The Rule of Sebastian

by Shelter Somerset

  “I would like to help you with your Latin and chanting, if you’d allow me,” he said, comprehending that JC would have to be coaxed from his shell. “It will take you away from some of the tedious work here. Chanting is important to us at Mt. Ouray.”

  “No more working with Mike?”

  “Brother Micah?” The father chuckled. “Not if you no longer wish to.”

  “That sounds good to me.”

  “I’ll teach you the Latin and how we intone the canticles. We’ll enjoy ourselves. Twice daily, while the others are at their work stations.”

  “Okay by me.” JC cracked a toothy smile. “Anything you want.”

  Perfect. He mirrored JC’s grin. Just the way he liked it. Whatever Father Paolo wanted.

  Chapter Eight

  SEBASTIAN inserted the coffee bean onto the s-clasp with the pliers, affixed it to the adjoining bean, and reached for a cross. Brother Eusebius sat beside him, his hands working with the same steady speed. Sluggish, but purposeful. On the other side of the sacristy’s wall, the murmured voices of Father Paolo and JC oozed from the abbot’s private office.

  Sebastian tried to pretend that he could not hear. Always the same. The slow mumbling, followed by a moment of hush and the uneven chanting. Father Paolo had begun accompanying JC’s chanting lessons with his cello, as if they were staging a duet. After a week of the private instruction, everyone in the abbey had grown used to the whispering sounds, the flowing music, the erratic chanting. If God had given JC talent, it was not in singing.

  Neither Sebastian nor Brother Eusebius spoke of the partnership between JC and Father Paolo while they toiled inside the sacristy. He and Brother Eusebius barely shared a glance, their wordlessness expressing a thousand misgivings. Sebastian recalled the same scenario when Father Paolo had taken postulants Rodel and Casey under the sweep of his tunic sleeve.

  The past few days, he’d begun to smell cigarette smoke drifting from the abbot’s office whenever he conducted private lessons with JC. He had no idea where the father had gotten the cigarettes. Maybe an odd gift from a benefactor. He probably kept them handy for whenever he might need them. A carrot on a stick.

  He dropped the completed rosary into a palm-sized purple sack, made of cheap Chinese velvet imprinted with the abbey’s name and emblem—the Cross of St. Benedict—and pulled out a handful more beans and a string of silver wire. While beginning a new rosary, Sebastian watched Brother Eusebius from the corners of his eyes. His broad shoulders had seemed to ride up higher and higher during the past week. Now they met his ears.

  Sebastian squashed the impulse to talk to him. He’d love to get his take on JC, his memory loss, Father Paolo’s interest in him, and a host of other issues trapped behind the abbey’s walls. Brother Eusebius’s taciturn nature had transformed into a fortification of its own.

  Surrounded by the tall shelves and somber solitude, the smell of dust and mildew augmented Sebastian’s melancholy. He supposed the long, snowy winter was tricking him into dwelling too much on the other side of the wall.

  Neither strange nor uncomfortable sounds emerged from the private office. Merely chatter, chanting, and choppy music. Often a chuckle or “aha” from Father Paolo, amplified for encouragement, startled Sebastian. Yet it was the prolonged silences that disturbed him the most. Oftentimes lingering for several minutes. The same when the father was with Casey. By the expression that tightened the lines around Brother Eusebius’s mouth, Sebastian guessed he too found the pauses disconcerting.

  Sebastian was almost relieved when Brother Lucien entered the sacristy. Lifting his eyes from his lap work, Sebastian allowed his mind to focus on the brother’s pained expression. The stranger’s presence had evolved from one of wonder to caution for them all.

  Brother Lucien made like he was searching for a storage item by the shared wall. Sebastian noticed his right hand freeze in the midst of reaching for a box of toilet paper, his tunic sleeve draped over his shoulder. A moment of quiet from Father Paolo’s office passed. To Sebastian’s relief, more dull murmurings flowed soon after, along with a quick rise in Father Paolo’s cheery voice, then the settling back to further singing and cello playing.

  Distress carved itself into Brother Lucien’s pale face. He failed to budge. Seeing him in an unmoving state of reaching made Sebastian’s own arm ache. He needed to lessen the tension building in their small space, to hear a voice, any voice, even his own.

  “Are you looking for something, Brother Lucien?”

  The brother shook his head, forced a tight smile, and brought the box of toilet paper to his chest. Scurrying from the storage room, Brother Lucien left more discomfort than what had hovered over their heads before he’d come.

  Sebastian recalled running into Brother George in the sacristy two days before. He’d retrieved an armful of supplies for the bathroom, including toilet paper. They couldn’t possibly have run out since—even with an added boarder. Brother Lucien had not needed any bathroom supplies; he had wanted to eavesdrop on the abbot and his latest charge, hoping for a better earshot than what the administrative office might provide. A few times, Sebastian had been tempted to press his ears against the wall and snoop himself. But decorum—and Brother Eusebius’s presence—had fixed his bottom to his seat and his fingertips to his rosary beads.

  For the first time since taking their seats that morning, Sebastian and Brother Eusebius exchanged stares. The muted voices from Father Paolo’s office picked up. A flush germinated over Brother Eusebius’s dark features. Sebastian mirrored the brother’s movements and returned his eyes to his bead work.

  He swallowed a desire to throw his head back and laugh out loud so that Father Paolo might hear from his side of the shared wall. He was embarrassed when Brother Eusebius noticed his grinning and finally spoke to him.

  “What amuses you, Brother Sebastian?”

  His voice, so resonant and deep, startled Sebastian a moment. “Life, I suppose,” he said, shrugging.

  “And our young visitor?” Brother Eusebius went on.

  Sebastian took the cue and opened up to the sober brother. “It’s so strange, it’s almost humorous. I do feel pity for him. He’s so lost and confused with his memory still sealed.”

  Brother Eusebius’s ebony eyes narrowed. “Is that all?”

  “He’s got street smarts, no doubting that. He’ll be okay.”

  “I still don’t condone all this ogling, like a prize hog at a county fair.”

  Sebastian clutched the rosary he was beading. What might he say? Brother Eusebius always exhibited a cunning way about him without overt forthrightness. “Yes,” he said. “I worry over that.” Then he grew heated under his tunic. “You’re not concerned about Father Paolo, are you?”

  “It’s not just him,” Brother Eusebius said with a sharp sting to his voice. “The others too. I’m not blind. I’ve seen how everyone fusses over the stranger.”

  Astute as the middle-aged man from Georgia was, Sebastian never gathered if Brother Eusebius took him for a homosexual. Most people never figured Sebastian for gay, or so he assumed. He figured people had regarded him as a lifelong bachelor. Some of the brothers couldn’t hide their sexuality even if they tried. Like Brother George and Brother Rodel. Perhaps even Brother Hubert.

  And Casey?

  Father Paolo and Brother Lucien’s relationship had a hushed acceptance in the abbey. No one ever spoke of it. Sebastian had them pegged his first week as a postulant. And by the passing of his first month, whatever doubts he’d still held had vanished.

  Sebastian supposed some of the brothers might have weakened with one another. Sebastian had himself once, what seemed so long ago. It had been his third week at the abbey. He’d grown nervous and unsure about his new station in life. While the others were choring, Brother Micah had approached him in his cell, expressing worry over his obvious despondence. After a few moments of talking and finally making Sebastian at ease, Brother Micah had knelt before him where he sat on his bed, slipped up his tu
nic, and taken him into his mouth.

  Shocked, Sebastian had tried to stand and push him off. But Brother Micah had held him firmly by his thighs. Soon Sebastian’s struggles had abated. He’d allowed pleasure to erase his uneasiness.

  He’d given in to the sensation of release, to a physical bliss that had taken his mind from indecisiveness and fear. He had seen it coming too. From the first moment he’d stepped out of the van from Telluride’s small airport, Brother Micah had showed him extra attention. The same kind that Sebastian had shown Casey when he’d first arrived.

  Sebastian remembered Casey’s first day as a confirmed postulant, and watching him amble up the walkway from his cell window. The cells faced the front so that the monks might spot incoming guests. The design dated as far back as when the first reformed Trappist brotherhood established a monastery in Soligny-la-Trappe in Normandy, six hundred years ago. The sole passenger that day, Casey appeared bright yet unconvinced. Sebastian was glad to see him return after his summer retreat. He’d brought freshness inside the abbey’s stone cold walls.

  He hadn’t wanted to lapse with Brother Micah. For days afterward, Sebastian had tried to avoid him. Refused even eye contact. Eventually, guilt had persuaded Sebastian to confront him, and he’d apologized for being austere, and then said that he didn’t want for anything further to happen between them. Brother Micah had seemed to accept Sebastian’s words, but Sebastian had detected a quiver to his bottom lip.

  They remained friends after Sebastian’s talk, although their conversations came a bit strained whenever speech was permitted. No animosity lingered. It was almost as if the encounter had never happened. Sebastian could barely picture it in his mind without questioning if it had been a dream, or someone had recounted the experience to him.

  During the long hours alone fashioning rosaries, Sebastian had been tempted to confess his secrets to Brother Eusebius. Not only about his homosexuality and his sole interlude with a fellow monk. About his other secrets too, the ones that had steered him to Mt. Ouray and its secluded fortress, surrounded by an impinging sea of spruces and aspens. Secrets he’d hoped would disappear like smoke from a dampened incense cone.

  As Sebastian watched Brother Eusebius’s shoulders rise up even higher and his lips pucker to the point he feared he might spit, Sebastian remained firm mouthed.

  “And in a house of God,” Brother Eusebius went on, gripping his pliers as if he were about to hammer nails into a wall. “I’ve overlooked the past nonsense. I turn my cheek with Brother Lucien and Father Paolo. I understand there are those who enter the abbey who shouldn’t. I have no say in that. But it’s difficult to bite my tongue when even the abbot swoons over someone we know nothing about.”

  Sebastian worried Brother Eusebius’s anger might escalate. He shared some of his qualms, but wanted to quiet him. Muffling a snicker, he said, “I don’t think it’s so bad.”

  “It’s bad, it’s… it’s… I must guard my tongue.”

  “I see your game, Brother Eusebius,” Sebastian said, squaring his shoulders over his lap work, still hoping to lighten the mood. “You’re trying to stir up more excitement in your dull days here.”

  “That’s not it at all, Brother Sebastian. I know you well enough to recognize that you agree with my concerns.”

  Brother Eusebius had resided at the abbey nearly twenty years, longer than most. He was the youngest “old timer” at Mt. Ouray. Sebastian took comfort in that. An outcast inside the abbey, yet Brother Eusebius knew more about the heartbeat of Mt. Ouray—and the world—than anyone Sebastian had ever spoken with. Sebastian chose to be honest with his friend, more than at any time in the past.

  Without giving away too many of his thoughts, he said, “Does it bother you that much, Brother Eusebius, being around so much of this at a monastery?”

  Brother Eusebius wrenched a few s-clasps, and rested his large, callused hands in a fold of his black scapular. “When I converted to Catholicism as a teenager and chose to attend the seminary, I have to admit I was a bit taken back by the… well, sometimes overt displays of interests some of the priests had for the students and each other. Sometimes it was all too clear. Other times subtle enough to never know for sure.” He shrugged. “After a while, I figured seminaries and monasteries are similar to prisons.”

  “That’s a harsh comparison.”

  “But accurate. I’ve seen a lot here during the past twenty years. There’s a gentle, good quality to life inside a monastery. But men are human. It’s inevitable that they might wish to fulfill certain needs. And on top of that, the Catholic Church attracts that type of man. I know. I can see. Being an oddity even among oddities, I can see, Brother Sebastian. Not so much for the obvious. A man who finds a woman a divine gift, why would he choose the life of a monk, surrounded only by other men? Devotion to God? That’s what attracted me.”

  Brother Eusebius always had a distant glint to his dark eyes, yet they were focused and penetrating. He kept to his bead work all throughout his diatribe. The weightiness of his words must have stewed inside him for some time, before even JC’s inexplicable arrival at Mt. Ouray. Sebastian was unsure if he should cap his mood or let it erupt. Brother Eusebius was more than an “oddball,” as he often described himself. Mentally, he stood apart from most of the brothers. No surprise that Sebastian had forged a closer friendship with him than he had with any of the other monks. Except perhaps for Casey.

  “Would you be so shocked if I confessed I’ve had a few temptations too?” Brother Eusebius went on. “Oh, not what you’re thinking. During the summers when guests arrive, I’ve had to turn away from a lovely woman at times. I’m unashamed. I’m a man. But I’ve stuck by my vows of celibacy all these years. I’m an oddity here, but in a funny way. That’s what makes it easier for me. I have fewer temptations.”

  Surprised by Brother Eusebius’s sudden frankness, Sebastian held his breath. Only after he felt a slight dizziness did he realize the need to inhale. Stale but reinvigorating air entered his lungs.

  “Twenty years is a long time,” he said. “I’ve been here almost four.” He gazed toward the sacristy door, beyond which the abbey functioned, akin to any industrial institution. It had a heartbeat and breath that at times sighed loud enough to shake a winter’s worth of snow from the mountains.

  He hadn’t really reflected much on his own intended vow of celibacy. He’d gone without most of his adult life. Years before entering Mt. Ouray, he’d turned his back on romance and love, the way he had his city. Once or twice a year hardly made for a vigorous sex life. Little he had to sacrifice when he’d chosen the monastic life.

  Then Casey had arrived. And the stirrings commenced anew.

  “I must confess,” he said in a whisper, “whenever I think about the years to come, I become nervous that I won’t be able to honor my vows.”

  Brother Eusebius clutched a half-finished rosary to his chest. “You, Brother Sebastian?”

  Had he divulged too much? What did it matter now? Within the solitude of the sacristy, a confessional where, with no one to hear or to judge him but his confessor and God, he might seek penance for the thoughts that had taken over his prayers. Thoughts of Casey Galvan, alone in his cell at night. Only twentysomething. What did Casey understand he’d given up? The veiled-off sacristy, like a latticed barrier, offered Sebastian courage to continue.

  “I have my moments,” he said. “Like you said, men are human.”

  Turning back to his beadwork, Brother Eusebius said, “All we can do is take life in the steps of Jesus when he carried the cross to Calvary. The Way of the Cross is why we garner strength in prayer.” He chuckled. “Now here I go, sounding like Father Paolo. But it’s true, in many ways. Going without gives us strength. There’s something powerful in abandoning material and physical desires. Yes, leaving things behind indeed strengthens us.”

  Prickly chills raced along Sebastian’s arm when Brother Eusebius uttered those last few words like a thunderclap. What had leaving his world in Phila
delphia meant for him? Had it made him stronger or weaker? Sebastian wished to change the subject. “All I keep wondering is how and why our guest got here,” he mumbled.

  “He does frighten me, and I’m unsure of the reason,” Brother Eusebius said. “He has those eyes, like looking into a fire pit with the remnants of cold embers. The fire is long gone, but you can see that something had burned there.”

  “He’s not an escaped convict. The father has already checked for that.”

  “Maybe he’s committed a crime without detection. Making his way here in all that snow and wind, he’d have to have a good reason to escape something.”

  The hushed voices of Father Paolo and JC oozed through the wall. “Or find something,”

  Brother Eusebius bit his lower lip. The veins on his neck thickened into thin copper cables. Together, they continued their toil without words until the clock’s call for Sext ushered them to the chapel.

  Chapter Nine

  AFTER the passing of several days, Sebastian realized the chanting and the cello playing from Father Paolo’s private office had stopped. He had grown so used to the sounds, he couldn’t recall exactly when they had ended. Perhaps at that precise moment, or days before. He sat in his cell reading Scripture during siesta, wondering if the others had noticed.

  Jealousy plagued the brothers. Perhaps even Casey, who still had a difficult time remaining near Sebastian without turning away. Brother Eusebius had deciphered the brothers’ gapes, drooping lips. He’d understood the longing and lust in those expressions. Brother Eusebius had acknowledged his own covetousness toward the pretty female patrons who visited the abbey during summertime. They had enticed him with their flowing hair, healthy complexions, stylish and tight-fitting clothing, smelling of jasmine and other fine perfumes bought from fancy department stores.

  But Sebastian did not desire JC, not in the same way the abbot possessed him or how Brother Eusebius had alluded the others did. His beauty captivated him, but only as one might gaze upon a garden blossom.