The architect

“Challenge and takeoff! But a very… nervous challenge and takeoff!”

Mylo gave me a thoughtful look,

“And what is the reason it takes off?”

I was able to formulate the idea after a few moments,

“To turn everything material into spiritual weightless.”

“Make it simple.”

“To destroy the reality and break through beyond.”

“Where?”

I remembered Jorge, turning his palm into a flying bird.

“Up to the sky.”

“What for?”

“To the light!”

Mylo and I managed to draw a plan for the cathedral in Chartres together. Having already learned the foreign terminology, I summed up that the building was a cross with a three-aisled transept and a deambulatory at the top of the cross. “Write it down that it had been most likely made from durable sandstone,” added the architect after some thought.

“And the steeple? What is this huge needle made of?” This question was torturing me most of all.

“A log coated with lead,” my mentor shrugged his shoulders. “At least, I think so… Remember, the main thing is a masonry vault. About two or three hundred years ago, the vaults were not entirely made of stone, they were mixed from sand, lime and stone ground as in your building, for example. But now the stone replaces everything else. It’s cold and strong, there is future behind it.”

When the work in the church building was complete, Mylo collected his belongings. He left some of his tools and drawings. Finally, the architect gave advice when we were in the fratry.

“Go and learn building. With your own hands. Are there any masons down in the village?”

Edward answered instead of me,

“Yes, I know Jean. He has built half of the local houses,” the Prior winked. “I’ll introduce you to him when we go down to the village.”

I immediately lost heart,

“Jorge will never again let us go to Graben due to your whores.”

“Trust me,” Edward stated quite firmly.

A few days later, I secretly joined Jean the Builder with his apprentices. Mud appeared under the calligrapher’s fingernails. I decided to go ahead from the start and began studying the “soul of the stone”, helping masons voluntarily. I rough-hewed stone block as an initial stage at stone quarrying. Fine processing was carried out later, in special workshops, and from there, the cart went to the construction site where Jean and his team of apprentices finally polished it in barns and storage sheds.

I stayed with Jean on the construction sites for days on end, and gradually the tools became a continuation of my fingers. Being with the masons, I had started using a set square for shaping the stone. Then I got a level to check the horizontal position, and a plumb-rule to check the vertical one.

Back at the hill, after the compline, I came up into Jorge’s cell, always so spacious and cold, and read him the Gospel or the writings of the blessed Augustine at night. The Father could hardly read himself, as his eyesight was relentlessly fading. He continued losing weight, and I tried to entertain him as much as I could. I invented new illustrations for books, which I could hardly find time to copy. I carved the statue of Our Lady on Easter and gave it to Jorge. Having persuaded the three brothers to help me, I managed to erect a number of nice colonettes in our monastery and ennobled the doors, windows and bigger columns.

I could handle almost everything after a couple of years. But “Chartres’ melancholy,” as I called it, didn’t calm down. The system of light and graceful arc boutans, drawn by Mylo didn’t get out of my mind. The stone in my hands could depict anything, expressing nothing at the same time. Did this mean that I hadn’t put enough effort into it?

“How did you convince Jorge to let me go to Jean?” I asked the Prior one day.

“I read him the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians by Paul the Apostle that night.”

It began to dawn on me,

“If any would not work, neither should he eat?”

“Exactly. And then I hinted that you could start looking for a profession since the father didn’t want to see you among the brethren.”

That was what I called a little bit unexpected,

“He doesn’t want me to stay here, does he? But he loves me so much!”

The Prior waved his hand, “Forget it,” and hurried off.

I had been preparing myself for a long time to the fact that sooner or later I should leave the monastery, but I couldn’t believe that the abbot decided everything ahead of time. Being offended at Father, I couldn’t explain the course of his thoughts, and, as a result, I simply accepted the words literally. It was then I decided to stop eating.

Chapter 3.

Gula1

After all, you can always starve yourself to death.

I don’t know where I’m going, but I’ll try to come to the kingdom if I can… If I am strong enough, I will take great pain to step in like a harbinger of a new era of completely different sculptures and buildings but not like a stranger. I will be an urban architect of boundless kingdoms – there is a dame in every house. If I am strong enough, because I’m still here, lying on a cold, wet ground, smeared with tears and snot; I can hear nothing but noise and rumble tumble in my ears, and I am gazing with blurred eyes at the piece of holy communion consumed, and now extorted from my own body along with bile…

In my boyhood, I was all legs like a lanky rod, skinny and black-haired, with transparent grey eyes and high cheekbones. I hadn’t become a monk yet and visited Graben regularly to work with stone, which made my fingers scored, much to Jorge’s displeasure. “Such a good copyist has been wasted! Had I known what the trip to Chartres would end up with, I’d have never taken you with me!” he once grumbled, but I could feel a clear hint of fatherly pride in his words. But the abbot was happy deep in mind that I would have the opportunity to apply my skills to the world, but not in the Abbey. He was still stubbornly delaying my tonsuring. I had been really upset about all that. However, I could feel the advantages of being free from making vows, helping Jean the Builder to make a house for another family of a third-rate merchant.

One April morning, a peasant girl, who was selling poultry in the market, where we delivered sheep’s wool for sale, stepped out to meet me,

“You haven’t been here for long. I was looking for you among the brethren in vain.”

I asked then,

“We are all dressed the same. How could you tell it was me?”

“You are the skinniest,” the girl smiled, “and the cutest ever.”

Later, I went fishing with Jorge. I left the old man alone fishing, and proceeded to walk around the hill, where the river made a turn and there was a quiet place where, having risen on a round stone, I quickly threw off all my clothes, dumped them on the grass of the bank and gazed at my reflection on the watery surface.

I suddenly saw the second component of Chartres Cathedral’s miracle which was as clear as a day. The first component was grandeur, and it had a purely metaphysical nature. The second ingredient of the architectural masterpiece was looking at me from the water.

Emaciation.

                                       * * *

“To live out this divine plan, the Chartres Cathedral is satiated with, in addition to zealous praying and constant spiritual perfecting, it would be necessary to strictly limit myself taking meals, punishing my body with severe asceticism for all its inherent sins.” So I expressed myself on the back of my main treasure, a detailed drawing of a Burgundian architectural element, a pointed arch, left to me by Mylo, who had finally infected me to be anxious for an architectural path.

I was in a hurry to bring this idea to life.

In line with the Statutes, I could have a meal once a day in the afternoon in autumn and in winter, including dawn-to-dusk fasts. Morning meals were permanently excluded, and we should also abstain from eating on Wednesdays and Fridays, mindful of The Holy Passion.

That was too much.

The fast isn’t a time limit, but a mode of existence, becoming my way of life – blessing fast, the mystical universe, angelic dreamland, opening the unnaturally rolling out goggled eyes on a dried face under lurid eyelids; the fast that ennobles the appearance to be attractive to the opposite sex.

It takes a day to survive without food, and vision and hearing became sharper, the choir’s singing and the prayer of the community rose straight to Lord; everything is forgiven, everything starts slowly to be absolved. On the second day, when saturation is rejected, it appears in your mind, and if it has settled inside you, you will never part from each other, no matter how much food you have and whatever kind of life you decide to have in the future.

It was little divine herald, the one who drew the line between the human world and the abode of highly spiritual beings. It isolates you forever, separates you from material nasty things. The true power of the spirit is in the constant mortification.

Сanvas is warmed up, my body is a parchment, my body is Your parchment. Have a look at the mesh that carries the blood, and where the heart is locked up in prison, in a cage made of ribs; try how solid they are and how they stick outward, almost piercing the skin. Beind made in the image and likeness of Yours, I will confess to You, O Lord, with my whole heart, unto the ages of ages, see how it drives the blood, like a scarlet apple in my chest, in a bone box; it drives the blood so that it knocks already at the top of the watchtower, it beats the alarm, it has already climbed to the bell tower and calls everyone for dinner, so how it hammers in temples.

I always liked to put my restless fingers somewhere, especially into my throat. Oh, of course, Brother Miguel said at night that even a venerable abbot could not be thinner than me – he said so to make me feel happy. I didn’t believe him, because he could be in collision with the prior, who, in turn, ganged together with Jorge, who demanded “to stop turning the fast into a tool of narcissism”, and he definitely consulted with the Bishop, who instructed Jorge to force me to eat in his heavenly letters. And, how should I know, Edward was also familiar with the village seller, and she called, she, yes, there you go!, she called me a fool, and later I poured some soup into a bowl, next to nothing!, ‘hey, I’ll kick out your shoulders!, hey, just have a look – Nobody is more beautiful than me,” the girl looked at me and darkened. She said, she had noticed, of course, but now I was really crazy. And I had already pushed the spoon into my mouth. And I was so annoyed, the heavenly hosts. She said that I was a fool. And I got up from the table. So far, I did it for the first time, somewhere in October; and the senior monks considered themselves guilty, and they all started to exchange glances. I carried on playing with Jorge, of course, who had tried to deceive me. I deceived him in return, inventing colourful dinners at Graben’s construction sites.

I had almond milk at the Graben’s construction sites filling with lighting, like a high transparent cathedral. While those ones, weak in spirit, silently chewed in the fratry, listening to the reading.

I took a hard decision to nullify my own life in the name of something really worthy. At least I knew exactly what I would l always like to be until a certain idea appeared. I decided to stop eating. On the way, I had to learn a lot of tricks – for example, I used to run away from dinner under the excuse of some urgent work I had to do for Jean, hiding food in the sleeves, then giving it to beggars, and, at the worst, spit it out in a house at the back, at the lavatory where no one could notice, except Jorge, who was hugging me every time before going to sleep and frowning at such moments, “What are you stinking of, Anselmo? Holy saints.”

Sleep was gone as well as hunger. Getting up before the midnight mass, I was trying to overcome dizziness, pain in the creaking bones and aching joints, me – being fiifteen years old, and at these moments I felt like a real man, a great martyr, a future genius. I felt no less than Jesus Christ’s son.

The market girl should have seen changes that had occurred in my appearance, gradually being carved out in the image and likeness of Thy Lord. When I came up to say hello to her, she put a handful of nuts into my hand, without uttering a word. Having allowed myself to eat two of them on the way to the mountain, I took out a tooth from my mouth that had rolled under my tongue. The fallen molar of a fifteen-year-old, look, my Lord, what a delicate ascetic is growing out of this rough log, from this body, being recently full up and filthy.

After Holy Communion, I managed to scratch my throat so that a piece of obley jumped out onto the rainy mud and clay, while I was convulsing with colic. Prior Edward – this unexposed mystic – worried that I had been melting away during the recent months, ordered the little Miguel to keep an eye on me; and now the monastery was gathering beside the crap-house to witness my shame, my skinny face bespattered with spittle, my holey fingernails and to top it all up, the undigested sacramental bread on a slush right under their feet.

Jorge, fierce and angry, leaned over me. He snapped at my face, distorted with horror,

“So what, do you feel like Jesus’ son? Do you feel now like a man?”

Father jerked me up from my knees and told me to go to the dortǒur. The brethren condemned. You can’t help me anymore, brothers, go away. If they decided to lock me in here, I would never be able to carry on building, roofing, erecting walls, or carving figures. They will decide to break my back over the knee, dead easy, even the weakest knee, and I would fall apart alive. But if they were after breaking my will, nothing would come out of it. After all, you can always starve yourself to death. It’s white. O Lord, how white it is, and light, light is everywhere; you can hear, my heart is setting itself free from the body cage and is flying away forever, everything around me becomes white. The outlines are getting dim, and I am fading, finally grabbing at the branch, for someone’s cloak, for the air. Praise to Him! I’m almost dead now and praise you, Lord, that I’m not scared, and praise the Lord that I don’t care.

I’ll turn myself inside out just to attract their attention.

                                       * * *

Jorge was getting older. Sometimes, he was put in bed to be treated for several weeks, and had poultry (another reason to see a girl in the market). He could no longer have fasts.

I used to read to him, sitting next to him in the fermery, while he was telling his beads. They say, there was a town, far from us, where the carvers of coral beads were bound apprentices for twelve years to become craftsmen… And there were other cities, Paris, and – Saint-Denis behind it, with its royal tomb. In Suger, the abbot was the first to create a building like Chartres Cathedral, combining the traditions of Burgundy (pointed arches) and Normandy (ribbed frame). Mylo told me that Suger had been inspired by Jerusalem – place of the divine light. He wanted to give the same light to an ordinary stone building. To do this, it was required to figure out how to make a high vault, and arrange huge windows instead of walls. “Dilectio decoris domus Dei”2, this was what Suger said about Saint-Denis. I didn’t really believe in such fairy tales. I asked Mylo, “Who they were, that person named Suger and his brethren.” “Also Benedictines, like you,” the master replied…

Jorge interrupted my thoughts,

“Are you eating well now?”

“Sure! I’ve even stolen a piece of a fried duck, going along with your health guidance! Father,” I leaned over and hugged him, “what else can I do for you?”

“Ora et labora3.”

“That’s what I keep doing! Jorge… you don’t like me being a builder, do you?”

Leaning back, Father remained silent for a long time, then answered in a small voice,

“Do whatever you want. But at least, eat occasionally, please, for god’s sake.”

Chapter 4.

Jorge

The rag on the floor turned out to be a corpse. There was a wolf in a lamb’s skin in the dark. We would find him only by morning, already stiff in death for good.

I had been working with the scripts all night, trying to rewrite for a couple of hours what I had fallen behind with for a week due to hanging upside down on the Graben construction sites. The letters came out ugly and sloppy written by ink-smeared broken fingers, which had been picked up frames of future buildings, cobblestones and tiles for a week. There were scuffing steps at the entrance to the scriptorium, and I turned round by instinct. Focusing my eyes on the column shafts, I noticed that dark marble was used to enhance the effect of the ornament. There was no one to be afraid of behind these columns. Everyone was asleep, except for me and brother Miguel, petty and caulked; his forehead was burning, with his messed up hair sticking out.

“You sick?” I managed to grab Miguel by his elbow before he fell on the bench beside me.

“No… I was going to the kitchen to get some water, and I saw a light here, and then you,” he answered, hardly able to recover from broken uneven breathing.

“And I thought that you had a fever.”

The monk looked down.

“What gives you the greatest pleasure, Anselm?”

I hesitated for a moment. While the truth was piling up in my head by the last edge that separated me from everything around – scriptorium, brethren, texts, liturgies; and I was able to spit it out into a world, very clearly shaped,

“Working with stone.”

Miguel was clearly disappointed with my answer. He went back to sleep, never getting water from the kitchen. He would be back by morning, when I flew over the wall, flaunting regulations anew, prohibiting me to spend the night outside the monastery walls, and under the sun of the seasons, I would supervise the lifting of construction material with a “wolf’s paw” or “wolf”, special tongs that left biting footprints on the stone.

Shortly before this, on May 1st, several men, the merchants’ representatives wanted to discuss the upcoming fair with Jorge. It was to be held on the territory of the abbey, and we relied on it for a certain fee. However, father was too weak. His condition hadn’t improved with the coming of spring, so the prior was entrusted to distribute trade places and solve all other issues at the fair.

On the way home, I would see the future trade rows. Edward had a cunning intuitive mind and was a natural in sales, so they were going to trade everything one could wish for. Merchants would untie their bales with squirrel, rabbit, cat skins, red and grey. Fishermen would display their harvesting of barbel, sturgeon, lamprey with alose. They would bring something less sophisticated such as wafers and pies, chestnuts and figs, butter, sour grape juice, partridges and capon, all wines varieties.

On the way home, I would meet Miguel once again, running down from the mountain, with messed up hair, overexcited, all in tears. He would slap me on my chest, I would pull him back and have a look at the small, painful grimaces that had distorted his plump face, I would lead him across the bridge of the nose, asking in a deliberate harsh toned voice that became lower and lower every day,

“What’s wrong?”

Miguel would raise his eyes wrapped in a veil of tears, and tell the other truth, formed like a stone,

“The Abbot is dead.”

                                       * * *

Once we used to play “one, two, three, let’s run down the hill!” at this very place. And he, lining down the bottom of the basket for berries, could crush me in one movement, like a bug, which he was telling me about. The bee was called a bee, and it worked for honey and wax, midges could cover the whole fist stinging it in far away places, it could be unbearably hot over there. Raspberry, blueberry, wilds of bird cherry trees, where I was hiding from him, when he could easily finish me. But he talked about beekeepers, crops, kings, archangels, plowing, Aristotle, marsh drainage, lenders, Lord, who could also crush me at any moment with one sweep. If father allowed it.

He gave me a piggyback ride instead, then put me in a cart, taught me how to drive a horse-drawn vehicle. He was happy when I began to master the language, and he never took seriously the striving for architecture. You need your eyes to be sharp to work in the scriptorium, which was smoked by candles, ground on the letters, getting blunt around the corners of the parchment. So, he mixed up carrots with garlic to make the eyes of a book copyist tenacious; and we ate, so that we could look through into the depth of the text.

Then I got stronger, stiffened, took not a feather, but compasses, took a brick, took a jedding ax, controlled the substance, and I had to wait until my father took a breath when we occasionally went to bring some water together, and he had less and less strength. Jorge fainted and fell on the flagstones.

The rag on the floor turned out to be a dead man – and these blockheads were scared to miss the service.

                                       * * *

What did I know about Jorge? He arrived to our land from Burgos. However, there was nothing Spanish in him, but his name. When he was a little boy, it was roughest for him to tolerate hunger in the family – he couldn’t even fall asleep because of it. Jorge was once black-haired, and then I remembered him being grey.

The body was put in the church for a day so that everyone could say goodbye. Later, we would be able to find his final resting place in the cemetery marked by planted yew trees. From ancient times, high trees had been indicated the burial place, even if the sanctuary was destroyed nearby. The height has always been visual and noble. It strives up into the sky following the gesture of the father.

Jorge was going to the grave in his black cassock, taking away the secret of my origin for good. Skinny Jorge of Burgos, the blind man, the Abbot, my beloved father, rugged abbot, iron discipline, empty stomach, the gerent of the brethren and the thunderbolt of the community, a vine grower, Jorge, bony hand, Jorge, glassy eyes – our eternal head was going away into the grave pit, and we had nothing left but to pray for his soul.

All the angels and wizards, kind and evil, lit candles in remembrance of Jorge, while I could hardly stand on my feet during this nightmarish farewell ceremony, and then kept crawling, sprawling vertically along the damp wall, and climbed up, and eventually crawled up to Ed’s cell, where I was crying all night into his straw hair, felted, wet, covering his tense brain, which was sleepless, trying to figure out variants of his own rising to the rank.

If I had come across an overexcited Miguel in scriptorium, I would not have run away to Graben, but would cheat time, and Jorge would be alive again. But time could not be deceived. It was continuous like space. It belonged merely to God, hence you could just experience it.

                                       * * *

I buried my father – there was nowhere to grow up further.

The prior called me for a conversation, not otherwise than making amends for a magic ritual that once was disrupted. Having crossed myself and taken a deep breath, I came into his cell.

“When I become an abbot,” Edward began, as if this was already settled, “the first thing I would do is take your tonsure.”

“But then I’ll have to leave the monastery…”

“That’s why I’m in such a hurry,” the Prior quickly looked out into the corridor, making sure that no one could hear us. “Just for you not to get rotten in these walls like me.”

My earless patron had arranged everything as always, so that fate put me in the right direction. Everything had solved itself out, and wandering around the labyrinth of a pious life, I was again pushed out, spat out, thrown away into the maddening world of human ambitions and sins, squeezing compasses and a set square in my hands.

“Hey, Anselm!” the prior called me when I was already at the door. “Take it!”

He threw me a leather bag, stuffed with gold coins. Catching and hiding it in my chest, I asked,

“What is it?”

“Greetings from Jorge.”

                                       * * *

Straight after the morning prayer, at dawn, I asked the gatekeeper to let me out from the monastery.

“Back to Graben? How much can you run over there?”