Godric

by Frederick Buechner

  A stout woman with a kerchief on her head stood close beside. Burcwen looked like clothes hung on a stick to keep off crows.

  “I've been staying with the Durham nuns,” she said. “Sister Hailtun's kindly come to help me fetch my things. The prioress has given leave to take me in as one of them. So I'll be leaving now for good. I'm here to say farewell.”

  Sister Hailtun had the voice to crack a nut. She said, “The brother lives a holy hermit's life! The sister gives herself to be Christ's bride! How proud the mother would have been of such a pair!” She set her hands upon her hips and clucked at us.

  I knew why Burcwen brought her. If we'd been just the two of us alone, we would have either had to say things better left unsaid or ever after rued not saying them. This way we couldn't load our words with more than Sister Hailtun's ears would hold.

  I said, “Go in peace then, Burcwen. May God have mercy on our souls and grant us years enough so one day we may meet again.”

  “Or else may Heaven be our meeting place,” she said. “If we can only pray and fast our sins away, perhaps they'll let us slip through good Saint Peter's gate at last.”

  “With souls as pure as yours already are,” said Sister Hailtun, “they'd welcome you this day, or I'll be switched.”

  “Pray for me, Burcwen,” I said.

  She said, “And you for me.”

  I said, “I'Il not forget.”

  “Nor yet shall I, though I should live to Aedwen's age,” she said. “Godric, farewell.”

  “Farewell,” I said. We clasped hands for a moment. Then she turned to go. Sister Hailtun's were the only tears. “A parting's like an onion. It brings the water to my eyes,” she said. Then she and Burcwen walked off through the trees.

  I saw my sister only one more time. By then some fifteen years had gone. Flambard summoned me to Easter mass at Durham. In gorgeous robes he and his fellow priests were breaking up the body of Our Lord in five and sixty pieces. These they laid out on the altar one by one to make a cross of bread while back and forth the monks were chanting psalms. The nave was filled. And as I gazed out over all those heads, I saw Burcwen.

  She was standing by a great stone column, her hair itself as grey as stone and other grey nuns all about. At first she didn't see me there, then raised her eyes, and when they met with mine, it was as if all else between was swept away. She was so far we had no way to speak, nor was there any sign to make, but monks would need at least a year with pen and quill to set down all we somehow said. She closed her eyes then, I closed mine, and while the Bishop with a palsied hand poured out Christ's blood, we bade our last farewell.

  Soon afterwards I saw the death of Roger Mouse. I had my eyes fixed on the lowering sky when all at once, as if the clouds were waves, I saw the Saint Esprit. The wind had rent her sail. Her bow was split. She foundered on the rocks off Wales. Mouse stood on deck alone.

  He had one arm about the mast. The water scudded in about his knees. His hair was white as spume. When he opened up his mouth to cry, I saw his teeth were mostly gone. And yet his voice was no less strong than when I'd heard it cursing me at Jaffa years before, nor was it any cry of fear. Instead he gave one wild last shout as if to say DIE! DIE! as full of zest as once he'd said LIVE! LIVE! And then it was he spoke my name.

  “Deric!” he cried. You might have thought he saw me kneeling there although with just his one eye left and all that lashing spray I doubt he saw a thing. “Deric!” he cried a second time, and then, before my eyes, the Saint Esprit went down for good, and Roger Mouse sank fathoms deep in sky.

  I've seen many a shipwreck in the clouds since then strangers on strange ships undone by storms or dashed on rocky shores. Sometimes in the midst of talking to some folk sent by the Durham monks, I'll suddenly break off and start to weep. They think I'm weeping for their sins or mine or gone stark mad, but that's not it. It's watching men and women lost in gales. It's hearing little children cry in fear as waves wash over them or suck them down to make some monster's feast.

  This second sight of mine has ever much to do with death, for either I see wrecks at sea like this, or else I'll look upon a man and see how he's to end his days. While Flambard still was stout and hale, for one, I saw him carried down the aisle and laid beside the altar. There, like a fish unswallowing a hook, he tried to choke out all his sins but choked his life away instead.

  And then there's he I cannot name for grief. He wasn't any higher than my knee when I beheld him dead upon a hillside strewn with other fallen men and steeds. He had an arrow in his chest. He held a dagger in his hand. His other arm was crooked across his face, and thus, praise God, I never had to look upon the lad's green eyes that else had shone so bright with life, now blind in death.

  I never tell them what I see. It's hard enough to live not knowing when you'll die. The knowing's worse. But those whose ends I've seen ahead, I pray for every day. I pray them strength to meet whatever waits for them. I pray them grace to live such lives as, when death comes, they'll have no cause to fear. And those whose dying comes more cruel than most or comes too soon, I pray the Lord will find instead some easier hatch to hoist them through or have it be that what I've seen is just an old fool's dream.

  I was at prayers like these when Tune and Fairweather came. Fairweather coiled about my arm. Tune raised his head and called me with his merry eye to sport with him. When I told them to be off, they paid no heed. Fairweather climbed and twined himself about my neck. Tune beckoned with his tongue and swayed from side to side. At last I had my ~ill. Fairweather I untwined and set upon the ground. I took Tune by the neck and laid him roughly at his side.

  I said, “I've told you both a thousand times and more to let me be while I'm at prayer. I've threatened you. I've warned and pled. And yet you're ever at your wiles. You weave and sway and slide and hiss. You wrap my limbs around like vines about a tree. It's not just me you vex here on my knees. You vex God too. So now enough. I wish you well. But never let me look on you from this day forth. Begone!”

  They lay as still as sticks, and I had raised my hand to strike when suddenly I saw their eyes were closed and they had bowed their heads. It was their way to ask my blessing as they left. No sooner did I understand, than down my cheeks streamed tears.

  “May God go with you, if he goes with snakes, I said. ”May summer sun shine warm upon your scales. May winter's rest be deep.“

  And then they slowly went, my two fast friends, nor have they come back to this day. Oh Queen of Heaven, might I only tame the beasts within myself so well!

  How Reginald sought Godric's blessing on his book, and Godric's death.

  I'VE told my life from both its ends at once. Beginning with my youth, I've moved ahead from year to year. And also, all but ready for the tomb I hollowed out of stone with Perkin's help, I've wandered back the other way. And now at last both Godrics meet the one who was, together with the one who is, like raindrops trickling down a leaf to make a third. The third's the Godric yet to be, the Godric God will raise again to life and either burn in Hell as he deserves or caulk and patch until he's fit to sail to Heaven at last.

  Reginald's forever after me to hear him read his book. He says he's written all my years till now. He doesn't say I've only got a page or two still left to live, but there's no doubt that's what he means. He wants my blessing on his work while I've still breath in me to bless. I tell him that it's bad enough to live a hundred years and more without the need to tramp a parchment path back through a second time.

  “Ah well,” he says, “there's no cause you should hear the whole. Father, if you'll give me leave, I'll read you just a passage here and there. A sip or two's enough to prove the milk's not sour.” I say, “That it's too sweet is what I fear, but if you must, read on.”

  Then, as he goes to fetch his scroll, I think how Ailred brought him to me years ago. “Here's Brother Reginald,” he said. “Remember how our Savior bids us let our light so shine that men may see the good we do and glorify God's name. I hope you'
ll tell him everything you can so what he writes may light the way of all who read for years to come.” As Reginald kissed my hand, his face was like a sheep's, and when he opened up his mouth, he gave a bleat as now he does again, returning to my cell. He spreads his parchment on his knees.

  He reads, “In winter, barefoot, this holy man would often walk through miles of snow and ice to find some poor, frozen animal which he would bring back and warm in his bosom. Winter and summer both, he would seek out the sick ones and administer medicine to make them well. Observing stags as they were being pursued by hunters, he would invite them into his cell where he would conceal them until all danger was past. Animals of numerous kinds would come running to him for protection, sensing that he was a malt of extraordinary sanctity.”

  “I took them in to ease my loneliness. It was at least as much for me as them,” I say. “And if they ever fled to me to keep them safe, it was because they had no other place to go.”

  “Such humble speech becomes your holy state, says Reginald. ”Now, Father, if I may, I'll read you something more.“ He licks his thumb each time he turns a page.

  “When the boy had passed his childish years in quiet domesticity at home,” he reads, “then, as he began to reach maturity, he resolved to pursue a more ambitious course and to educate himself meticulously and persistently in the ways of worldly circumspection.”

  “Write worldly greed if you would better hit the mark,” I say, but Reginald reads on.

  “There came a time,” he reads, “when he elected not the vocation of a husbandman but rather that of a merchant. At first he was content to peregrinate with small wares through the villages of his own neighborhood, but in process of time he did so profit by his increase in age and sagacity as to travel through towns and cities and to fairs in pursuit of public chaffer.”

  “He chaffered the blood of one lone cat for many coins, that's true,” I say, but by the way he frowns and sniffs, you'd think I'd only broken wind.

  “Yet in all things he conducted himself with admirable simplicity,” Reginald says, “and insofar as he yet knew how, he persisted in the footsteps of truth. For, having learned the Lord's Prayer and the Creed from his infancy, he frequently meditated upon them as he went solitarily on his more extended journeys and clung thereunto most devoutly in all his cogitations concerning God. In time he formed a familiar friendship with a certain other man who was eager for merchandise and in his company began to initiate more adventuresome courses and to travel by sea to foreign lands.”

  “The only thing that Mouse was eagerer for than wares,” I say, “was maids who'd do it free.”

  Says Reginald, “Please, Father, for the sake of him who is himself the Truth, I leave some small truths out.”

  “This life you've written down will be the death of me,” I say.

  “Now, if I may,” says Reginald and tips his parchment to the light. He reads, “He was subject to many perils on the sea, yet by God's infinite mercy lie was never wrecked, for he who had sustained Saint Peter as he walked upon the waves, by that same puissant right arm preserved this his chosen vessel from all misfortune amid these vicissitudes. On his circumnavigations Godric frequently touched on the isle of Farne which Saint Cuthbert had inhabited as an anchorite and where (as he himself would relate afterwards) he would meditate on the saint's life with abundant tears. There he began to yearn for solitude and to hold his merchandise in less esteem than previously.”

  The bleat of Reginald becomes the cry of gulls. I see the holy isle again as clear as if I stood upon its rocks. I smell the chill and salt sweet air. The pinnacles rise out of mist. On top of one, a guillemot spreads wide his wings and beats the sky. I must have sunk into a dream, for Reginald has to pluck me by the sleeve to make me hear.

  “Godric was vigorous and strenuous in mind,” he reads, “whole of limb and strong of body. He was of medium stature, broad shouldered and deepchested with a long face, grey eyes most clear and penetrating, bushy brows, a broad forehead, long and open nostrils, and a nose of comely curve.”

  “They took it for a ship's prow once,” I say, “and set to scraping off the barnacles.”

  Reginald holds up his hand. “His beard was thick,” he reads, “and longer than the ordinary, his mouth well shaped with lips of moderate thickness. In youth his hair was black, in age as white as snow. His neck was short and thick, knotted with veins and sinews. His legs were somewhat slender, his instep high, his knees hardened and horny from frequent kneeling. His whole skin was rough beyond the ordinary until all this roughness was softened by old age. Such was the external appearance of this saint.”

  “This SAINT!” I cry.

  Then there's a roaring in my ears as if all the blood I have in me is sucked into my head at once with pain so cruel I think my skull will Ay apart. Reginald goes pale as death and hastes to me. I push him off.

  “Blasphemer! Fool!” I cry.

  Half blind, I try to crawl away, and when he seeks to succor me, I turn and would have bit his hand had he not leaped aside. And then I swoon.

  How long I lay there I don't know, but Perkin's voice I hear at last. “You've gone and fouled yourself, old man,” he says. “I'd better fetch a pail and cloths.”

  His face is near enough to touch. Above him, like a great blue hat he Rears, there looms the sky. I try to raise my hand but fail. My tongue will move, but no words come. I see a tear start from his eye, and as it makes its way along his cheek, I know as surely as I know my name that on this day my death will come.

  Instead of pail and cloths, I crave to wash once more in Wear. With wordless croaks and groans and rolling eyes I somehow make this clear to him. He hoists me to my feet, and when I find I still can move one leg, he slings my arm around his neck. Then holding me about the waist, he hauls me forward step by step. My jaw hangs partly down. Perkin staggers now and then beneath my weight. My useless leg I drag behind us like a tail. We move like some ungainly beast until at last we reach the water's edge where all at once we start to laugh.

  Perkin tosses back his head. I shake so hard I nearly fall. Then, when he slowly lowers me to where I'm in up to my neck, Wear joins our laughter too.

  How rough and yet how soft the river's touch! He falls about my shoulders like a silver shawl. He chills me to the marrow of my bones. He leaps and dances in the sun. He washes all my foulness off. And all the while, he slaps his rocky thighs and roars with mirth.

  When Perkin hauls me to the bank again, the water runs from me in pools. I can't stand by myself so Perkin holds me underneath my arms.

  “I'll take you to your cell and dry you off,” he says. “I'll lay you on fresh straw. Then you can rest, and in a few days' time, old man, you'll rise again to dance a jig.”

  He's just about to pick me up when Reginald appears. He's got his parchment tucked into his sleeve, but seeing me, he takes it out and comes and kneels.

  “Father,” he says, “God's blessed your life. Will you not bless this little part I've written down for men to read when you are gone ”

  I try to speak, but nothing comes save brutish grunts. I feel the spittle on my chin. If I could move my hand, I'd reach and lay it on his monkish pate. If I had legs I still could bend, I'd kneel to beg that he forgive me all the years I've used him ill. Instead I can do none of these. So Perkin, from behind, picks up my hand and hoists it high to sign his parchment with the cross. Reginald bites his lower lip. A mouse goes scuttling through the straw.

  This is the very last I see. My eyes are dark. My tongue is still.

  Wear chuckles somewhere in the night. His flowing cloak is decked with stars. Sweetheart, have pity.

  Perkin, hoist my hand again.

  All's lost. All's found.

  Farewell.

  Reginald's last word.

  THIS holy man ascended into Heaven in the spring of the seventeenth year of the reign of Our Sovereign Lord, Henry the Second, by the grace of God King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine and Earl of Anjou. He
was one hundred and five years of age, having been born (as he himself reckoned it) the year before Duke William conquered the Saxons at Hastings. The manner of his parting was peaceful as befitted one who had lived for the last sixty years of his life at peace both with men and with God in a mean lodging which he had dug into the earth and covered with sod.

  It was ever his custom to mortify his flesh in the river Wear even during the most frigid and intemperate days of winter, and it was after immersing himself therein one final time that he fell into a deep swoon, occasioned undoubtedly by the fluxion of the water which was still bitter cold from the abundance of melting snow and ice. As a result, he lost the powers both of speech and of perambulation. He was tended in his last hours by a rude servant whom he had befriended as a child, and although he could utter no word, lying there in the servant's arms, his lips were often seen to move as he endeavored to give utterance to various prayers and pious ejaculations.

  In earlier times he had surrounded himself with serpents, nor did it in any way discomfit him that they were dangerous in the extreme and menaced all who came near with their venomous bites and hissing. With him, however, they were ever gentle, doing whatsoever he bade them and reclining between his feet like domestic pets or twining about his shins for warmth and companionship.

  Two especially large members of this species appeared at the threshold of his cell toward nightfall of his final day upon this earth. Sensing that his end was not far off, however, they made no attempt to enter but kept vigil in the doorway until such time as the servant started forth to bear tidings of his master's demise, whereupon they stood aside to let him pass.

  They remained at the door throughout the night as if on guard, and when his body was carried away to be prepared for burial the next morning, they followed at a respectful distance. Nor did they depart thence until he was laid to rest in the tomb which he had hewn out of hardest rock with his own hands and caused to be placed within the oratory which he had erected to the honor of the Blessed Virgin.