by John Boyne
He spoke not a word as he led me through the stone ramparts and up a winding staircase, where, at the top, he knocked on a wooden door and waited for a voice from inside to call out that we might enter. When we did, I found myself in a cold, sparsely furnished stone room, where I took a seat opposite a tightly tonsured abbot, Brother Finbar, and tapped a finger to my lips to indicate that I was a mute. This was one of the few lies that I told during my time there, and it was a deceit that I did not maintain for long, but I had no desire for conversation and did not want to explain to these men the circumstances that had brought me there.
I had chosen Kells because word had spread throughout Ireland of a Great Book that was being illustrated there by a group of monks. The illumination of manuscripts had been my calling since I was a boy. Brother Finbar asked me some questions about my life and why I had come to him and I managed, through paper, quill and ink, to convince him that I had spent some years in an abbey in the barbarian country across the water but had been repulsed by their godless ways and love of ornament and felt that here I might rediscover the life of simple servitude that had first drawn me to the Lord. Also, I added, I had a very particular set of skills that might prove useful to him.
I had carried some of my designs with me in a dark brown leather satchel with my initials carved into the pelt, illustrations that I’d taken from my workshop in Wexford on the morning that I left, having buried my second wife and son in the local cemetery and hidden the body of my sister in a mountain grave that I dug overnight. There had been some questions raised about Ailbhe’s sudden disappearance but, in a stroke of good luck, one of the more handsome youths of the parish vanished that same day, running away from a violent father, and it was generally assumed that she had joined him, for she had a predilection for boys of his age.
The abbot looked through my pages now, examining the intricacy of my work, and I could tell by the expression on his face that he was impressed.
“Your designs are very fine,” he told me. “How long have you devoted yourself to your craft?”
I held both hands in the air, the fingers separated from each other.
“Ten years,” he said. “And you worked on sacred books for the heathens across the way?”
I nodded.
“They’d have been sorry to see you go, I imagine,” he said. “There’s monks here who’ve been working on the Great Book for years, they’re twice your age and don’t have half your skill. Tell me this, though: you’re showing me nothing but papyrus here. Have you worked on calf vellum before? Because that’s what we’re using.”
I nodded again.
“And iron gall ink? It soaks into the page as quickly as anything I’ve ever seen. You’ve no room for mistakes, or days of work can be squandered in a heartbeat.”
I nodded for a third time, then shrugged my shoulders as if to suggest that I had practically invented calf vellum, when, in truth, I had never even heard of such a thing. Glancing toward the cross on the wall behind him, I noticed a wooden statue of Jesus staring back at me with pity in his eyes, and I wondered whether He could look into the depths of my soul and see both the mendacity and the rage that coexisted within.
“You’re fierce thin, all the same,” continued Brother Finbar, looking me up and down with a frown. “Have you eaten? Are you starving, is that it? Did they not feed you on the boat across, no?”
I shook my head but waved a hand in the air to say that I was fine, despite the fact that I was ravenous, for it had taken me five days to walk the distance from Wexford to Meath and I’d had precious little to eat along the way. But the sun was waning, and I guessed that, soon, the monks would gather together for their evening meal, when I would surely be invited to join them. I could wait until then for sustenance.
“We’ll welcome you so,” said the abbot, handing me back my drawings and taking me downstairs to introduce me to the men whose company I would be sharing, forty of them, old and young, all of whom sat at long wooden tables waiting for their stew and watching me carefully to decide whether or not I might represent some threat to their positions. This might be a holy place, I would soon learn, but there was a hierarchy to it that would not be challenged.
The monks were informed that I was an Englishman, but I was no Englishman, and regretted not having told Brother Finbar that I was Scots or French or some other nationality, as there was not a man in the country who would stand up to let an Englishman sit down. Still, they were men of God, even if I was not, and I hoped that they would treat me fairly.
“The poor man has no voice,” the abbot continued as the pots of food arrived. “So, don’t be trying to get into any conversations with him, as you’ve more chance of drawing blood from a stone. Am I right, Brother?” he asked, turning to me, and I smiled beatifically. “Grand so,” he said, indicating an empty seat next to an elderly man who I would come to know as Brother Ultan. “Sit down there now, like a good man, and eat your stew while it’s hot.”
I did as instructed and the food might have been hot, cold or somewhere in between for all the difference it made to me. It was food and it was good and while my spirits had all but abandoned me over the previous week, it gave me a sudden and much-needed sensation of well-being.
* * *
• • •
The work itself was more rewarding than I could possibly have hoped for and, to my surprise, I found that daily life in the monastery suited me as I grew to appreciate its unvarying repetition. I woke shortly before five o’clock in the morning, when I joined the monks as we made our way toward the chapel for Lauds, and then, after breakfast, we separated into different groups. There were two cellarers who organized the meals throughout the day, three sacrists who maintained the books in the library and took care of the vestments, a half-dozen or more who toiled in the gardens, growing vegetables and looking after the livestock, while the rest of us were the artists who spent our hours working on the Great Book. We’d stop at noon for the Little Hours of the Divine Office, partake of a small lunch and then return to our work in the afternoon before vespers and dinner. It was painstaking work, hard on the eyes, but the hours passed like seconds.
I had been charged with working on a page of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew and, before I began, I spent a few days studying the work that the monks had already completed in order to bring my illustrations into line with theirs. It was thrilling to observe their artistry. I’d never seen anything so intricate and recognized that, in these men, I had at last encountered not only my artistic equals but my superiors. Losing myself in their skillfulness allowed me to quieten my grief and I was grateful for such relief. There was no conversation as we worked; instead, each monk bent over his page with pens and inks, trying to capture as much of the light as he could before evening fell. A page could take as much as a month to complete and was set aside only after it had been approved by Brother Finbar, who employed a large magnifying glass with a carving of a snake on the surround to check every image and word. Naturally, we used the Vulgate as our source, the Latin Bible that Saint Jerome had composed for Pope Damasus four hundred years earlier, and our task was to transcribe it exactly.
Mistakes could be costly, as was proven when Brother Daragh made an error that spoiled weeks of effort. He’d been transcribing the Sermon on the Mount from Chapter Five and slipped from “Blessed are the peacemakers” to “Blessed are you when people insult you” without adding “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness” in between the two. The page was close to completion and if it hadn’t been for another of the monks happening to glance at it and noticing the oversight, it might have made it all the way to Brother Finbar’s desk. Poor Brother Daragh saw all his work on the page ruined and he tore it into shreds, scattering the scraps on the floor as tears dripped down his face. I wanted to offer solace, but as none of the other monks even glanced in his direction, let alone tried to console him
, I did nothing, lest I betray the fact that I was not truly one of them. The poor man barely recovered from the trauma, however, and died a few days later. Although, in fairness, that was because a rabid dog bit him when he was out for a walk and he came down with an infection, so the two events were not, in fact, connected. Although there were some who suggested the fatal injury had come about as divine retribution from a vengeful God.
I was careful that no similar errors should appear in my work, poring over every word, drawing, line and color to ensure that my lettering and illustrations were as close to perfection as I could achieve. I created an image of six peacocks wrapped together, a symbol of eternal life, and the ink fell on the page as if it had been torn from its natural bed centuries before and was only delighted to be reunited at last. At night, when I fell into my bed, my hands a rainbow of color, I felt fortunate to have discovered the monastery and might have even begun to believe in a God to whom I pretended to pray, had it not been for the fact that he’d already robbed me of two wives, a son and an unborn baby, when I had done nothing but try to live an honest life. No, there was no god for me, save Nemesis, the old Greek deity whose purpose in the eternal sphere was to exact vengeance upon wrongdoers and miscreants.
* * *
• • •
Occasionally in the evenings I would take a turn about the gardens, my eyes needing to relax after a day of squinting over a set of intricate illuminations, and it was on one of those nights, as the sun began to descend, that I encountered Brother Ultan, who I had sat beside at dinner on my first night at the abbey. Brother Ultan was the oldest member of our community and looked every day of his eighty years. A bag of skin, sinew and bones, he had a face full of white whiskers and a mouth full of yellow teeth. Age had not diminished his faith, however, for he was one of the most devoted of the monastery’s congregation. I witnessed him weeping regularly at church and when I saw him emerge from the confessional on a daily basis, I wondered what sins could possibly stain the soul of a man who had spent so much of his life cloistered within these bulwarks. He slept in the cell next to mine and our beds would have been pressed together, were it not for the stone wall that separated us.
On this particular evening, however, he waved in my direction and I nodded back, intending to walk on, but he beckoned me toward him, and, for politeness’s sake, I obeyed. Strolling over, I took my place on the bench next to him and, for a time, we remained silent as we sat side by side enjoying the beauty of the land that surrounded us. When he finally spoke, however, his question could not have surprised me more.
“Tell me this and tell me no more,” he said quietly. “Who is Kathleen and who is Éanna?”
I turned to look at him, astonished to hear those names spoken aloud, for I had neither heard nor uttered them since taking my leave of Wexford some months earlier. I thought about standing up and walking away but Brother Ultan was studying me with a faint smile on his face and I saw that he meant no malice by his question. “You can answer in words rather than signs,” he added after a few moments. “I know that you’re no mute, even if you’ve fooled everyone else into thinking otherwise.”
“How did you know?” I asked, and it had been so long since I had spoken aloud that the words cracked as they came from my lips, my voice sounding like a foreign instrument even to my own ears.
“Sure don’t I hear you through the wall?” he asked. “Every few nights, when you have one of your nightmares, I hear you calling out their names. Kathleen and Éanna. So I’ve grown intrigued, you might say, although of course this is none of my business and if you don’t want to tell me, then I won’t press you for an answer.”
I looked down at the grass beneath my feet. It was true that my sleep was often disturbed and there were nights when I woke in a cold sweat, but never had I imagined that I had cried out and been overheard.
“Kathleen was my wife,” I said, deciding that it would do me good to have a confidant. “And Éanna, my son.”
“They’re dead, I suppose?”
“They are,” I said.
“Will you tell me how?”
“Murdered,” I told him. “Kathleen ran away with me against her father’s wishes, so he hunted her down and killed her, along with the lad. It took him a long time to find her, but I should have known that he wouldn’t stop until he did. I’d put him from my mind long since. I thought we were safe. I was a fool.”
“And that’s why you’re here, is it?” he asked. “Because I know you’ve not taken holy orders, no matter how easily you’ve tricked Brother Finbar. When you first arrived, it was obvious that you hadn’t the first clue when to stand, when to sit or when to kneel when you were at the Mass. Did you not attend as a boy, no?”
“It wasn’t part of my life,” I said.
“Are you not a believer?”
“If I ever was, I’m not any more.”
“Then why did you come here? Why not somewhere else?”
I thought about it for a long time before answering.
“I came for the silence,” I told him. “And for the peace. Right now, I know that it is best if I am at a remove from the world. I’ve committed acts that would surely send me to hell, if I believed in the existence of such a place. I need a period on my own before I undertake what will surely be the crucial mission of my life.”
“Have you asked for forgiveness?”
I laughed a little and shook my head. “From who?” I asked. “Who has the power to grant me such a thing?”
He sighed and intertwined his fingers as he fell silent, wrestling with the notion that there were some of us who did not believe in the existence of a world outside the one that we could see with our own eyes.
“I had a wife, too, you know,” he said eventually in a quiet voice, and I turned to him in surprise.
“You can become a monk if you were married?”
“Oh, you can, surely. She died, is the thing. Many years ago now. She got a terrible pain in her stomach one day and then it only grew worse and worse over time. Soon she could barely breathe on account of it. And then one night, she was screaming so much, the poor girl was in such agony, that I couldn’t take another minute of it. I loved her dearly, do you see, and I knew that she hadn’t long left for this world. So I was faced with a choice. I could let her live a few more days in torment or I could take the horror away from her. And I chose the latter.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How did you do it?” I asked.
“That’s neither here nor there,” he replied. “We’ll just say that I released her to God’s gentle mercy, and that’s enough for you to know.”
“Is anyone else aware of this?”
“My confessors, of course. I received absolution a long time ago, but I still don’t feel truly accepted back on to the path of righteousness. There are days when I’m glad I did what I did and days when I think I should have left it all to God. He gave her the suffering, maybe He had a reason for it, and it was up to Him to take it away again. After that I spent a couple of years living what you might call a life of debauchery before I came here. It’s been good for me, this place. I think my life was always leading me toward it and I know I’ll never leave Kells. My bones will turn to dust in that graveyard over there. But you don’t intend to stay forever, do you?”
“No,” I admitted.
“There’s more on your mind than illustrating pages of the Great Book, I think.”
I said nothing. I had been forming a plan and letting it build slowly in my mind. When the time was right, I would take my leave of the monastery and act upon it. But that time had not arrived just yet.
“You won’t tell Brother Finbar the truth, will you?” I asked him finally.
“Not if you don’t want me to, no, but something or someone, call it God or call it by some other name, brought me here and it’s a place where I’ve found peace. If you let it, mayb
e it would offer you the same. But you’re using it, I know that. You’re using all of us. You’re in pain, that much is obvious, but all you’re doing right now is hiding away from the world, nothing more. Would you not give it a second chance, no?”
“I cannot,” I said. “Not right now anyway. Perhaps someday.”
I stood up, not wishing to continue this conversation any further.
“One last question?” he said before I left, and I turned around to look at him.
“Yes, Brother?” I asked.
“There’s another name you call out. Hugh. Who is he, if you don’t mind my asking?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I lied. “I’ve never known a man with that name.”
NEPAL
A.D. 862
PERHAPS THE MOST SERENE ASPECT of the monastery was its location in the heart of the Nepa Valley, where it was entirely surrounded by a vast forest of maple trees. As holy men, the monks welcomed any stranger who made his way through the woodland in search of sanctuary, no matter how dangerous or threatening he looked, and acts of violence within the walls were as rare as black swans. Many came and went during my time there, some remaining for several months, others for only a few days, but the focus was always on healing and enlightenment. It was considered indecorous to inquire of another person what had originally brought him to this refuge, but while the most common reasons were grief, loneliness, failure or sin, it proved simpler to remain ignorant of other people’s stories.
