a tourist to the restrooms at the rear of the store, then answered questions from another about the cast nets that were for sale in the shop.
How long had the monks been making them? Had they learned the art from the islanders or had they brought it with them from Cornwall? Did they really sell enough of them to support the monastery? He wished now he hadn’t taken so much time with the man.
It was February, Ash Wednesday, and the floor felt cold, even a little damp, through his black robe. He lay in the aisle between the choir stalls, which stood on either side of the nave facing each other, and listened as the monks sang evening prayer.
Brother Timothy was crooning like a lounge singer, “O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.”
t h e m e r m a i d c h a i r
47
When they finished the Salve Regina, he heard the hinged seats built into each stall squeak as they were lifted, then a tired shuffling of feet as the monks lined up to be sprinkled with holy water by the abbot. Finally the lights went out, except for the one near the abbot’s stall, and Brother Thomas was left in the near dark, in a luxuriant silence.
He was the youngest monk at forty-four, and also the newest, a so-called junior monk with temporary vows. His solemn vows—
usque ad mortem, until death—were only four months away.
What had he been thinking—giving a lecture to the man in the gift shop as if he’d been here half his life? He’d gone on and on about the cast nets.
He lay there and cursed himself. It had given Father Sebastian, who really should have been a marine and not a monk, an opportunity to thumb through his notebook and grow alarmed for the state of his soul. He’d taken it to the abbot, who was very old school about things and thoroughly Irish. Thomas had been summoned to his office, into the dreaded papal enclosure, as he sometimes thought of it. Now here he was on the floor.
He’d been lectured by the abbot a dozen times at least, but this was the first time he’d been punished, and it didn’t seem so bad really, lying here. He would stay until the abbot felt he’d meditated long enough on the perils of doubt and sent someone to release him. He’d been here like this an hour, perhaps longer.
The floor of the church smelled of Murphy’s oil soap and something else sour and slightly manure-ish that he realized was a mixture of pluff mud from the marsh and fertilizer from the garden. It was clogged and hardened into microscopic crevices in the wooden boards, having been tracked in on the monks’ shoes for the last fifty years.
48
s u e m o n k k i d d
Here in this rarefied place—where they all imagined themselves marinating in holiness through their ceaseless rounds of chanting and prayer—was all this hidden mud and cow shit. It was hard to overestimate how much this pleased him. Brother Thomas had dreamed once about Christ’s feet—not his crucifix-ion or his resurrection or his sacred heart but his feet.
The scent emanating from the church floor, even God’s feet in his dream, made him think more highly of religion somehow.
The other monks, Sebastian for instance, would have impugned the buildup in the floor crevices as profane, but Thomas lay there knowing suddenly that what he smelled was a fine patina of the most inviolate beauty, and shockingly holy. He was smelling the earth.
He’d been at St. Senara abbey on the small South Carolina island for nearly five years, each one of those years a bone of darkness that he’d gnawed. And still no marrow of light, he thought, though now and then he felt an occasional beam of it dart out of nowhere and hit him. Just as it had a moment ago when he’d caught that scent.
After his other life had ended, the one with his wife and his unborn child, he’d been incurably driven. Sometimes his quest seemed impossible, like an eye trying to look back and see its own self. All he’d discerned so far was that God seemed surrepti-tiously about and wrenchingly ordinary.
How long had the monks been making them? Had they learned the art from the islanders or had they brought it with them from Cornwall? Did they really sell enough of them to support the monastery? He wished now he hadn’t taken so much time with the man.
It was February, Ash Wednesday, and the floor felt cold, even a little damp, through his black robe. He lay in the aisle between the choir stalls, which stood on either side of the nave facing each other, and listened as the monks sang evening prayer.
Brother Timothy was crooning like a lounge singer, “O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.”
t h e m e r m a i d c h a i r
47
When they finished the Salve Regina, he heard the hinged seats built into each stall squeak as they were lifted, then a tired shuffling of feet as the monks lined up to be sprinkled with holy water by the abbot. Finally the lights went out, except for the one near the abbot’s stall, and Brother Thomas was left in the near dark, in a luxuriant silence.
He was the youngest monk at forty-four, and also the newest, a so-called junior monk with temporary vows. His solemn vows—
usque ad mortem, until death—were only four months away.
What had he been thinking—giving a lecture to the man in the gift shop as if he’d been here half his life? He’d gone on and on about the cast nets.
He lay there and cursed himself. It had given Father Sebastian, who really should have been a marine and not a monk, an opportunity to thumb through his notebook and grow alarmed for the state of his soul. He’d taken it to the abbot, who was very old school about things and thoroughly Irish. Thomas had been summoned to his office, into the dreaded papal enclosure, as he sometimes thought of it. Now here he was on the floor.
He’d been lectured by the abbot a dozen times at least, but this was the first time he’d been punished, and it didn’t seem so bad really, lying here. He would stay until the abbot felt he’d meditated long enough on the perils of doubt and sent someone to release him. He’d been here like this an hour, perhaps longer.
The floor of the church smelled of Murphy’s oil soap and something else sour and slightly manure-ish that he realized was a mixture of pluff mud from the marsh and fertilizer from the garden. It was clogged and hardened into microscopic crevices in the wooden boards, having been tracked in on the monks’ shoes for the last fifty years.
48
s u e m o n k k i d d
Here in this rarefied place—where they all imagined themselves marinating in holiness through their ceaseless rounds of chanting and prayer—was all this hidden mud and cow shit. It was hard to overestimate how much this pleased him. Brother Thomas had dreamed once about Christ’s feet—not his crucifix-ion or his resurrection or his sacred heart but his feet.
The scent emanating from the church floor, even God’s feet in his dream, made him think more highly of religion somehow.
The other monks, Sebastian for instance, would have impugned the buildup in the floor crevices as profane, but Thomas lay there knowing suddenly that what he smelled was a fine patina of the most inviolate beauty, and shockingly holy. He was smelling the earth.
He’d been at St. Senara abbey on the small South Carolina island for nearly five years, each one of those years a bone of darkness that he’d gnawed. And still no marrow of light, he thought, though now and then he felt an occasional beam of it dart out of nowhere and hit him. Just as it had a moment ago when he’d caught that scent.
After his other life had ended, the one with his wife and his unborn child, he’d been incurably driven. Sometimes his quest seemed impossible, like an eye trying to look back and see its own self. All he’d discerned so far was that God seemed surrepti-tiously about and wrenchingly ordinary.
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