by William Peak
as it should be, that our absence had gone unnoticed, we might continue to speak.
I think it was then that I raised the issue of Ealhmund, reminded Father that he had not always felt this way, that he had fought his superior on that, disagreed with him about that. And not even in Chapter. In the dortoir! In the unseemly panic of the dortoir that morning, Father Dagan, lowly Father Dagan, had raised his voice, raised his voice to champion an oblate, to challenge and contradict his rightful superior, his abbot, over something as pitiful and insignificant as the expulsion of an oblate. But Dagan only smiled, patted the hand his rested upon, smiling as if he had not only foreseen this objection but hoped for it, sought it as one seeks the last step in his argument, the final proof, his coda. He turned his head toward me, the face close now, teeth visible, eyes red-rimmed, tired, smiling. “Yes,” he said, “yes, I did do that, didn’t I? But of course I did so openly.” He looked away, looked back up at the sky, thought about it. “So long as you question your superior openly, in front of the entire community, there can be nothing wrong with it, nothing deceitful, for you submit your differences to his judgment, his review. You do so knowing full well he may punish you for challenging him and that such punishment would be right, proper, that you must live with it for it comes from your superior. And so, even in contradicting him, you are in a state of obedience, you submit to your superior, for you did not hide your differences from him.” Father nodded to himself. He turned to me, fixed those eyes upon me. “You must remember, Winwæd, everyone has a superior. You cannot avoid it. The farmer is subject to his lord, the lord to his king. The only difference between them and us is that we have chosen to follow one who seeks for his men not earthly glory but heavenly, not material goods but spiritual. That is why the world finds us so strange, our lives so contradictory, both revolutionary and hidebound, poor and immensely wealthy. This is our station in life, our cross to bear, and, like any cross, it is both burden and glory.” Dagan watched me for a moment. Then he looked back up at the sky, smiled. “But I did do that, didn’t I?” He chuckled, shook his head,
“I tried to keep Father Abbot from expelling Ealhmund.”
After that the wind picked up and the rain began to pelt down on us in earnest, God Himself trying to drive us from the rocks, drive us back into the shelter of the trees where we belonged. I remember Father rising up on his elbows as if to support himself against the wind, still patting my hand absently, beard blown back flat against his throat, a damp spot, then a second, appearing on the gray streak of dried mud that decorated his cheek. I rose up on my elbows too, blinked into the rain, looked around.
The flies were gone, had disappeared so completely you could believe they’d never been there, had been nothing more than a dream, something brought on by hunger. Broken bits of last year’s grass blew across the ground before us, hung up in the weeds at the edge of the ditch, pulled free, blew on. The rocks we sat upon were dappled now, a pattern of raindrops that grew and expanded even as we watched, spot linking up with spot, so that soon the pile would no longer be the gray and dusty thing it had been but something else entirely, something wet and shiny and dark. Father patted my hand again. I looked at him. He closed his eyes, nodded; it was time to go.
You know how it is after a rest: you stand up slowly, carefully, always surprised by the stiffness, to find yourself stiffer than you were when you lay down. And that is how I have always imagined the two of us, Father Dagan and I, getting up that day, the two of us climbing down carefully off the pile (fragrant now with the smell of wet earth, wet stone), two old men setting their feet cautiously amid the rocks, mindful of a fall. But I was not an old man;
I was a boy, and being the sort of boy that I was, my mind would have already begun to worry about what lay ahead of us, the uncomfortable silence that awaited us under the trees, the turned heads, the embarrassed clearing of throats. Which would explain why I didn’t see them at first, why Father had to nudge me, raise a hand, point. Even then I initially saw nothing, just a pile of damp reddish-looking rock, only one or two gray spots marring what had become an otherwise uniform surface of glistening wetness. And then there was a momentary sense of dislocation, even of fear, as
the two dry areas resolved themselves into something else, something recognizable, however wrong, truant, impossible. For there, resting on the rocks where we had rested, lay two shadow figures exactly like us, the upper torsos only slightly foreshortened, the one on the right stretching out an arm (touchingly thin, childlike) to the other. This must be what it is like when we die and look back on our deathbeds, the empty husks of our selves. It takes a moment’s getting used to. I am me, you think, I am he—and there is a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach.
It continued to rain. Even as I thought these thoughts—even as perhaps Dagan thought these thoughts—it continued to rain, the two quiet figures acquiring their own pattern of drops, the spots multiplying unhurriedly, dried mud going from gray to dark gray until, nearly saturated and decidedly reddish now, the two images began to lose definition, became almost indistinguishable from the rock they lay upon, the one on the right, Father’s rain-shadow, for some reason lingering longer than the other, yet still dissolving, disintegrating, until, finally, there remained only a meaningless alphabet of dry places, a broken and fractured script that, even as we watched, faded, continued to suffer strike after strike, faded and, eventually, disappeared altogether.
Father turned, smiled at me, pulled his hood up, squinting into the rain, smiled a last time, then turned and began to walk toward the field, the shelter of the trees. I watched him go. I stood where I was and I watched his thin gray figure walk away from me, recede into the rain. When he was at such a distance I feared he must notice my absence, turn and signal for me to follow, I threw one last glance at the place where we had lain. The rain had rendered the entire rock pile wet now, shiny, its reddish-brown hues relieved only here and there by a faint slip of ochre-colored clay. And for some reason this made me sad. Doubtless it was my age but, for some reason, looking at those rocks, I felt sad, lonely, as if something had gone out of me with the disappearance of those two figures, as if some part of my childhood, recondite, irretrievable, had gone with them, slipped away, departed never to return. I studied the rock for some proof they had been there, some sign of their passing, but there was nothing. It was just a pile of rock now—wet, shiny, unimportant. I turned and, slowly, cautiously, I made my way back across the field.
XXXIII
Of course looking back on it now, it's easy to see why Father Dagan spoke to me of obedience that day. He had just watched a boy, a boy he no doubt loved, walk unhappily toward him across a field, a boy who had been like this for some time now, brooding, peevish, resolutely forlorn. And he guessed, as anyone would have guessed, that it was the usual problem—authority, a young man’s reluctance to submit to authority—exacerbated in this case perhaps by the arrival of Godwin, but otherwise no different from any other. And now the boy had done something to earn himself stone removal, an assignment anyone might resent. So Father had lectured me on obedience, the joys accruing to those who lead a life of unquestioning obedience. Granted it had been a rather new speech, one made fresh by experience, but there was nothing truly
extraordinary about it, certainly nothing clairvoyant. Yet how could I have seen it otherwise—I who then prayed daily for the destruction of my bishop? The young live life at a fever-pitch, don’t they, wear their hearts upon their sleeves, see angels behind every kindness, the devil beneath every ill? And who’s to say they’re wrong? Scripture teaches kindness to strangers “for some have entertained angels unawares.” Is it not possible that, on occasion, we entertain angels even absent the presence of strangers, that some thoughts, arising as they so often seem to out of thin air, may be just that: the issue of heavenly hosts? Who is to say then that Father, however unwittingly, did not give voice that day to Something long frustrated, Something yearning, groaning, to speak, Something which,
up until that moment, had awaited only the proper vessel? Certainly not I. For if God Himself had come down and paid me a visit, His face afire, the effect could not have been greater.
And yet, when I think about it, it wasn’t really Father’s lecture so much as the manner of its delivery that affected me. Again and again, in the days that followed, my mind’s eye pictured our former prior as he lay on those rocks, the little smile that played over his face when he spoke, the way his eyes had brightened as if, even as he made his points, he saw the logic of his argument unfold before him, as if God Himself supplied the text, revealed for him, moment by moment, the beauty of our Rule. And that he told me these things, said these things, not out of self-interest, not out of any hope that my acceptance of the Rule could make a difference to his station (for it could not), but because he so clearly wanted what was best for me, so clearly and unambiguously cared for me. And, finally, that he could do this without pretense. That this man who was assigned stone removal, who spent the better part of every day on his knees in the mud, could so unhesitatingly advise me to do the same thing, could lie there on the rock pile to which his Rule had led him and so humbly, so unselfconsciously, and yet so forthrightly, recommend the selfsame path.... This was what hurt. This was what cut to the bone. For I too had once been as sure as that. I too had once received the Body of Christ without thought or reservation. I too had seen God’s bow in the sky, been saved by His grace, witnessed His presence in the flowering of a cherry tree, the kindness of the men who watched over me. But now I was no longer worthy of those men, that God: I was become different, soiled, impure: I carried my prayer within me like a contagion—noxious, lethal, malign. I was amazed no one noticed. As I walked about the cloister, I felt the evil within me as a sort of stain, a heat that bloomed upon my face, stole up on me from out of my loins. I needed a clapper, a bell, something to warn these good men away, turn them from the devil in their midst. And how I envied them their innocence, how I regretted that prayer, that prayer which now I could not undo, that prayer which set me apart, placed me at odds with my community, indeed, with the world!
Children revel in such predicaments, don’t they, preferring always that which is unresolved, a middle course between two alternatives, over any decision that might set them finally and irrevocably upon what must seem to them a thankless path? Which is not to say I did nothing as a result of my conversation with Father Dagan. I did amend my behavior. From the moment Father and I arose from that rock pile, Bishop Wilfrid became safe from any further harm I might do him. But of course he was not safe from the harm already done. I had prayed for the man’s downfall, and, though I now expressly unprayed those prayers, I was not so foolish as to blithely believe their effect undone. I was after all a child of the monastery, from my earliest days I had known only the familiar cycle of sin followed by confession, followed by sin and confession again. That my offense against the Rule could only be righted according to the Rule was as much a part of me as my hands or my feet. I could no more believe myself forgiven without recourse to Faults than I could believe myself fed without recourse to food. And unforgiven, my prayers might mean nothing. Yet I feared confession. I had seen what had happened to Ealhmund. To be expelled from the monastery at a time when winter stocks had been reduced to scraps and famine was abroad upon the land...it did not bear contemplation. Still, I wanted to confess. I wanted to be pure again. I wanted to be like Dagan, like Osric; I wanted to be as I believed I once had been: blameless, chaste, happy, free. And so, like many before me, I bargained with God. I would follow His Way, become a slave to His Rule, if He (I prayed) would overlook the sin that gave birth to my devotion, the broken vow that played both midwife and fool to it all.
I began again to keep the Vigil. For the first time in my life I threw myself into the monastic round. I fasted regularly, spent entire holy days lying prostrate on the floor of the church, the deep sounds of the river rising to me through the flags, thrumming the bones of my chest. The only thing that I did not do was pray as the hermit had taught me to pray. For I feared that form of prayer now, feared opening myself up like that, exposing myself like that before God because...well, who knew what God might do with someone who had asked what I had asked? But always excepting this, I otherwise became the very image of a good oblate: silent, devout, unstinting in his attention to the office, uncomplaining in his acceptance of fate. Of course very little of this was real, sincere, though it did provide some diversion. Fasting for instance made the general hunger (common, degrading, banal) seem somehow private and unique, while lack of sleep kept what bad thoughts did arise vague, fleeting, immaterial. Which is not to say that, just because my devotions lacked depth, they did not appear genuine. Indeed, it sometimes seems it is exactly those devotions that are the most vain, the most superficial, that attract the most attention. And in this, my case was no different from any other. I became an object of speculation in the monastery. The suddenness of my conversion of manners was commented upon favorably in Faults. Brothers began to point me out to one another upon the garth, their fingers a blur of breathless approval. Why once even Maban mentioned me in Chapter, setting me up as an example to be followed, and I had to swallow back the bile, assume custody of the eyes, pretend I was only embarrassed when in truth I felt an almost physical revulsion. Oddly enough it was Baldwin, grown deaf and half-blind with age now, who saw through this duplicity. I’ll never forget the day he stood up in Faults and pointed at me
across the hall, his face long and pale beneath his hood, arm stretched out before him like the arm of God, voice filling the space between us, rising into the rafters. “I know you,” he said, “I know your secret. I know what goes on when you think no one is looking, how vile it is, how disgusting. I know what true innocence looks like!” And then, voice cracking, eyes filling suddenly with tears, he began to speak of Oftfor, little Oftfor, that name so seldom heard in Chapter now, so nearly unremembered, the earth where his body received its final ablutions long since grown untidy with weeds, neglected, forgotten. But of course the tears didn’t help. Baldwin was old now, cried easily now, and so it was a simple matter to overlook what he said, the monks shouldering one another good-naturedly, pointing with their chins at the old has-been, chuckling silently. I’ll never forget the way Prior Maban— tossing me a glance of understanding that froze my blood— walked across to the old obedientiary, patted him on the shoulder, whispered something in his ear; how Baldwin started up, glanced down at himself, back at the man before him, the man he probably only vaguely recognized, looked at him as if he were some sort of savior; and, finally, I’ll never forget what it felt like to watch Baldwin—Baldwin who for so long had held such power over our lives—bow gratefully to that small man, bow and, holding himself like a little boy desperate for the reredorter, turn and hurry across the room, out the door. There were one or two snickers, silenced by a look from Maban, and then a general sigh of relief, the brothers settling back into the real business at hand, shaking their heads, congratulating themselves on the wisdom of their prior, the way in which he had so tactfully relieved them of this tiresome old man. And only I, only I, still felt the force of what had been said, still saw Baldwin standing there, arm raised, finger pointing, the name that he had spoken still hanging on the air—Oftfor, holy little Oftfor, he whose sandals I was not fit to untie.
But, as I have said, Baldwin was the only one who recognized my deceit. For the others I became, I think, a sort of ornament, the shiny bauble they held up to each other as proof of our monastery’s precision: that such a place could turn a child so
obdurate and pig-headed into one so humble and devout showed we must be headed in the right direction, proved that the Rule could be depended upon to deliver its charges safely and unerringly into the hands of God. What was for me a remedy, a salve, a penance for sin so grave as to be unmentionable, became likewise a balm for their doubts. When things went poorly, when the rains came and we couldn’t plant or the drains clogged and the whole p
lace smelled for days on end offish, they nudged each other and smiled as I passed them on the garth, confident that, despite such minor setbacks, the monastery must be headed in the right direction...for look at Winwæd, how else to explain Winwæd?
When whimsy supplants wisdom as ruler of a man’s thoughts, it’s said he must give said whimsy a proper throne, place a laurel upon its brow, crown it with gold and precious stones, for how else can he see it, how else perceive such a formless nothing amid the hard cold realities of his world? And so it was with me and the role I now came to play in our monastery. Surely, it was said (upon the garth, at the lavabo, down among the peas), such a boy is destined for greatness—the priesthood, an abbacy, who knew, maybe even a bishopric? And, needless to say,
I was not so lost in my devotion to the Rule as to be deaf to such opinions. Indeed, I even began to allow myself to consider them, to tell myself that maybe, maybe if I did all the wonderful things that were predicted for me, threw myself into a life of service, then maybe, maybe God would overlook the other, maybe, in some heavenly balance, such achievements would make expiation for my sin, outweigh the secret evil I had done. But God is a loving God. He will not permit such self-deception to go long unchecked. And, for One who was not above humbling Himself upon a cross, it must have seemed a minor thing to lower Himself that night to the dortoir.