Sylvia

by Bryce Courtenay

  I’ll do what you ask.

  Sleep with me! If you don’t want to,

  there’s no point in saying more.

  Oh poor me!

  No use doing more,

  wasting my life.

  But at least

  I can kill myself!

  Then when the song was ended I would reach the point of private pleasure and thereafter I would weep with a longing for the lute player. Knowing all the while that if my thoughts were impure and I was sinning, I could not help myself and knew I would return to do so again and again.

  How I longed for the company of the courtesans at Ali Baba’s who seemed to me far nicer than the nuns of Disibodenberg. While the girls quarrelled constantly among themselves, they were far less spiteful, secretive and cruel than the noble and holy sisters who were now my sisters in Christ. I greatly missed Master Israel and his corny Jewish jokes and gentle wisdom, and Frau Sarah with her up-and-down moods and plans, her scheming and herbal secrets passed on to me so that the street children would benefit.

  I missed dear Father Paulus who was going deaf in the belltower of St Martin’s as penance for sins he thought about but could never do, even if he should have the opportunity to do them. And Father Hermann also, so full of bombast and secret low esteem but also love and compassion for the poor. I much longed for his daily company and also that of young Nicholas, who since the occasion of the magic mushrooms possessed the fire of salvation in his belly and a compelling voice for the poor and hungry starvelings of the street. But most of all I missed the ratcatcher and the life he and I had led together.

  I had lost all this and more in order that I might seek the truth. While I gained knowledge where I now found myself, I gained no wisdom. I would grow old incarcerated in a convent, old and bitter. I knew that as I grew older and gained more knowledge (more truth), I might well compose religious texts and essays and even sermons that others might read or preach. But I knew already that if my writing told the truth as I hoped it might, it would be too controversial. A complacent Church of Rome would burn or bury it in some dusty archive. Or, if what I had discovered was, at the very least, worthy of debate, then it would be condemned as the ranting of a female scribe, therefore of no possible importance to God’s work.

  Brother Dominic constantly pronounced me brilliant and talked of sending me to Rome when I had taken the nun’s vow. But more and more I thought myself entirely stupid. Why had I locked myself away where I could do no good in a world that needed both nurturing and enlightenment? If this was the only way to gain true knowledge, then I was beginning to understand that the price of learning was going to prove too high. I had worked long enough among the street children in Cologne to know where a nun’s work needs to be. Yet I was languishing in a convent where the holy sisters, all born into privilege, spent their twittering lives mumbling prayers they did not feel and did not understand and looked upon the poor with undisguised disgust.

  Then, just when I had reached the point of despair, the archbishop came to visit the monastery and while celebrating high mass heard me sing. Afterwards he declared that a cart would be sent for me and that once a week, accompanied by two nuns, I must sing at the morning mass he conducted at St Mary’s on the Kapitol. I was to be allowed out and would stay at the cloisters of St Mary’s overnight. This meant that we would need to leave the convent in the morning of the day before and I would have the pleasures of the countryside to enjoy and even perchance the opportunity to speak occasionally to the peasant folk. I might also, perhaps through Nicholas, find a way to see Master Israel and Frau Sarah and even on occasion the girls from Ali Baba’s.

  I was not to know that this self-serving decision by the archbishop to have me sing at his mass was to be the beginning of the greatest tragedy the Church has ever committed upon the lives of children. Moreover, I would be one of the main perpetrators of this terrible crime, all the while thinking I had at last found both a truth and a miracle that confounded me, a truth brought about by the faith and purity of the hearts of children and a miracle sent by the precious Saviour to guide and to instruct it. At last I would achieve my desire to become a true and humble instrument of God.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Suffer Little Children

  REGARDLESS OF HOW WELL I comported myself, and despite having completed my novice year, my peasant birth was not to be forgiven and, in addition, my aptitude to learning was deeply resented. I was still given every onerous task the abbess could think of to consume my time at the convent so as to prevent me reading. I would be made to empty the bedpans as penance for misdemeanours I did not commit, or made to knead dough until my arms felt as if they would drop off. I would chop and carry wood for the kitchen fire and on my knees clean the floor of the lavatorium. These were all tasks usually given to the lay sisters, but the abbess taunted me by saying, ‘You think yourself high and mighty from all your learning, Sylvia. You will never be likened to the blessed Hildegard. I must protect her from your insidious ambitions. It is my God-given task to teach you humility and grace!’

  The tasks the abbess gave me were of little concern and I suffered them gladly for the opportunity it gave me to have Brother Dominic as my tutor. Despite her constant ridicule and attempts to disparage me in the eyes of the nuns, I loved the convent for the learning I was receiving. The long afternoons of study always seemed to pass too quickly. Then, glory be! Praise to the archbishop! Each Sunday I found myself in Cologne singing at his early-morning mass at St Mary’s on the Kapitol, or at St Martin’s where he would conduct mass every alternate Sunday.

  I was escorted to Cologne from the convent by two nuns, a task that was much cherished among the sisters of Christ who were always eager to accompany me. A great deal of bickering and bargaining took place in order to be chosen as my escorts, though I hasten to say this was not for the honour of my company. They were women of noble birth and always knew someone in Cologne they could visit after attending mass and the Sunday morning service. It was a rare opportunity to socialise and they knew I would not talk of it to the abbess.

  We would spend Saturday and Sunday nights in the cloisters of St Mary’s and return to the convent the following Monday morning, departing Cologne immediately after the Angelus was rung. That is, we were supposed to sojourn at the cloisters but we were directly under the orders of the archbishop who, apart from allowing us to stay in the nuns’ dorter, left no instructions as to our hours of prayer or our containment. Moreover, the prioress of St Mary’s had no authority over us and so we were free to spend the Sunday afternoon much as we wished. It was not infrequent that one or another or both nuns came back to the cloisters just in time for the Angelus and our departure on Monday morning. They’d be escorted back to the church in a nobleman’s fancy carriage and would wear a smug look to their faces on the long day’s journey home.

  These indiscreet visits by my two escorts suited me as perfectly as it did them. I would sneak away to visit Master Israel and Frau Sarah, as their Sabbath was completed the previous day, and they always welcomed me. The winkelhaus was closed for Sunday, so it was the girls’ day off and we were free to spend time together. They were delighted to see me and I them, for there was no better source of gossip and laughter. When I returned to the convent Rosa would badger me for details and she longed to accompany me on one such trip to Cologne. ‘We will hatch a plan,’ I promised. ‘Something will come up.’

  Of course I also spent time with Father Hermann, Father Paulus and Nicholas, who was becoming famous for his preaching to the children and always waited to greet me when the cart from the convent arrived. I had become increasingly concerned over Nicholas’s behaviour. Sometimes he was the firebrand who swept thousands of children off their feet with his preaching, and at other times he was bereft of enthusiasm and hardly spoke, his mercurial tongue slurred and his famous energy forsaken. In the summer, if he was in fine fettle, we would spend Sunday afternoon in the woods where one Sunday he confessed he frequently used magic mushroo
ms.

  ‘But you don’t know how they are prepared!’ I exclaimed, dismayed.

  He laughed. ‘I do now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Frau Sarah had told me that if not prepared in a certain way and taken in the correct amount they could lead to dangerous visions or other manifestations. Perhaps this accounted for his different moods, I thought. ‘Did you skin them? How many did you take?’

  ‘Nay, not at first and I took four, then three the next time and then two thereafter. Each time I thought I was going to die.’

  ‘Half of one, Nicholas! That is the correct amount. Half of one and skinned! But why then did you persist?’

  ‘Voices. I hear bad voices,’ he said.

  ‘Huh? You hear bad voices when you take them?’

  ‘Nay, when I don’t.’

  ‘When you don’t? What sort of voices?’

  ‘Satan’s voices,’ he said, looking at me tearfully.

  ‘Bad?’

  He nodded.

  ‘And when you take the mushroom?’

  ‘Jesus returns.’

  ‘What? His voice, Christ’s voice?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And that’s what makes you preach to the children?’

  ‘Aye. “Suffer little children to come unto me.” It is His command and I must follow it. But when the bad voices come I can’t.’

  ‘Nicholas, for how long after you take the mushroom does the voice of Jesus come to you?’

  ‘Sometimes a week, sometimes three weeks, even more.’

  ‘And then it goes?’

  ‘No, it changes.’

  ‘Changes how?’

  ‘I feel a great torpor descend upon me and then it is not the Saviour’s voice any more. It is evil. It is Satan. Satan speaks to me.’ He started to cry and I held him to my breast. ‘I don’t want to hear those other voices, Sylvia! Only Jesus! Jesus is my Saviour! I only want to hear Jesus!’ he now wept like a small boy.

  After a while he calmed down and I continued to question him. ‘But the magic mushrooms are not always easy to be found. What do you do when there are none?’ Frau Sarah had always stressed that they must be picked and used fresh.

  ‘Aye, you are right.’ His hand went to the inside of his tunic and produced a small linen bag and loosening the drawstring he removed a dried mushroom. ‘They are dried and then I soak them in water and soon they are plump again. Although I must use three times as much – the magic is not as strong when they have been dried,’ he explained.

  ‘Nicholas, listen to me, this is not magic!’ I cried.

  ‘What then?’ he asked.

  ‘There is something in them that turns the mind, it is not good to take them all the time!’

  ‘Sylvia, you said yourself that they were of God’s creation.’ He then repeated the conversation we had had in the woods the first time we had found the magic mushrooms. ‘You said the mushroom was like praying, which you said was inward healing. “Prayer heals our spirit while we pray,” you said. You also said a mushroom is God’s own work.’ He quoted me again. ‘“If He has caused it to induce visions that are safe and heal the spirit and instruct the mind, are they not to be tried?”’ He looked at me accusingly. ‘That’s what you said, Sylvia.’

  His sharp mind had not diminished with his taking the mushroom and I felt myself unable to answer other than to say, ‘Nicholas, I, like you, have taken the mushroom and now know its efficacy. It only alters the perception of what we see. It distorts our concept of things – trees and grass and sky change colour. Everything is exaggerated: water jugs, ravens and tree roots become a winged demon with a long tail, the bread we took to eat becomes a rising cloud, and the fish changes to play a different part in this mushroom-induced vision. Don’t you see?’ I pleaded. ‘It is simply a thing of the mind! It is not a miracle or a message from God.’

  But Nicholas remained unconvinced. ‘Sylvia, you saw only coloured trees and well explain the reason for the devilkin, but it was not the same with me. I witnessed a miracle. Christ Jesus appeared before my very eyes. “Suffer little children to come unto me,” He commanded, then told me to preach, to lead the children to salvation. If it was only a trance then why could I afterwards find words in my mouth I’d never summoned before? Words such as “Jerusalem”, words of God and the way of repentance and salvation, words that children can understand, when previously they’ve ignored the sermons and the threat of hellfire and eternal condemnation when these words are spoken by a priest or bishop or even archbishop?’

  I thought for a moment, trying to find another way to explain what had happened to Nicholas. ‘Nicholas, you have always been a leader. The street children have always done your bidding when they would heed no other person. It is something you have within your character. Moreover, you wish to become a priest and have heard a thousand sermons, priestly words planted in your mind.

  The trance that first time, it may well have moved a block in your mind. Now all those priestly words and God’s messages that snuggled, hidden in your head since childhood, are made available and are on your own tongue with your particular translation and expression. That is what the magic mushroom can do! Sometimes they remove these blocks, these fears that we cannot do what we wish to do.’ In the end I was well pleased with this explanation. The lessons in reasoning I was receiving from Brother Dominic were, I felt, beginning to work.

  Nicholas, as he always did, dwelt upon my words for several moments before answering. ‘Then why do I hear Satan’s voice when I wish only to listen to the words of Jesus?’ He did not wait for me to reply. ‘Why when I take the mushroom does the voice of Jesus return to guide me?’

  My confidence in reason and the manner in which I had established my previous explanation now found no answers – I had no way of explaining why taking the mushroom would banish the devil and restore the voice of Jesus. ‘I don’t know,’ I said, my voice flat. ‘But I feel sure there is some simple explanation. Perhaps it is your expectation, something your mind wants to hear.’ But I could see he remained unconvinced, as I was myself.

  ‘Verily there is an explanation, Sylvia,’ he said, looking directly at me. ‘I am chosen to greatness by Jesus and the devil would tempt me. It is as simple as that. Satan is sent by God to test my faith. To see if I am worthy or not. When I wish to know what Jesus wishes me to do He has given me the magic mushrooms to chase away the devil and his attendant demons and to restore His presence.’

  ‘Nay, Nicholas, it was I who showed you them.’

  ‘Aye, but God who used them not on thee, but on me!’ he replied emphatically. ‘You saw coloured trees and created from one thing another in your mind, but I came face to face with our Saviour.’

  ‘Who have you told of this?’

  ‘Thou art the first and only.’

  ‘Not Father Hermann?’

  ‘Nay!’

  ‘Have you prayed upon it?’

  ‘Often.’

  ‘Nicholas, you are fourteenand may do as you have alwayswished.’ I placed my forefinger under his nose and rubbed. ‘There is some evidence of hair under your nose, a sometime moustache!’ I laughed, attempting to lighten the conversation. ‘You are now a man. Will you now enter a monastery and prepare to take holy orders?’

  ‘If that is God’s wish,’ he said seriously, not smiling at my little joke. ‘But I think not. Our Lord has even greater plans for me.’

  ‘Greater? What could be greater than serving Him? A priest, a servant of God?’ I asked, slightly shocked, thinking perhaps that my stories of my treatment at Disibodenberg may have caused him to change his mind.

  He looked at me steadily, then shrugged. ‘I am already a servant of God, Sylvia. I preach to more children than may be contained in St Mary’s and St Martin’s together. Jesus has plans greater, then . . .’ He did not explain further.

  ‘Greater, then what?’

  ‘Never mind, you’ll see when the time comes,’ he said, dismissing my question.

  ‘Will you continue to
preach to children?’

  ‘That is my calling,’ he replied. ‘“Suffer little children to come unto me.”’

  That was the trouble with me. I simply couldn’t accept that Nicholas was truly blessed, a child prophet or mystic with a purpose ordained by Jesus Himself. Father Hermann would have no trouble accepting this evidence. Given half the chance I knew that the good priest would equally embrace the mushroom and name it Christ’s glorious potion or some such thing in order to accommodate it within his faith. Without even knowing about the magic mushrooms he had declared the tiny cave where Nicholas’s vision had taken place a holy shrine. I was told that people were already visiting it. Why was I consumed by doubt when others were so eager to believe? Just one miracle, Lord, show me just one miracle, I begged daily while praying.

  I wanted so badly to believe, to renounce doubt and to embrace faith, to accept as others did without questioning. But my mind refused. It was I who had the block that must be removed but I knew it would not come about by taking the magic mushrooms. They could only create distortion – objects and things seen otherwise than the way they truly were. Whereas what I needed was the opposite – things seen otherwise that were shown to be the truth. I wanted a miracle shown to me that I could not explain.

  I set myself conundrums that I tried to solve. For instance, when a ploughman is struck by lightning the people cry out that it is the wrath of God, that His fiery hand has descended from heaven to punish the ploughman who has dared to blaspheme. But when the ploughman’s ox is struck by lightning, how may a beast become guilty of blasphemy? Does God punish an ox for resisting the yoke? Or if a tree is struck, is this because the tree did not render shelter to a weary pilgrim? What if I rush out into the field while the storm rages and shout profanities and curse the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, then challenge Him to strike me dead? If no sudden bolt from heaven strikes me down, is this then the result of His everlasting mercy? My mind was becoming plagued with questions to which I could find no answers.