THE OBSERVER
The tolling of a bell broke the silence of Berry Abbey. It was pitch dark, the middle of the night. In the old dormitory for novices, one cell was occupied. Jerry Newman muffled his ears with a pillow, and rusty bedsprings grumbled underneath him.
Jerry threw off the blanket. His bare feet made contact with the cold tile floor. He pulled on jeans and a baggy gray sweatshirt, thrust his feet into black sneakers, and rushed down a corridor that smelled of disinfectant. The bell stopped tolling. He was late again.
In the sacristy, Father Isaac held out a small, plain cross on a cord. Jerry flung the cord over his head. He followed the novice master and stood beside him in the choir. Monks in black robes stood silently, their hands joined and hidden by voluminous sleeves. Two elderly monks made their way in slowly. One wore a jacket over his robe. The other wore a droopy knitted garment and used an aluminum walker frame.
Father Isaac chanted with beautiful enunciation. The opening phrase was always the same:
“Lord, make haste to help me.”
After that, the sequence of prayers, readings, and chanted psalms followed complex rules, with variations and exceptions. The church calendar was not like a calendar pinned to a wall. If you were half asleep, it was easy to make a mistake, but this was the night office. Also called the service of vigils, it was the simplest service, with few booby traps. Jerry let the prayers and the biblical language wash over him.
The church abruptly went dark. Everyone sat in silence. Jerry tried to concentrate. It was like being asked to invent a joke on the spur of the moment, or tell a stranger your deepest fear. He held his breath. The Benedictine house was founded on the Shenandoah River in the early 1800s. Enlarged over the years, the abbey was still primitive and remote, not a tourist destination or a picturesque retreat. It was the real thing. The lights came back on, and Jerry sighed with relief.
After the service, the monks went their separate ways, for meditation or devotional reading. One or two stayed in the church to pray, their heads bowed.
Jerry walked outside and looked up at the night sky from the cloister. The stars shone brightly in the chill air. The moon was a sliver. Was it waxing or waning? When Jerry arrived at the abbey in September, the moon was full. He hugged his arms to his chest.
“You are new here,” said a voice from the darkness. Jerry looked around and saw no one. A ghostly form emerged from the arches.
“Who are you?” Jerry said.
“I am called Laurent.” The monk spoke with a French accent. He gave his name in French: Lo-rong.
“My name is Jerry.”
“Are you called after blessed Saint-Jérôme?”
“Only Jerry. I’m here as an observer.”
“Ah, yes, to spy on us. You will learn our secrets and tell them to the world.”
“Does the abbey have secrets?”
“Certainly.”
“Does the world want to know?”
“Perhaps not.”
“So far I haven’t learned anything to report.”
“So you deny all. You come to observe and see nothing.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“You think I am hard on you.”
“I think you are teasing me.”
“Touché! You are right.”
They stood still for a minute. Jerry peered at the dim figure, faceless and almost bodiless. Father Laurent seemed to be old, like the other monks. At age sixty-one, Father Isaac was the youngest in the abbey. Jerry was not yet thirty.
“You are young,” Father Laurent said. “You are trying us on for size.”
“Yes.”
“You want to know if you can trust me.”
“Can I?”
“Maybe I tell you nothing. Maybe I tell lies.”
“Do monks lie?”
“Day and night, without ceasing.” An eerie laugh rippled through the darkness.
“We are told to pray without ceasing.”
“Indeed, we are very wicked in this abbey.”
“Then you must confess.” Jerry gazed up at the spangled black vault. When his eyes returned to earth, Father Laurent had vanished.
*
By day, Jerry studied the monks, hoping to recognize the one who had spoken in the cloister. In their hoods and black robes, they looked interchangeable. The vow of silence was a myth, but casual talk was frowned on. The only conversations Jerry had were with Isaac, and then with Laurent. At meals, they all listened to a monk read from some edifying book. At other times, a walk in the fields or a chance meeting in the cloister, the monks snubbed him.
As they filed out of the refectory after supper, the abbot crooked his index finger.
“Follow me.” He walked briskly up a stair and through a small reception room. He looked straight ahead, and Jerry hustled behind.
Father Stephen was tall, bearded and gray, a vigorous man of about seventy. He looked like a figure in a painting, any painting of a Catholic monk for the past thousand years. He also looked preoccupied. With the care of souls, or some detail of administration?
The office was dusty, crammed with stacks of paper, yellow and curled with age. A stained glass window kept out all but a glimmer of the evening sun. The abbot sat in a hard wooden chair and motioned Jerry to another.
“Mr. Newman.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are staying with us as an observer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I read your application. Father Isaac consulted with me before sending for you. He says you are a Catholic in good standing, a college graduate, and a certified teacher. In what subject?”
“English. I teach at a public high school, ninth and tenth grades.”
“Ah, spelling, grammar, and the dreaded quiz. Do you like it?”
“At first I did. But there isn’t much time for real teaching. Keeping order in the classroom takes so much energy.”
“How were you able to come here?”
“I asked for three months leave of absence. I had enough years of employment to qualify. The principal okayed it on the condition that I teach summer school, which I did. Then I came here.”
“Do you want to go back?”
“Not really.”
“A monastery is not an escape hatch. We do not accept people simply because they are unemployed, or bored with their job, or unhappy in their life.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you hope to find here? In your own words, please, not something you read in a vocational guide.”
Jerry was caught off guard. For all his daydreaming on the subject, he was not sure what he hoped to find. Yet this was the point. He winged it.
“A home?”
“Go on.” Father Stephen showed a flicker of interest.
“A community, a group of like-minded men dedicated to something that matters. Marriage is not for me, but I don’t want to live the rest of my life alone.”
“Do you have family? Are your parents alive?”
“They’re retired. I have an older sister. She’s married, with two children. They all live at a distance.”
“At a distance.” The abbot ruminated. “Alone is an attitude. We are all alone in the world. And we are all brothers and sisters in the church. Do you think monks and nuns are solitary by nature?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Why this desire for community?”
Jerry squirmed, helpless.
“A monastery is a collection of misfits brought together by chance. Some would say by the Holy Spirit. We are outcasts, odd fellows, the boys passed over for the baseball team. We are crazy and eccentric, vain and superior, filled with self-loathing, and passionately in love with the impossible. We live alone together.”
Jerry was too surprised to say anything.
“I wish you every chance of success. What we offer here is time. Slow down, be quiet, and listen. You may not like what you hear, but for once in your life, it will be God’s own truth.”
“Yes, sir.”
Father Stephen resumed his look of preoccupation. Jerry followed his gaze to a picture on the wall. The Virgin Mary with thorns wrapped around her heart smiled down indulgently.
The monks’ day ended with the service of compline, then curfew at eight o’clock. Lights out until the bell for the night office. There was no sound of highway traffic, none of the noise and bustle of a city. Cattle lowed in the fields, and leaves rustled in the wind. Radio and television were banned, to prevent the world from encroaching. No personal phones or electronic devices. You surrendered them on entering, as at a prison.
Jerry dropped off to sleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
*
The abbey supported itself through its bakery, which produced fruitcakes. Like all visitors, Jerry was invited to help in the work, which took a few hours each morning. The bakery was a barn, a metal shed with a concrete floor, equipped with huge mixers and steel bowls large enough to contain a child. The commercial oven was a vast rectangle through which passed a track of metal rollers, like a conveyor belt. Tubs of flour, honey, dried fruit, nuts, and other ingredients lined stainless steel racks draped with inventory pages.
The bakery manager was Frank, who had been hired when the abbey ran short of able-bodied monks. A lively character with a walrus mustache, Frank welcomed Jerry like a long-lost son.
“What do you know about baking?” His eyes twinkled.
“Nothing,” Jerry said.
“Excellent!”
The abbot, Father Isaac and two other monks stood ready. Each wore a white bib apron tied over his black robe, like a scapular. Frank assigned tasks. He adjusted the equipment, read gauges, and checked quantities of ingredients.
The assembly line started, and Frank turned to Jerry.
“I saved the best for last. You see this pile of labels? They go on these boxes, which you seal with this handy-dandy tape gun. Pile the boxes over here, neatly, so they don’t topple like the Tower of Babel. If you run out of boxes, see this stack of flat precut cardboard? Fold the flaps like the arrows show, or ask me to demonstrate. Okay?”
“Yes.”
“On your mark, get set, go!”
Jerry got to work pasting labels and sealing boxes. The tape gun felt awkward, and his first box came out wrinkled. Frank was suddenly at his elbow.
“Let me show you. Hold the handle like so, your thumb here.” He thrust the tape gun back at Jerry. “You do it.”
Jerry copied Frank’s grip.
“Bingo!” Frank beamed at him.
The monks worked quietly. Father Stephen sat up high, as in a crane, with a joy stick to move a big steel bowl suspended by chains. The fruitcake batter dropped into baking tins by measured amounts. As the abbot doled each circular tin, another monk slapped a lid on it, moved it to the roller track and shoved the next into position. Another monk greased empty tins by twirling them on a phonograph turntable.
“His own invention,” Frank said over the hum of machinery. “He got tired of the old way, where you need three hands. We mix and bake on alternate days. What you see going into the oven was mixed yesterday.”
A long line of fruitcakes rolled into the oven like a processional. When the day’s batch was complete, Frank did a last-minute check, clamped the oven door, and set the timer.
“This is our busy season,” Frank said as they cleaned up. “People buy fruitcake for Christmas, so we need to stock up. After the baking, we pour brandy on the cakes, Chemineaud Frères, very good stuff. They rest a few weeks, then get wrapped and boxed. We ship all over the world.”
As they walked from the barn back to the cloister, Father Isaac fell in beside Jerry. He batted at smudges of flour on his black robe.
“Actually, sales have been declining for years,” he said. “Fruitcake isn’t as popular as it used to be. We need to find another product for the bakery. Years ago, the abbey made whole-grain bread, until the big commercial bakers caught on. Now everyone has a line of healthy bread. We couldn’t compete, so we shifted to fruitcake.”
“I suppose you have to keep Frank busy.”
“Ideally, we would provide all the labor. Between Frank, the farm help, a secretary, and a housekeeper, we have a payroll to meet.”
“What about the vineyard?” On his walks, Jerry had seen an acre laid out in rows of young vines.
“It was planted as an experimental farm. Growing grapes, picking them, and so on are labor intensive, but ecologically sound. And wine has more of a future than fruitcake. We plan to add several acres.”
As the days passed, Jerry did other tasks in the bakery. He washed bowls and tools. He placed walnuts and cherries on top of freshly baked fruitcakes as decoration. He packed fruitcakes to ship. He pasted labels on boxes again. It was mindless work, much easier than teaching English.
*
In the abbey, Jerry cleaned bathrooms, swept floors, and hauled trash. He helped cook and wash dishes in the enormous kitchen next to the refectory. The abbey population had shrunk from its height, when it had up to a hundred monks.
“It was a busy place,” Father Isaac said. “I came a decade later. The pressure had eased, but I heard stories of overcrowding. They pitched tents for novices, ate meals in shifts, and used outdoor privies. What with poor diet and austere practices, the disease rate was a scandal. The Quidnunc County health department nearly shut us down.”
Father Gilbert, who was licensed as a practical nurse, asked Jerry to help him in the infirmary. The infirmary had become a rest home for monks who were retired, elderly, and too frail to look after themselves. Four lived here, in various stages of decline.
“Allow me to introduce Father Daniel. He no longer talks, and as you see he is bedridden. Our task today is to change the bed, bathe him, groom him, and check for bumps and bruises. We’ll give him a good once over. Were you ever a hospital orderly?”
“No.”
“Just do as I tell you. Daniel, this is Jerry. He’s going to help me clean you up.”
Father Daniel moved a hand feebly. He lay propped in a hospital bed, in a sea of white sheets and cotton blankets. A teddy bear was tucked beside him. Father Gilbert showed Jerry how to lift, how to make a bed with a patient in it, and how to use a sponge and basin. As a final touch, he lathered the white stubble on the withered face.
“Here,” he said, handing Jerry a safety razor. “Take your time. I’ll be in the next room tending to Joseph. Yell if you need me.”
Father Daniel gazed at Jerry with trust. Turning the old man’s head on the pillow and wiping with a warm cloth, Jerry shaved without mishap. Father Daniel whimpered when Jerry’s elbow bore down on his chest.
“Sorry,” Jerry said.
Father Daniel blinked. His eyes were pale blue, clear and bright. The room was brilliant, bathed in gold by the sun.
“He’s so light,” Jerry said when Father Gilbert returned. “He hardly weighs anything.”
“You could sling him over your shoulder and run away with him. There we go, Daniel, all sweet and clean. How do you feel?”
Father Daniel managed to smile. Father Gilbert retrieved the teddy bear from the night table, placed it at Daniel’s hip, and moved his arm to rest beside it. As he bent over the old monk, he kissed him on the lips.
“Daniel was loved by the community.” Father Gilbert gathered a pile of linen in his arms as they left the room. “He was a peacemaker. The younger monks confided in him and looked up to him as a role model.”
“Including you?”
“Including me. If we ever produced a saint here at the abbey, Daniel is it.”
“Does he know who I am?”
“Oh, yes. He’s fully in command of his faculties.”
*
That night after vigils, Jerry stood in the cloister and gazed at the sky. The air was sharp, and he needed more than a sweatshirt. A voice came from the darkness, a voice with a French accent.
“How goes the reconnaissance? Do you observe anything of interest?”
“Quite a bit.”
“Very good. You work and you read and you learn to chant. You meet all of the monks, including the oldest.”
“Except for you. Why not?”
“You miss nothing by that. I no longer live in the abbey. I am retired. I live alone in a cave as a hermit.”
“You seem well informed.”
“I visit. I attend mass once a week. The abbot insists. Indeed, the church requires it.”
“Do you visit by day?”
“Certainly, I am here. I lurk behind a column, or I mingle in the crowd.”
“Why do you live alone in a cave?” Jerry shivered.
“You perish from the cold.”
“I don’t perish. I asked a question.”
“A difficult one.”
“You don’t want to answer.”
“Very well. I follow the ancient custom. The desert fathers and Jesus himself went to the wilderness to fast and pray. Alone. Monastic life is not Christian.”
“What about St. Benedict?”
“St. Anthony and those early monks who banded together long before your St. Benedict, they imitated the Pythagoreans, that is to say Greek pagans. Who in turn got ideas from the Hindu mystics, the gymnosophists that Alexander claimed to admire. Today you call them yogis.”
“That hasn’t come up in my reading.”
“Of course not. You are a good Catholic.”
“You make it sound like a slur.”
“Not at all. Do you believe what you are told?”
“I believe what I see. I do not see you.” Jerry peered at the dark form but could not make out a face. Hands and feet were shrouded by the monastic robe.
“Maybe I do not bear scrutiny.”
Impatient with this verbal fencing, Jerry looked up at the sky. After a minute of silence, he looked around the cloister. Father Laurent had vanished again.
*
Under the direction of Father Isaac, Jerry read in the library for an hour each afternoon. The monastic day was full of chores and church services. Study hall was a welcome respite. Father Isaac popped in for a minute, commented briefly on what Jerry was reading, assigned more, and hurried away on chores.
Unsupervised and apt to consider himself on vacation, Jerry found ways to waste time. He browsed the untidy shelves, packed with scholarly tomes in several languages, most of them incomprehensible. He leafed through Catholic magazines from decades before. He found a book on the archaeology of Palestine, illustrated with color photographs.
The monks seldom entered the library. When they did, it was to take or return a novel. They did not acknowledge Jerry’s presence at the massive oak trestle table. Monks were instructed to shun gossip and idleness. They could at least nod, he thought.
Jerry became more punctual at the church services. The elaborate ritual grew on him. He liked the night office, which seemed to take place in a dream. He stood in the cloister afterward, motionless as a statue. He wore a coat now and thick socks.
He waited for the old French monk to materialize from darkness, but Father Laurent was unpredictable. When he did appear, he asked impossible questions. He was secretive and crazy. Had age and solitude had robbed him of reason? The nocturnal interviews raised doubt and unease, but Jerry was reluctant to confront them. Anyway, who could he ask? He broached the subject with Father Isaac.
“Who is Father Laurent?”
“Father Laurent?” Father Isaac did a double take.
“He talks to me in the cloister after the night office.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“He says he’s retired, a hermit.”
“Laurent was one of the seven,” Father Isaac said in a grave tone of voice.
“The seven?”
“The seven monks who came from France to found the abbey two hundred years ago. They were expelled during the French Revolution. Laurent lived the longest and retired as you say. Then he sneaked around at night, cornered a novice, and scared the daylights out of him. This went on well into the nineteenth century, after he must have died.”
“So . . . Laurent is a ghost?”
“If you like. A persistent legend.”
“Did you meet him?”
“I was never so lucky. Or so tormented by doubt.”
“He seems real enough.”
“Every abbey has its traditions. And every experience is valid. If a strange vision comes to you at night, ask what it means on a deeper level.”
“What does it mean?”
“Don’t ask me! Reflect and pray.”
*
Toward the end of October, Father Daniel took a turn for the worse. His eyes were closed, and he seemed unaware of his surroundings. Jerry stood beside the bed with Father Gilbert, who absent-mindedly wrung his hands.
“He may have had a stroke,” Father Gilbert said. “He might leave us at any moment, or he might linger for weeks. His life is in the hands of God.”
“How old is he?” Jerry asked.
“I’m not sure. He was old when I came to the abbey.”
“Are you worried?” Jerry grabbed one of Father Gilbert’s hands to stop the wringing. He squeezed in return.
“Yes and no. We will all miss him, but he is nearing his reward.”
One by one the monks trooped into the infirmary to see Father Daniel.
“He looks peaceful,” said one.
“A soul at rest,” said another.
“He’s still breathing,” Father Gilbert said.
After much discussion, they set up a schedule of watches, so that someone would sit with Father Daniel at all times. Visitors were expected at the abbey for the holidays of All Saints and All Souls, November 1 and 2. The fruitcake operation was at its peak, and the monks were stretched thin. Father Stephen approached Jerry in the refectory.
“Can you watch Father Daniel the night before All Saints?”
“Isn’t that Halloween?”
The abbot had forgotten or dismissed the secular version of the ecclesiastical feast. Trick-or-treaters did not come to the remote abbey.
The night of October 31, instead of lying alone on his creaky cot, Jerry sat beside Father Daniel’s deathbed. The room was lit by a bedside lamp, like a votive candle but without the flicker. The old man rested peacefully, arms at his sides, his chest rising and falling gently.
Jerry was determined to stay awake. He had brought a book he should have read weeks ago, a selection of sermons by monastic authors of the twelfth century. Within minutes, he dozed.
“Jerry, wake up!”
The book on Jerry’s lap hit the floor with a thump. He looked around wildly. Father Daniel lay as before. There was no one else in the room. The voice had been loud and clear. How long was he asleep?
Father Daniel’s lips moved. His forehead crinkled as though he were troubled by a dream or trying to think. Jerry stood to retrieve the book and glanced at the clock. Throughout the abbey, there were clocks with large round faces mounted on the wall, as in the school where he taught. It was almost midnight.
Jerry walked out of the room, then up and down the corridor to clear his head. He returned to the room. Another monk stood beside the bed, his back to Jerry, hood raised and arms clasped.
“Hello?” Jerry said.
“Good evening,” said a voice with a French accent.
“Father Laurent?”
“The same.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to see our Daniel. Maybe for the last time.”
“It’s an odd time to be roaming.”
“I sleep very little.”
Eyes closed, Father Daniel was agitated. He frowned and trembled as he lay in bed. Jerry felt a surge of emotion, a protective instinct. He stepped between the two monks, seized Father Laurent by the shoulders and shoved him away from the bed.
“Get out!”
The ancient monk stood his ground and glared at Jerry. He was emaciated, with mottled skin and rotten teeth. His breath smelled awful.
“Who are you to order me?”
“Get out,” Jerry repeated. He fumbled for the cross hanging from his neck and brandished it.
“What an absurd gesture!”
Cross in hand, Jerry advanced toward Father Laurent.
“Get out of here now, or I’ll beat you to a pulp.”
“Oh, how you frighten me!” The specter grimaced, turned, and flitted from the room. A gurgle from behind made Jerry turn back to Father Daniel, whose eyes were wide open. His mouth puckered. At last, he emitted a whisper.
“Forgive.”
“Forgive what?”
“Them.”
“Forgive them. Is that all?”
“No.”
Jerry waited for Father Daniel to continue. The effort had exhausted him. He closed his eyes for a minute, then opened them and stared at the ceiling.
“On . . . the third . . . day . . . goodbye.”
What could this refer to? Since coming to the abbey, where the night sky was so immediate, Jerry noted the phases of the moon. The new moon was two days away, or biblically speaking, the third day.
Father Daniel’s eyelids fluttered and closed. So far as Jerry could tell, he drifted back to sleep. He looked peaceful again.
Jerry watched intently for the next four hours. Father Rinaldo found him perched on the edge of the chair, his back rigid and his hair tousled.
“You can go now. It’s my shift.”
“Is it morning?” The sky outside the window was black.
“By our reckoning. How is he?”
“No change. He woke briefly.”
“Did he say anything?”
“Yes. He said he would die on the third day.”
Father Rinaldo made a sound of contempt, something like “Phooey.”
Jerry stood up and stretched his legs. He strode through the corridor, downstairs, and outside to the cloister. He took a deep breath of cold night air.
“Nasty bugger,” Jerry said to no one. He considered praying in the church, but he might fall asleep there. He returned to his cell in the old dormitory, silent and empty.
*
Toward noon, Jerry woke to the sound of shouting from the direction of the kitchen. In the hushed context of the abbey, this qualified as an event. He hurried to investigate. Five monks stood around the steam table. Wisps of steam wreathed their reddened faces. Jerry hung back in the doorway to avoid being seen.
“He belongs to all of us, not to you or me,” Father Gilbert said.
“I was his assistant before you came,” said a short, bristly monk with cropped hair and beard.
“I typed his letters and screened his visitors,” said one with glasses and a long, beaky nose.
“I have been his primary caregiver for the past three years,” Father Gilbert said.
“Seniority should govern,” said a bald monk with a whiny intonation. “After Daniel, I have been here the longest, so I should take precedence at his funeral.”
“Luke and Matthew came before you,” said the short monk.
“Lay brothers,” said the bald monk. “They can hardly stand up, let alone carry a coffin.”
“Your little protégé could be a pall bearer,” the beaky monk said to Father Gilbert.
“He’s not my protégé any more than Isaac’s.”
“Speaking of which, has Isaac scared him off yet?”
“We don’t need his kind here, anyway,” said the short monk. “La di da, with his fine air and his lovely way with a melody.”
This remark set them all to cackling. Except for Father Isaac, none of the monks could carry a tune, and they mumbled the chants. Jerry flushed in his recess. He had not imagined that his singing would provoke this reaction.
Father Stephen swept into the kitchen, with Father Isaac on his heels. The laughter ceased. The abbot scanned the group like a hawk about to dive.
“Shame on you! You sound like chickens squabbling.” He raised his right arm and pointed at the beaky monk. “Where are you supposed to be?” He pointed at the short monk. “If your other gifts matched your gift for mockery, you might amount to something.” The abbot turned to Father Gilbert. “From you I expect more. How could you let this rabble get out of hand?”
Jerry sneezed. The noise brought him to the attention of the company.
“Bless you,” the abbot said. “Our humiliation is complete. We stand exposed for what we are. May God have mercy.” He made the sign of the cross.
“Who is scheduled to serve dinner?” asked Father Isaac.
“I am,” said the beaky monk.
“Then please lay out the dishes and the serving utensils.”
“Meanwhile,” Father Stephen said, “we will all go wash. Let us reunite in brotherhood and harmony.”
“Amen,” they murmured and dispersed. Jerry fished a handkerchief from his jeans and blew his nose.
*
Two days later, Father Daniel passed away in his sleep. Father Rinaldo spread Jerry’s report of the dying man’s last words, his prediction. The monks regarded Jerry with a mixture of awe and jealousy. The short, bristly monk, Father Kevin, sought him out.
“The abbot told me to apologize. For what I said.”
Except for the grizzled beard, Father Kevin reminded Jerry of one of his students.
“That’s okay. Father Daniel loved you.”
“He did?”
“He said so.” Jerry reached for his shoulder and gave it a pat.
Father Kevin departed as though floating on a cloud. In short order, Fathers Clifford, Hector, and Gilbert each cornered Jerry and expressed regret. To each Jerry delivered a personal message from Father Daniel. The abbot summoned Jerry to his office.
I went too far, Jerry thought as he hurried through the corridor. Admit nothing. And don’t mention Laurent.
“About this deathbed prophecy,” the abbot began.
“Yes, sir?”
“Did Daniel happen to mention me?”
“Just before he slipped back into unconsciousness, he said: ‘Stephen is my son.’”
“That’s all?”
“He wanted to say more. He looked happy.”
*
Father Daniel had no living relatives, so the funeral was a private affair, without flowers or weeping, but with a certain grandeur. Jerry looked for Laurent but failed to spot him in church.
The abbot delivered a homily. He praised their departed brother.
“Daniel set a good example, and he helped many brothers on the path to salvation. While we mourn his absence, we rejoice in his ascension.”
Midday dinner doubled as a reception, with glasses of sherry. The rule of silence at meals was relaxed. Everyone had an anecdote to tell about Daniel and his good works, Daniel and his simple faith. The stories went back many years.
Jerry listened. He had never seen the monks so lively, in such good spirits. Death brought out the best in them. Father Gilbert made a nod to Jerry’s recent contribution, to include him in the group.
“You are lucky to have known this saintly man.”
“And sorry I missed so much of his life.”
Afterward, Father Isaac spoke to Jerry in the library.
“The past few days have been a trial for all of us. Let’s see if we can pick up the pieces. Three weeks remain of your observer stint. Thanksgiving is approaching. We celebrate the holiday like all American families, but without the turkey. We serve a tofu version.”
“Why?” Jerry found the prospect of tofu turkey disgusting.
“The Rule of St. Benedict prescribes a vegetarian diet and periods of fasting. It also allows wine. We eat better than most people in the world.”
“Since I came here, I’ve lost weight.” Jerry tugged his jeans up. His appetite had vanished. The abbey food was bland and monotonous, boiled and baked potatoes, beans, rice, and bread. Some of the monks were fat, though.
“The first Sunday in Advent comes soon after Thanksgiving. As you know, that is the start of the liturgical year. You are welcome to participate. On the other hand, if you want to leave early, the abbot will understand.”
“Does he want me to leave?”
“He is aware we have not made a good impression.”
“What impression have I made?”
“He didn’t say.”
“How many observers come here?”
“Very few. We have had no novices for years. There are other abbeys, of course, and other religious orders. You might find one with men your own age. My job is to help you go where God calls you.”
“Can I talk to you tomorrow?”
“Same time, same place. I’ll be here.”
Jerry passed through the dismal corridor, sneakers on tile. Outside, most of the leaves had turned color and fallen. The rural setting of the abbey, so appealing in September, was growing bleak. Daylight was fading, and the wind blew constantly. Jerry had never minded the cold, but now he did.
Whatever he expected to find in an abbey, this wasn’t it. Worldly poverty? Check. Devotion to higher things? Not so much. These monks were as nutty as the fruitcakes they baked. Except for Isaac, who made excuses, so why was he here? And what was up with Laurent? Another nut case who pretended to be a ghost. If Berry Abbey was a club that didn’t want him, he didn’t want to join. The call had not come through.
Jerry’s cell was a mess. The bed was unmade, the picture was askew on the wall, and clothes were strewn here and there. Despite the late hour, he made the bed. He picked up clothes, folded them, pulled a suitcase from under the bed, and packed. Straightening the picture, he noticed for the first time that it was a view of Chartres Cathedral, with the mismatched towers. The desk was littered with books borrowed from the library and notes scribbled on crumpled paper. The notes, he saw with a twinge of shame, were a jumble of quotations from revered authors, questions he forgot to ask Father Isaac, and silly doodles. What use would they be in the world outside? The mass of paper overflowed the waste basket.
In the gloom of an autumn evening, Jerry lugged the pile of books to the library and dumped them on the trestle table. A bundle of old papers on a shelf caught his eye. On previous library visits, it had looked like trash. Now on the point of leaving, Jerry thought it was okay to snoop. He took the bundle in his arms to the table. He shoved the books aside, untied the faded ribbons, and spread out the papers. Dates revealed they were old letters and records of the abbey, an archive that dated back to the founding. But wait, there was more! A waterproof packet contained legal documents in Old French and Medieval Latin. Jerry puzzled over the archaic penmanship. Abruptly, he realized the documents referred to places in France. The original seven monks must have smuggled the deeds to their abbey’s confiscated property.
The papers were historical, but were they valuable? Did anyone know they were here? Jerry reassembled the bundle and went to put it back. While doing so, his hand bumped the back of the shelf, and a hinged panel gave way. On tiptoe, he peered into a recess, where he caught the gleam of a portable crucifix, a golden chalice, and a Bible bound in gilded leather and jewels. Buried treasure in Berry Abbey!
Jerry pulled the panel shut and replaced the bundle of papers. Should he tell Isaac what he had found? If the abbot already knew the secret, he might resent the discovery. That and the news he was leaving would have to wait until daylight hours.
As curfew rang, Jerry returned to his cell, now bare and clean. He went to bed with a mind equally blank. In the middle of the night, the tolling of the bell for the night office woke him. Should he stop playing a charade, or attend the service for old times’ sake? Involuntarily, his bare feet hit the floor.