The Sharp Hook of Love (44 page)

On that day in the Argenteuil chapel, in the gown I had worn for our wedding, I married Abelard as I had not done before, that is, with all my being and all my soul. Now, he must repay the debt. Elation soared in me at the thought. We, whose spirits had merged, whose bodies had dissolved and melded together, whose hearts had beat as one with the great and generous pulse of the world, had not finished, but had only begun.

He walked with me toward the chapel wearing the
bliaut
that I most admired, of brilliant blue silk embroidered with gold fleurs-de-lis, and a silver cross at his throat. For myself: that gown of deep red, the color of blood, soon to be shed for my beloved's sake. The abbey loomed before us like a great hulking predator. I clutched Abelard's arm, clinging to him for what was surely the last time.

“Steady, Heloise,” he said when I stumbled. Not
sweetest
or
shining star
nor any of the other endearments that had sweetened his tongue in a past that was, for me, achingly present.
Hold still, you little beast,
my uncle had grunted as he'd carried me to the door that was, now, swinging open. The smoke of incense stung my nostrils. Women's voices sang of sacrifice and sorrow, and the mysteries of love. A man in robes stood in the entry, beckoning me into a darkness from which I would never return.

“I feel as though I were preparing a virgin for sacrifice,” Agnes had said that morning, combing out my hair so that it fell in
waves nearly to my waist. In the mirror I beheld my flushed cheeks, my red and trembling mouth, and my eyes glowing with a fire that burned unnaturally hot, as cinders do before they sputter to an end.

“My dear, you look divine. No—do not avert your eyes. Behold the beauty that God has given to you.” She placed her hands on either side of my face and compelled me to face the mirror. “Surely it would be a sin to hide your shining light in that cellar.”

Her words, a final attempt at dissuasion, had the opposite effect. Face and form meant nothing to me now, having ceased to please Abelard. Where once he had written songs in praise of my milk-white skin and eyes like dark stars, now he regarded my gifts with anguish, not able to bear the thought of another man's enjoying that which he, now, could not. Regarding outer beauty as I did, as the petals of a flower that would someday wither and drop, I could only smile at Agnes's words. Bereft of Abelard, what else was I to do except his bidding? My uncle's blade, in cutting him, had cut him off from me, and me from our son—an act for which I bore as much responsibility as Uncle Fulbert and for which I now would pay the price.

Oh, why hadn't I died that day by Abelard's bed when he had announced my fate? I had fainted to the floor, instead, “from exhaustion,” the physician had said, but I knew that the shock had felled me. For me to die would have been kinder to Astralabe, who now must struggle to comprehend a mother's abandonment, as I had done. Perhaps he would learn the truth about me someday, if anyone dared to reveal it. But
non
—I had not died. I would tell him myself.

Bereft of my son, losing my beloved, I possessed nothing except my work. Removed from the cares of the world, I would devote myself to my studies and also to teaching, which I longed
to do. So why did my throat constrict so tightly that, walking into the chilly Chapelle Saint-Jean-Baptiste, I could hardly breathe? The dim-flickering candles and grim-faced monks and canons and priests, the
De profundis
rising like a wail from the choir, the priest with the gleaming knife standing nearby: all filled me with dread as though death, not marriage, awaited me.

No one had to tell me what to do. I had already seen many novices walk this candlelit aisle, stepping in slow time, bedecked like brides with their father or a brother or an uncle—but never with a husband—by their side. No one had to tell me when to kneel, or when to bend my head to the knife that skimmed along my scalp, shearing my hair, which fell around me like a dark pool. I stood and turned to Abelard, triumphant in my submission, expecting to see his shock at the sight of me shorn, as fragile in appearance as though I were starving, which, in a way, I was. But his face remained as impassive as if he were blind, which, in a way, he was.

O Abelard! Had only a month passed since he'd embraced me so tenderly on these very grounds?
I will always love you
,
my only restoration, my only food, my one peace,
and his eyes had opened like windows through which I beheld my own soul. In them I saw restless wings beating, fanning my desire.

Standing in the chapel, shorn and cold, I knew I resembled nothing more than a frightened child, as did all novices. Would Abelard awaken to me at last, and to my sacrifices made for his sake? Every argument, every entreaty, every plea that I had uttered these past weeks had fallen on ears that had seemed, to me, deaf to anyone's interests but his own.

Cry,
I urged myself.
Please, dear God, give me tears so that he will know the depth of my sorrow, and of my love.

The sisters ceased their singing. The bishop performed a ceremony more elaborate than my wedding had been: waving the
burning censer, filling my mouth and nose with the sickly-sweet smell; intoning the vows, to which I numbly gave my “I do”; placing a ring upon my finger; fitting my head with the veil. I turned to face the crowd that had gathered and saw the curious eyes of Abelard's scholars; the tear-swollen eyes of Agnes; the kind and solemn eyes of Etienne; the satisfied, glinting eyes of Suger; and a hundred other pairs, all watching, waiting, some shifting in anticipation of the ceremony's imminent end. But all was not finished, not yet.

I must try one final time to make Abelard see me.

“O noble husband,” I cried out as best as I could from a throat choked with grief—not for the fate to which I submitted myself, but for the loss of Abelard's love, which, I believed, was complete and final. A hush fell over the chapel, save for the slamming of my heart against my breast.

“ ‘O noble husband, too great for me to wed.' ” What better poem than Lucan's
Pharsalia
to shake him from his trance?

“ ‘Was it my fate to bend that lofty head?

“ ‘Why did I marry you and bring about your fall?' ” Oh, why? Countless times have I asked this question of myself, yet the answer is ever the same: because Abelard, my only love, commanded it.

I turned and looked directly at him, hoping yet to behold on his face the recognition of what I had done, the enormity of my sacrifice.

“ ‘Now I accept the penalty,' ” I said, faltering, for he had already begun to glance toward the open door, “ ‘and see me gladly pay.' ”

The sisters sang again. Their voices rose to the ceiling and out the door, carrying with them all my hopes. Finding no sympathy in Abelard, I looked to Agnes, but could not see her.
I lifted my hand to rub my eyes and found my face wet with tears.

“Abelard!” I cried to his retreating back. “Abelard, look at me!” But he did not hear or, hearing, did not obey. Through the blur of tears that, now unstoppered, flowed like a melancholy river over my face and hands, I saw him step through that door, into the beaming, freewheeling sunlight. Then the door fell shut, and all was dark.

When her dead body was carried to the opened tomb, her husband, who had died long before her, raised his arms to receive her, and so clasped her closely in his embrace.

—ANONYMOUS ON HELOISE'S BURIAL

THE ORATORY OF THE PARACLETE

1164

W
hat, against the span of eternity, are twenty-seven years? They pass as quickly as a heartbeat, or a sigh, or a single note in a love song performed in the place de Grève market from under curling eyelashes. Yet, in the years between the day that door closed on his retreating back and the night of his death, Abelard and I might have known a lifetime of joy.

In twenty-seven years, we might have lived and loved together and raised our son and bounced his children on our knees. Instead, our Astralabe spent his childhood in Brittany with an aunt and uncle who did not want him. He never knew his
maman
or
papa
and went to the abbey as soon as he became of age. I saw him only once as a youth, when, at Abelard's request, Dagobert brought him to me. How like his father he appeared, with those heartbreaking blue eyes and soft curls. I opened my arms to him but he shied away, averting his gaze. On his second visit, as a young man nearing departure for the Hauterive Abbey in Savoy—so distant, I knew I would never see
him again—he stammered when he spoke, and his hands shook, and he stared at me without ceasing, his eyes full of questions. I told him everything I knew. Before he departed, I gave him the collection of our songs that Abelard had entrusted to me. My son thanked me while holding the parchment to his chest, as though fearing I might wrest it away again—but then he embraced me with eyes full of moisture and kissed my cheeks and hands. “Mother,” he called me, filling me with music as Abelard had done on the day we met.

If only we had remained true to our own song, and to our love, our lives might have held more joy than sorrow, and laughter rather than tears. Why did we part? Had we defied Guibert and Suger and clung to each other, what punishments might the men of the Church have meted out that they did not inflict upon Abelard, anyway? They tried excommunication, banishment, burning his books, harassment, even assassination, but Abelard would not be silenced. How gladly would I have endured these trials and more for his sake, and for that of our son.

During those twenty-seven years—nearly half of Abelard's too-brief life—I was forced into, then out of, Argenteuil, banished by Suger with my sisters and our Reverend Mother for crimes we did not commit. Abelard, taking pity on me, gave to me his only possession: his parcel of wild ground on the Ardusson River, on which to build an abbey of my own. My daughters and I endured starvation and robbers to tame that wilderness. With God's help we built an edifice that became renowned both near and far as the only abbey in the world governed for, and by, women alone, and guided by the first Rule for women, which I wrote. In time, the Oratory of the Paraclete grew to become one of the largest abbeys in the realm, with five daughter houses.

We were not completely without male influence, however. As the oratory's spiritual adviser, Abelard visited us many times, endearing himself to the sisters but keeping himself apart from me.
How I yearned for even one hour with him, to talk as intimately as we had done in the past! But he would not see me alone. Perhaps he dreaded provoking any more scandal. Perhaps he wanted to avoid any reminders of our former sins—sins for which he had repented, he said in his letters, admonishing me to do the same. But how could I do so? Now, as my own death nears, I dread God's punishment—will our Lord keep us apart in Paradise as men did on Earth?—but I hold in my heart an ember of hope that loving Abelard was, in fact, no sin at all.

During our years apart, Abelard wrote many works of true greatness, earning the glory denied to him. He threw his book on the Holy Trinity into the fire, as the Church commanded, then wrote it again even more brilliantly. For his efforts, the pope excommunicated him not once, but twice, and banished him to silence, forbidding him to teach or to publish any new writings. Yet I found him in the hours before his death sitting up in bed, surrounded by books, one hand gripping a stylus and the other holding a wax tablet onto which he scribbled as though each word might be his last.

In all the years between us, I never told my love the truth about the desperate letter I had written to my uncle that led to Abelard's mutilation. Now, riding my horse as fast as it would go, racing death, I anguished over this failure. Why hadn't I confessed? I could have written of it and, in fact, did so many times, but scraped the wax clean without sending anything. A written account, falling into the wrong hands, would damage us both, or so I told myself. But I also feared that, hearing the truth, Abelard might turn his back against me forever, shutting the door of his friendship, which was, now, all that remained.

Riding with as much haste as the pocked and scarred road would allow, I rehearsed my speech.
I thought you had left me in the Royal Abbey to die, either from laboring in the vineyards or from
a spirit broken by your absence. I wrote to my uncle, then, out of desperation. Had I known what he would do to you, I would have cut off my hands rather than write even one word to him.

How many nights had I shivered, contemplating the coldness in Abelard's eyes where once the fires of passion had raged? In all the time he spent at our Oratory of the Paraclete, he held himself apart from me, embracing my daughters but declining even to clasp my hand. With the sisters he engaged in long discussions, made merry, and performed new compositions written especially for our convent. With me, however, he spoke only of receipts, of repairs to the abbey, or of books we might acquire—and he addressed me never in private, but only in the presence of others. Thusly did he neglect his Heloise.