by Roger Elwood
Brother Bernard remembered something. “This morning, when I was in the maple bush, I saw a figure up here, near die abbey.”
“Oh?” Dom Theophilus pulled out a metal cash box and lifted its lid.
“It seemed to me to be…”
“Yes?” The money clinked into the box and the lid was closed.
“It seemed evil.”
The abbot’s dark eyes looked suddenly at him. “Evil? Why?” He shut the drawer with a snapping sound. “Come, Brother Bernard. Why?”
“I don’t know. It just was.”
The abbot rubbed his wooden crucifix as he stared, and his thick dark-brown eyebrows met over the bridge of his thick nose. “Hmmm. Interesting.” He turned absently to the arched window behind his desk, his heavy body knocking his chair aside, and Brother Bernard waited silently until he had turned again to face him. “Who do you think it was, Brother Bernard?”
“I don’t know. I thought you might tell me.”
“Since you had our only horse and our only wagon waiting to take you to town, it could not have been one of us. Since the townspeople never come singly to the abbey because they seem to have strange ideas about what goes on up here, it couldn’t have been one of them.”
“The rider didn’t come to the abbey, then?”
The abbot shook his head and peered at Brother Bernard beneath his eyebrows. “Evil? Are you nurturing an occultist among us, Brother? Will you next be levitating instead of meditating? Seeing spirits instead of drinking them?”
The priest bowed his head slightly and turned to go, hurrying to get away from the harsh words, but Dom Theophilus’ voice thundered after him before he could escape. “Remember that true Christian mysticism is a life of constant peace, absorption in God, charity, humility, and common sense!”
Brother Bernard almost tripped over his robe as he went through the door and closed it behind him. He drew his cowl over his head and folded his hands, and went quickly down the stone corridor toward the church. Penance. Prayer and penance. That was what he needed.
The church was empty. Incense hung in the air under the vaulted ceiling, as did the breath of a million prayers and the echo of a million chants, and among them Brother Bernard knelt on the hard stone and found his prayers splintering away as ice and snow froze his thoughts.
Freda Lyngvi was alone in Parsons’ store when he brought his next delivery. She stood with her back to the windows, the sunlight frosting her hair. “I would call you Brother Balder,” she said, “because you’re so blond and handsome.”
Brother Bernard tried to look away…couldn’t…and so stood speechless. She had filled his mind ever since he last saw her, and now he stood like one hypnotized, listening. For the first time he noticed the accent in her words.
“Does that embarrass you? But Balder is a name to be proud of. He was the second son of Odin. A hero, very good and very wise.” She pronounced it “vise.” Brother Bernard shook his head.
“You’ve never heard of Balder? Where I come from he is as well known as your Jesus.”
Brother Bernard caught his breath and then let it out slowly. “Where do you come from?”
“A little town in Norway called Horten. I came from there seven months ago with my brothers and our cousins.”
“You speak of my Jesus. Are you not Christian too?” Freda shook her head and laughed. “My ancestors were Vikings and I am the child of Vikings.”
Brother Bernard felt a sudden concern. She was a pagan, then. This was another thought almost beyond his comprehension. “You don’t know God?”
“We worship our own god.” She moved away from the window and busied herself at the counter, seeming to suddenly lose interest. “Well, Brother Balder? Where is your syrup and sugar? Mr. Parsons will be angry when he gets here and everything is not put away on the shelves.”
Brother Bernard brought the jugs of maple syrup from his wagon into the store. “Where should I put them?” he asked Freda, trying not to stand too close to her. Her scent made him uncomfortable, and his breathing was strange.
But she came close to him and touched his hand as she took a jug from it. “Here…on this bottom shelf.” She knelt at his feet and put the jug on a shelf, and then she stood up and smiled her half smile at him.
“Tell me, Brother Balder, what is life like in your monastery?”
He would have to get away from her, but he didn’t know how. His feet had forgotten how to move. He was only vaguely aware of his own words, answering her. “Peaceful. Joyful.” Where had those words come from? Surely not from his mind, that had stopped working completely while his senses seemed to be taking charge. His eyes could only see this girl; his nose breathed in the fresh smell of her; his hand where she had touched it tingled, and his heart was paining him. He was not fit to be a priest any longer. He would have to leave the Order.
She was still very close…still smiling. “You find peace and joy in that gray stone tomb?”
He couldn’t answer.
“But of course you’re rich. All monks are rich. Gold cups and jeweled statues, and fine furs to wear.”
What was she saying? His ears pounded, shutting out the words, and he could only see her soft lips moving.
The bell over the door jangled like the Sanctus bell at Mass, and at last he was able to move again. He turned to see who was coming in, feeling as transparent as one of the store windows, with his sinful thoughts displayed. But the man who came into the store didn’t seem to be seeing Brother Bernard’s sins. He barely nodded his graying head at him and then smiled at Freda. “Good morning, my dear.”
“Good morning, Mr. Parsons.”
Mr. Parsons was. middle-aged and paunchy. He stomped the slush from his feet at the doorway and peeled off his leather gloves. Brother Bernard moved quickly outside to his wagon, to bring in the rest of his confections, and Mr. Parsons paid him from the till without so much as glancing at him, and when Brother Bernard left he saw the man looking at Freda as she arranged the shelves, and he wondered if his face, too, had looked as greedy as that when he watched her.
The wind moaned accusingly through the trees all the way back to the abbey: sinner…blasphemer… leave…leave.
That day he chanted the familiar offices without hearing what he sang. His reading, prayers, and meditations were not devoted to God, but to his own confusion. He paced the silent stone halls and the dark cloisters, feeling apart from his community as he never had before, envying the other monks their contented contemplations.
The day came again for him to take the maple syrup and sugar to Parsons’ store, and he hitched the horse to the wagon with trembling hands. Halfway there he had to stop on the road, overcome with the feeling he should turn around and speed back to the safety of the abbey, but the crystal image of Freda beckoned him on.
The person who stood stacking bags of flour in the store was not Freda. Mr. Parsons turned as Brother Bernard came in. “Good morning, good morning, put the syrup right over here if you please.”
Brother Bernard looked around the store, but Freda was nowhere in sight. Dismayed, he left jugs of syrup at Mr. Parsons’ feet and went back to the wagon for the rest. Should he ask? No, for fear the man would read the meaning in his question. But where was she? Had something happened to her? He picked up the paper-wrapped cakes of maple sugar and carried them into the store, and Mr. Parsons paid him without further talk.
Brother Bernard climbed back into the wagon, wondering whether he should drive around the town in the hope he might see her. He was going slowly back down the alley when there she was, stepping out in front of the wagon. Her shimmering hair was tied back with a kerchief and the light-brown jacket she wore over her green dress was tom at the elbow. Her bare hands and her nose and cheeks were red with the cold.
“Brother Balder!”
He reined in the horse with a jerk and the girl climbed up on the seat of the wagon beside him. She was crying. She clamped both her frigid hands around the arm of his robe and sobbed,
and Brother Bernard sat helplessly until she could speak. “Take me with you. Please. I have nowhere to go, and nothing to eat, and I’m cold.”
“But why weren’t you in the store?”
“That man! He had his hands all over me! And he wanted me to go to his place with him, but I wouldn’t. And then he called me names and pushed me out the door.”
Brother Bernard felt unaccustomed, anger heating his face, tightening his hands into fists, while Freda’s tears dropped on them in a gelid rain. But oh, God, this anger was just as bad as his lust! He looked at the small, sad face so close to him. Lust! The poor child needed food and warmth, and the love of God, poor pagan. Surely that was Christian charity? The thought gave him strength. “Why have you no home? You said you had brothers and cousins?”
“They all went away nearly a month ago. There’s logging work, up north, now that spring’s here. And I had a job too, so I could keep myself, until that man…” She began to sob again. “Mrs. Lindquist at the boarding house wanted her money in advance, and when I didn’t have it, she said I had to leave. I have no friends and nobody to turn to, except you.”
“But no women are allowed inside the abbey.”
Freda’s sobs died away into hopeless moans. She looked up at him with pleading eyes. “You’re so kind and gentle, Brother Balder, and so wise. I thought you’d know what to do.”
He felt suddenly bigger and stronger than he had ever felt before. He had thought himself so foolish, but she considered him wise. He tightened his hands on the reins and roused the horse to a trot, turning it into the main street of the town. A man on horseback, wearing a derby, stared at them as they passed. Two men coming out of the Grain & Feed store, their arms full of sacks, made comments to each other. Brother Bernard lifted his head and hurried the horse, and Freda held his arm tightly as they raced down the road. Two or three times on the way to the abbey, he thought he heard horses behind them, but Freda chattered to him about her home in Norway, holding his attention so that he didn’t bother to look. She seemed happier now, and he was busy wondering what he could do with her, when they reached the abbey.
Our Lady of Tears faced south, into the valley. Fruit trees surrounded the rear, and to the east were the bams where cattle, chickens, and the horses were kept. Besides making maple syrup, the monks raised fruit and vegetables and had their own dairy. Brother Bernard drove past the front entrance, seeing no one outside, hoping that Dom Theophilus was not looking out of his office window. It would be time for Nones, and the monks would all be in the choir. He brought the wagon to the bam and helped Freda down. “You’ll be warm and safe here,” he told her, “until I can decide what to do.”
The cows were out grazing on the hillside, but the barn still held their strong scent. Brother Bernard helped the girl up the ladder to the hayloft and sat down beside her in. the dimness. “It’s just for a day or two. Tonight I’ll bring you food and blankets, but keep out of sight of the others. If they find you here, there’ll be a scandal.”
Freda reached for his face with hands that still felt cold against his cheeks, and she kissed his mouth with cool lips, sending bitter joy through him in a shocking wave. “This is the only way I can thank you.” She leaned back against the hay, untying her kerchief so that her hair fell around her. “What do you have to decide?”
“Don’t you understand? I’m a Trappist monk, bound with vows of chastity, sworn to love only God for the rest of my days. And now I love you! Almost as much …no, more! No…it’s different, somehow. I still love God, but…” He broke off. Her ice-blue eyes watched him. Her mouth curled into a strange smile. “Your God demands too much of you, Brother Balder.”
“You don’t even know my God.”
“You don’t know me very well, but you say you love me.
“I do.” He reached for her hand and pressed it. “But that means I can’t stay here at the abbey.”
“You’re leaving? When?”
“I don’t know. I have to meditate and pray about it. An answer will come to me soon. We’ll go away together, somewhere, later. But I have to go back now. Remember to keep out of sight.”
He tried to slip unnoticed into the refectory, but it was later than he had thought and the other thirty-four monks were already seated at their skimpy noon dinner. Dom Theophilus raised his head from the prayer he was saying just long enough to glare at him as he hurried in, but he said nothing. Brother Bernard left his buttered bread and cheese untouched, so that he could take it to Freda later. He knew he would have to confess to Dom Theophilus. He couldn’t just walk away from the abbot and the abbey where he’d spent the only happy part of his life, and his brother monks, who had been so much a part of him until now. First he would have to make peace with himself and God, and then he would take Freda away from here, and marry her, and find work to do to make a living.
After dinner, he went to the abbot’s office, to hand in the money and perhaps, if he were brave enough, to talk to him about his problem. Timidly he knocked on the wooden door, and when there was no answer he knocked again and then pushed it open. The office was empty. Brother Bernard sighed with relief, put the money on the desk, and went out.
He went to the chapter room and sat reading his Breviary earnestly, savoring each phrase that would no longer be a part of his daily life. During work time, he waited until the others were gone to their tasks, and then he stole out to the barn, watching to see that nobody saw him.
Freda was asleep, curled up in the hay with her gleaming hair in strands across her face. Brother Bernard smoothed it away gently, put the bread and cheese beside her, and went away without waking her. After collation he came again, with wine and sausage he had taken from the kitchen. This time she was awake, watching the three cows shifting in their stalls below her. “I don’t like it here,” she said. “Some monks came in with the cows and milked them, and they stayed a long time. One of them looked up here once. I was so scared I couldn’t move.”
“He didn’t see you, did he?”
“I don’t think so.”
“There’s nowhere else I can hide you,” he said. “Here, I brought a blanket for you.” He spread out the coarse serge blanket he had stolen from the supply cupboards. “Don’t worry. Soon we’ll go away together. Maybe tomorrow.”
She smiled suddenly. “Oh, it’s all right. I’m just hungry. And lonely, and a little scared.” She settled down on the blanket and wrapped it around her. “I’m glad you’re here now.”
“But I can’t stay. I’ve got to be back for Compline.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
She sighed. “When will you come again?”
“When everyone is asleep, later, I’ll come back.”
After Compline it was time for examination of conscience, and Brother Bernard made his decision. He would tell Dom Theophilus first thing in the morning, right after Mass. His idea of what he would do then was only a vague plan, overshadowed by his burdened conscience.
At 7:00 p.m. the monks all filed away to their cells upstairs, to sleep until 2:00 a.m., when they would rise for Matins and another day would begin. Brother Bernard forgot his private prayers and dropped on his hard cot, exhausted.
A noise awakened him. The sound of horses outside his window. He jumped from his cot and strode to the window and pushed back the pane. A full moon silvered the snow-patched ground below, and shadows of the tree branches flickered, and the wind whined, but there was no one there. He splashed water from a basin on his face and mopped it dry, and then went quietly down the corridor, past the cells where the monks lay helpless in sleep, down the black stairway, feeling for each step that he could not see, down the stone corridor where his sandals clopped in the silence, through the kitchen, shadowed by dim light through the tall windows, and unlocked the kitchen doon The bam loomed darkly across the yard. Brother Bernard turned back into the kitchen, found a kerosene lamp on a sideboard and a box of matches beside it, watched the wick flare up and then settle i
nto a steady glow, and turned it down as far as he could. Then he went out Shadows jumped at him as he crossed the yard. One of the big bam doors swung open in the wind, moaning on its hinges. He went inside and pulled it shut behind him.
There were noises in here…shuffling, whispering, rustling noises. He lifted the lantern high and stood for a moment, feeling his heart beating furiously in his throat, and then one of the cows stomped and lowed. His tight body relaxed and he smiled in the dimness. “Freda?”
There was no answer. He called again, louder this time. “Freda?” Perhaps she was asleep. Shadows moved on the walls. He turned the wick of the lantern higher and peered into the widened circle of light. “Freda! Where are you?”
Something clutched at his arm and he jumped, and Freda laughed next to him. “You’re nervous, Brother Balder!” Her ice-fall hair was tangled and her face was white. He almost shouted at her. “Why didn’t you answer me?”
“I was asleep.” But she smelled of the wind and she wore her jacket as though she’d been outside, and she had come from behind him, not from the loft.
“You should have stayed where I left you.”
“I think there are mice up there. Will you take me out of here for a while? I can’t sleep any more anyway.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“To your church. I’d like to see your church.”
The wind thrashed the bam, tearing the door open once again, and outside, not far away, something howled. “Please,” Freda said, close to him.
“But why the church? It will be dark and empty at this hour, and cold.”
“I want so much to see it.”
She was interested to know God. That was apparent. He couldn’t refuse a request like that, but the church door was locked at this hour. Dom Theophilus locked every door in the abbey at night. He would have to take her through the kitchen and into the church by the inside hall, and there was the chance of being seen. Well, what difference would that make? Soon the whole community would know about her, anyway. He took her hand and led her out the door, fastening it behind them so that it wouldn’t bang in the wind. The moonlight shimmered on the girl so that she seemed more beautiful than the pictures of the angels Brother Bernard had seen, and he thought at that moment that if she told him she wanted to see heaven, he could have done that for her too, somehow.
