The architect

“Not anymore I’m going to the Town. They say, there is a shop of masons and sculptors…”

“For good?”

I just nodded in response.

“Are you not even saying goodbye to your brothers?”

“I didn’t even say goodbye to Jorge,” I could hardly manage to hold the tears.

The lad was astonished.

“Are you really going to build houses and castles?”

“If they allow me,” I checked the money inconspicuously, finding the purse at my waist.

“Godspeed, Anselm. Godspeed!” the gatekeeper shouted, closing the gate of the Abbey behind me.

I ran downstairs. One, two, three, let’s run down the hill!

                                       * * *

I asked the girl from the market to get me some clothes that layman was used to wearing. While I was hiding away in the poultry house of her parents, she purchased what decent young men were used to wearing who didn’t commit themselves to God, loosening the purse strings of my “assets”.

Clothing for Anselm

The chemise was sewn from flax. It was a shirt hanging on my lean body, with a wide neckline and a rear vent making it easier to move. Then, there was a cotte, a tunic that was knee-length or lower. It was made of fine woollen cloth and coloured red. The cotte covered my legs to the ankles. Above all, it I was supposed to wear a surcoat, a long robe without sleeves, which was my favorite bright blue color to make a growing contrast to the cotte. I put on comfortable and soft, embroidered leather shoes with pointed toes instead of worn sandals. Finally, the image of a townsman was complete with a light cap with ties at the sides.

I had to throw off the monastic vestments and leave it on the floor as a closed chapter, the last era, be past the point. I felt embarrassed in front of the girl.

“Turn away, please.”

“What for?” she was amused with my request.

“Because I can’t…”

The girl came closer, and, passing her hand around my neck, grabbed the hood.

“Can anyone ban you now? Your old moron, the Abbot went into the pot, you don’t take a back seat for anyone.”

My ears started dinging.

“What?… What did you call Jorge?”

My heart was thumping quietly inside my head. Suddenly, I wanted to kill the bitch. To grab and strangle, while no one was around. How dare was she to say such things?!? Was the whole world full of such people of low moral, no honour, and no conscience? And how could I resist them all? Trying not to come in contact without need?

The same action had to be repeated twice during the day. Breaking free from the hugs of an ungodly saleswoman, I left the house and silently left her yard. I left Graben in silence.

The Lord saved me from temptation. I was so happy not just to kiss her pink face. I was so happy not to belong to her.

They were probably already going to an evening prayer service at the top. God’s grace! I hated this senseless gathering of people being lost!

I was so happy not to sing with them voluntarily. I was so happy not to be with them anymore, and I was so happy not to upset the father with such decisions. Their sorrowful chorus sounded false, put-one and empty, but absolutely canonical part of the service. My lonely mourning for Jorge was ongoing by foot along the dusty road to the Big Town. How many judges, foresters, prévôts and road rangers would I have to drag through your last gift?

Who did you leave me with, Jorge, why didn’t you wait? The worst thing that could be done was tiling the roof early in the morning when my father was leaving us. No, we had to pray, think about the highest justice, help the cellarer with farming, but just not to be involved in our own affairs! Nothing would ever come out, it wasn’t on time; I was in a hurry to get out of here, away from Graben, from the Abbey, from myself. Don’t be so judgy, Father. “What did you get dirty with?” Mortar, Jorge pronounced the word as “motor.” “Your ‘motor’ is always all over the place, even on your underwear. Shame on you.”

The evening enveiled the valley. I was moving to the Town. And where did Jorge go?

Oh, I didn’t want to know that.

The oaks settled their wide leaves, bragging, hissing in the wind along the oak woods – ssssss, ssstoyp! They say “stop”, “fear”, “strange”, “wasp”. It would bite right away. And everything was spinning, spinning, spinning, a great late afternoon on the wheel of the year. Jorge was in the garden, on monastic garden beds. A horrible burnt house, do you remember? You always speed up, passing it, when you climb a mountain, into a forest, to a spring. Don’t pull the reins so hard, Anselmo. Eat well, Anselmo. Harness. Take it to the altar. Put benches. Run to the cellar, you stupid fool. Well, quickly, well, whom I speak to. Stop, strange fear, wasp caught your hair! Wave goodbye to me. Farewell on the high window.

The trees asked, “Where are you going, strange boy?”

And I answered,

“I need,I really need to,Truly, I really needto go.”

Chapter 5.

Bread

The gardens were grabbing me with their meager arms begging, ladies grabbed at me in heavy dresses with their speedy hands, zealous raving girls with rouged in the cheeks, licking their lips. Noblemen hired me to build strong castles, to the criteria of their smarting vanity; creaking doors of dark confession boxes being slammed grabbed me, and the empty eye-sockets of graves being dug invited me – but I continued to look up but not down.

The Town had always been corrupt.

Enclosed in its walls, streaked with narrow streets, where multi-story buildings squeezed and pressed each other all around, with brightly colored facades heaping out, patches of vegetable plots and floral gardens were nestled between the houses seen in the daylight. The town hadn’t taken risks crawling outside its tight fortress wall boundaries.

The town was just a town. People living here stuffed themselves with meat, drank diluted beer pounding on the table with their fists, taking part in the festivities in the square playing with dice and tablets tirelessly; the tables were carved from wood or ivory, laid out on the table de brelan. As for me, who had played nothing before with my brothers but rounders or squash, I was incredibly curious gazing at the whole universe created by the excitement, money and food. Pork carcasses were spinning on a roasting-jack, fat sizzled, making everybody’s mouth water for everything in the town.

“Please, give some bread for the blind from the Rotten Field!”, “Please, give some bread for the lepers from the Blossoming Field!” The Town begged, pleading, the Town was constantly hungry.

My hunger strike turned into a symbol of struggle against a new lifestyle. Having had a plentiful dinner, I would gulp down a few buckets of water inside my belly to vomit.

I wasn’t interested in girls, because anyone could call Jorge ‘an old jerk’. The interest in sensual delights, no matter how brightly I was inflamed, could never prevail over the striving for something spiritual – as much as a young man of my age could bear it. I was also in no hurry to make friends, getting closer only with Carlo, a local young bishop, so that I could stay close to the church and continue to get sacraments.

I kept sending letters to Graben Abbey several times a year, but received no answer to any of them.

In the new world, some crafts were considered worthy of others, and independent sloggers could only rely on temporary earnings, so I started looking for a master.

Jean-Baptiste, head of the construction shop, accepted me for the price I had taken away from the monastery. As the number of ‘internal’ family students could be any, and all the sons of Jean-Baptiste were already in his service, only one student was supposed to be taken ‘from the outside’. To get into this loophole, I had to give out all the coins in front of the master. Finally, in the presence of two jurors and four masters, we signed a written contract, stipulating the amount of fees, duration of apprenticeship and the terms of my accommodation, in accordance with, I would be on full board at the teacher’s house, getting clothing and meals from him. After a number of years, I would become an apprentice.

“There are two ways of overlapping,” Jean-Baptiste started teaching, “using a flat arch and a round arch.”

And I rolled up my sleeves.

                                       * * *

Lucia brought a basket of bread each Sunday Mass, and on the way back, passed the nearby workshop, to watch me carefully, always being among the first ones keen to get back to work. “Ite missa est”4 was a password for her, allowing her to stare at me shamelessly.

“Who is she?” I asked Jean-Baptiste.

Lucia, the daughter of the most dominant figure in the Town. On Sundays, she helps the poor by bringing them bread and clothing.”

“A charity girl?”

The master shook his head.

“She is the money girl. One of those whose ancestors have been just regular, though diligent craftsmen two hundred years ago. Now they are like gentry, and would like to get their bit of admiration as if they were really noble.”

A week later, I stayed late at the church, discussing some urgent tricky issues with Carlo. As soon as I saw Lucia, I immediately went back to the bench to take a look. Would she dare to bother me here?

Something bumped into my shoulder, it was a bread basket. The smell of fresh baking was driving me crazy.

“Would you like some?” Lucia gave me some bread.

“Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie?5 I broke off a small piece, giving back the rest.

“Not only are you beautiful, you are also literate,” she started with flattery. It was pretty good.

But I was firm,

“Everybody knows prayers.”

“Everyone knows, but not everyone prays,” Lucia smiled and left the temple.

And then a month later, she came along to Jean-Baptiste with her father, a red-skinned, bulky Aubrey, to make a deal to mend their stables. As night came, Lucia was sent home. I sneaked around the corner of the house and with haste followed her along the bylanes. Strands of hair loosened out of her hairnet, not fastened by scarlet ribbons, not restrained by veils, fluttered to the rhythm of her rapid gait. But I remembered – oh, I remembered! – what an ardent look she threw at me before leaving. And I had to keep an eye on her burgundy surcoat with roses, gold brooches, brown hair. I followed her along the wasteland, cautiously stepping on the rough ground further, to the market square where the towers were asleep, where the beggars were sleeping, where the shuttered windows were asleep. She knew that I was around, and was intentionally slowing down, adjusting the fabric of her clothes, tidying her hair. And I was embarrassed by these thoughts, confused and my left leg was cramped until we both stopped in the stuffiness of the coming night.

“I followed you a few blocks, but you didn’t turn around. But you were aware that I was following you, weren’t you? You did know and deliberately didn’t look back, didn’t you, Lucia?”

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Примечания

1

Latin “Gula” is one of the seven deadly sins.

2

Latin “the House of God should be thus beautified”

3

Latin “Work and pray,” Benedectines’ logo.

4

Latin “Go, it is ended.”

5

Latin. Bible. “‘Give us this day our daily bread.’”