August

by Bernard Beckett

  The next day one of the older students explained the ritual. Every year the boy who brought the least was subjected to this punishment. Tristan asked why. The boy just shrugged and said, ‘It’s always been that way.’

  ‘And in the beginning, there was envy,’ she murmured. She found his hand and gently squeezed it. Broken bones graunched together. He did not complain.

  ‘What about your story?’ he asked. His voice was tiring and the memories were swarming, fragmenting and reforming in unreliable patterns.

  ‘My story isn’t interesting,’ she said.

  ‘It brought you here.’

  ‘A boy and a whore. How’s that interesting?’

  Tristan tried to rearrange himself; his back had begun to spasm. He was confident he understood where they were now in relation to the cabin. They were lying across the roof, wriggled half out of the possessive grasp of their seatbelts, shoulders and heads as close to horizontal as they could manage, legs forced up by the contour of the seats, which were crushed into a shape something like torture. She was lying across him in a way he couldn’t quite picture; the angle of her neck and head, their point of contact, surprised him. In the growing cold—violent shivers erupted without warning—her skin was the only source of warmth.

  He wanted to sleep; an ancient, insistent weariness blanketed him. He could not let it happen. That much he knew.

  ‘You have to talk.’ She was trying to keep the fear from her voice, but she knew it too.

  ‘I don’t know what else to say.’

  ‘Tell me what life was like, inside the college.’

  ‘It is hard to explain. At first it was unreal, and then it became…’ He struggled to find the word. He could feel a fog creeping over him. He wanted to get lost in it. He wanted to give in. Again she squeezed his hand, encouraging him. ‘And then it became normal. A crushing, wonderful sort of normal. I know that makes no sense. St Augustine’s makes many things, but not sense.’

  The smell of it came to him: the earthy scent of the prickly gowns they washed by hand each Saturday, the cold pungency of stone untouched by daylight, the fetid thickness of row upon row of boys snoring and farting their way through sleep…

  Each day the boys were woken early, to pray humbly, eat moderately and work unflinchingly through the sun’s angry arc. There were gardens to keep within the enclosure and, once their tenth birthday had passed, chores to complete out in the City. The boys provided services to the grander homes whose owners had once worn the plain brown garments of the college.

  When the sun dipped to the horizon attention turned to the lessons. These were divided into three types. The first dominated the boys’ time, if not their interest. They were set the task of memorising the first four chapters of The Holy Works. At first this seemed impossible. Whole weeks were spent stalled on a single page. The weakest boys were broken by the task and returned in ignominy to their families. The rest were tempted to give up too, but the fear of shame trumped despair.

  The second type of lesson consisted of long lectures on history, sometimes delivered by the rector, but usually by a brother with a sharpened face and hands that stabbed at the air as if to fend off the devils he imagined crowding in on every side. There was no shortage of words. It seemed to Tristan that every page he remembered of The Illustrated History had been turned into a book of its own. The brother’s real passion was reserved for a period not covered by the picture book: the years leading up to and following the war. To Tristan this didn’t seem like real history. The war had ended only thirty-five years ago and he had heard his father swapping hand-me-down battle stories with his friends. The brother, though, treated it like any other time gone by, hammering his favourite points with certainty and repetition.

  ‘The troubles didn’t start when the fuel became scarce, boys, although many will tell you they did. The troubles started when the fuel was plentiful and we unlearned the lessons of gratitude. Say it with me, boys. Say it with me…’

  And so they would intone that evening’s aphorism, their young voices binding together with unlikely force: ‘God does not turn from us in times of hardship; rather, in times of plenty we turn from Him.’

  But the fuel did run low and the weather changed, and then the fighting started. Some turned to God, others to science.

  ‘…and the holy cities had two great strengths, boys: our faith and our determination. The heathens laid siege to our great walled cities and two of them fell, but this, the strongest, could never be taken. They didn’t need us; we posed no threat to them or their precious wealth. But they could not stand to know we remained here, our fidelity to the God they had spurned a rebuke they could not ignore. Guilt and jealousy spurred them on, and for five long years God tested the strength of our conviction. Not all stayed the course, boys. By the time He sent the storms that ripped the heathen camps to pieces, only the most faithful remained within these walls. They were the fathers and the mothers of your fathers and mothers. We are built from the very best stock, the loyal and the resolute, and now you come here that through learning you may honour their memory by celebrating all that those in the heathen settlements have turned their backs on…’

  Most revelled in the brother’s patriotism but Tristan had little taste for empty rhetoric. He secretly looked forward to the lessons the other boys dreaded: the interrogations.

  The rector’s question-and-answer sessions could last long into the night; on one famous occasion he worried the sun back into the sky. The focus of the inquiry was always the same. Will. The will of God and the will of His creation. Tristan was sure there were only so many ways the paradox could be approached but the rector was indefatigable. The puzzle of time, the mystery of creation, the problem of evil, the enigma of knowledge, the state of the soul, the vexations of probability theory or the nature of God’s grace, all reduced to a single question. What does it mean, in a world of God’s creation, that man is free to choose between the paths of good and evil? This was not, to the rector’s mind, an unanswerable question, but as he never tired of reminding them, neither was it a simple one. The truth he taught them was infinitely subtle and could be approached only through a lifetime of contemplation.

  Tristan loved the cut and thrust of the rector’s arguments and the giddy moments when the beginning of understanding would writhe and rise within, lured to the surface by a perfectly weighted question. Tristan tried hard not to stand out during these sessions, but it was clear he was one of the top students. Although the other boys did not punish him for his abilities they never forgave him his lowly origins. No amount of schooling could match the sense of social superiority every true collegian learned on his parents’ knees.

  Tristan became a distant planet orbiting the greater social mass, pulled and pulling, and an uneasy balance was established. He did not complain. Every day he gave thanks for the circumstances that had brought him to St Augustine’s. And every night he remembered his father. Although he missed him, Tristan learned to keep his feelings at a proper distance. Restraint, the brothers taught them, was the most noble of the male graces. Once, in a moment of unguarded pride, Tristan boasted that he would never cry again.

  But he cried on the day they delivered word of his father’s death. The rector broke the news himself, kneeling quietly beside the confused boy, trapping him at his pew as the other boys filed out of the chapel.

  ‘Stay a while longer, Tristan.’

  Tristan’s heart thumped in fear, although he could not think what it was he was about to be punished for.

  ‘Have I done something wrong?’ he asked. He was eleven years old then, a child set on becoming a man.

  ‘There are only two who can answer that question,’ the rector replied, ‘and I am not one of them. Have you stumbled, Tristan?’

  ‘No, rector, I do not think I have.’

  ‘Well then you have no reason to blame yourself, Tristan. But remember, all but the first mover has its cause. Now, let us bow our heads and give thanks for your father�
�s life.’

  With those words a great crack opened up in Tristan’s life. He knelt on the cold stone floor while his entire past was sucked into the void. He was an orphan now with no place left to stand.

  Through the roar of confusion he heard the rector’s mumbled supplications, and through his shock Tristan realised his own lips were also moving, giving thanks although he felt no gratitude. A lump grew in his throat, as solid and certain as the thought that greeted it. I should remember this moment, he told himself. Nothing in my life will ever matter more than this. He was wrong.

  It came to him two years later. The night began like any other, with the rector leading the boys in an interrogation. It was normal for the rector to single out one of the boys for particular attention and this night it was Tristan’s turn. Tristan parried the early challenges, hoping the rector might lose interest and seek a softer target, but the rector kept coming.

  ‘Is it enough to intend to change one’s ways,’ the rector asked, ‘or must we wait until the test of the future has been passed before the value of contrition can be judged?’

  ‘The intention to reform, made with an honest heart, is enough,’ Tristan replied, missing the trap that had been set, ‘or else the priest could not have the power of absolution, having himself no clear view of the future.’

  It was a rare mistake and the rector seized on it.

  ‘It is not the priest who offers absolution, Tristan; he is nothing more than the agent of God. And God floats free from the constraints of time and so has little trouble measuring the depth of our resolve. We shall be judged not by our intentions, Tristan, but by our deeds. We reconcile not with our past, but with our future.’ The rector’s rose voice to grand heights, as if the judgment he was passing was not on the quality of Tristan’s argument, but the quality of his soul. ‘Tonight, you shall stay behind and complete your recitals.’

  Recital was the punishment reserved for the boy who had performed most poorly during the questioning and this was Tristan’s first time. The reciter was made to stand at the lectern and give lonely voice to whichever portion of The Holy Works the rector chose, while the other boys retired for the night. Sometimes the penance lasted no longer than it took the slowest boy to complete his ablutions. On other occasions Tristan had heard the boy stumbling into his bunk deep in the night, left to weave together what little sleep he could from the scraps before dawn.

  Tristan was left for nearly two hours and by the time the rector returned his voice was rubbing dry. The rector stood in the aisle, his face as unreadable as ever, and raised his hand, signalling to Tristan that he might stop. From his high vantage point Tristan noticed for the first time the perfect symmetry of the rector’s baldness, the scalp stretched tight and shiny across its bony skull.

  ‘I have been looking at your folders, Tristan. You have a fine hand for illustration.’ The rector spoke gently.

  ‘Thank you,’ Tristan mumbled, avoiding the rector’s eyes. He knew too well how easily the acknowledgment of a compliment could lapse into self-satisfaction. It was not beyond the rector to snare a boy in this way.

  ‘I would like you to draw for me.’

  The rector turned without further explanation and it was only when he stopped halfway down the aisle and motioned with his hand that Tristan realised he was to follow.

  Tristan was thirteen and considered himself to be the better part of a man. He was proud of his learning, which he believed had trained him to dive deep beneath life’s surface. But his education had been as selective as it was demanding. Nothing he had heard or thought had prepared him for what he would find in the rector’s study.

  ‘Come in, Tristan.’

  The rector beckoned with his oversized fingers. Tristan froze in the doorway, surprised beyond speech or movement.

  A girl huddled in the corner as a trapped animal might, her every fibre yearning to become insubstantial amongst the shadows. Tristan could not comprehend it. No female set foot inside the compound. This was the rule, as unflinching as the walls themselves. Even mothers were not permitted to visit. Augustine himself had taught that woman was temptation, the devil’s lever.

  But she was there, as real as the dark cool stone surrounding her. Tristan stared. For six years he had seen only boys and men. He couldn’t not stare. The girl’s dark brown eyes darted to the floor, stung by the sin of contact. Tristan remained paralysed, blushing and uncertain.

  He waited for the rector to speak again, for order to return, but the rector said nothing, in a way that made it clear that saying nothing was the rule tonight. This was to be an act without commentary, that on completion it might disappear.

  The rector pointed to his broad desk of dark mahogany. Laid out upon it was a sheet of the finest sketching paper and a selection of sharpened pencils. Tristan walked unsteadily forward. He breathed in deeply, sat and took a pencil in his shaking hand. He looked down at the paper, willing the girl out of existence, but his disloyal heart knocked a wild reminder of her presence. He could smell her, the scent of an unfamiliar soap.

  Tristan felt a drop of sweat form at his hairline and trickle down his temple. The body knew what the mind resisted. From the corner of his vision he could sense the rector sitting in his armchair, knees pointed comfortably outward. An arm swept its instruction and Tristan heard the swoosh of the girl’s robe collapsing shapeless on the floor. He dared not look up. In the swirling of his blood he heard the sound of his future arriving.

  ‘Whenever you are ready, Tristan,’ the rector purred. ‘There’s no hurry. Take your time.’

  Tristan kept his eyes fixed on the paper he would soon despoil. The shaking of his hands grew wilder.

  ‘That’s a shading pencil, Tristan,’ the rector said, ‘you’ll need a finer instrument to capture her form. Look at her, Tristan. Look at her.’

  She was not much older than he was, neither girl nor woman, a thing of shadow—a candle-lit ghost whose eyes, fixed on some point behind Tristan’s shoulder, were dark and empty. Her body was hungry-thin. He could see her ribs.

  ‘Say if you want her to move, Tristan.’

  Tristan’s mouth was scratchy dry and he could not speak. In his stomach nerves danced to a tune he had no ear for. A lightness passed through him, a wave of welcome from a part of himself he barely knew.

  ‘Yes, move for us, girl. Your hand, no the other hand, hold that. No, behind you. Now lean into the wall. The leg, the bent leg, bend it more, bring it forward.’

  The girl did as she was told, her face painted in shades of fear and concentration. ‘Yes, I like that. Start again, Tristan. There’s plenty of paper.’

  The rector came forward and ripped the first picture, no more than the nervous lines of an early acquaintance, from under Tristan’s nose.

  ‘And detail. Don’t be afraid of detail.’

  Tristan knew what he spoke of. The hair, the nipples: those sights that caused the kicking in his throat.

  The face required pure invention. Tristan knew he could not record the things he saw: the animal helplessness, the nature-mocking twist of an empty smile. Terror played at the edges of her eyes, and bewilderment. She did not understand them, these men immune to her sadness. Tristan imagined her lips into a new shape and gave the eyes the warmth of one recognising an old friend.

  With every line the dilemma deepened. Tristan knew what he was doing was wrong but he couldn’t summon the will to look away from her. And it wasn’t just that he looked; it was the way he looked. At first he had drawn quickly, willing the task to end, but now he lingered, considering the details not as an artist but as a young man, his blood surging with the pounding of an inadequate heart.

  The rector did not hurry him. When the picture was complete he stood at Tristan’s shoulder, looking from the frightened girl to the paper and back again.

  ‘Well done. Well done. Girl, you may go.’

  She gathered up her robe and the rector moved to the stack of books opposite the doorway and pushed it to the side, rev
ealing a hidden passageway. The girl kept her head down, avoiding their eyes, and hurried into the darkness. Tristan ached to follow her, to find some way to apologise and atone.

  ‘You may go to your bed now, Tristan.’ The rector nodded once, a small sharp thank you wrapped in a warning.

  Tristan’s mouth opened but no sound emerged. He lurched from the room.

  He couldn’t sleep. His mind raced; his thoughts twisted and tangled like the weeds of an unkempt garden. Guilt and lust wrestled one another to exhaustion. Tristan tried in vain to construct noble narratives of rescue and redemption but his virgin imagination foundered on the sharp memory of her body. Every line, every shadow and hollow returned to him, spliced together in a stuttering reel of desire and confusion. He tried to turn his mind to higher things, but it was drawn down by the memory of her. He had never experienced such a powerful sight—one that could take hold of his body, make his heart pound and his skin sweat. His limbs squirmed with the urge to turn themselves inside out. And the blood: the churning, unwelcome blood. He could escape only by returning to her face. Through a mighty act of will he was able to conjure up the terror in her eyes and use her fear to shame his restless body.

  ‘Did you come?’ she asked him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘When you thought of her, did you come?’

  ‘You’re coarse.’

  ‘You hired a prostitute.’

  ‘It’s not like you think,’ Tristan said. He was surprised that he’d told her this much. He’d lost hold of the telling. Each word pulled the next with it, as if they were linked together in some great chain and their sheer weight dragged the story from him.