by Marele Day
He went into the corridor. It was fortunate that the abbess’ room was at the head of the block of cells. Of forty or more cells only three were occupied. Though initially he had surveyed them with the eyes of a property assessor he was still a priest and did not feel comfortable entering those occupied cells. As a fugitive he wanted to stay as far away from them as possible.
Through the cloisters and out into the courtyard, their sleeping fire a soft red glow just enough to keep going till morning, a thin drift of smoke ascending into the night air. He skirted the courtyard, past the holding pen and came out onto the grass. In front of him were the white mounds of sheep scattered among the small crosses of the cemetery.
The monastery was vast and silent. He realised as he stood listening for sounds of awakening from within the house that he was saying goodbye. A twinge of regret that this would be the last time he’d see it like this, that he would be the last person seeing it like this. This brought with it a quivering surge of power, because Ignatius had already lain a vision of the future on the property stretched before him. He was the explorer who had discovered this virgin territory and it would never be the same again. In forging his way in he had produced the crack which tore asunder the past and future.
He hitched up his sheep clothing, adjusting the skins so they fitted better and allowed movement without coming undone. Each step he took was careful, measured, alert. Like the creature whose skins he wore he cast his awareness behind him, in the direction of possible predators. Though dressed comically in animal skins and carrying an enamel pot, he felt more exhilarated than he had ever felt in his life. He was free and roaming, alone, moving through the night, lord of all he surveyed.
He headed in the direction he took to be west and soon found the thickening bushes. He dropped to the ground and discovered the best way through was to crawl. It was slower but safer. His posture and his clothing accorded perfectly. At first he held the pot in one hand but the three-legged movement was awkward so he put the pot on his head, butting against undergrowth to make his way through. There was a movement in the bushes, a sudden squawk and the flapping of feathers as the night bird flew away. Ignatius stopped perfectly still, waiting for repercussions. The squawk faded and silence descended like velvet. He pressed on.
If it had been the squawk alone that had wakened her, Iphigenia probably would have turned, pulled the blanket up further and gone back to sleep. One lone sheep moving away from the flock. Smelled like ram. Something wasn’t quite right. Her nose made tiny searching movements, nostrils quivering. Ram, but something more. Urine? Vinegar? An old smell, only faintly alive.
In one rolling movement the blanket was tossed aside and her feet found the floor. She put her cloak around her shoulders and hurried down the corridor to the abbess’ room.
Iphigenia could tell by the shadows and creases that the bed was empty. She shook Margarita by the shoulder.
‘He’s gone.’
‘Gone?’ Margarita’s eyes were open but it wasn’t till she peered at the empty bed and noticed the pot was missing that she said, ‘To urinate. Pot’s gone.’
She’d made the observation but she couldn’t quite get the sense of it. He went outside to urinate. Why did he take the pot?
Iphigenia’s hand was feeling the bed. ‘Sheepskins gone too. Get Carla.’
It was all wrong. Iphigenia had come into the room and announced to Margarita that he was gone. Margarita was guarding him, it should have been she who had sounded the alarm. It should not have happened at all. He had slipped away, tricked her.
Iphigenia paced up and down in front of the fire. The smell was in the brambles to the west. It had slowed but it was still moving. She could have gone after him by herself, tracked him down with her nose but then what? Could she fall on him in the brambles and wrestle him? Iphigenia held a stick in the fire and watched it jump into flames.
Margarita came back with Carla and the three stood hunched by the fire.
‘Stray sheep, Carla. In the brambles.’
They followed the trail of scent he had left behind. They stepped out of the courtyard as he had done, stopped and looked over the flock nestled in the graves of dead sisters as he had done. Then as one body, they turned towards the west, Iphigenia in the middle with her radar nose, Carla and Margarita flanking her, their night cloaks billowing out like bats’ wings.
They glided along in formation the way they did when rounding up the sheep, until they came to the brambles. He was still in there, moving slowly. They crossed to the northern side, less sun and less overgrown. Had he deliberately chosen the brambles thinking that it would be more difficult to root him out?
The nuns started up the chant. They hummed till a wave of sound spread through the air and on that wave they cast their words. ‘Lamb of God, oh blessed lamb of God, meek and mild, stand in the light and let the servants of God unclothe thee. Shed the old that the new may be blessed and sanctified in the Lord’s name.’ They kept up the humming as they advanced towards the brambles.
Ignatius stopped. His pot hat was vibrating with sound, humming like a top. He took the hat off but still it was hard to discern exactly where the sound was coming from. Whispers from all directions. Sounds and sweet airs. The voices were heavenly, a flight of angels to coax him out of the brambles.
Iphigenia smelled the softening of tension as their voices reached his ear and entered into his spirit. Perhaps after all he would come meekly as a lamb. There was a chorus of bleats and baas as the sheep arose and answered the call.
He pulled the pot down over his ears till it hurt. But still the sound snaked in. He crashed on through the undergrowth, losing the upper skin as he did so. No time to adjust it. He kept blindly on, his faith in the west and hope of the gateway, the gateway that on the map was open. Spiky fingers and thorns tore at his flesh. He could smell blood.
Quite clearly now, yes, Iphigenia had pinpointed him. The blood, the smell of fear and urgency. They continued chanting, bringing the sheep with them in their wake. He was thrashing wildly, the voices closing in on him, his trail quite clear.
‘Carla.’
Suddenly the singing stopped. Then he heard the sound of crashing in the thicket. A big animal, coming steadfastly towards him. He expected the baying of hounds. He must not listen, he must not think about what is behind him. He must go on with his faith, with faith that the opening is there. Eyes blink in the darkness, eyes of creatures big as night. He goes on, no longer feeling the spiky fingers as they reach out and grab his flesh. Then, miraculously, it is there. The opening! He throws himself into it, down, down he plunges, a scream tearing out of his body like a rat deserting a sinking ship as he flies through the night.
This time they secured him good and proper. Margarita said that for penance she would maintain an eternal vigil and never drop off to sleep, keep a stone tied to her chest so that when her head rolled forward it would wake her up. The visitor needed to be punished too, for tricking her, but Margarita kept this thought to herself. Iphigenia said that a vigil was not necessary. They needed to deal with the matter once and for all. Then return to the routine of their lives.
Iphigenia had thought about it for days and she knew it was the right thing. After prayers the next morning she made her announcement. ‘We are going outside.’
‘Outside?’
‘The car. There may be things,’ said Iphigenia.
Carla was wide-eyed, breath suspended. It was so quiet she could hear her own heart beating. She had never been outside, though once she had caught a glimpse of it.
The ditch he had fallen into was one of Carla’s childhood ditches, much shallower than fear and panic had led him to believe as he fell through the air towards it. Carla had dug it in her games, scuffling the earth behind her like a dog. She found pebbles and a tiny shell that became a treasure for a while. She kept on digging, hoping for more. She scraped and scratched with her fingers, with sticks, with spoons spirited away from the kitchen.
When s
he had made a nice round hollow, she lay down and rested from her labours. Sister Cook said it was good for children to rest and be still. Even God took a rest. She especially said this when she was busy and Carla asked her too many questions.
After her rest Carla got up, moved on and made some more hollows. As she pulled back the brambles to make the digging easier she discovered a big pair of doors, old timber doors the same colour as the brambles that grew over them, vertical planks with a diagonal one on each. What was on the other side, she wondered. A metal chain was looped through the handles. At the bottom of the chain hung a square of metal that had a slit in it like a keyhole. Little Carla’s eyes grew round with excitement. She searched all over, on the ground and in the bushes but there was no key to be found.
She tugged at the chain but the square of metal would not release it. She looked up. Too high and nothing to get a foothold on. She tried the diagonal plank but her leg slipped down and she got a bruise. Then she knew just the right solution. Under. She got down on the ground again, started burrowing. She scraped with her fingers and dug with the spoon till she was able to put her finger between the ground and the door. She dug some more, her tongue stuck in the corner of her mouth, her face fierce with concentration.
Then she lay her head on the ground and put her eye to the space. Straightaway she felt the draft of wind, sharp and narrow as if a spark from the fire had hit her eye. She turned her head away, blinked several times, heard the whistle of the wind under the door. When she was brave enough she tried again. All she could see was blue. Blue space, howling with wind. Perhaps if she went a bit further she would see more. She could crawl through the space between the ground and a door, she knew how to do it. Once she’d watched a rat make itself very flat, disappear under the cupboard and never be seen again.
Carla looked out with her one eye on the ground. There was nothing out there but space. She had come to the edge of the world. The walls and these heavy locked doors were there so that Carla and the nuns and the sheep wouldn’t fall off. Carla stared out. She knew she could do what the rat did but she wouldn’t do it. She didn’t want to fall off the edge of the world and never be seen again.
‘Not going,’ announced Margarita.
‘Not going?’ All Iphigenia could do was repeat it stupidly. There had never been a mutiny before.
Margarita’s toes were dug into the ground, her fingers wrapped around the edge of the table like bird’s claws around a perch.
‘This is our home.’ She had taken vows. She had chosen the cloistered world. She was not agile, she did not like adventure.
‘But we will come back,’ argued Iphigenia. ‘Back before nightfall.’ One day more, that’s all it would be, then they would pick up the stitches of their life and knit it back together again.
Perhaps Margarita should stay. The way might be treacherous and they couldn’t afford an accident. There was no bonesetter to fetch now.
‘And what will you do?’ asked Iphigenia.
Margarita wished now that she hadn’t blurted it out so abruptly. She didn’t want to go but she didn’t want to be here without them either.
‘Pray. I will pray.’
Carla and Iphigenia started making preparations. Margarita put bread in a basket, cheese and some apples. She felt the separation intensely, as if they had already gone.
Before they were even out of the courtyard Margarita called, ‘Wait!’ Iphigenia and Carla were her community. She had to go with them. She started making her way across the courtyard.
‘Wait!’ mimicked Carla. She ran off and came back with a stick. Assumpta’s walking-stick. She gave it to Margarita. They were all pleased she was coming. Whatever waited for them out there, they would face together.
And so in the late morning the three set out, going as far as they could through the grass and then entering the thicket at the last moment. Fortunately in his thrashing about the man had cleared a path for them. But not quite up to the doors. A number of ditches and diggings remained from Carla’s childhood, she was surprised to see so many. She led her nuns around and through them, so much easier in the light of day. And there she was once again, in front of the doors.
Iphigenia started tearing at the brambles, pulling them aside. Margarita joined in, using Assumpta’s stick. Then Carla saw the old chain and its metal lock, yanked at it and it came away in her hand, bringing with it a section of the door. The wind of the outside world whistled through the gap. Carla lowered her eyes to protect them and saw the brown stain of rust on her hand. She rubbed at it. She tossed the chain aside and helped the others with the door. Though the brambles were strong, the doors were frail and weathered. There were soft tearing noises of the wood falling away, the hiss and crack of brambles. They had made an opening big enough to pass through.
The three of them stood on the threshold of descent. For the first time in her life Carla had a clear view of the outside. It was sky. The same sky they had above the monastery, and when you looked at it you saw the transparent squiggles that Carla imagined were souls going up to Heaven. So many souls out here! Then she saw the other blue, the darkly rippled blue, an ocean of it, and seabirds squawking and swooping towards it. Carla was pleased that under their feet the ground was solid. Dark green vegetation rolled down, down to the rippled sea and the white crash of it against jagged rocks.
She felt dizzy, the dizzy ecstasy of fainting. The white crash, the deep blue. All she had to do was lean forward and fall.
He was in a dream where he couldn’t move, where his effort strained to no avail though his will was tremendous. Sweat streamed from every pore, his mind was a sea of agitation, huge looming waves and giddy whirlpools, yet still the message of movement was not getting through. In his mind he knew he could do it; swim oceans, leap over continents, but his legs wouldn’t move an inch. His body was a weight, an anchor, holding him back. It was inert, moribund. This was no place for the breath of life to be. If he could not move his flesh and his bones he would leave them behind. On the next breath he would break through the taut membrane of skin and send his soul soaring to heaven. He gathered everything about him, his memories, his prayers, the things he had yet to do, waited till he could hold the breath no longer then burst through.
It was only a dull gasp but enough to wake him. But was he awake? Or had he simply shifted gears and entered another register of dreaming? The darkness had gone, there was an immensity of light, too bright for his eyes. He was staring into the sun. He snapped his eyes shut. He had been crawling through undergrowth, he had panicked, hit the ground and twisted his ankle. Then he had blacked out.
He was awake, alive, but still his body was in great torpor. His arms had disappeared and his legs were covered with a heavy sheet. He tried to shift it but couldn’t. He gasped again, an involuntary prayer this time that it was all a dream. But it wasn’t, it wasn’t. He started weeping, shuddering and weeping, when he saw what had become of him. It was not his body anymore, he was in the body of a stranger. Every hair on the body had been shaved. The penis lay exposed, a slump weak, helpless thing and below that … He couldn’t stop looking, even though he was drowning in waves of revulsion. They had plastered his legs together, from crutch to toes. Bandaged like a mummy. He was a merman with a plaster cast for a tail.
The sun was high in the sky, bleaching the colour out of it when Margarita sat down on a warm rock.
‘Sext.’
It was time for midday prayers. Besides, Margarita needed a rest. Her breath was short and her chest heaving but she was faring better than she expected. The salty tang of air, its brisk uninhibited movement, had cut through some of the congestion in her lungs. By the time they had finished their silent prayers her breath had returned to normal.
They still had a fair way to go. The ground around them was covered in gorse, dark green and prickly, softened by sprigs of yellow flowers. On the rocks were mossy lichen and other growths that looked like miniature forests. They had seen no footprints, snapped branches,
no sign left by the visitor. There was no sign of human life at all. This was the world before the creation of women and men, of secular life and sin. It was the day when the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, the day when God made fowl that flew above the Earth in the open firmament of Heaven. The seabirds wheeled and dipped in the gathering air, screeched their long and lonely calls. So crisply white—wisps of wool caught up in the wind. Margarita breathed it in.
Carla stared at the curly hairs on Margarita’s legs. Mary Magdalene had come to an island, just like this one, the nuns had told her, and performed miracles. She had saved a child from dying of hunger by making its mother’s corpse produce milk. Carla would like to have seen that.
On the whole, she was a bit disappointed. Oh it was wonderful seeing so much sky, but they had sky at the monastery. She liked the sea but it looked a bit like the sky too. She had expected more. She liked all the things that grew, the little clumps of sea-pinks with the tough narrow leaves of windswept places, loved their rosy carmine buds and the more delicate shade of pink of the open flowers. But where were all the things of the world? The cities of gold, of salt, the Tower of Babel? Where were the poor and needy? The people, red and yellow, black and white, all precious in His sight? She had very much been looking forward to seeing the world but when they had finally caught sight of it across the water it was just more land.
Still, it was a wonderful adventure. She had angels in her pocket and she had a task to do. Every so often, she attached a fleecy angel to a bush or stuck one in the crevice of a rock. She had left six so far. They made a path that the nuns could put down and pick up so that when their outing was over they would leave no trace.
Iphigenia remembered the hillside of Midsummer Day, the gurgle of brooks, the granite outcrops, buzz of bees in the honey-scented gorse. A memory so vivid, so indelibly set. But everything looked different. Where was the spiral path that had wound round the island like a long apple peel?
