Again, Bernard looked up from the page. Abelard was, if anything, more stoic than before. He, too, had drawn himself up. He was standing with his hand free of the railing now, and the tremor of his head, by an evident act of will, was stilled. Indeed, his head was thrown back—a stance of pure defiance.
Bernard took refuge once again in the sheet of parchment, but his voice faltered even more. The arrogant firmness with which he’d begun had become uncertain, almost apologetic. He recited, “So we say, pronounce, sentence, declare, and ordain.” He looked up, and added, evidently of his own accord, in search of vigor, “God wills it! Deus vult!”
No sooner had Bernard brought the page down than Peter Abelard, raising a steady hand as if to swear an oath, finally broke his silence by declaring, in an unwavering voice that carried all across the Cathedral—the voice, it almost seemed, of God—“I appeal this unholy verdict to the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff!”
With a mass intake of breath, the Cathedral silence became an astonished hush. Bernard did not react at first, then swung around to look at the King, who had turned to look at the Queen. The dilemma was immediate and clear. After Pope Innocent II had finally calmed the storm stirred by the antipope Anacletus II at the Second Lateran Council two years before, the now fortified Pontiff had issued a solemn Great Bull, reserving to himself all authority to resolve every and any dispute involving papal jurisdiction. Had Peter Abelard just invoked that privilege, superseding the present jurisdiction? When the King finally met Bernard’s eyes, the current of anxiety ran in both directions. The imperious Pope in Rome could not be crossed.
Bernard turned back to Abelard, and, with the air of a man scrambling, said, “The Apostolic See authorized this Tribunal, in concert with His Majesty, the Sovereign King of France. The Canonical Adjudication of this Council will be forwarded to Rome. Apostolic approbation will be forthcoming.” Bernard, at the edge of catastrophe, had recovered himself. He poured all authority—all memory of authority—into his spontaneous decree. With upraised hand, he said, “While formalities of the magisterial appeal are observed, the order for the silencing and confinement of Master Peter Abelard stands.” With a flick of his fingers, Bernard gestured to the nearby Fellow-Soldiers of Christ, the Knights Templar. “Take him,” he ordered.
Héloïse nearly cried out, but if one thing would make Peter Abelard’s condition even worse, it would be the scandalous discovery here of his onetime lover. She looked to the Queen, hoping to find a way to spark her intervention, but the Honorable Lady, like the balcony girls with whom Héloïse was standing, was happily transported by what she was seeing. To the young women of the Royal household, including Her Majesty, this tragic turn in Peter Abelard’s saga was the fitting dénouement to the lyric romance begun with his lusty transgression more than twenty years before. Héloïse saw suddenly how the tittering Eleanor of Aquitaine and her commissioned minstrels, now that they had an end to the story, would banalize the interrupted ardor—the impossible love—of Héloïse and Abelard. She despised that prospect, and despised herself for having so unworthily enabled it.
“No!” A stirring voice resounded from the center of the Cathedral nave, well back in the gathering of commoners. Heads turned. Bernard of Clairvaux, blindsided again, craned forward to see. The Knights Templar remained back, leaving Abelard alone at the railing.
A black-robed Benedictine moved forward and stepped into the open space at the front edge of the transept crossing. He dropped his cowl, showing his face, which all in the Cathedral chancel recognized. Nevertheless, he announced himself: “I am Peter of Montboissier, Abbot Primate of Cluny.” He stepped forward, to face the white-robed Bernard, his great rival. Peter Abelard, standing between them, was all at once the prize.
In a voice that carried throughout the cavernous space, the Abbot Primate declared, “This man is a professed monk of the Benedictine Order, of which I am Abbot Primate in the Kingdom of France, and in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. This man is the ecclesiastical patron of a monastery in confederation with the Abbey of Cluny, which has universal preeminence. Therefore, his any and all canonical sanctions fall under my authority. Supreme papal jurisdiction has been invoked. While the matter of this Tribunal is resolved by the Holy Father, Pope Innocent II, Master Peter Abelard is remanded to the custody of Cluny.” With that, the Abbot crossed to the rostrum and raised his hand to Abelard, who reached for it. Abelard had to steady himself on the Abbot’s shoulder as he took the step down. The Abbot and Abelard stood shoulder to shoulder, ignoring Bernard but facing the King, waiting for a sign of the sovereign’s dismissal. King Louis, with relief in his expression, nodded.
Abelard’s eye was snagged by Queen Eleanor, whose back was half turned on the King. She was looking up at the loggia, and Abelard, following her gaze, saw then what the Queen was seeing. Abelard saw Héloïse.
She was looking only at him. They held each other’s eyes for the briefest of moments, but it was enough. They saw their entire life together, and its unbroken, unconditioned mutual regard.
Leaning on the stalwart Abbot of Cluny, Peter Abelard then turned and shuffled out of the stunned Cathedral. Héloïse was aware of the break in history she had just witnessed, but also of her own enabling hubris. Had she not forecast Peter’s fate by her garb? Had she not foreordained it? How dare she come here clothed in the black drapery of a widow?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
You are towing a large barge on a hawser, Michael Kavanagh read. Your main engine suddenly fails. What is the greatest danger?
He was at his desk in the small, cluttered company office, in one of several ramshackle single-story, multi-tenant buildings nestled together at the head of a narrow Staten Island finger pier, just east of the looming ferry terminal. The golden light of a bright May morning poured in through the wall of paned windows. It was a Sunday, so Betty-May, the bookkeeper, wasn’t there, and the three Kavanagh tugs were in their berths outside, snug in the crotch of the pier. The surrounding yard was quiet.
Kavanagh was reviewing questions for his upcoming Mate’s License exam. It was a laughable project to him, since he was barely qualified as a deckhand, and had, in fact, spent most of his five months at Kavanagh Tug Company organizing his brother’s office. Since mustering out of the Merchant Marine, Jerry Kavanagh had scored bank loans that enabled him to buy first one army-surplus tugboat, then a second, and a third, and to take on crews for each. He’d steered his fleet of three into the narrow but booming “car barge” niche of the New York Harbor tugboat trade; he’d nailed down contracts with the railroads, come to terms with the union, and accepted a pay-to-play arrangement with the waterfront boss. But except for the latter, that all involved paperwork that the grease-monkey Master Mariner had left in various stages of undone. Jerry was right to regard his well-organized older brother’s arrival—no offense—as a Godsend.
But if Kavanagh Tug was to become, as Jerry insisted it would, Kavanagh Brothers Tug, he was right to insist that Michael get licensed.
Back to the greatest danger—choose one: “The tug and the tow will go aground.” “The tow will endanger other traffic.” “The tow will overrun tug.” “The tow will block the channel.”
Obviously, “The tow will overrun tug.” Ten thousand gross tons of barge weight crushing the engineless tugboat—there’s the danger. Fuck the channel. Michael slapped the pocket of his denim shirt, for his cigarettes.
A runaway tow wasn’t a hazard he was likely to face. Jerry’s boats specialized in bringing loaded freight-car barges from Jersey City to Brooklyn, and empty ones back; but that involved the tug’s tying alongside the barge instead of pulling it with hawsers. There was no “tow.” Given that dozens of rail floats made the transit every day, the confluence of the Hudson and the East Rivers, at Upper Bay, was too congested for hawser towing. That Kavanagh tugs were married to their barges meant Michael hadn’t learned much about towline maneuvers. But he knew that, if his main engine failed while he was tied gunnel
to gunnel to a scow weighed down by a dozen fully loaded boxcars, the East River tides would carry them crashing out into Lower Bay, wreaking havoc with the tankers and freighters swinging at anchor. Nobody would give a crap whether the asshole helmsman had successfully passed his Coastal Tug Mate exam.
Next question: “The compass heading of a vessel differs from the true heading by—”
Kavanagh had no idea. He looked out the window, like a kid longing for recess. The harbor vista always drew him. He had discovered a whole new way to cherish New York. What he’d really loved in these months were the hours on the open water: the inland bay, with glimpses of the far Atlantic; the rivers; the cable-grid bridges overhead; forests of cranes and derricks sprouting from the piers and wharves; the sleek liners with their ship-assist tugs. He would leave the wheelhouse to have the wind in his face, welcoming even the rain when it came. He would spread his feet for the rhythmic swell of the cross-flooding wakes, feeling the music of motion in his chest—more alive to the present moment than ever. No satisfaction could compare to throwing the wheel and kicking the engine into reverse at exactly the right instant, so that the tire-fendered gunnel kissed the dock with no need for the braided line.
As a chaplain, he’d loved the navy for its camaraderie, the lads, and the cause, but the Navy Yard Hospital was not a ship, and he’d rarely been at sea. He’d never imagined himself as a bluejacket. But now all the river-rat fantasies of a longshoreman’s child were coming true. Aboard one of his brother’s muscular workboats, with its engine’s smooth vibrations, the purr in his fingers on the wheel, the steady cruise out into the magnificent open harbor, he’d come to feel entirely at home—as, so many years before, he’d imagined he would. No matter the weather, his eyes took a warm bath in the sight of the city skyline, which, he knew only now, was meant to be seen from the water. What cathedral towers and buttresses had been to him, the skyscrapers were now. He’d come into a familiar dream without remembering it was his until long after waking.
But the Mariner’s exam: he looked back to it. If the questions were not multiple-choice, he’d be screwed. “The Compass heading…the true heading”…what? “Compass error”? “Variation”? “Magnetic dip”? “Deviation”? He liked the sound of “magnetic dip,” and, indeed, vaguely remembered Jerry’s having said something about magnetic lines of force not actually being parallel to the earth’s surface, making the compass needle jostle up slightly in the Northern Hemisphere, and jostle down in the Southern. Maybe the jostle is the dip. Magnetic dip, therefore. Good enough.
He was just lighting his cigarette when he saw a shadow fall across the glass panes of the door, and he looked up. He glimpsed a figure in tan moving away from the door. The docks here were given over to the day boats and rarely saw activity on Sundays, so he was curious. He placed his cigarette in the ashtray, rose, crossed to the door, and opened it. There, to his right, staring at him, was a woman in round, rimless sunglasses, wearing a loosely belted tan trench coat and a blue beret from which black hair curled down over her ears. She looked so unlike the turbaned, black-cloaked, short-haired woman of The Cloisters that it took Kavanagh a moment to recognize Rachel Vedette. A leather bag was slung over her shoulder. She was holding in her two hands, as if to fend him off, a white envelope.
“My goodness,” Kavanagh said. “Miss Vedette.” He heard the leap in his voice, and only then felt the full surge of his surprise. She had never struck him as stylish, yet, in this ragtag working boatyard, she seemed a figure, nearly, of glamour.
“I am sorry,” she said. “I did not expect—”
“It’s all right. It’s quite all right,” Kavanagh said. “I am glad to see you. I almost didn’t recognize you.”
She removed her sunglasses and held out the envelope. “I meant only to leave this for you.”
He did not take the envelope. He said, “For me?”
“A letter.”
“How did you find me?”
She glanced at the sign above the door, “Kavanagh Tug.” “A tugboat captain. You told me your brother was a tugboat captain, in Staten Island. You told me you would go to work with him.”
Kavanagh grinned. “I did?” But then he remembered. “God, that’s right. You were the first person to whom I…spoke.” Spoke of what he was doing. After a moment, he added, “That’s so long ago. But even before I left Inwood, you left the museum.”
“Yes. I am a teacher now. I teach French to girls.”
“Ah. Good,” Kavanagh said, nodding. Then he said, “I went to The Cloisters once, asking for you. I owed you a lot. I thought of trying to track you down, but then realized you probably didn’t want that.”
“That was true.” She hesitated, and he sensed her need to make a decision, whether to explain. To his relief, she then added, “But the months passed. I realized that I, too, owed a debt. To you.” Now she pushed the envelope toward him again.
He took the letter, but made no move to open it.
“I thought on a Sunday,” she said, “the office here would be closed. I did not expect to see you.”
“How did you get here?”
She pointed up the waterfront. “The famous Staten Island Ferry,” she said, welcoming the neutral subject. “For five cents, an ocean voyage. I often come and go, just for the salt air. It surprised me, when I finally looked for you, that you were nearby the…crosser…le traversier…which I regard as my luxury liner.” She almost smiled, saying, “Of course, whenever I see the great ships being turned by the tugboats, I think of you.”
Kavanagh laughed. “No. No. We push scows around the harbor, barges. Workboats. Not the SS America. Too fancy for the likes of the Kavanaghs.”
She nodded. “I remember.” She stepped back. “I meant only to put my letter here, where you would find it. I will go now.”
He gestured with the letter. “What’s it say?”
She shook her head.
“May I read it? Then, we could talk. Look, come on inside. It’s a mess, but I have coffee on the hot plate. Will you have some?”
She shook her head no. But she did not move.
Kavanagh stood aside, opening the way for her. “Please,” he said. After a moment’s further hesitation, she went into the office. He pulled the door shut, moved a stack of tech manuals from Betty-May’s chair, and pulled it free of the table. “Shall I take your coat?”
“No. I will be only a moment here.” Rachel sat.
Kavanagh poured a fresh cup of coffee, and topped off his own. “This is rotten,” he said, “but it’s hot.” He handed the cup to her, and, pulling his own chair out from behind the desk, closer, he sat. He reached for the ashtray to stub out his still smoldering cigarette. Indicating her envelope, he checked again: “Should I?”
She shrugged. “Why not? It will embarrass me. But why not?” Her tone of voice was matter-of-fact, sure. “While you read…” She reached into her coat pocket for her own cigarettes, and went about the business of lighting up.
Kavanagh opened the envelope and removed the letter—a page of neat handwriting.
Dear friend, he read silently. I was une femme incomplète when we met, an incomplete woman. I remain so. But one does not begin to amend oneself until one understands. One does not understand until one speaks. I spoke to you. As you know, it was a matter of importance. You listened to me. It was enough. In these months, I have come to see as a gift what to you must have been a mere passing encounter. I am obliged to offer this word of thanks.
I am in a new place. So, I see, are you. Good luck to us both.—Rachel Vedette. Below her signature was an address. Hoboken.
Kavanagh looked up. “It wasn’t a ‘mere passing encounter’ to me. You could have no idea….” Kavanagh was suddenly choked with feeling. “I had been waiting a long time to change my life. Then I walked into The Cloisters that day, after years of ignoring the place. It was like coming out of dark woods into a sunlit meadow. Not The Cloisters itself, but…where I got to.”
Rachel stared a
t the tip of her cigarette.
He said: “If you are in a new place, it must be a good place. You seem…better.” He took in her appearance more closely. Her legs were crossed. She was wearing a brown skirt that came to her calves, and black fabric shoes with rope soles. Her ankles struck him. Though she was lean, as before, the hint of emaciation was gone. There was a shadow of gauntness in her cheeks, still—but only a shadow. Under the sleeve of her belted coat he saw the edge of a shirt cuff, and thought of her wrist. He gestured with the letter. “The ‘matter of importance,’ ” he said. “I am glad you told me.”
She raised her eyes to his. “I wrote my address on the letter, just there….”
“Yes. I see. Hoboken. We pick up Lackawanna barges there, twice a week.”
“I was meaning to leave it for you to decide whether to reply. I was thinking that, if you did reply, perhaps we could meet briefly. Then I was going to give you something…”
“So here we are, meeting.”
“…something I would not just leave….” She glanced about the office. “That is, I had to be certain you would receive it.”
Kavanagh smiled. “Well, here I am.”
After a moment, Rachel stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray and reached into her bag. She brought out a book, and Kavanagh recognized it at once—the leather-bound antique, Historia Calamitatum: Heloissae et Abaelardi Epistolae. She offered it to him.
“Your father’s book,” he said.
“Yes. The time is here for me to leave it behind. I would leave it with you.”
Instead of answering, or reaching to take the book, Kavanagh turned toward his desk and pulled open a drawer from which he withdrew a book of his own—the same book, also antique, also in Latin, also bound in leather, but without gold leafing. He held it out, side by side with Rachel’s volume. “I found it in a used-book store off Washington Square. You taught me to treasure their letters. As you did.”
The Cloister Page 38
