The Oblate's Confession (41 page)

I no longer know my way around. I am in a room which ought to be the abbot’s lodge but, instead, wrongly and impossibly, is full of people. Monks I have never seen before scurry back and forth, engaged in some business that makes no sense to me. I assume custody of the eyes and hurry toward a door which should not be there, trying to look busy.

I walk through the door, which, if such a door existed, would lead into the dortoir, and enter instead another room like the first. Here there are fewer monks but they too are busy. Most seem to be carrying something toward the door I have just exited, vague bundles which, in my desire to appear involved, knowledgeable, a part of this ceaseless activity, I ignore. No one says anything, no one smiles or offers a kiss of peace. At the far end of the room there is another door which I no longer expect to lead into the refectory. I cross to it quickly, afraid to hesitate and at the same time afraid to go forward.

I walk through the second door and this time find myself in an empty room. Though I recognize nothing, my mind tells me this is an older abandoned part of the monastery, that trespass here is forbidden, that continuing forward puts me in danger of grave sin. But despite this, I hurry on. I do not know what is going on in the rooms behind me and I’m afraid that if I return to them I will be found out.

Wanting to put as much distance as I can between myself and that possibility, I hurry through the next door and at last find myself in a place I recognize. This is the old stable I think, this must be where, once, they kept the abbey horses. I don’t know why I think this because of course there have never been any abbey horses, never could be any abbey horses, but, for some reason, in my dream, I believe there have been, and the idea that I have found their stable, that I have at least heard of this place, comforts me, makes me feel a little less anxious, a little more at home. Also I think it unlikely I will be discovered here. No one would come back here: it is out-of-bounds, off-limits; I am safe here.

With nothing else to do, I begin to explore. The stalls are all open now and empty, a little straw still littering the floor. The place
smells faintly of horse. At the far end of the stable, partially concealed behind a stack of old hurdles, there is yet another door. It is heavy and large and for some reason, when I try to open it, it catches at the bottom. By pulling with all my might and stepping it over the place where it catches, I am able to open it just wide enough for my body to squeeze through.

I have come to the end of the monastery. This chamber is so old and uncared-for, parts of the roof have fallen in. Small ineffectual beams of light leak through here and there, illuminating empty space, a dangling bit of spider web, movement. My eyes grow accustomed to the dark and I realize that the greater part of the room is fenced off, creating a single oversized stall. Within this stall stands the largest horse I have ever seen. Waking I will realize the animal was actually bigger than it is possible for a horse to be, but in my dream I seem blind to this. It is just a very big horse, very big and very beautiful. I am afraid of it and, at the same time, I am attracted to it. Somehow I know that this is Father Abbot’s horse, that I am not supposed to be here, probably not
even supposed to know that it exists (Why else should it be hidden away like this?), yet I cannot help myself, I like horses, have always liked horses. My father brought me here on a horse like this, a horse that, I now realize, I was equally afraid of, equally attracted to. I cannot help myself, I reach up, going way up on my toes: I try to pat the horse on its nose.

Faster than I would like, the great head swings down, bristly lips blunder against my hand, scour my palm. The animal has mistaken my intentions, has expected a treat. A blast of hot moist air signals its disgust. I want to say I’m sorry, pat its nose, but before I can do anything, say anything, the head has jerked away from me, risen screaming to the ceiling, eyes wild, mane flying, teeth exposed. I try to placate the beast—one hand up, reaching toward it, the other trying to close the door behind me, afraid lest someone hear. As if it knows I seek to contain it, the animal kicks up its heels, throws its massive body against the side wall. Timbers groan, a rafter breaks free of the roof, splits over the horse’s back. Maddened further, the great beast rears, tosses its head,
kicks out at the wall. A new crack appears, dust and bits of thatch floating suddenly in the new and sudden light.

And there is nothing I can do—they must hear this! How could anyone not hear this? I want to run, to hide, to be anywhere but here, but there is no way out (behind me the monastery, before the horse), and it’s all my fault. He was contained before, hidden, but now I’ve roused him there’s no stopping him. He will break free, will wreck the place, the entire monastery, maybe even kill people, Eanflæd, Father Abbot, maybe even me!

And then of course I wake up, the fear retreating once more, unexpressed, to my heart. The dream, as I have said, returns occasionally even now. Sometimes the horse is a bull, sometimes its stall stands not at the rear of the monastery but in the middle of Chapter (or even, once, scandalously, in the church), but the story is always the same: the interest and the trepidation, the incitement, the resulting horror. I awaken to a sense of my own guilt and the danger I have brought upon the community. And all of it so familiar, so personal, so mine (I have done this before, been guilty of this before)—and, lying there in my bed, hardly daring to look up, look around me, lest someone see, know, what I have done, I remember, as I am remembering now, the first time I dreamt of the horse, the first time I spoke of its existence, told people about the beast that inhabited my dreams, dwelt in the hidden parts of an unknown yet disturbingly familiar place—my abbey, my cloister.

Nose pressed flat against the refectory floor, the ancient smell of meals past welling up from its surface, the silence, the waiting—it was Faults I think, not Chapter. Yes, yes of course it was Faults. How sly we are even when we wish to appear most forthcoming, how clever, how calculating! To bring this night-dream before them as if I knew nothing of its meaning, as if confessing a flaw, expecting rebuke, penance, that the resulting adulation, the resulting praise, might by the comparison seem all the greater, all the more resounding. For Father Hermit had already told me what the dream meant, what the horse represented. That it was a gift, the gift of my youth, my essence, my energy and
enthusiasm, which I and not the abbot restrained, which, indeed, for the good of the abbey, I must release. Next time, Father had said, next time (and I now see that, for all his diminished powers, Father knew then, knew even then, that I would have this dream again, that it would recur), next time he told me, you must throw open that door, release the animal: it is beautiful and it is terrifying but it is you and you must release it for your sake and the sake of the abbey. And so I had braved Faults, repeated the story of my dream for Father Abbot (placing particular emphasis upon the beauty of the horse, its strength, its majesty, wanting these qualities to be remembered when all was said and done, when, finally, its true identity had been revealed), and now I lay on the floor, smelling the smells of rancid butter, spilled porridge, picturing Father Abbot’s face in my mind, the smile of recognition, enlightenment, that must, even now, be spreading across his face.

“Prior Dagan!” It was not the tone I had expected.

“Father.”

“Perhaps the good prior recalls a matter which has been often

on our lips of late?”

“I do Father”

“And that this represented a confidence? That Father was privy to it in his capacity as servant only and had no right to it, no right to display or declare it as he might some possession of his own?”

Silence.

“Father?”

“I have told no one.”

Empty silence—Faults now fully awake, alert, something new in the air, something different and unexpected.

“Perhaps the boy is merely ill.”

Ill? I wasn’t ill. What was Father Abbot talking about? Why had he changed the subject?

“A miasma of the air, some foul exhalation of the earth. The child must be prayed over, made to fast, perform mortifications.” A hesitation here, Father apparently considering his options, who to oversee this task now that Father Prior, the usual choice, was, however temporarily, out of favor.

A bench creaked and I allowed myself to hope. Surely someone would rise to my defense, point out the real meaning of the dream.

“Does someone wish to comment upon this, this delirium?”

Another sound, the clearing of an old man’s throat. “Father?”

All hope exited my chest. There would be no salvation from this quarter.

“Brother Sacristan.”

“Could not the boy’s dream betoken change, some disturbance in the life of our community?”

Another sound of movement, bodies leaning forward, shifting position, attention, from Brother Baldwin back to Father Abbot. Would such a question—suggesting, as it did, dissension—be allowed? Would Father silence Brother, silence one of the oldest members of the community, one of the few men as yet alive from the time before his time?

A small uncharacteristic laugh. “Surely Brother Sacristan does not mean to imply that his father is wrong.”

The uneasy stirring of brothers unaccustomed to dispute and then a sudden and startling whiff of sour breath, the sound of old bones bending beside me.

I was no longer alone.

Brother Baldwin had prostrated himself!

My heart filled with admiration for the man. He might be cruel, he might smell bad and possibly even be bad, but at least he was with me. I was no longer alone. Brother Baldwin had lain down beside me.

“If my question has dishonored Father Abbot, I ask only that my punishment be certain and severe.”

Again the sounds of monks shifting in place as brothers turned toward their father, change in the air now, the sense that such a gesture required a similar grace of their lord.

“Yes.... Yes, but as I think further on this I can see how you could believe such a thing. And while brothers should ‘not presume stubbornly to defend what seemeth right to them, for it must depend rather on the Abbot’s will, so that all obey him in
what he considereth best.’ Still, when ‘weighty matters are to be transacted in the monastery, let the Abbot call together the whole community... that all should be called for counsel.”’

A collective sigh of relief as Faults savored Father’s triumph: the perfect reference, the perfect resolution. All was forgiven, the Rule, as it was meant to, having saved us once more.

“But if this is so, if the dream is in some sense valid, possibly even visionary, is not the fact of the buildings, I mean their age, relevant? The boy seemed to think he was in a part of the monastery that was old, didn’t he, no longer used, no longer necessary?”

I had not considered this aspect of the dream. Nor had Father Gwynedd so far as I could recall.

“And is not the nature of the horse of some importance? I mean the boy was at some pains to impress upon us the animal’s comeliness, its nobility, despite the apparent willfullness of its character.”

Now we were getting somewhere.

“Father?”

“Prior Dagan.”

“Perhaps you are right. Perhaps this is the best way to view the.... view such a change.”

“That it is good?” Brother Baldwin clearly thought otherwise.

“Why not good?” Father Prior pleased with himself now, pleased to find himself once again on the side of his abbot. “If the buildings were old, if there are parts of our life here, structures, methods, that have outlived their usefulness, outlasted their need, what better than to remove them from our path, kick them down, let in the light? If the tree is barren, it must be cast into the sea; the Master Himself teaches this.”

“But the boy was frightened. He thought the horse dangerous.”

Father had explained all that, that the animal’s violence, its potential for violence, was emblematic of something else, my essence or something, my manhood.

“Yes but the boy is just a boy, isn’t he?” Father Abbot picking

up Father Prior’s theme now, the two men once more in accord, master and servant, father and son. “I mean how can we expect a child to understand such a vision. He is just the vessel, isn’t he, the messenger, the errand boy? We do not expect the ox to understand the row it plows, the tabula the words they transmit.”

But I was the point of it, wasn’t I? I was the one who got to kick out the slats, cast Father Prior’s tree into the ocean.

“Father?” Shock falling upon shock now, people who never spoke in Faults joining the fray.

“Brother.”

“Nothing. Nothing, I didn’t mean to speak. Forgive me Father.”

“Brother Furnace, if you have something to say, say it. You have my permission.”

“Well, it is just that.... The boy thought the horse might harm you. He did! That it might
kill
you.”

“Your concern for my person is, as always, dear Victricius, commendable, but really there must be some limit. The boy had a
dream. Authority tells us that dreams are communications sent via appetite rather than reason. They are things smelled not tasted, felt not seen, heard not thought. This, this intimation of danger, was at best the garbled utterance of something trying desperately, using the tools at hand, to be understood. I am this boy’s father, his priest, his lord. What better way to indicate change, profound change, than to suggest a threat to me?”

Silence, the import of Father’s words spreading down the benches like contagion. The pestilence? Some lesser or greater calamity? What else could “profound change” mean?

Another laugh, Father Abbot certainly feeling cheerful this morning. “The buildings were old, weren’t they, decrepit? The horse beautiful, grand? Why the gloomy faces? What are you afraid of? Is this what we have come to? Are we so set in our ways that we fear all change, all transformation? Is that wise? Is it monastic? We are called to be different, are we not, renewed, reborn? Does not the bread change, the wine? Are we not asked to do likewise?”

A slight stirring along the benches, monks doubtless looking
at one another, trying to reconcile a life of utter routine with that suggested by their father.

“Brothers, we must greet change with open arms. The Rule frees us for this. It is why we became monks, that we might the more readily accept whatever change God sends our way. And change will come. It is the one certainty, the one inevitability. He is Change.”

Quiet now, the entire community attentive, wondering.

“So please, please, whatever this dream’s meaning, it is safe to assume our Lord has something in store for us. He always does. Let us pray for it. Let us pray that it will come swiftly and that God will grant us the grace to submit to it, whatever form it takes, humbly and in compliance with our vows of obedience and stability.”

A sound which, after a moment’s consideration, I recognized as that made by monks when, as a body, they cross themselves.

“Good, that is good. And now.... Father Prior? You have something you would like to add Father Prior?”

“My Lord Abbot L... No. No, thy will be done.”

“Yes. Yes, Father reminds us of the approved response. And now it is, I believe, time for the office. Brother Tatwine?”

As I remember it, Father Abbot left us to lie there till they’d all filed out, Tatwine giving the bell his usual methodical best. I remember the swishing of the robes as the monks performed their obeisances, and I remember the air that spilled in over us when the door was opened, Baldwin’s bones doubtless aching with the cold, my own thinking of days outside and the coming spring, the smells, the food. I remember too the moment when Father Abbot himself arose, no one left to bow to him, no one left to watch his departure, the sounds almost perfunctory, banal, as, slowly, one foot after another, he crossed the floor, exited the hall, the cold air still pouring in over us, the door left open, signalling his forgiveness, that we too might rise, follow him, join the community at prayer. I’m not sure how much longer we lay there. I suppose I would have let Baldwin take the lead. At any rate, at some point we rose, I remember that, and, feeling rather foolish, bowed to the
empty chair, made our own silent and somehow niggardly departure.

That meeting of the chapter would provide a model for those to come, the feeling that some unnatural break had taken place in the relationship between our abbot and his prior, the growing suspicion that our community faced a similar disruption, that something hung over our heads, something terrible, and the certainty that (Father Abbot’s arguments to the contrary notwithstanding) change was not always welcome: change could be bad too, threatening, obscure, demeaning. Of course it all seems obvious now, clear. Hindsight is, after all, a wonderful thing. But at the time I couldn’t help believing it might all go away, that Father Abbot might have been wrong, Father Hermit right, that Father Abbot might merely have appropriated my dream for his own purposes, ridden my cart to his farm. Of course I know that’s not true. I mean I know now, have experienced, what happened next. But at the time this uncertainty produced within me not a little anxiety, even fear. And, to a degree, I suppose it does still. I mean, if
Father Abbot’s interpretation was right, if my dream merely foretold the coming of Godwin, then why, pray, does it persist? Why do I have it still? Godwin is long dead now, Maban too, but the horse lives on, the horse still visits me, still beats at the walls of my sleep. And every now and then I still wonder, should I open that stall door, should I set it free?