promise that you would call them as soon as possible to confirm that everything is all right.”
Simon took out his phone. “I’d better do that straightaway.”
“They are coming back later to talk to Brother Andrew when he is fit to be interviewed,” Jan went on. He sighed. “I suppose we will have to deal with that when it happens. If.”
“If he survives,” Jeremy supplied. “The infirmarian wasn’t sure he would, was he? Don’t you think he should go to hospital, Jan?”
“If it is necessary, yes. Brother Luke was an A&E consultant before he retired here. You need have no fear. He understands emergency medicine. He will look after Brother Andrew.”
“The police will have to write up a report,” Simon pointed out.
“Indeed. But the officers who came here said they will not take any other action unless their superiors decide they should.”
“I owe you an apology,” Jeremy told him, changing the subject before there could be any further argument. “I knew the librarian was hiding something when we came after Christmas to return the facsimile, and I should have told you. He said the original of Mike’s facsimile book was lost, but he was lying. It was obvious. I didn’t want to alarm Mike at the time, and then later I wondered if I was over-reacting, imagining things.”
“How did you know?” Jan asked. “I myself did not, and I have known the man for more years than I care to remember.”
“Something in the eyes, I suppose,” Jeremy replied. “It’s hard to explain. He looked away as he said it, and that often means someone is lying, especially if they are usually truthful. Only the really barefaced liars can look you in the eye.”
Jan sighed. “Yes, that is probably why I did not think to doubt him. I have always thought of him as someone who was inherently truthful, though when we were espionage agents we had to dissemble, of course we did, if the situation warranted it. I suppose in his unstable mental state he stopped being able to judge what was appropriate.”
“Espionage agents?” breathed Mike. “Do you mean spies, Father?”
Jan looked at him and his face relaxed into a smile. “I see I must come clean, Mike.”
“Both of you, Jan?” asked Jeremy. “You and Brother Andrew?”
The abbot nodded. “I was a student at that time, and he was my spymaster––and, for a time, my lover.” His eyes met Jeremy’s for a moment. “He was Gabryjel Orianski then. Professor Orianski. He became Brother Andrew Lobola when he entered the religious life, much later. Lobola was a famous Polish patriot, you see, and Gabryjel related to that.”
The smile had faded, and a look of sadness tinged with nostalgia replaced it. “We escaped from Communist Poland together, after the 1970 street protests in Gdansk, where I was living. There was a violent crackdown by the security forces and my parents were shot. I was still a child, and Gabryjel took charge of me. He was already on the government’s death list for his resistance activities, so he had to leave. He took me with him, though I was not personally in danger at that time. But he was an old friend of my parents, and I trusted him.”
His eyes closed for a moment as he cast his mind back to his youth. “I went to secondary school here in England, and then on to Cambridge. Gabryjel had tried to get a professorship here, but without success, and somehow he had become involved in the intelligence services. I think they must have recruited him after he took British citizenship. He had a lot of inside knowledge of the Polish resistance, particularly in the Catholic Church, and Solidarity had just been formed.”
“Solidarity?” asked Mike.
“Ah, I wish Gabryjel were able to educate you.” Jan’s voice was sad. “Solidarity was―is―a trade union, the only one that existed in Poland at that time. The Catholic Church supported it. Karol Wojtyla, who became Pope John Paul the Second, had been archbishop of Krakow, and very influential. When he visited Poland in 1979 as Pope, our people were encouraged to go further in opposing Communism.”
“The Polish crisis,” Simon supplied.
“Indeed.” Jan regarded him with approval. “You are too young to remember it, of course, but the protest led to a crackdown and martial law in 1981. There were fears that the Russians might invade Poland as they had Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Always, that was their reaction to the threat of greater democracy. The British government sent us to find out more behind the scenes.” He smiled. “It was exciting, dangerous. But they were dark times, and we were involved in some dark deeds, too.”
“But times were changing,” put in Jeremy, who was old enough to remember the death throes of Soviet-led Communism in the nineteen-eighties.
“They were. The Russians did not invade, in the end, and East Europe was able to throw off its shackles and move away from Communism.”
“Was that the fall of th
e Berlin Wall?” asked Mike, who had recently been revising his GCSE history.
Jeremy smiled at his son. “That’s what it led to, yes. The Berlin Wall was a symbol of the division of Europe into Communist and non-Communist blocs. Its dismantling was very significant.”
Jan nodded. “Many were killed trying to cross the Wall from East Berlin in the early days. There were snipers posted there, and they shot anything that moved. In 1989 families living each side of the Wall were reunited after thirty years apart.”
“I remember seeing the pictures on TV,” nodded Jeremy. “I was about your age, Mike. It was extraordinary. At first, people could hardly believe they were being let through the checkpoints. And then, as word spread, more and more people in East Berlin came out on the streets and just walked into West Berlin. And the guards did nothing.”
“But what about The Book?” asked Mike, tiring of this historical discussion. “How did Brother Andrew come to have it?”
“Ah yes. The Book.” Jan smiled, and it was clear he was glad to leave behind his darker memories. “I really don’t know when or how Brother Andrew found it, but he must have hidden it at once. Years ago, he said, which I must say dismays me, because we have only been in residence here three years, so he must have found and hidden it immediately when we were still moving our things in––when he took over the library, presumably. Perhaps the hidden cache was always here, and the codex––and perhaps the Victorian copy, too––were already hidden in it. The library dates from the mid-nineteenth century, so that is possible.” He sighed. “I thought I knew Gabryjel––and also that I knew what was happening in my community. But clearly that was not always the case.”
There was a little silence. With an obvious effort, Jan turned his mind to the present. “So. Let’s have a look at it, shall we?”
Mike unwrapped the bundle and laid the codex very carefully on Jan’s desk. He glanced at the abbot, who nodded permission for him to open it. Slowly, almost tenderly, he turned the pages. The antique script, beautifully decorated in delicate colour with flowers and fruit down one side of each page, flowed in handwriting very similar to that which they had seen in the Victorian facsimile. But the nineteenth-century copyist had not tried to mimic the decorated capitals, which were clearly beyond his (or her) skill.
There was an awed silence in the room as the onlookers absorbed what they were seeing.
“That is really something!” exclaimed Jeremy, conscious even as he said the words that it was a totally inadequate response.
“Oh, wow!” exclaimed Mike with even less articulation. He turned to Simon. “Sir, look at that! Isn’t it amazing!”
“It is indeed,” Simon responded, lost in admiration. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”
“Nor I,” said Jan. “I cannot imagine what its value might be, but we cannot keep it securely here, unfortunately. Even when only one man knew about it, he was inspired to steal it.”
“He had offered it to the Vatican,” Jeremy reminded him, trying to be fair even to the thief.
“Indeed. For his own gain. That is probably the only piece of wisdom he has shown.”
“Would the Vatican have taken it, in the circumstances?” asked Simon.
Jan shrugged. “They collect anything that has intrinsic value for the Church, and their financial resources are vast. I do not know what questions they would have asked or whether Gabryjel had already told them lies that made it easy for them to believe he was acting on our behalf. He is our librarian, after all. I expect he would have arranged for them to transfer the money to a special account to which only he would have access. He would know how to do such a thing. That money would then have disappeared―and so would he.”
He looked down at the codex. “Meanwhile, it had better go back into the safe in the library which only we four know about while I arrange for the bank to put it in a safe deposit box for us.”
Mike’s face fell. “Can’t I look at it for just a little longer?”
Jan smiled. “You of all people must be allowed to do that,” he said. “Without you, Brother Andrew might have absconded with it and we would never have seen it again. and you have suffered in its cause these last hours.”
Jeremy looked at his watch. “Mike, we can’t stay much longer. Mum will be home, and she’ll want to tell us all about her job interview. In fact, I’m surprised she hasn’t texted me yet to let me know. And heavens! It’s nearly time for the twins to finish school.”
“Just a few minutes,” Mike begged. “Dad, I know it’s important to go home for Mum, but she’ll be there to look after the twins, surely―and this is my only chance—”
“You go home, Remy,” offered Simon. “And please take the bike with you, because it certainly won’t go in my car. I’ll run Mike home in a while. I’d like to stay and look at this wonderful thing myself if the abbot will allow me.”
Jan nodded. “Of course. Take as long as you like. I must go and check on Gabryjel and make sure Brother Luke has arranged for him to be watched carefully. There must be no more mistakes.”
Simon pulled up a chair, and together he and Mike began to turn the pages of the codex. He made no attempt to focus on the text or get Mike to do so. The facsimile was still in the library, and they could try translating it another time. For both of them, at that moment, the beauty of the illumination and the graphics was enough.
~ * ~
Clive had spent an unhappy day in his room, trying to make sense of what was happening to him. He had been sure he had a vocation to the religious life, and sure, too, that Jan would come round to his point of view when he explained how committed he was to it. But during his interview with the abbot soon after his arrival at Whitehill that morning, it had been borne in upon him that Jan’s acquiescence could not be taken for granted. Even his decision to leave Rose and family life behind had been challenged, though he had explained carefully that there was no love left between him and Rose, that she was quite willing to let him go―perhaps even relieved to do so.
But while he was telling Jan about this, with Jan’s dark eyes metaphorically pinning his soul to the back of his chair, he had become uncomfortably aware that perhaps he was not being totally truthful. He wanted Rose to be happy to let him go, and she had certainly not stood in his way or begged him to stay. But he wasn’t sure what she truly felt, underneath that resigned exterior. He realised that he hadn’t really asked her, hadn’t really listened. He faltered in his explanation, while Jan sat silently listening to what he was saying and, he felt certain, also to what he wasn’t.
“You seem to have forgotten,” the abbot said at last, when the mainspring of Clive’s argument had run down, “that the religious life is not only based on poverty and chastity but also on obedience to one’s superiors. We agreed,” he reminded Clive, “that you were to work on rebuilding your marriage. And this you have utterly failed to do.” His tone was severe, and Clive realised that he had mistaken Jan’s serenity for sweetness and forgotten his ability to penetrate a façade. “If you cannot obey your confessor in this, how will you be able to obey your superiors in other things?”
“My vocation―” Clive began.
“We have not yet agreed that you have one,” Jan reminded him. “I explained, if you remember, that one’s own sense of vocation is not the last word. Your confessor and the superior of the monastery you enter have both to be convinced. At the moment, I hold both of those roles for you, and I am deeply unsure of the reality of your calling, however much you may see it as the solution to your difficulties. You are trying to move too fast, Clive. Go and reflect while you are here for these few days, and make no hasty decisions.”
Given that he had already burnt his boats with Rose, his job, and the whole of his previous life, Clive could not see that there was any way of unmaking the decisions that he had already made, even if Jan saw them as hasty or unwise. However, trying for the obedience that was demanded, he sat in his room and reflected continuously for two hours, missi
ng lunch in the process, though without being any clearer about his disputed vocation. Still absorbed in his effort to find the will of God―or perhaps to bend that will to his own―he left his room and set out for the abbot’s office to discuss the matter with him again, in the hope of a more congenial result.
As he walked through the cloisters, he passed two monks carrying a stretcher. The man secured to it looked pale and breathed noisily, and he thought the larger monk leading the way looked concerned.
“Is he okay?” he demanded, stopping beside the stretcher.
“I hope so,” replied the burly monk briefly.
“What happened to him?” Clive began to walk beside them. He peered at the patient’s face. “Oh––it’s the librarian, isn’t it?”
“He was taken ill suddenly,” the monk told him. “We’re taking him to the infirmary.” He looked over his shoulder. “You okay with the weight, Brother Anselm?”
“Oh, he’s light enough,” the little doorkeeper replied. “We’re not going far. Move on, Brother.”
Clive shook his head in puzzlement and retraced his steps to the hall. The abbot was ushering guests into his office as he arrived―guests which, to his amazement, included not only Jeremy Swanson but also Simon Hellyer.
“Father,” he began. “I―”
“Not now, Clive,” Jan interrupted, a little brusquely. “I have other business on hand at the moment, as you see. I will talk to you later, if it is necessary. In the meantime, I recommended that you go and reflect. Kindly continue to do that.”
The door closed, leaving Clive standing in the hallway, pulsing with humiliation and indignation. Not only had the peremptory dismissal hurt him deeply, for it seemed to push him and his devotion to Jan aside as though Jan put little value on either of them, but it had also nettled him. He had never been rejected in quite that way, and he found it unexpectedly painful.
He walked away angrily, nursing his injuries and rehearsing a complaint to deliver to the abbot later on, when (if!) Jan managed to find time to listen to him. But sitting dejectedly in his room, looking out over the abbey estate at the back of the house, he realised his options were few. He could not go back to his old life, even if he wanted to. His marriage was moribund, and ignoring that fact would lead only to a further dead end. But in the face of that reality, a sudden unaccustomed longing assailed him for the security of his home and the presence of his family. He had a vision of Rose and Robert standing in the doorway at Sundials, watching him leave, just a few hours earlier. He should have said a fonder farewell to them. More than that, perhaps he should have tried harder to rebuild their family life. He recognised that his efforts had been no more than half-hearted, as Jan had observed.