Before Ever After (20 page)

“I lost my sight completely today, Brother.”

Brother Aidan could not detect any bitterness in the abbot’s voice. He set the soup bowl on the table and knelt by the blind man’s side. He looked into the gray veil that shadowed his eyes. He remembered that they had once been the same bright shade of amber as his own. He held the old man’s gnarled hands. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about, Brother.” Abbot Thomas patted Brother Aidan’s hands. “Everything I should see, I have seen. God has darkened the world outside so that I could see better by the lamp of my memory. Now is the time for me to reflect on the sights God has chosen for me to remember.”

The younger monk felt ashamed that it was he who was in need of consoling. “So you are … at peace?”

“Perfectly content, Brother. In fact, I am already finding that every sound, texture, and scent unleashes a stream of recollection. Why, even your voice …” The abbot’s brow creased.

“What is it, Abbot? What’s the matter?”

“You … your … It’s nothing.” The abbot dismissed his thoughts with a flick of his wrist. “I smell soup.”

“Would you like to have your dinner now?”

“Yes, please.”

Brother Adrian fed the abbot a spoonful of the broth. He held his breath. The abbot did not close his eyes. There was no longer a need to. But as the sides of the old man’s lips began its familiar trail upward, Brother Aidan realized that despite the abbot’s new condition, the rest of their soup-tasting routine would remain exactly the same. The abbot was still not satisfied with what he had made. His chest sank.

“Do you still need an answer to your question, Brother?”

Brother Aidan nodded, then remembered that the abbot could no longer see. “Yes, I do.”

“Then …”

“I know, I know. Make soup. Use chicken.”

• • •

“No, I’m sorry, Brother. I cannot give you any more hens this week,” Brother Placidus said. The thickset man stood between Brother Aidan and the monastery’s henhouse.

“Just one more, Brother. Please,” Brother Aidan said.

“I cannot help you,” Brother Placidus said. “Only the Lord can make the chicks grow any faster. We need to keep the remaining hens for their eggs.”

“You don’t understand …”

“Besides, Brother,” Brother Placidus said, “and please take this suggestion in the kindest way possible, we all love your chicken soup, but having it every day can get a little … weary. Why not try cooking something else today? Lentil or barley stew, perhaps?”

Brother Aidan sighed and walked away as a half dozen plump hens rejoiced happily in the yard.

Abbot Thomas took a whiff of his dinner. “Ah, you’ve made something different today, Brother Aidan.”

“Yes, Abbot. Barley stew.”

“Does this mean that you have grown tired of asking your question?”

“No, Abbot. It is Brother Placidus who has grown tired of me raiding his henhouse.”

“Perhaps the Lord wishes that we set aside your question for a moment so that we may talk about other things?”

Brother Aidan thought about the possibilities of this rare invitation. The Benedictines did not take a vow of silence, but social conversation was decidedly limited. Approaching the abbot with his previous question had already been an unprecedented act of boldness, if not presumptuousness, on his part. Now that he had a chance to speak freely with the abbot, he was strangely at a loss for anything to say.

“I have lived a long life,” the abbot said.

Brother Aidan was thankful that the abbot had taken the reins of their conversation. “You have been blessed.”

“Are the extension of life’s years truly a gift?” Abbot Thomas asked.

“Is that not your belief?”

“What I believe, Brother, is that it was I who was asking you the question. I am still waiting for your answer.”

“Oh … uh … well,” Brother Aidan said, “a long life … can be a gift … if steered by purpose.”

“And what purpose steers your life, Brother?”

Brother Aidan missed the empty niceties between himself and the abbot. He realized that he did not enjoy answering questions as much as he liked asking them. He recalled his three vows: obedience, chastity, poverty. He had always been glad that honesty had never been a promise he had to make. And yet he did not wish to lie to the old man sitting in front of him. “God’s work,” he said. The scope of such work, he decided, was sufficiently encompassing to qualify as a truthful answer.

The abbot smiled. “Indeed.”

“Your stew is getting cold.”

Abbot Thomas sipped his stew. “This is delicious.”

“Thank you.” Brother Aidan was genuinely happy at the compliment and for the diversion dinner provided.

“But I am not hungry,” the abbot said. “I would much rather continue our conversation, wouldn’t you?”

Brother Aidan was glad the abbot could not see the pained look on his face. “As you wish.”

“Thank you for indulging an old man’s need for some company.”

Brother Aidan braced himself for another round of questions.

“What do you think about immortality, Brother?” the abbot asked.

“Everlasting life is the Lord’s promise for all mankind.” Brother Aidan felt confident mouthing the prescribed pious response. Standard questions like this were easy.

“But what if eternal life did not have to come at the price of death?”

“I do not grasp your meaning, Abbot.” Brother Aidan avoided the abbot’s blind eyes.

“Would you like to live forever, Brother Aidan?”

Obedience. Chastity. Poverty. Brother Aidan repeated his monastic obligations. Did he owe the abbot anything more than that? “No,” he said.

“Neither would I, Brother,” Abbot Thomas said. “Neither would I.”

Brother Aidan peeked under the pot’s lid to check on his lentils. Brother Placidus had yet to lift the moratorium on culling hens. Brother Aidan considered asking someone else to deliver the abbot’s dinner that evening. He was in no mood to answer any more of the abbot’s questions.

“Do I smell lentils?” Abbot Thomas asked.

Brother Aidan wondered how soon it would be before he regretted his decision to serve the abbot his dinner. “I remain under strict orders to keep at least ten paces away from Brother Placidus’s chickens, Abbot.”

“Then it seems that God wills us to have more time to discuss other matters, Brother.”

Brother Aidan rolled his eyes. “Wouldn’t you like to have your soup first?”

“Dinner can wait. I, on the other hand, cannot. Waiting is a luxury for the young, wouldn’t you agree, Brother?”

“Yes, Abbot.”

“But something tells me that you are a very patient man.” The abbot looked directly at Brother Aidan with his blind eyes.

Brother Aidan fidgeted in his seat. “It is … a virtue worth striving for.”

“And one of the hardest to gain,” the abbot said. “The years that forge it also melt it away.”

“Do you consider yourself a patient man, Abbot?”

“By the mercy of God, I try not to be.”

“Why?”

“When you are this close to the end, Brother, patience can be a slow poison.”

“What do you mean?”

“It can lull you into waiting for the end to come, living out your last days as if you were already dead,” the abbot said. “This is not how I wish to die. I would like to row myself to shore, pulling my own oars with urgency until the very end of my journey.”

Urgency. The end. Brother Aidan struggled with their meaning. They were as real to him as the distant lands he had read of in books, as wistful and imagined as Heaven.

“The lentil soup last night was excellent, Brother,” Brother Placidus said.

“Thank you,” Brother Aidan said. He eyed the plump chickens clucking in the henhouse. “But I need chickens.”

The poultry keeper frowned and planted himself firmly between the other monk and the chickens. “The chicks have barely sprouted two more feathers since you last asked me for another hen.”

“I don’t mean to pester you like this, but it’s not my fault, Brother. It’s the abbot. He won’t answer my question unless I make him chicken soup.”

“And what question might that be?” Brother Placidus asked. “I might be able to help you without killing any more hens.”

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful, Brother, but I don’t think you can.” Brother Aidan knew he was not endearing himself to the man at whose mercy lay his quest.

“Then I suggest you return to your kitchen and leave me and my chickens in peace, Brother.” Brother Placidus turned on his heel.

“No, wait,” Brother Aidan said. “I’ll tell you the question.”

“I’m listening.”

“How does it feel to grow old?”

“What kind of a question is that?” Brother Placidus threw up his hands and marched back to the henhouse.

Brother Aidan sighed and picked up his sack of lentils from the ground. He made his way to the kitchen.

“Brother!” Brother Placidus called from the henhouse. He had a black feathery bundle tucked in his arm. “Here, take this old rooster. It’s as useless as your question.” He shoved the bird into Brother Aidan’s hands. “I pray that it will help you find your answer so that you can stop bothering me.”

Brother Aidan stared at the elderly rooster. He resigned himself to another pot of disappointment.

Brother Aidan started cooking dinner early. He wanted to have enough time to prepare an alternative in case the rooster proved to be less than edible. He had been simmering the bird longer than usual, hoping to soften the aged meat. He skimmed the scummy film that rose to the top of the broth as he waited. The broth was getting clearer and more intense in flavor. The young hens he had cooked would have turned to mush long before they infused the soup with such richness, that is, if they even had this quality of flavor to yield. He replaced the lid on the pot. He guessed that it would be a few minutes before the rooster’s meat was tender enough to be pulled off the bone.

Abbot Thomas was coughing violently when Brother Aidan entered his room. The abbot’s dinner sloshed in its bowl as he hurried to the abbot’s side. He rubbed the old man’s back. He almost recoiled when he felt Abbot Thomas’s bones protruding through his woolen clothes. He had not realized how frail the abbot had become. He held him until his grating cough stopped.

The abbot wheezed. “I see that you have your answer.”

Brother Aidan frowned. “What do you mean, Abbot?”

“The answer to your question.” Abbot Thomas smiled. “You’ve brought it with you.”

“You mean the soup?” Brother Aidan felt guilty about using an old rooster for the broth.

“Yes. Let’s have a taste of it, shall we, and find out for sure.”

The ritual began again. The abbot let the soup sit in his mouth. He swallowed it with great deliberation. Brother Aidan’s chest began to sink as the sides of the abbot’s lips began their familiar curl upward. But then the lips took a sudden detour, stretching toward the sides of his face, lighting it up with a wide grin.

“What did you use to make the soup?” the abbot asked.

“Oh, um, chicken.”

“Yes, but what kind of chicken?”

A perfectly plump hen in the pink of health, Abbot
. Brother Aidan could not summon the lie. He sighed. “An old rooster, Abbot.”

“Very good, Brother,” the abbot said. “So, are you pleased with your answer?”

Brother Aidan wondered if the abbot had finally become senile. “Are we still talking about the same question, Abbot?”

“Was there any other question, Brother?” the abbot asked. “A different question might require you to make another soup entirely.”

“I think you should rest now, Abbot.” Brother Aidan set the bowl down.

“Growing old is to be set free, Brother,” the abbot said. “It is a slow and long-simmering process that extracts from you what you are really made of. But it requires acceptance. You cannot put a flailing chicken in a boiling pot. You must accept the heat and the pain with serenity so that the full flavors of your life may be released.”

The abbot started coughing.

Brother Aidan reached out to stroke his back.

The old man waved him away. “I’m all right, Brother. You may see this as decay, and it is. But it is also much more than that. As the body rots, so does the cage that traps us in our worldly concerns. When my legs became too weak to carry my body, I stopped pacing with worry. When my fingers became twisted, I stopped pointing blame. When I lost my sight, I stopped seeing illusions. It may be dark in the pot that I am simmering in, but I can see more clearly than I have ever seen in my life. I can see you, Brother,” the abbot said, “and I know who you are.”

It was Brother Aidan’s turn to feel weak. “Excuse me, Abbot. I need to take my leave. The other monks are waiting for their supper.”

The shore was in sight. Abbot Thomas rowed closer to it every day. It had been two weeks since Brother Aidan had left his side. But he did not fret. Being blind made it easier to wait. There was no sun or shadow to hurry him either way. He was content in the certainty that Brother Aidan would return before the end came.

Days passed like dreams. It required effort to tell the difference between wakefulness and sleep, so he did not bother to try. He welcomed both sides of the hour. Memories churned rapidly, distilling truth. He waited to share it.

Knuckles rapped against wood. Abbot Thomas turned to the door. He smelled soup. “You’ve returned, Brother.”

Brother Aidan set the soup aside and took a seat beside the abbot’s bed. “How are you?”

“Very well. Dying suits me.” The abbot smiled weakly. “I’m glad you’ve returned to finish our conversation. You left so suddenly the last time you were here.”

“I apologize.”

The abbot put his gnarled fingers on Brother Aidan’s hand. “It’s all right. I understand. As I told you before, I know who you are, Brother.”

Brother Aidan took a deep breath. “I don’t know what you—”

“I have almost no memory of my life before entering the old monastery back in Ireland,” Abbot Thomas said. “I was very young when I was donated, just as a number of our brothers are. But, unlike them, it was not my parents who gave me to the monastery. I was told later that I was left in the monastery’s care by a relative who took pity on me when he found me orphaned by disease. He did not leave his name. I have always regretted that I have been unable to put a face or a name to the man to whom I owe my life. But I no longer have such regret.”