Aelred's Sin (17 page)

I am shocked. I can’t believe this. It’s as if he wished to join him. I will return. What can I learn now? I have only the journals, the letters and the book of dreams. Those early letters are different to this last letter. I thought he was ill, so thin. The Abbot sounds approachable. How did he die?

I hear Joe’s words. He’s a broken man. It’s eaten him away from within.

How did it all come to this? This is my story to tell.

The Sanctuary

Your lips, my promised one …
I sleep, but my heart is awake.
I hear my beloved knocking.
Song of Songs

The monks processed into the choir from the chapter-house for the last office of the day, Compline.
‘Fratres
…’ Brother Charles, the acolyte of the choir, intoned the lesson. ‘Brethren, be sober and watch, because your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour… Resist him, strong in faith… You, however, Lord, have mercy on us.’

The choir replied,
‘Deo gratias
…’. ‘Thanks be to God.’

Compline was sung in the darkness as usual, with only the two standing candles on either side of the high altar flickering against the bare stone of the sanctuary. Before the ‘Salve Regina’, which completed Compline, with the community processing to stand in front of the Lady shrine, Aelred, who was the second acolyte of the choir, lit the candles on either side of the statue of Our Lady of Ashton Park.

At the end of Compline, the monks, in their customary way, paid their visits to the side altars which venerated St Benedict, St Aelred, Our Lady and the Blessed Sacrament. Aelred returned the lectern from the middle of the choir to a side chapel, where it was stored when not in use. As he turned from leaning up the lectern against the wall, Aelred was suddenly confronted by Benedict, whom he had not seen kneeling in prayer when he first entered the Chapel. Benedict rose and stood in front of him. They
faced each other in the darkness without speaking. The only light was the red flicker of the sanctuary lamp which signified the nearby presence of the Blessed Sacrament reserved in the tabernacle. The real presence was signified by the flickering flame, its wick feeding on the oil from he lamp.

The two monks did not speak. The Great Silence had started.

Benedict put out his arms to draw Aelred to him. Aelred felt himself held in a way that felt good. His heart began to beat fast. He liked the tender feeling of being drawn close to the warm cowled body of Benedict, and to feel his cheeks against the rougher cheeks of the older man. He thought of his father’s cheeks. He used to feel frightened, but now it felt good and exciting. He felt suddenly nervous of others near by, whom he could hear leaving choir. But Benedict continued to hold him close to his body. They were hidden by the darkness and the alcove of the side chapel. Everything stopped as he felt suspended there, embraced. He did not want anything to hinder where he was going. It seemed as if this was the beginning of an enormous journey, which encompassed everything he was looking for in himself: monastic life, God, this love for a man - all of it folded together in this embrace. Lost, but extraordinarily alive to all that he was feeling, he let Benedict hold his face in his hands. He let Benedict put his mouth on his. ‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.’ He let Benedict open his lips with his tongue. He let him put his tongue into his mouth. With his head tilted back, Benedict’s hands on his neck, he saw the face of Ted in the constellations above him created by the flickering sanctuary lamp on the bare stone walls.

One of the old monks coughed in choir. Aelred was going to speak. Benedict put his finger on his lips to silence him. ‘Shh.’ His lips hardly moved.

His whisper was the wind under the door.

Benedict freed his arms from the folds of his cowl and bent to lift Aelred’s habit. His hands stroked his naked legs under the loose cassock. Aelred stood, without moving. He did not respond, letting the older man guide him. He let the older man kiss his mouth and touch him where he had not been touched since Ted had touched him the night before he died. He remembered a boy touching him in the showers and having to hide his erection behind his towel. This seemed a funny thought now.

He felt now that all this was good. He began to feel extraordinarily happy. Happy and nervous. Benedict had pulled down his underpants and his hands caressed his penis, which grew there. He held his tight balls in his hands, and then his palms ran over his buttocks. He pulled him into himself, and still Aelred stood and let himself be guided. He could feel Benedict’s erect penis against his leg, then pushing into his groin.

Another of the other monks coughed in choir and Benedict broke away abruptly, whispering, ‘We mustn’t go on.’

Aelred held on to him. He began kissing him. He was now active in this new love. But Benedict now seemed agitated. He pushed Aelred away. He rearranged Aelred’s habit and his own. But before he turned to leave the alcove of darkness and enter into the spill of light from the sanctuary lamp, he pressed his mouth once more on Aelred’s. ‘Meet me outside.’ Then he turned abruptly
and genuflected before the Blessed Sacrament. Aelred heard his tread and the sweep of his cowl along the floor of the silent choir.

Aelred waited a moment and then followed him out of the choir. As he descended through the choir stalls, he noticed the Abbot bent in prayer. All this under his very nose, Aelred thought, as he bowed to him and shut the choir door silently behind him.

All of a sudden, knowledge seemed to be running fast upon experience, and with that knowledge innocence seemed to be disappearing. He wanted both to be integrated: innocence and knowledge, reason and feeling.

Aelred met Benedict outside the choir. The older man drew him aside into the darkness of the cloister and spoke urgently to him. ‘You must confess immediately. This mustn’t happen again.’

‘What, what’s there to confess? I love you. What’s wrong? What’ve we done? I feel good. I won’t confess. You touched me but we didn’t go further. We love each other. We haven’t sinned.’

‘Don’t be naïve. It is a sin. Confess, then we’ll make a new start tomorrow,’ Benedict insisted, and Aelred saw the trouble in his eyes as he raised his hood and turned away to go to his cell.

‘Benedict,’ Aelred whispered loudly.

Benedict did not turn back.

Aelred could not sleep. He crept back out of the novitiate when the lights were out. He didn’t think anyone noticed his leaving, though he could hear Edward still moving around in his cell. He was always the last to turn off his
lights. He raised his hood. He took off Ted’s boots before he passed Father Justin’s cell. He moved nimbly on his woollen stockings. His hands fumbled along the walls, down the dark corridor. There was a short cut through the library. The floor creaked. One reading lamp was on. It was Father Cuthbert who was a biblical scholar, poring over a manuscript. Nothing would disturb him. Even if he looked up, it would not bother him. He was a kind man who was utterly obsessed with his research. He might even engage him in some esoteric connection he had made between the Hebrew and the Greek script. Ordinarily, Aelred would want to be detained.

Cuthbert did look up. ‘Good night, brother.’

Aelred smiled, bowed and swept on.
‘Benedicite,’
he whispered as he opened the library door softly, leaving Cuthbert to wonder and muse for a moment, but then return to his texts.

Outside the library, he made his way swiftly pass the infirmary. There was a light on. Aelred could see the glow through the glass above the door. It created more visibility in the corridor. Brother Sebastian was dying. The community had been asked to pray for him before Compline. Brother Hugh, the infirmarian, would be keeping watch. But there would be a rota of watchers to pray with the dying monk, so anyone might be coming along the corridor at any moment. The novices were not asked to keep night vigils. It was meant not to be good for their health. They needed their sleep.

During this swift and furtive journey from the novitiate, Aelred still felt all the feelings that had begun in the side chapel with Benedict, churning inside him. Suddenly, it was all different. It was not just words spoken on the walk,
words exchanged on the lawn under the monkey-puzzle tree, letters exchanged, the language of the eyes. Now, it was Bendict’s lips on his, Benedict’s tongue in his mouth, his hands under his habit, his smell enveloping him. He wanted it to continue. Then Benedict had run off, calling it a sin.

Always a sin! He heard his own outrage buried in himself.

Aelred arrived at Father Basil’s cell. Being his confessor, he would not turn him away. He could see light seeping from under the door. He knocked quietly, so as neither to disturb others along the corridor nor draw anyone’s attention to him if one of the monks should come out of his cell to go to the toilet or bathroom. He was sure that Basil would not mind, and that he would make an exception for him despite the Great Silence.

‘Ave.
’
The old man’s voice hailed the customary greeting from inside the dimly lit cell.

Aelred opened and peered around the half-open door.

‘Yes?’ Father Basil was not yet certain who it was.

‘It’s me, father. Aelred.’

‘Not in bed yet? Young men need their sleep.’ He looked down where Aelred was still holding his boots in his hand. ‘Are you about to abscond, brother?’

‘No, father.’ Then he realised about his boots and sat on a chair by the door after closing it and put his shoes on. ‘I didn’t want to disturb anyone.’

‘Or be noticed by anyone. What’s all the secrecy about?’

‘I should be in my cell.’

‘Yes, there are a lot of things which should be, brother, but they’re not, are they?’

‘No, father.’

‘Have you prayed for Sebastian? I’ve just given him Extreme Unction. He’ll soon be on his way. “Like a thief in the night”, the Gospel says.’ Aelred heard a tremor in the old monk’s voice.

‘Father?’

‘Not you, little brother. Come and sit here. Our Lord in his mysterious ways comes like a thief in the night.’

‘Oh, yes. I wanted to confess.’

‘Confess. Weren’t you here the other day?’

‘That was my weekly confession. This is special.’

‘What terrible crime have you committed now?

‘Father, you’re teasing me.’

‘Brother, I’m tired. Let’s sit and talk. You tell me all.’

‘Shouldn’t I kneel?’

‘Kneel if you wish, brother.’ Basil sighed. ‘But I think sitting here closely we can talk better.’ Basil drew two chairs close to his desk. Basil was also the Dean of Studies so his cell was bigger and the walls were covered with books.

‘So? You look quite agitated. What has happened? Tell me.’

Eventually, at first stumbling, but then in full flow, Aelred told Basil quite graphically what had happened, though he did not mention Benedict’s name. Aelred felt that he suspected. Sometimes Benedict confessed to Basil. Wouldn’t he put two and two together? ‘Are you shocked?’ Aelred ended his story. ‘I love him.’

‘No brother, I’m not shocked. I think the first thing to help you is to realise that this has happened before and will happen again, through the long history of monastic life.’ Aelred watched the old man smile wryly. ‘The walls
won’t come tumbling down. But let’s start with your last statement, your assertion of love for your brother. I don’t doubt it, or his for you. But the question is what do we do with that love here in our community, which is vowed to a celibate life and above all to a chaste life. I don’t doubt for a moment that your intentions are chaste.’

‘It felt good,’ Aelred protested.

‘It
is
good, brother. Everything that God has made is good. It is what we do with what he has made that can be imperfect. Your attraction for each other is good. You can admire each other. If that makes you act well to each other and helps you to act well to others, that is good. By their fruits you shall know them. That’s what St Paul tells us. But you see, while it makes you feel happy and good, it has disturbed your brother. And, I dare say, it’s disturbed you. Now let’s look at his reactions.’

‘He broke off. He called it a sin. He turned his back on me. He just said, go and confess. You’d think I’d done the most terrible thing. And it was him.’

‘Him, brother? What about him? A strong passion has taken hold of him and now he’s in distress. Possibly on his knees now at his bedside. He was thinking of your soul. But, too, it may represent a terrible thing for your brother. It may be part of a terrible struggle in his spiritual life. You can’t judge him.’

‘So, it’s fine for me but not for him.’

‘Well, not quite. In a way. You’re young. Look at how young you are. How handsome. We must not omit that.’ Basil smiled. ‘He’s taken vows. He has vows to honour. Have you thought of that? These are not easy matters, brother.’ Basil looked at the clock on his desk. ‘We’ve Matins to think of. And I wonder how Sebastian is doing?’

‘But do I have some terrible sin on my soul?’

‘I can give you absolution, brother. If it makes you feel better. But absolution is not magic. It’s your intention, your firm purpose of amendment, as you know, that cleanses you, gives you the grace to change. You’re not a child. But you must realise that you’re young, you’re attractive. These things exist. You must examine your wish for chastity. But believe me, what has happened is also beautiful. Use your passion for your prayer, for good acts. Use your passion. I absolve you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.’ Father Basil made the sign of the cross over the head of Aelred. ‘Sleep tight, brother. Sleep tight, don’t let mosquitoes bite. I’m sure your mother said that in your hot country.’