Sylvia

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘You will sing now! At once!’ Frau Anna commanded.

  I concentrated my eyes on the bridge of my nose so that they crossed alarmingly. It was an expression I sometimes used to delight the children when a dummkopf appeared as a character in one of my fairy stories.

  The priest laughed scornfully. ‘Ah, I see . . . the demon’s eyes have reappeared!’

  ‘Sing, child! I demand it!’ Frau Anna screamed furiously.

  I remained silent with my eyes crossed, the idiot’s grin fixed to my face.

  Father Pietrus rose from his chair and, with a dismissive wave of his hand, cried, ‘Enough! The child is an imbecile and you are three foolish old women who have wasted the Church’s time. Be gone . . . the lot of you!’

  Outside the Church Frau Anna let fly with a cuff to the side of my head, knocking me to the ground. ‘Whore! Satan’s child!’ she screamed, then one of her stout boots landed in my ribs. I scrambled to my feet and ran for my life, losing a borrowed shoe in the process and kicking the other free so that I might run the harder.

  I hid in the woods until near darkness when the late-autumn cold caused me to return to the cottage. The moment I entered, I saw that the oil lamp had been lit: he was home. I was not quick enough to escape before my father, concealed behind the door, grabbed me. The pigs, grunting as they always did at my approach, had warned him of my arrival. ‘Ha! The mute has returned!’ he declared triumphantly. I could smell the grog on his breath as he held me to his chest, lifting my feet off the ground. ‘You would deny the priest the pleasure of your angel’s voice, would you? A mute, are you? An imbecile and a mute! You seek to shame me in the eyes of the Church, me, a Christ-forgiven crusader!’

  I knew if I should struggle or shout out that he would crush the breath from me. I remained silent and unresisting with my head averted. He dropped me to the dirt floor where I landed on my bottom, then scrambled to my knees in an attempt to escape. Despite his peg leg and drunken state he was quick to grab me by the wrist and wrench me to my feet. ‘What have you to say, slut?’ His evil face and the wet shine of spittle on his broken teeth repulsed me, while his foul breath almost caused me to suffocate. Yet I remained silent. ‘Speak or I shall beat you!’ With this he twisted my arm around my back, pulling it upwards until I thought it must surely snap from my shoulder. The pain was so great I could only gasp. Somehow I managed to contain the agony, for I was prepared to die rather than to speak out.

  Then, quite unexpectedly he released the pressure on my arm and started to chuckle, then to laugh uproariously. ‘My little whore,’ he gasped. ‘I have just realised . . . you have done your papa a great favour!’ He broke into renewed laughter. ‘No more fucking piglet for the poxy priest! You are now an officially sanctioned mute and an imbecile. What I do to your body is of no concern to the Holy Church. You are possessed by an evil demon and as a child of Satan you do not have a soul that can be redeemed and so . . .’ he giggled, ‘I have no more need to waste a fat piglet on the priest.’

  Let me explain the matter of my father, the priest and the piglet. With each new litter fattened, my father would sell them to the innkeeper for drink money but retain the fattest of the piglets and, as my mother had always done, gift it to the Church. It was, by the standards of the other peasants, a generous gift and one Father Pietrus could expect unfailingly. He would announce my father’s beneficence from the pulpit, always careful to point out that as a crusader he was already granted a place in heaven by His Holiness the Pope. He would then add that such a valuable gift of pork came from a generous nature alone and not in the hope that it might win favour in the eyes of God. In God’s eyes, the priest would point out, this made my redeemed father all the more worthy of his place in paradise.

  The fact that my father was a drunkard and a child abuser I now saw counted for little in the eyes of Father Pietrus. In the first matter, did not Christ himself declare, ‘A little wine for thy stomach’s sake’? With the second matter, a child to be caused to suffer carnal knowledge was not uncommon among peasant behaviour. Besides, the matter had not been officially brought to the Church’s attention and was in all likelihood simply the idle chatter of female busybodies and gossips. Moreover, my father must have known that as long as he continued his ‘donation’ the priest’s fondness for suckling pig would override his ecclesiastic conscience. Though this was my own surmise, I felt sure at the time, and still do, that it comes close to the truth.

  Moreover, if what I had concluded was true and Father Pietrus should accept the Miracle of the Gloria and take it to the bishop for ratification, things would be decidedly different. In the eyes of the congregation he would be forced to confront the issue of my father using his girl child wantonly for his own gratification and then there would be no more piglet for his table. This well explained the priest’s indifference to the possibility of a miracle having occurred. Plainly, the certainty of the thrice-annual gift of a suckling pig was of much greater value to him than the unlikely miracle in the marketplace. Nor, I realised, would he give a tinker’s cuss for the additional singing voice of a child who was one of his congregation, no matter how heavenly the sound.

  My father still held my wrist in his giant paw. ‘Come, liebling, we must celebrate!’ he now declared gleefully. ‘Merrily, merrily, to the pigsty we will go!’ His enormous size and strength left me with no protection against him, and now, with my hand once again twisted behind my back, he forced me the short distance from the cottage to the pigsty.

  It had been a long and eventful day that I’d started as a blessed and holy child and ended as one of Satan’s children with my dress above my waist, bent over the old wine cask so that my father might take his grunting pleasure. I had found the strength to resist Frau Anna and the priest but had been rendered impotent by this brutish animal.

  I have since in my adult life discovered that there are times when we must decide whether we will be crushed by the weight we carry or attempt to remove it whatever the cost. But I had never thought to resist my father, even though I knew that he had destroyed me. Behind me the cruel bastard was grunting and moaning when I suddenly decided I could take no more, even if it should cost me my life. I kicked out backwards, aiming the ball of my foot at his peg leg. I felt it slip then give way under his weight, sending him crashing onto his back into the pig shit.

  Stricken with panic, without glancing back I clambered from the sty and fled into the nearby darkening woods. I knew that my escape was ultimately pointless, that I was only delaying the beating I would eventually receive. But I was beyond caring and vowed that he would never again take me to the pigsty. Within the safety of the woods I sought out the giant oak under which my mother and I would in times past sit. I wrapped my arms about the trunk and taking comfort from the rough reliable bark pressed against my cheek I started to sing, my voice choked with tears. I sang several Glorias and all the sad folksongs my mother had taught me until eventually I fell into a tearful and exhausted sleep.

  I awoke the following morning and but for the warm shawl Gooseneck had wrapped around my shoulders when we had set out to see the priest I would have near frozen to death. Cramped and sore from sitting against the trunk of the oak I massaged my aching limbs to bring back the circulation. The sun was not yet up, although the dawn light had set the cock to crowing and the magpies, always the first of the bird calls, were chattering in the trees around me. I crept out of the woods towards the cottage, approaching the pigsty on my way. Pigs grunt in an unmistakable fashion when they are eating and as I approached I heard them carrying on as if they were at the trough. I crept up to take a closer look. Brass Leg Peter the Forgiven Coward lay on his back in the black, slimy mud, the clothes torn from his bloody carcass. The boar stood over him, a section of my father’s gaping stomach hanging from the side of its mouth, its great pink snout covered in blood. The pigs had set about the softest parts first, going for the contents of his huge stomach, now a visceral hole where his intestines would once have curled and ru
mbled. In the process of tearing open his abdomen, the animals had also eaten the appendage that had caused me so much childhood suffering.

  And so my childhood, both good and bad, was finally over. Several of the village men at the inn that night recalled that my father had left overcome with anger when Frau Anna’s husband had brought him the news of my mute recalcitrance in front of the priest that had caused the Miracle of the Gloria to be rejected. The general conclusion was that he’d entered the pigsty for some reason and slipped, knocking his temple against its stone wall and falling unconscious to the ground where the pigs had viciously attacked and eaten him.

  The three pigs were pronounced unclean and were summarily slaughtered and buried, the priest saying a prayer for the parts of my father that were missing from his body but refusing to bury the remaining parts in consecrated ground. As both the sows were pregnant at the time, with their disposal went any hope that I might survive the coming winter by selling the fattened piglets. Nor could I expect any local sympathy – the news that the priest had rejected the Miracle of the Gloria, together with Frau Anna’s self-preserving description of my behaviour in the vestry and her conclusion that the demon had returned, meant that I was once again a miserable outcast.

  While I had the means to survive the coming winter with turnips and onions stored and winter cabbage growing in the garden, I had not counted on the redoubtable Frau Anna. Together with a contingent of village women she arrived at the cottage a day after my father’s burial. Indicating the women who accompanied her, Gooseneck and Frogface among them, she declared, ‘We have had a meeting and have decided you may no longer remain in the village. It is clear to us all that the demon has returned to possess your soul and we are afraid that our sons and husbands will be tempted with a desire for Satan’s flesh. You will soon be twelve years old and so no longer a child but a grown woman. We have declared you a wanton hussy and a whore and not a woman we want among us. You must leave this village forever!’ At this a general murmur of approval came from the assembled fat and oh so self-righteous women. Frau Anna had not only regained her former status as Gossip Queen and leader in their eyes, but was now being hailed as the protector of the virtue of their husbands and sons. The eleven-year-old harlot possessed by the devil would, at twelve, no longer be forbidden fruit but instead become fair game for an adulterous husband or cock-randy son.

  ‘This is my home, my cottage and my land,’ I protested.

  ‘Ha! You are possessed, your inheritance will be subsumed by the Holy Church, you have no soul and so no rights other than to become a ward of the Church.’ She pointed her fat finger at me. ‘But first it will be necessary for Father Pietrus to cast out the demon that now possesses you!’ A general nodding of heads and murmuring of agreement followed.

  I must say I couldn’t blame them; after all, in their eyes I was Satan’s child, a whore and, had they only known it, I was now guilty of murder as well. But of one thing I was certain: I was not possessed and would rather depart this wicked village than submit myself to Father Pietrus for the ritual of exorcism.

  ‘You have a week to leave us, Sylvia Honeyeater!’ Frau Anna said and then added with a final snort, ‘Good riddance!’ With this the women departed as though they were a gaggle of geese, well satisfied with their morning’s work.

  I felt myself to have no choice but to seek a new life elsewhere as my stay in the village was over. If I were to stay I would always be lesser than the rest of them, tainted by the demon’s occupation and forever forlorn. So I took my only possessions, the hens and the rooster, together with my father’s carpenter’s tools, to the market hoping to sell them. But now people, seeming to enjoy my fall from grace, declared the hens not worth feeding and the tools no longer fit for use. One fat frau, whom I’d previously dubbed Frau Horse’s Arse, sniffed at the hens and said, ‘Ja, maybe also these hens share the same food as the pigs?’ This brought an all-round cackle and further discouraged any customers.

  Having failed to sell anything at the market I decided to try the nearby Monastery of St Thomas, where the kitchen monk complained bitterly that the hens were aged and possessed no meat and were suitable only for the soup pot. It wasn’t true – my hens were young, in good health and steady layers and the rooster was a lusty fellow. Greed, I was discovering, lives in every man, lacks a conscience and grows fat on the misfortunes of others.

  The whining monk was no different to the peasants at the market. Finally, complaining all the while, the monk exchanged the chickens for a small bag of corn, sufficient if I was careful to sustain me for no more than a week on the road.

  The tools I took to the monastery carpenter’s shop and foundry where the carpentry monk, an older and altogether kindlier person who introduced himself as Father John, examined them, then inquired closely why they were for sale, perhaps thinking I had stolen them. I told him of the death of my father and explained my circumstances.

  He placed his hand on my head and sighed. ‘Orphanus,’ he said, consoling me. ‘We have heard of the Miracle of the Gloria. You are that blessed child?’ he asked, surprised.

  ‘It was not a miracle, Father, only some stupid villagers making up stuff they think they saw.’

  ‘So you were not a mute who was gifted with an angel’s voice?’

  ‘I have sung to God’s glory since I was a small child,’ I replied.

  ‘And now what will you do?’

  I shrugged. ‘Leave the village and go somewhere else . . . somewhere far away.’

  ‘I see, a pilgrimage maybe?’

  ‘If my sins may be forgiven I should like to do that, Father,’ I answered, remembering my father’s mocking words in the pigsty.

  ‘Ah, yes . . . sins. We all have those. How old are you, child?’

  ‘Eleven years . . . I think.’

  ‘And what sins have you at such a tender age? Have you stolen? Have you used Christ’s name in vain? Have you dishonoured the memory of your mother? What sins have you committed that would merit the trials and tribulations of a pilgrimage?’

  ‘Sins of the flesh and sins of the spirit. I am condemned to the everlasting fires of hell,’ I replied emphatically, wondering what he might say if I confessed to murdering my father.

  ‘Oh dear, that bad, is it?’ Father John seemed to be thinking for a moment. ‘I am but a humble carpenter monk and so cannot take your confession, maybe you should see your village priest?’

  ‘No!’ I cried, suddenly afraid. ‘Father Pietrus thinks me a mute and an imbecile and, because of the false miracle, claims I am possessed and have blasphemed in the eyes of God.’

  The elderly monk shook his head sadly. ‘Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God,’ he quoted. Then he said quietly, ‘The Lord Jesus does not punish children for sins of the flesh and of the spirit and they do not become possessed and are not blasphemers, but he does forgive them what small sins they have committed. From what I have heard of this so-called miracle, you have only used it as an opportunity to praise our Saviour in hymns to His glory.’

  ‘Yes, but I may not sing anywhere near the Church as I am unclean and burdened with sinfulness.’

  ‘Hmm . . . I see . . . awkward then.’ He smiled. ‘You would be a child sinner singing to the oh-so-pious peasants.’ Father John seemed to think this notion quite amusing. ‘Well if you can’t confess you really are in a bit of pickle, are you not? You have been given a glorious voice to praise the Lord but now cannot use it near His temple.’

  ‘Only alone in the woods,’ I allowed.

  He clapped his hands. ‘Ah, such innocence! A child alone in the woods singing to the glory of God.’

  I corrected my previous statement. ‘No, never quite alone.

  I call the birds and we sing together and sometimes the village children are present.’

  He looked doubtful. ‘You call the birds?’

  I nodded. ‘They like to sing to the glory of God.’

  He looked a
t me quizzically, then mocking me gently asked, ‘Hymns . . . Gloria?’

  ‘No, Father, birds have songs of praise of their own. We exchange hymns, theirs are much the sweeter sounding.’

  He laughed. ‘You have a lovely imagination, child.’

  The carpentry shop together with a small casting foundry was set within the monastery garden and now after harvest, when the remaining fruit and corn were ripe, it was filled with birds. I stepped outside and listened, deciding on the nature of the birds I could hear. Then, taking a small handful of corn from the bag the kitchen monk had given me, I began to exchange their various calls using a pattern I had come to know through a process of trial and error and starting with the chattering magpie. The monk came to stand beside me and I bade him stretch his arms wide and open his palms to heaven whereupon I placed a little seed in each. As I continued the calls, birds began to gather in the tree above us. Quite soon the tree was filled with birdsong. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, I changed my voice from the carolling of a songbird into the first words of the Gloria in Excelsis, keeping it high and pure so that the birds above me continued in their own hymn of praise to Almighty God. A magpie, the cheekiest of all the birds, came to sit upon the monk’s left hand, pecking at the corn. Soon a robin hopped from a branch and settled on the right, its breast scarlet in the autumn sunlight.

  While I had often performed in the woods with the birds for the benefit of the village children, no adult had ever been a witness to the swapping of hymns of praise. In my experience, purity and innocence is soon sullied or exploited in the hands of adults. The false Miracle of the Gloria was just such an example: those who witnessed my singing in the marketplace could not accept it as a child with a pure, clear voice singing a hymn of praise, but must necessarily turn it into a miracle. Father John I hoped might be different. No adult had ever spoken to me in the compassionate and understanding manner he had adopted, nor treated me with such respect, and I thought him worthy to be the first adult to witness the Gloria of the Birds.