Aelred's Sin (36 page)
Authors: Lawrence Scott
Aelred felt the shadow, as soft as cotton on a cotton bush, brush against his face.
It made an effort to fly, but it was too heavy to fly.
Aelred heard a hymn, which was the song of a fieldhand singing in a sugar-cane field. He heard Toinette: ‘The River Jordan is mighty and cold, halleluia, chills the body and not the soul.’ He heard the clapping and the singing of the women in the chapel down the hill in the village of Felicity below Malgretoute.
The moon spilt its calabash of white light.
Jordan sought the secret tunnel.
He turned, bent down, picked up a stone and threw it. Then he bolted.
Aelred saw the boy fall into the stream, and the stream ran blue and red. The yelps of the hounds hung in the branches of the trees. The tongues of the hounds lapped,
red and blue.
The next morning, two farmhands lifted Aelred’s vision from the stream. As they lifted Jordan’s head from the stream, Aelred bent and stroked his face, kissed his lips: a forbidden love, the love of Aelred’s sin. He kissed the lips of Ted’s brown face. The body was taken from him and taken to a hole against the chapel in the cemetery. He followed and saw on a Christian cross the name, Jordan. As they lowered the body into the wet grave, he saw that Jordan was indeed Ted and then that face was the face of all those friends whom he had left behind: Redhead, Espinet, Ramnarine and Mackensie. Now it seemed as if they had all died with Jordan and Ted.
As the men filled in the grave and stuck the cross in the mound of earth, Aelred noticed that they too were black and that they had the faces of men who worked on his father’s estate at Malgretoute: in spite of everything.
His vision faded.
Aelred felt that he had walked miles as he rested against the wall of the medieval chapel. The community would be finishing supper. He was beginning to feel cold. His habit was soaked and muddy. He felt he belonged here with the rain, grass and mud. He felt calm, as if his head had been washed out. The tranquilliser had lost its effect, and the walk through the rain had released all the tension of the morning and the afternoon and the happenings of the night before.
He lay down near Jordan’s grave.
The next morning, he was awakened by the bells for Matins. He was cold. As he descended to the abbey, he saw the dawn beginning already to burn over Ashton on
the horizon.
He would go and see the Abbot and find a way to mend his life, to stitch together what seemed against all odds an impossible task to mend, stitch together what seemed impossible loves. In his heart he felt that he had the courage of one who had made unimaginable journeys. The boy would see him through. Jordan!
After the night of the rain, the atmosphere had cleared and the already verdant park seemed almost tropical. The Abbot allowed a few days to lapse before asking to see Brother Aelred. He stopped him himself after Prime. ‘Let us talk this afternoon brother.’ The Abbot smiled. Aelred felt that a huge pressure had been lifted off him. It was almost as if getting everything out into the open, but not quite, had released a lifetime of tension. It was as if everyone, including Father Abbot and Father Justin, had benefited from this, once they were assured that no major scandal had been caused for the other novices. Aelred felt that he had been heard. Benedict, Edward and he went through their monastic routine with a greater calm. They did not seek each other out. They observed the boundaries set by the rules. There was a way in which the community, sensing a danger which could threaten it at its heart, rallied a support which allowed the offending brother to feel integrated once more.
When Aelred arrived at the Abbot’s study for his talk, the Abbot met him at the door and suggested that they stroll outside and go and sit in the sunken garden. He had asked Brother Julius in the kitchen to bring some tea and cake out on a tray. Together the Abbot and his novice
talked under the wisteria arbour.
‘There’s colour in your face again, brother. You were so pale the other afternoon.’
‘Yes, I feel much better, father, much better. I …’
‘Yes, you are much better.’
‘I’m sorry for all this trouble I’ve caused everyone,’ Aelred said apologetically.
‘Now, now. We’ve all learnt something valuable here. I’m sure. Let’s have some tea. And have a large slice of Brother Julius’s fruit cake. I certainly will.’ The Abbot, usually a very abstemious person, surprised Aelred with his enthusiasm for Brother Julius’s cake. Aelred had not seen this side of the Abbot. He felt sure, though, he would say something wrong and spoil this newly found peace and accord. He cut the Abbot a slice of cake and took a mug of tea from him.
‘In the lead up to your profession, brother, there is someone I would like you to see. Now, this is only a suggestion. I want you to have an interview, and if you feel this is what you would like, I’m going to offer you a chance to explore some of these - let’s call them emotional problems.’
‘Who do you want me to see, father?’
‘Well, he is a man I’ve known for some time and comes very well recommended. He has helped us in the past. He is a good man, a great admirer of our life. Strangely, you know, he’s not one of us, not a Catholic, but a man of great human insight, I think. I feel sure you would like Dr Graveson.’
‘He’s a doctor? What kind of doctor? ‘Aelred began to be nervous. ‘You don’t think I’m mentally unstable, do you, father?
‘Oh, nothing of the sort. Get that right out of your mind. Dr Graveson will explain it all. There’s nothing further from the truth. It’s entirely up to you.’
‘Why do you think I need any kind of doctor?’
‘Now, now. I won’t suggest this if it’s going to worry you. Dr Graveson is coming down from Bristol and will stay a couple days. You can see him initially, and if you wish to see him again we can arrange it.’
‘What have you said to him about me?’
‘Now, brother. I think it is right that we talk about our friend Aelred of Rievaulx.’
‘Yes. I did find Aelred of Rievaulx helpful.’
‘Yes, without doubt a very extraordinary man, a saint of the church. But the writings of the fathers have to be interpreted. In the wrong hands the scriptures can even be the instrument of the devil.’
‘Yes, but -’
‘What is absolutely clear is that Aelred of Rievaulx thought that carnal love was the road to damnation. That is certain. Now the other things he says are right and proper. Carnal love must be denied.’
‘Doesn’t he talk of transforming it?’
‘Yes, but you can’t transform it, brother. You have to pray that God in his mercy will. You have to avoid the occasion of sin. You see, if that had been followed in the first place, and I’m sure Father Justin advised correctly, a lot of our present trouble would have been avoided.’
‘What about the things he says about holding hands and recognising attraction?’
‘Yes, brother, things exist. St Aelred tried to deal with this abnormality in himself. I think you have to see that. He’s very unique. Now this is where I think Dr Graveson
can come in. He can do something about changing that.’
‘Changing me?’
‘Now, I don’t want to go into it. Dr Graveson will be better at describing his work. The medievals had their way but we have ours. I think I want to try and use Dr Graveson’s way to help us with using God’s Grace. Because we must help ourselves if we want God to help us.’
Aelred felt that he could hardly swallow the fruit cake. He was to be changed.
‘I think that this has been a good talk,’ the Abbot said. ‘Now I want you to try and return to monastic life, the normal routine. It is our routine, without distractions, which is our way. If we look after the little things the more difficult things will look after themselves.’
Aelred carried the tea tray back to the kitchen.
Edward looked worried and said, ‘I think he’s what you call a psychoanalyst. You talk to him and it helps you. He’ll have to explain.’ They stood in the library and Edward folded his hand over Aelred’s.
‘He wants to change me.’
‘I saw Basil. He’s been really inspiring. He says that we must use our love in our monastic life. There’s no question of changing ourselves, as the Abbot suggests.’
Benedict was a little more alarmed. ‘Well, you’ll have to see. But when you talk to Dr Graveson, think carefully if you want to embark on this. My feeling is that we can cope. Look at Basil and Sebastian. There’s nothing wrong with you.’
‘The Abbot said that Aelred of Rievaulx was abnormal
and what he did was to deal with his abnormality, for his time.’
‘I’ve got permission to fast.’
‘Also, I see that you are using the discipline.’ Aelred was referring to the five-strand whip which he had seen on Benedict’s bed.
‘Yes I’ve had permission for a limited time.’
‘Is this what I should do. Beat myself?’
‘No. I don’t think it would be appropriate for a novice. Basil has allowed me, though reluctantly.’
‘I remember the monks at school doing this. We used to eavesdrop on Friday nights in the corridor of Mount Saint Maur, Ted and I, huddled in the dark giggling. We thought they used to beat their pillows.’
‘Brother. This is serious.’
‘Don’t you think it’s a bit extreme. Aelred of Rievaulx killed himself.’
‘It’s unusual, but it can help, with guidance. This will be a part of my retreat before my final vows. You must pray for me. You must help me.’
‘I will. I won’t be an occasion of sin.’
‘Oh Aelred. You aren’t. My love is strong. You will see. This gift, as Basil calls it, will help us.’
‘Dr Graveson will change me, so that I can’t love you.’
‘He can’t change you.’
‘Then why am I going? I don’t want to be changed.’
They stood silently, looking out of the library window over the park. Aelred said to himself, Jordan! He rose from a previous time, from an ancestral past of pain.
Not before have I experienced a love like this! There are the events of this place and the events on the island. There have been great omissions. Sins of omission. I have found them hard to describe. And believe me, at this time, I am in the throes of something my experience has not known before: the meaning of this love. My education, my social and political class have not prepared me for this. I must prepare myself. His life is preparing me.
Joe prepares me. Miriam prepares me.
I’m witness. This is a testament, a testimony. Witness for the prosecution. Witness for the defence. For I fear they will always be prosecuted.
As Joe says, We’re still prosecuted.
Benedict took up what he later described to me as the responsibility he felt he had had for both Edward and Aelred, and in becoming the counsellor of their love - no easy task - he was himself stepping beyond any boundary he had known before. He was in fact finding a way to sanction a love the world as yet had no name for, except names of hate, ridicule and disowning. This is where I echo the early journals and Benedict’s thought.
Joe says, The history has been obliterated. We have to rewrite it.
He gives me histories. At least what they show is that nothing is simple. There’s never been one simple view of
any of this. There are also a lot of conflicting views.
But, as Joe says, there has been more tolerance and understanding than we give history credit for. This must be the basis of our change.
Yes, Benedict retreated, then advanced, then retreated. I can understand. I have returned for this moment. And it is this which makes his sudden death such a loss, because I had hoped to go over a life with him and to bring all these meanings together with him, into one tapestry. I remain with fragments. I’m weary with reconstruction, with paraphrase. Tampering? Have I tampered? Tempered?
Joe says, That’s all you can do.
Miriam says, That’s what my work is. If I have a fragment I’m lucky; mostly I have dust in my hands and it tells me nothing, she says. You have more than dust. You have living memory, she says.
Fire is a metaphor. Blood is a metaphor. That is his poetry of pain.
Where does it leave me? Missing them all, his guides, now my guides. I meet them in words, in history.
Would I have kissed Benedict on the mouth? Funny how I keep considering this now. Like when I’m with Joe sometimes. We touch. It’s in my culture to put my hand on his shoulder, to reach out and pull his shirt in the heat of discussion. He smiles. He says it reminds him of J. M.
You’re so alike, Joe says. Then he says, No, you’re not him.
Then I wonder. I mean, I could I do some of these things. Why am I not impelled in this way?
Why am I not impelled to feel these things for a woman? Joe asks. They are much more common, if we
take statistics. But I might, I could, he says.
I have made myself J. M.’s scribe. Inscriber. What of me? What of my life? It’s been changed.
I wake from a dream in which I am back at Malgretoute and an old black man tells me he remembers his father’s father telling him that they hanged a black man from the silk cotton tree in the gully. They used to do that, he said. I wake to the darkness of the copper beeches outside my window. So red, they are purple, so purple, they are black, J. M. used to say. They rattle their empty branches. I wake worrying about Malgretoute. Krishna was on the phone yesterday. I have to go back home.
There is flame on the horizon.
From the window of the upper lodge room I saw it all again: the abbey, the valley, the spinney with the pond, the copse, the holly and laurel bushes, the copper beeches, the horse chestnuts. This is where I first learnt these names. Other words, other echoes. Ash. Ashton. Ashtown. Ashes. I have heard it said that they burnt down the first house at Malgretoute.
They burn it down, yes, the same man from my dream said.
I see the walk at the edge of Ashton Park. The one which leads to the quarry, that excavation. Time has altered things.
His name is not Aelred. J. M., my brother. But he grows in my mind, his pain and his visions, his love. So, that friend of his, that man, Benedict, we buried this week. So, so Ted, so those spirits from the past. So Aelred of Rievaulx, so Jordan, the letter J as clear as light carved in the moss on the Christian cross. So Edward. Time and
memory. Memory and time.
Now these letters which tell their tale. I place them side by side. I sort them out, the ones I find here, the ones I had back from Benedict. For a conclusion. How to reach a conclusion to this
roman,
this romance, this sad love story of our time.
Abbaye de St Bernard
St Severin
Toulouse 29
France
15 September 1964
My dearest Aelred,
In order to avoid any danger of censorship, which would only exacerbate the situation at home and give Father Abbot more to deal with than he can understand and cope with at the moment, I am writing to you,
poste
restante,
as you suggested. I regret we have to do this, but at the moment I think it is for the best. That is what I want for both of us. I too wish that we lived in a world where these feelings could be expressed and understood, where our love could shine. But it is not so, and maybe it has been given to us and our time to make that happen, as so much is changing, so much understood anew.
My dear friend, I want to say at once how much I miss you. But I also want to say that I think that this separation is for the good. When Father Abbot put it to me, I agreed to it for us. Yes, it fitted in with the plans for my study, and I must say the school here is
very good. There is a great group of monks from different abbeys in different parts of the world, and you would so enjoy the discussions about the different interpretations of monastic life which are being talked about and experimented with. The monks from America are particularly interesting and there are some Protestant monks from a new abbey in France. This school of theology is truly trying to be ecumenical.
But don’t let me go off the point. The reason for writing is to draw close to you. This separation, these words, these letters are our new way, a truly good way to continue our original ideal of chastity and love. I feel I love you now more than ever. I feel a tremendous freedom in that love, and in being able to say it here, so openly, and knowing that you can read it, and reflect on it, and have it by you to help you through the difficult time you are having.
I am so happy that you have come to an accommodation with Father Abbot, and that things have continued to be peaceful since I left you. I am so happy to hear that Father Abbot has agreed to your profession in December. I know your vocation is secure and you must nurture it.
These have been the pains of growing, of finding ourselves. I feel I have grown tremendously in an understanding of myself and our love. It is you who have been so brave in expressing your feelings and risking yourself. Many others keep things hidden all their life and do not grow, and then, I agree with you, those repressed feelings manifest themselves in destructive ways. To know who one is is a
tremendous freedom. The philosopher’s injunction: know thyself.
Oh, I am so happy writing to you, talking to you, and I long for your next letter. With these words I look into your eyes, I touch you, I kiss you, my love.
Yes, a year is a long time, but it will fly by when our lives are so full of new discoveries. And, as I said before, this separation is God’s way of helping us to strengthen our chastity. That dangerous chastity which we embarked upon.
I think of Edward too, and know the danger for you. I plead with you to keep your eyes on your goal, December and your profession. For Edward I hope that he will complete his novitiate and eventually join you in professing his vows.
You must try to see things from the Abbot’s point of view, understand how difficult it must be for him - all these changes in the church and in the world. I think he has shown great insight in soliciting the help of an analyst, now that I think about it from here. I’ve been talking to other monks about this and they think there is much to be gained in self-knowledge of this kind. This will be good for you and I look forward to hearing all about it, as much as you feel able to share.
Dear friend, I must leave you now, and in doing so, I embrace you with love and offer you peace in Christ.
Your dear friend,
Benedict
Poste Restante
Bristol
22 September 1964
Benedict, my dearest,
So excited to get your letter. Could not believe it was there when the clerk went and looked in the
poste
restante
pigeon-hole. I feel like a naughty schoolboy. I read it and read it just to feel you near. Ashton Park is desolate without you. I miss you terribly all the time. Yes, there is Edward. But we have no comfort or peace in each other. We have to avoid each other and see each other with others, and the pain of that is not worth thinking of. I am going along with Father Abbot. He is kind and he has helped. I will try the analysis, which is why I am here today and able to get your letter - the best part of this whole thing. I feel so depressed at the moment. Dr Graveson says that it is to be expected. I am exhausted. I am exhausted all day. I can hardly get up for Matins and miss it very often and have to go and see the Abbot. It is not him but the other senior monks in the council who will not like that in the lead up to my profession which I am excited about, yet I do wonder about it and about carrying on. The Abbot and Dr Graveson say I must not make any decisions at the moment. Sometimes I feel so cruel to Edward, so cruel. We are very careful though. Nothing has happened again - not that I don’t feel all those feelings still, and I know this can pain you. I don’t want to cause you any pain, any more than I already have, dearest. I love it that I can write and say what I
want and unburden myself to you. You must let me do that because there is no one else. I am so happy for you, but it was cruel for the Abbot to move you so soon, so soon when I needed you so much. But you are better off without me. I hope this analysis will help. At the moment it makes me feel so terrible. I spend the whole day in the city just roaming around till my appointment, and then I go to bookshops after. I know so little of England, so little of this is known to me, cloistered at Ashton Park. I like to go to the port and I have found a cemetery that I like to go and sit in. Excuse me babbling on. Not a paragraph even. I want to finish this in the cemetery where I am sitting now and post it before I rush for the train.
I read your words over and over. I kiss you with this dearest, dearest friend, the only one I have in the whole world.
Aelred
Benedict,
I hasten to write again to say I am sorry I wrote such an emotional letter. Not saying anything. What is there to say? I think one thing one day and another day something quite different. I want to be calm. This is supposed to be calm. I am either very excited or very depressed. Dr Graveson says that is normal. I am not sure about anything any more. I am not sure about my parents, about my faith, about monastic life, about who I am or what I should do. Dr
Graveson has his own interpretation, and he tells me I must not read any theory. I do find it interesting reading Freud and Jung. He says that if I fill my head with theory I will read things into my situation. I have found a good library, and that’s another place I visit if it’s raining and I can’t sit in the cemetery or go to the port. Dr Graveson talks of neurosis. I must say he is trying hard to get me to sort things out so that I can continue at Ashton Park, but I think this sorting out will eventually pose the question whether I should stay here or go on. He says that I am a classical example of an Oedipal situation, an over-loving mother and an absent father. I say fine, that fits the description. Understanding it does not make me feel differently. Either I feel happy when I come out of his office, or I feel angry, or depressed, or flat. I know what I feel because I feel it. I understand more. If this is understanding. What isn’t happening yet is the meshing, I suppose: understanding and feeling. Dr Graveson says he wants me to get to the point where I can choose and choose for the right reasons. Dearest, here I am again just going on about myself and not a thought about you. None of this understanding makes me feel differently for you. Or Edward. Dr Graveson does not listen too carefully about what I say about you and Edward. He says things will fall into place. I must go. Keep well and write to me and tell me you love me. Still no paragraphs.
Love, love, love,
Aelred
Abbaye de Saint Bernard
St Severin
Toulouse 29
France
2 October 1964
My dear Aelred,
I look forward to your letters so much. You sound as if you are making a great deal of progress. It is hard. Any self-examination will be hard. I too am making a kind of analysis. I don’t think I need it formally; anyway, it is so expensive.
But I am looking at all that has happened again. I am certain of my vocation, I am certain of my affection for you, but I do want it to be lived out within the vows of chastity. Those needs I have for sexual love I will accept, but I want to sublimate them into my contemplative vocation and my ministry when I become a priest. I am beginning to look forward to my ordination. I wonder what Dr Graveson thinks about sublimation - taking that sexual energy and utilising it for a greater task.
My theology lectures and seminars are very interesting, and I am working very hard. Father Abbot would like me to come back home for Christmas and your profession. He was so good in thinking that I would like to be there. He is a good man really. But I don’t think I should, as it is such a short break and I will lose ground gained in settling down here. So, much as I would love to see you, I am going to decide against the offer. I also think it is too soon for us to meet again. We must see this
separation in a creative way, as a creative chastity. In the summer I am sure things will be quite different. I don’t mind you unburdening yourself to me. That is what friendship is about. Write to me and tell me all that you are doing and thinking.
Your dearest
Benedict