Sylvia (39 page)

A young nun is crying,

weeping inexpressibly,

accompanying her lamentations

with groans.

Oh poor me!

Nothing is worse

than such a life,

for someone sexy and lusty

like me.

I ring the bell,

repeat the psalms,

have to leave pleasant dreams

when I'd like to sleep.

Oh poor me!

I have to do a vigil all night

when I don't want to.

How glad I'd be

to put my arms around a young man!

I can't take pleasure in jewellery,

I'll never wear a wedding veil,

I'd like to put on a headdress,

a fine diadem.

Oh poor me!

I'd steal a necklace

if I could.

It would be nice to wear

furs and ermine.

I walk round and round the floor,
trace my steps in a circle,

bow my head in prayer,

never get outside.

Oh poor me!

I stretch out my hands in appeal,

break my heart in my breast,

bite my tongue with my teeth

as I utter these words.

My bed is a black hole;

it's made of felt, not rich fabrics,

with a hard pillow

and underneath a filling of straw.

Oh poor me!

The food I eat is wretched

and bitter;

it tastes only of flour

and cheese.

My tunic is filthy.

My underwear stinks;

it's coarse and rough.

I'm in a foul prison.

Oh poor me!

There is smelly dirt

in my pretty hair,

and I have to endure lice

scratching my skin.

Young man, don't wait!

I'll do what you ask.

Sleep with me! If you don't want to,

there's no point in saying more.

Oh poor me!

No use doing more,

wasting my life.

But at least

I can kill myself!

Then when the song was ended I would reach the point of private pleasure and thereafter I would weep with a longing for the lute player. Knowing all the while that if my thoughts were impure and I was sinning, I could not help myself and knew I would return to do so again and again.

How I longed for the company of the courtesans at Ali Baba's who seemed to me far nicer than the nuns of Disibodenberg. While the girls quarrelled constantly among themselves, they were far less spiteful, secretive and cruel than the noble and holy sisters who were now my sisters in Christ. I greatly missed Master Israel and his corny Jewish jokes and gentle wisdom, and Frau Sarah with her up-and-down moods and plans, her scheming and herbal secrets passed on to me so that the street children would benefit.

I missed dear Father Paulus who was going deaf in the belltower of St Martin's as penance for sins he thought about but could never do, even if he should have the opportunity to do them. And Father Hermann also, so full of bombast and secret low esteem but also love and compassion for the poor. I much longed for his daily company and also that of young Nicholas, who since the occasion of the magic mushrooms possessed the fire of salvation in his belly and a compelling voice for the poor and hungry starvelings of the street. But most of all I missed the ratcatcher and the life he and I had led together.

I had lost all this and more in order that I might seek the truth. While I gained knowledge where I now found myself, I gained no wisdom. I would grow old incarcerated in a convent, old and bitter. I knew that as I grew older and gained more knowledge (more truth), I might well compose religious texts and essays and even sermons that others might read or preach. But I knew already that if my writing told the truth as I hoped it might, it would be too controversial. A complacent Church of Rome would burn or bury it in some dusty archive. Or, if what I had discovered was, at the very least, worthy of debate, then it would be condemned as the ranting of a female scribe, therefore of no possible importance to God's work.

Brother Dominic constantly pronounced me brilliant and talked of sending me to Rome when I had taken the nun's vow. But more and more I thought myself entirely stupid. Why had I locked myself away where I could do no good in a world that needed both nurturing and enlightenment? If this was the only way to gain true knowledge, then I was beginning to understand that the price of learning was going to prove too high. I had worked long enough among the street children in Cologne to know where a nun's work needs to be. Yet I was languishing in a convent where the holy sisters, all born into privilege, spent their twittering lives mumbling prayers they did not feel and did not understand and looked upon the poor with undisguised disgust.

Then, just when I had reached the point of despair, the archbishop came to visit the monastery and while celebrating high mass heard me sing. Afterwards he declared that a cart would be sent for me and that once a week, accompanied by two nuns, I must sing at the morning mass he conducted at St Mary's on the Kapitol. I was to be allowed out and would stay at the cloisters of St Mary's overnight. This meant that we would need to leave the convent in the morning of the day before and I would have the pleasures of the countryside to enjoy and even perchance the opportunity to speak occasionally to the peasant folk. I might also, perhaps through Nicholas, find a way to see Master Israel and Frau Sarah and even on occasion the girls from Ali Baba's.

I was not to know that this self-serving decision by the archbishop to have me sing at his mass was to be the beginning of the greatest tragedy the Church has ever committed upon the lives of children. Moreover, I would be one of the main perpetrators of this terrible crime, all the while thinking I had at last found both a truth
and
a miracle that confounded me, a truth brought about by the faith and purity of the hearts of children and a miracle sent by the precious Saviour to guide and to instruct it. At last I would achieve my desire to become a true and humble instrument of God.

CHAPTER NINE

Suffer Little Children

REGARDLESS OF HOW WELL I comported myself, and despite having completed my novice year, my peasant birth was not to be forgiven and, in addition, my aptitude to learning was deeply resented. I was still given every onerous task the abbess could think of to consume my time at the convent so as to prevent me reading. I would be made to empty the bedpans as penance for misdemeanours I did not commit, or made to knead dough until my arms felt as if they would drop off. I would chop and carry wood for the kitchen fire and on my knees clean the floor of the lavatorium. These were all tasks usually given to the lay sisters, but the abbess taunted me by saying, ‘You think yourself high and mighty from all your learning, Sylvia. You will never be likened to the blessed Hildegard. I must protect her from your insidious ambitions. It is my God-given task to teach you humility and grace!'

The tasks the abbess gave me were of little concern and I suffered them gladly for the opportunity it gave me to have Brother Dominic as my tutor. Despite her constant ridicule and attempts to disparage me in the eyes of the nuns, I loved the convent for the learning I was receiving. The long afternoons of study always seemed to pass too quickly. Then, glory be! Praise to the archbishop! Each Sunday I found myself in Cologne singing at his early-morning mass at St Mary's on the Kapitol, or at St Martin's where he would conduct mass every alternate Sunday.

I was escorted to Cologne from the convent by two nuns, a task that was much cherished among the sisters of Christ who were always eager to accompany me. A great deal of bickering and bargaining took place in order to be chosen as my escorts, though I hasten to say this was not for the honour of my company. They were women of noble birth and always knew someone in Cologne they could visit after attending mass and the Sunday morning service. It was a rare opportunity to socialise and they knew I would not talk of it to the abbess.

We would spend Saturday and Sunday nights in the cloisters of St Mary's and return to the convent the following Monday morning, departing Cologne immediately after the Angelus was rung. That is, we were supposed to sojourn at the cloisters but we were directly under the orders of the archbishop who, apart from allowing us to stay in the nuns' dorter, left no instructions as to our hours of prayer or our containment. Moreover, the prioress of St Mary's had no authority over us and so we were free to spend the Sunday afternoon much as we wished. It was not infrequent that one or another or both nuns came back to the cloisters just in time for the Angelus and our departure on Monday morning. They'd be escorted back to the church in a nobleman's fancy carriage and would wear a smug look to their faces on the long day's journey home.

These indiscreet visits by my two escorts suited me as perfectly as it did them. I would sneak away to visit Master Israel and Frau Sarah, as their Sabbath was completed the previous day, and they always welcomed me. The
winkelhaus
was closed for Sunday, so it was the girls' day off and we were free to spend time together. They were delighted to see me and I them, for there was no better source of gossip and laughter. When I returned to the convent Rosa would badger me for details and she longed to accompany me on one such trip to Cologne. ‘We will hatch a plan,' I promised. ‘Something will come up.'

Of course I also spent time with Father Hermann, Father Paulus and Nicholas, who was becoming famous for his preaching to the children and always waited to greet me when the cart from the convent arrived. I had become increasingly concerned over Nicholas's behaviour. Sometimes he was the firebrand who swept thousands of children off their feet with his preaching, and at other times he was bereft of enthusiasm and hardly spoke, his mercurial tongue slurred and his famous energy forsaken. In the summer, if he was in fine fettle, we would spend Sunday afternoon in the woods where one Sunday he confessed he frequently used magic mushrooms.

‘But you don't know how they are prepared!' I exclaimed, dismayed.

He laughed. ‘I do now.'

‘What do you mean?' Frau Sarah had told me that if not prepared in a certain way and taken in the correct amount they could lead to dangerous visions or other manifestations.
Perhaps
this accounted for his different moods
, I thought. ‘Did you skin them? How many did you take?'

‘Nay, not at first and I took four, then three the next time and then two thereafter. Each time I thought I was going to die.'

‘Half of one, Nicholas! That is the correct amount. Half of one and skinned! But why then did you persist?'

‘Voices. I hear bad voices,' he said.

‘Huh? You hear bad voices when you take them?'

‘Nay, when I don't.'

‘When you don't? What sort of voices?'

‘Satan's voices,' he said, looking at me tearfully.

‘Bad?'

He nodded.

‘And when you take the mushroom?'

‘Jesus returns.'

‘What? His voice, Christ's voice?'

‘Aye.'

‘And that's what makes you preach to the children?'

‘Aye. “
Suffer little children to come unto me
.” It is His command and I
must
follow it. But when the bad voices come I can't.'

‘Nicholas, for how long after you take the mushroom does the voice of Jesus come to you?'

‘Sometimes a week, sometimes three weeks, even more.'

‘And then it goes?'

‘No, it changes.'

‘Changes how?'

‘I feel a great torpor descend upon me and then it is not the Saviour's voice any more. It is evil. It is Satan. Satan speaks to me.' He started to cry and I held him to my breast. ‘I don't want to hear those other voices, Sylvia! Only Jesus! Jesus is my Saviour! I only want to hear Jesus!' he now wept like a small boy.

After a while he calmed down and I continued to question him. ‘But the magic mushrooms are not always easy to be found. What do you do when there are none?' Frau Sarah had always stressed that they must be picked and used fresh.

‘Aye, you are right.' His hand went to the inside of his tunic and produced a small linen bag and loosening the drawstring he removed a dried mushroom. ‘They are dried and then I soak them in water and soon they are plump again. Although I must use three times as much – the magic is not as strong when they have been dried,' he explained.