“God is the great architect of the Universe, causa causans of everything, as St.Thomas Aquinas said,” our Abbot used to say.
I didn’t know who my benefactor was, and how much Jorge was paid for my everlasting obedience. But there was not a single person dearer to the Abbot than me among the fraternity, and there was not a single person among the fraternity whose taking of monastic vows had been delayed for so long. As an illegitimate son of a count, I was getting ready for this worldly life. To avoid being an obtrusive embarrassment to the family, I was sent to the Benedictine monastery without title to save face; unable to acquire wealth, but thankfully I was not burdened with having to take vows. Nearby, in Graben, my alleged parent’s castle towered above, aloof and dismal. Jorge used to set me on his shoulders and point at its wonders with his old speckled hand: the fortified courtyard turrets, the drawbridges lying over the moat, the gate structures, the keep, a grand citadel, appealing with supposed patrimonial pride (Don’t be under any illusion, I will not inherit any patrimony or treasures at the end of this book). Jorge wasn’t to blame for my bastard blood. Moreover, he cherished his fosterling’s talents, focusing on calligraphy, translations, and working with the manuscripts in the scriptorium.
One dark evening towards the end of the summer, a delivery man from Graben took me to the monastery on the top of the hill and handed me to the Abbot (“in a sac, like a captive Turkish kid,” as Jorge retold later) together with a purse full of gold. Since then, my birthday had been set in August, at the last roar of a lion, according to the astrological signs calculated by a young fair-haired Prior Edward, who had a pathologic tendency for magical (or so) teachings. Sometime later, during the late summer days, I was christened Anselm, and soon started to learn reading the Holy Writ. And while other boys ran errands helping the cellarer in the kitchens, Jorge took me to the Black Gardens.
Cultivated by the Abbot, the Eden was fenced off from the rest of the abbatial lands on the western side by a wall of the inky vine; future wine designated for our Eucharists and daily repasts grows here, coiling as ringlets.
I see myself lying on the ground, staring at the enameled blue sky while Jorge is tying the vines. Lily-white bushes are in bloom all around. I climb up into the deepness of a shadowy bird-cherry tree, and there, in my secret hideaway, amongst the white blossom branches, I can watch the Abbot’s every movement. Motionless, I wait till an angular shadow calls, “Anselmo!” on the Spanish way, and suddenly jump down, right in front of Jorge. We build small windmills, which can rotate in the wind, we play “one, two, three, let’s run down the hill!” and “chicky vine curls”. I watch ants and squirrels, leaves and clouds. After the summer goes through its mid fiery daze, it’ll be time to enjoy the results of our work.
“What is Our Father’s home?” I ask, flattened out on the fallen white petals, poking my finger up into the sky. “Look!” Jorge shows me the pheasants, hovering under azure dome. Then, he folds his hands like a bird’s wings flying upwards, flapping its feathers, rising, flying upward towards the sky, flying higher and higher above – above the clouds, towards Our Father’s home. Jorge loves the sky most of all.
Peter, the cellarer, has stored the clay pots ready for the fruits and berries; I gather the crop grown by Jorge. Peter holds the rough metallic barn key, the metal keeps the heat of the sun for the day; the sun is about to tumble down behind plains and lowlands, behind fields and meadows, behind their summer green sheets. Between complin and night prayer, I doze on the Abbot’s strong shoulders; sometimes he takes me to bed in my cell, and at the back of my mind, the very notion of home comfort will always mean high domed spaciousness, cold stone, and silence.
Peace is created by cold stone and silence.
Silence lives in the father’s icy chamber (Don’t be under a delusion, he will not turn up to be my real father at the end of this book). The sky looks through the elongated narrow window, giving everlasting supervision. Jorge has a bed and a chest, and there is a wax candle, and books piling up on it.
While the rest of the world smokes of tallow candles, we light our church up only with wax candles; the sacred wax, made by the sacred bees in our beehives, those bees can whisper a prayer straight to Lord’s ear. Enormous flat multi-horned lamps are lit, a bright light lightens up the dome – and I like this brightness. I am going to like it here till someone will groan that beeswax is a luxury.
“What is luxury?” I asked.
“Luxury?” Jorge wrinkled his forehead into a frown, and took me to the kitchen and hugged me. “Let brother Peter take some rest, and I’ll show you what luxury is.”
Letting the cellarer go, the Abbot opens supply chests, one after another, looks into the baked goods storage, makes a fire in the oven, as I stare at this scene fascinated.
