Stigmata (6 page)

He always thought himself exceptional; had convinced himself that on the Day of Judgement God would find no blemish on his pure heart. This was a test of his virtue, that was all. And he would
prove finally to himself, and to his Lord, that the Devil held no play over him whatever.

T
HE
B
ÉRENGER FAMILY
lived in the narrow streets on the Garonne side, close to the sweatshops
and the bleachers and tanners around the church of Saint-Pèire-des-Cuisines. To get there Simon passed through several mean alleys, with workshops and stalls on every side. The imprecations
of the whores and the shrieks of snot-nosed children were a vexation. Gangs of adolescents roamed there, mocking the old and the lame and getting into fist-fights outside the ale-houses.

As in Paris, the population of the town had no other means of disposing of waste than by throwing everything into the street. The rickety upper storeys jutted at angles over the narrow lanes and
Simon had once experienced the unrelieved joy of having the contents of a night jar emptied on his head. On one famous occasion even the Bishop had been so anointed. The most hideous filth was
piled up outside every door, where dogs and pigs squabbled over the fare. Simon held a scented handkerchief to his nose while being forced into a doorway to make way for a shepherd and a flock of
mud-spattered sheep.

He reached a small square with a stone cross at its centre, the junction of three streets. It was here that the mason had his house. Shops faced on to the square, the wrought-iron signs hanging
above their lintels creaking and swaying in the wind.

Despite the weather, a crowd gathered around a bear sward, and voices rose as the betting and cursing began. He heard the yelping of the dogs and the desperate and enraged cries of the bear as
it fought for its life. The world was steeped in sin, he thought. Only the eternal has worth.

Remember that, Simon, before you go inside. Remember that.

Anselm Bérenger lived well, for as a master mason he received twenty-four silver
sols
every week, which sum afforded him a good stone house and meat on his table
for most suppers. Simon was greeted in the parlour. In the middle of the room there was a fireplace, a welcome log crackling in the grate. Mushrooms, garlic and onions hung on strings to dry above
the hearth.

He looked around. There were three small windows covered with oiled linen, which allowed a creamy light into the room. To relieve the austerity, the oaken roof timbers were painted in bright
colours, wine-red and moss-green.

Anselm brought him to stand by the fire to warm himself. Steam rose from his damp cloak. Anselm’s wife brought him a cup of mulled wine. Simon noted that the mother much resembled her
daughter, though Elionor’s red curls were now flecked with grey.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light inside the house, he noticed Fabricia waiting patiently in the corner. She wore a soft grey tunic, a linen chemise visible at her neck and wrists,
decorated with lace. He imagined he could detect the faint smell of saffron from its last washing. She was practising her needlepoint and her brow was knit in a frown of concentration.

After some desultory conversation, Anselm and his wife left him by the fire with their daughter, who had to this point remained silent. They went upstairs to their private chamber.

He knew he should put her at her ease with some casual conversation – the weather perhaps, or an enquiry after the manner of the embroidery she was making – but he found to his
horror that his throat was dry and his hands were trembling. Such was his panic that he launched instead straight to the business.

‘Your father tells me that it is your wish to give yourself over to the service of God.’

‘He has sent you here to dissuade me, has he not, Father?’

‘He wishes me to ascertain if you have the temperament for it.’

Simon settled himself on his stool and sipped his wine. Now the conversation had begun, he felt a little more certain of himself. Many young women had been moved by the stories of virgins
suffering for Our Lord; it was for such hysterical notions that their sex was famed. He knew that a man of his training and intellect should be able to disabuse her of such thoughts without too
much difficulty.

‘I cannot say whether I have the temperament for it, Father. I just believe that it is what God wishes me to do.’

‘How might a girl such as yourself know the mind of God? Only the Holy Father in Rome is truly allowed to understand the divine, and even His Holiness professes puzzlement on
occasion.’

Fabricia did not answer him. She stared at the rushes on the floor. Such insolence!

‘Speak up, child,’ he said, though he ought not to have called her child, perhaps, for he was only a few years her elder. ‘Why should you think such a thing?’

She raised her eyes from the floor and the blazing look she gave him took his breath away and set stirring in his loins an ache he thought years of prayer and diligence had banished. She bit her
lip; his first thought was that it was a device to entrap him but then he allowed that it might simply be an effort to stop herself from speaking about certain private things in his presence.

At last she said: ‘Do you think it is wrong then for a humble woman such as myself to wish to dedicate my life to His service?’

There was an easy riposte to this; but her earnest expression disconcerted him. When he finally found his voice he reminded her that it was not enough to love God, that a chosen servant must
also have a disposition sufficiently robust to serve him properly.

‘You mean like the Bishop?’ This caught him off balance, for the Bishop’s worldliness was well known, if not much discussed, by the town in general.

At least he had wit enough for a rejoinder. ‘But you do not intend to become bishop, surely?’

‘I do not think I should have the strength for it. After a week I should be exhausted from drink and fornication.’

Simon did not know what to say. Already the direction of the interview was slipping from his control. She might be merely the daughter of a stonemason but her tongue was as sharp as an
executioner’s knife.

She dropped her gaze again to the floor. ‘I am sorry, Father. Sometimes my tongue is a little too free.’

‘Indeed. It is quite plain to me already that you have none of the attributes necessary for the monastic life. Obedience and humility are the foundation stones of the Rule. If you are
unable to hold your tongue, I fail to see what service you might be able to render to God.’

Feeling that he was once again in control of the situation, he warmed his legs before the hearth and told her stories of Augustine and of Benedict of Norcia, to illustrate to her what a true
love of God entailed. He was approaching the topic of St Agnes’s martyrdom when she suddenly looked directly into his face, and said: ‘I have visions, Father. I see things I should
not.’

It was as if she had dashed a pail of cold water in his face. She was not listening to him at all.

‘What manner of visions?’

She shook her head. ‘I cannot tell you that.’

‘Why not?’

‘You will take it as a blasphemy.’

‘I shall be the judge of that.’

She stared at the floor. Outside the tinkers clattered past in their wooden shoes and a priest, with his hand bell, was summoning all to pray for the souls of the dead. Finally, she said:
‘I have seen a woman, very much like Our Lady. Only I do not think she can be real.’

He watched the firelight play in her hair. ‘Because you see things, Fabricia, it does not mean they are there. Young girls of your age before they are . . . wed . . . are famed for such
notions.’

‘So a monk or a priest or even a nun might see God and know it is real but if it is a young girl then it is a kind of madness? Is that what you are saying, Father?’

‘Where did you see such things?’

‘Once, in Saint-Étienne, while I prayed at her shrine. She descended from her pedestal.’

‘She moved?’

‘Yes, Father.’

Simon sighed and affected forbearance. This was the source of her supposed devotion to God? ‘You give too much weight to mere flights of fancy, Fabricia Bérenger .’

‘You think so, Father?’ she said, and then looked at him with such directness that he averted his own eyes. He wanted desperately to touch her.

‘You must confess,’ he said.

‘Confess? Have I sinned?’

‘Of course you have sinned!’

‘But I have no control over such things.’

‘That does not matter. In this . . . fancy . . . did she speak to you?’

‘She did.’ She lifted her right hand and laid it on her breast. ‘I felt the words here, in my heart.’ His eyes followed the ecstatic passage of her fingers from her
shoulder to her bosom. He imagined the porcelain softness of her breast beneath the crisp linen, the pale vein that succoured the swollen bud of her nipple.

Her skin would smell like lavender and musk, and there would be a sprinkling of the finest red-gold hair below the dimple of her navel, visible only in the golden splash of sunlight that fell
across her bed in the late afternoon.

Her back was sinuous and slender, like the wriggling of a snake as she slid between his thighs . . .

He jumped to his feet, spilling both his stool and his mead on to the floor. The Devil threw back his head and roared with laughter. Fabricia stared up at him, startled.

‘There is nothing to be done with you!’ he shouted and fled the house without another word.

S
IMON KNEW HE
must never again return to the stonecutter’s house, for that was utter folly and would invite disaster.
But he had to know what Fabricia had told Anselm about his visit with her and he approached him on some pretext one day in the Église de Saint-Antoine. As he was leaving he said, as if an
afterthought: ‘Has your daughter spoken to you more about this notion to take up the Rule?’ He feigned no more than a casual interest.

‘No, Father, she has not, though she has been greatly preoccupied. She is not herself at all. She hardly speaks.’

There was something in him that found this news deeply gratifying. ‘I believe I made some progress with her,’ he heard himself say. ‘But I shall need to speak to her
again.’

‘Of course, Father. When?’

‘This Sunday,’ he said, and left the mason to his work.

He walked away, both astonished and appalled at what he had done. I do not do this for personal profit, he persuaded himself, I do not seek to gain advantage over her. I have set myself a test,
that is all, as God has designed, and I shall prove my mettle this time. I shall triumph over my own carnality and lead this girl to proper understanding of herself, as her father wishes.

That was all.

Simon accepted Anselm’s mumbled obeisance and a sullen greeting from the wife. Then he and the girl were again left alone by the fire, so that he might continue his
instruction of her.

‘So, Fabricia, have you given consideration to our last conversation?’

‘Indeed, Father, I have thought of nothing else.’

‘And you have prayed?’

‘With all my heart.’

‘As have I, for the right way to instruct you in this matter. Have you experienced any more of these visions?’

‘No, Father.’

‘That is well. Such visions as you describe may be many things: a shadow moving on the wall perhaps, or a flash of sunlight reflected for a moment on a stained glass window. An imagination
fuelled by a great love of God, which I am sure you possess, is prone to such fancies. But a lifetime’s service to the Holy Church, this is about dedication and discipline, not bewilderment
or ecstasy. Living by the Rule is not the simple thing you may imagine. And you have a duty also to your father.’

‘But does the Church not teach that we should honour God above even our own parents?’

‘There are many ways to honour God. You do not have to enter an abbey to do it. And your vows, should you submit to them, bind you to a life of discipline unimaginable to you now. Easily
foresworn, harder kept.’

‘You mean the vow of chastity?’

He blushed then, and stared into the fire, discomfited by her directness. ‘You are young. I do not think you fully understand what chastity means.’

‘You are young too.’

Simon got up and paced the floor. ‘We all struggle with our humanity.’

‘You have overcome your demons, Father. Could I not overcome mine?’

‘It is harder for Woman. She is more wanton than Man.’

‘If you heard what is said behind my back in the markets you would not say so.’

Simon embarked on a long speech, drawing inspiration from the works of Jerome and Paul, and quoting also from the lives of the virgin martyrs. He explained to her how love of the divine was so
much greater than the love of mortals for each other.

She quickly grew weary of it, but he did not seem to notice.

‘You seem agitated, Father,’ she said, interrupting him as he attempted a discourse on the nature of love from St Augustine.

He gaped at her; that the daughter of a stonecutter – or any woman – should pass comment on a monk’s behaviour showed a breath-taking presumption.

‘You are not an easy pupil to instruct.’

‘And you are surely young to have attained such a position in the Church. My father says you are spoken of as a future bishop.’

‘I shall serve God in any capacity I am best able.’

‘So you have already considered this possibility?’

This one remark disarmed him utterly. He was a Cistercian monk, a man of God, and she should show him absolute deference. Instead, she now claimed to read his thoughts.

‘I think you would make a good bishop,’ she said, but before he could summon a proper reply, she posed her next impertinent question. ‘Why does a man such as yourself come to
live in a monastery? Were you found at the gate?’

A man such as myself?

‘Is that what you think?’ It was true that several of his brother monks had been abandoned at the monastery steps as infants. Why did she think he was one of them?