Page 63 of Saint
I want it. I want it at the same time I’m praying lauds, at the same time I’m finding my breviary and letting Brother Luc and a stout Gallic monk named Dom Francis lead me out to the lavender fields. I want it as they’re explaining the harvesting process to me—a by-hand method, since the bridge into the valley is too narrow for harvesting equipment.
And I definitely want it as I’m scanning the fields and watching the monks begin to unload bundles of green netting from a truck. “Have you seen Elijah?” I ask Brother Luc. “I didn’t have a chance to ask him at breakfast if he was coming out with us.”
Dom Francis, who understands English but who doesn’t speak it, says something in French to Brother Luc, who nods as he listens.
“He says your friend went to Cavaillon with Brother Jean to pick up some copper pots we’ve had re-tinned.”
“Oh,” is my reply, which comes out sadder than I mean it to. But the disappointment which rolls through me is elemental in its force. It’s not like I planned on making out with him in the lavender fields or anything, but after a week of being together all the time, being without him already feels painful, like we’ve had to be unstitched in order to be apart, and that’s a bad feeling, that’s very bad, because that’s how I’m supposed to feel about God. That’s how Idofeel about God.
But if I’m stitched to God, then I can’t be stitched to anyone else. That’s the rule, that’s been the basis of western monasticism for nearly two thousand years.
Give your life to God and to no one else. Give your life to God and don’t count the minutes until you can sneak off with the hot journalist again.
And I have to wonder as I help Brother Luc and Dom Francis roll the netting down the long rows of bare earth between lavender plants if there’s a way to do both, if anyone has ever found a way to do both. To live their life in prayer and silence and also with their heart beating inside someone else’s chest at the same time.
“Vous allez avoir chaud,” Dom Francis tells me, and I manage to scrape enough high school French together in my brain to realize he’s telling me I’m going to get hot in my black Benedictine robes while working in the sun.
In fact, now that I look, I’m the only one in robes at all. Everyone else is wearing the same kind of thing we wear at Mount Sergius for work like this—old T-shirts and jeans.
“You can take the habit off,” Brother Luc tells me. “The abbey isn’t open to the public during the harvest.”
I make a face. “I only have underwear on under this.”
Both monks stare back at me, likeand?
“Like I don’t have pants or a shirt on under my habit,” I explain.
Dom Francis seems not to understand at all, but it seems to dawn on Brother Luc. “I forget you are American,” he says. “You will be fine in your underthings.”
“Or maybe I’ll be fine in the robes,” I mumble, thinking of how short my boxer briefs are. At least the cage is discreet enough that I’m not worried about it being obvious, but you know what’s really not discreet? A big tattoo of a dove with a Flamin’ Hot Cheeto in its mouth.
Dom Francis shakes his head with a grin and hands me another bundle of netting as he mutters something in French.
“He says that you’ll be cooked like a duck in its own fat if you remain so stubborn. Even Bernard of Clairvaux would admit defeat to the July heat.”
I take the netting and start unrolling it, taking care to tuck its edges under the tufts of lavender so it can catch all the harvested flowers. “I’ll take that under consideration.”
“L’humilité est une vertu,” Dom Francis mutters, “surtout l'humilité pourle soleil.”
* * *
Six hourslater and the robes are long gone, folded in a pile next to the small electric truck the monks use to haul the lavender to their distillery. I’m in nothing but boxer briefs, sweaty all over and flocked with lavender petals, and I’m happier than I can remember being in a long time. Yes, my back and shoulders ache from trimming the lavender flowers with the handheld gas-powered trimmer, and yes, it’s so fucking hot out here that I keep sweating off the sunscreen Dom Francis handed me early on (along with a series of untranslatable jokes about my tattoo). But deep breezes plunge through the valley often enough to cool us down, and the scent of freshly cut lavender is everywhere, and all around me, the brothers in their own lavender rows sing and talk and laugh.
Three times the bells have rung, and three times we have all stopped where we were to pray the small hours. We murmured psalms and sung hymns, and though we were all scattered apart, we were together too. There was something about it, keeping the small hours in this way, that felt more natural than it had at Semois, where you could barely start something before it was time to march back to the church. Here the tasks are made to make room for the soul, just as Abbé Bernard wished, here the soul is first. But here at Our Lady of the Fountains, the soul can come first anywhere. Here the soul can sing in a valley of lavender just as loud as it can in a room made for singing, and I wonder—can I know God differently here than I can anywhere else? Is this feeling between me and God right now as I’m singing the psalms in the lavender a feeling I can only havehere? If I did this exact same thing at Mount Sergius or Semois, would it feel the same?
Will it be the same at St. Columba’s, the abbey I have my heart set on?
But as I cut more flowers and help the other monks carry armloads of them to the truck, I think for the very first time that maybe I was wrong, maybe St. Columba’s isn’t for me at all. Maybe I was made for a place like this, where the tasks make room for the soul and where the chapels are filled with kisses...
Stop.That’s hardly a trait of Our Lady of the Fountains. That would hardly be my future if I stayed here. And anyway, I can’t let myself think that way. I can’t let myself think of it all. Because thinking about it means I’ll have to name it to myself, name all the ways my chastity is falling apart in my hands, and if my chastity is falling apart, then so is my obedience, so is my honesty. So is my devotion to God.
And so therefore, is my future taking solemn vows and living ascetically ever after on a cold sea cliff.
I drop an armful of lavender into the bed of the little truck and then turn to see Elijah standing there, sunglasses on, looking like he just strolled off some Parisian magazine shoot in his black-and-white striped T-shirt, dark jeans, and white, low-top sneakers. The strap of his leather satchel pulls diagonally across his chest, highlighting the toned muscles underneath.
He’s standing there, staring at me from behind his sunglasses, and I can see nothing of his expression really, just that his mouth is pressed together and that a single eyebrow lifts above the frame of his shades. Like he’s looking at something ridiculous, and Iamridiculous, so I give him a giant grin.
“So on the scale of Aiden Bell, where does this rank?” I ask.
