The Great Weaver From Kashmir (28 page)

In a Belgian village the train ejects cramped souls into the darkness and the rain. Among them is a foreign traveler, his collar dirty and the ends of his sleeves dark with locomotive soot. The travelers who step out pull their cloaks tighter, turn their hat brims down and their collars up, hurry through the station building, and disappear into cars and horse-drawn carriages. But the foreigner stands alone, unmoving, on the platform after the train has gone, looking about
like a man who has fallen into a crater, with no protection against the flood of water but for a tattered English hat on his head, sweaty and sooty. When he had started out his only luggage had been a dirty handkerchief, which he had lost two days ago between Rome and Florence. Here he stands destitute, and the rain trickles down his neck; only after all of the others have turned in their tickets does he dare to make his way through the station gate. He asks the station manager in a whisper, his heart pounding like that of a newly confirmed youngster who asks for the first time of the man in the street where the prostitutes can be found:

“Is there an abbey here?”

“Unfortunately not here at the train station, sir!” replies the Fleming, and he looks around to see whether anyone was near enough to hear how clever his answer was and to admire his wit.

“I mean whether there is an abbey here in the vicinity,” corrected the traveler.

“That's another matter,” said the man. “I'm afraid that it would be more advisable for you to spend the night here in the village, because it's both dark and raining.”

“Would you please be so kind as to point me in the direction of the abbey?” asked the other.

“It's up the mountainside. You cannot walk there in less than half an hour in daylight. And in this darkness and foul weather it seems to me fairly impossible for a complete stranger to venture up there.”

All the same the man condescended to accompany the foreigner out of the station, and then he pointed straight up in the air.

“There's the abbey,” he said.

Some workman or other showed him where the path to the abbey turned off from the village road up a slope; at first there were steps leading up so that one could walk fairly easily for a time. A dim light from a lantern down on the road cast a gleam up along the foot of the mountain, but as one ascended into the trees the gleam disappeared. The traveler found himself in a palpably black night on a narrow path between tall pine trees; the rain poured down. Now it took a great deal of work not to lose the path, and he used his hands and feet to probe his way forward.

After skulking along in this way for some time he discovered that it was all for nothing: he was no longer on the path, but instead on a slanting ledge on the hillside. He searched around for several moments to see if he could find the path again, but it was no good; he ended up in tighter and tighter spots the longer he searched. The slope was spongy with wet earth and rotting leaves; he lost his footing, and it was only by luck that he was able to grab a tree trunk to stop himself from falling. The soil wet his ankles; his shoes filled with mud.

Should he turn back?

But before he gave himself time to decide what he ought to do he turned automatically upward, facing the slope. He advanced both on his knees and on all fours over the drenched earth, searched for hand-holds in the branches above him, scratched himself on nettles that stung like fire, muddied his hands. Now and then he thrust his feet against stumps or grabbed on to a tree trunk. He scrambled his way higher and higher, drenched, sweaty, dirty, and exhausted, and the ascent seemed to him to take an eternity. Finally he thought he caught a glimpse of the ridge of the hill against the sky.

Awaiting him here was the most difficult stretch: a dense thorn-brake more than waist-high. He felt his way along a clear, narrow hollow, but the brake grew as thickly everywhere along the ridge, leaving him no other choice but to break through. And so he broke through. The thorns stung his bare hands; they hooked on to his clothing and tore it, pierced through his clothing and into his bare body, wounding him. But he no longer cared about anything, no longer winced at any pain; instead he grabbed handfuls of the thornbushes, pushed the resilient branches to the sides and stood in the next instant upon the ridge.

The darkness was too deep for him to be able to distinguish one thing from another; he glanced about to try to discover a light in a window, but to no avail. He roamed around for a short time, until he decided that his best course would be to try to find himself a place to sleep. But then powerful bells started to clang a short distance away; the air quivered at this mighty sound. They can't be more than fifty steps away, he thought, and he walked overjoyed toward the sound. Presently he was stopped by a high wall; he found a gate and in a moment stood in the courtyard between tall gables. The metal of the bells rang and rang, and the heart of the stranger hammered with fear and trembling as he stood there in the courtyard of the abbey. At each gable was an entryway; on one side the abbey, on the other the church. After some hesitation he ventured up the abbey steps, felt about, found the string of a bell, and rang the doorbell. And after he had rung the bell it finally dawned on him where he was; he awoke like a sleepwalker. What business did he have here? He knew no one here and no one knew him! This house wasn't built for men of his sort; here dwelled holy men. Here dwelled men who believed
in God and Jesus Christ, but he was the most heretical of men and believed neither in God nor Jesus. What was he searching for here? His homes were waywardness, the wilderness. No, he thought, I'll hide and lie down to sleep in the churchyard until dawn.

But it was too late; inside, someone was fiddling with the door, then a little hatch on the upper part of the door was opened and a nose poked out. In the next moment the door was opened, and a lay brother in a brown cloak, with a hood drawn forward over his head, let a lantern cast its gleam out through the doorway. And the gleam fell upon a wretched wreck of a man who appeared to have fallen into the hands of robbers on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. He stood there at the threshold of the monastery with large horn-rimmed glasses shielding his dilated and fear-stricken eyes, dirty and ragged as if he'd emerged from a peat pit, his hands bloody like those of a criminal, soaked to the skin like a keelhauled castaway. The rain took the color from his cap, and the drops trickled down his face like streaks of tobacco juice: the Great Weaver from Kashmir.

The doorkeeper glanced at him sharply and appeared to conclude that the man had recently escaped from a madhouse. He gave no greeting, and asked, with no introduction:

“What do you want?”

“Is there a man here called Alban?” asked Steinn Elliði.

“If it is the prior whom you mean, Father Alban de Landry,” answered the brother, “he is not available before seven o'clock tomorrow morning. The fathers have just finished the
completorium,
and now it is
magnum silentium
.”

“Magnum silentium?”

“Yes,
magnum silentium.”

The dryness of the doorkeeper's answers was enough to call forth the dominant in Steinn Elliði's heart, and without digging any further into what this
“magnum silentium”
meant, he ordered:

“Go to Father de Landry, and tell him that there is a man here who absolutely needs to speak to him right away.”

“Since so much is at stake, sir,” said the servant, after discovering by the foreigner's voice that he was an educated man, “might I then invite you to step into the foyer” – he showed him into a comely waiting room situated next to the entrance hall, turned on the light, and left.

A substantial amount of time passed, and Steinn waited. Everything was silent, as at the bottom of the sea. On the wall hung a graceful portrait of our Lady from Luxembourg,
Consolatrix afflictorum:
the Mother of God with the child, her countenance like a spruced-up mermaid, her dark purple, golden-stitched gown lined with crinoline, a crown on her tiny head. It was almost comical that this woman should be the consolation of the afflicted. Over the door hung a replica of the Spanish Crucifix of Holy Christ from Limpias, one of the most poignant representations of the crucifixion in the world, because the sweat, tears, and blood that ooze down Christ's breast are not like painted-on sweat, tears, and blood, but rather like sweat, tears, and blood. And the eyes waver back and forth in the death struggle; they look sometimes at me and sometimes at you, admonitory as if they wish to say, “
Memento mori
,” and sometimes to God in Heaven crying,
“Eli, Eli!”
⁸⁶
Hanging there upon his cross is a living man who will likely give up the ghost this very night.

Father Alban opens the door quickly and stops in the doorway. He is clad in a raven black full-length cloak, his hands hidden in the arms of the cloak, his palms clasped. The strongly built, magnificent head of the canon is uncovered except for a black skullcap on its crown. He is pale-cheeked, but the look of his eyes is therefore even more powerful, his mouth closed; from him radiates strength and cold austerity. But when he sees his visitor an incredibly gentle smile comes over his face, and in one instant the austerity has changed to clemency. He recognizes Steinn Elliði again at first glance, bids him good evening in a bright Gregorian voice, extends both his hands, and greets him joyfully. It was by no means clear to Steinn Elliði as to what controlled his actions, because he threw himself down onto his knees before the cloaked man and kissed his hand. Perhaps it was due to the monk's personality that he greeted him with such affection and feeling, or rather, and more than anything, due to the hope of his own salvation.

“Forgive me for coming here at night and disturbing you,” he stammered. “But I have come a long way to ask you to help me. I have come to ask you to tell me what I should do. If God exists, then everything is vanity except for him. My sufferings have overstepped all limits. Tell me, do you think that God exists? And what does this God demand?”

“Stand up, dear sir, and let's be bold!” answered the ascetic. “It's God himself who has led you here, and a great celebration awaits you. If you had remembered to put your address on your letter to
me, for which I thank you sincerely, I would have written to you a long time ago. But now you have come, and I am given not only a chance to praise God for leading one and all where he pleases, even without me writing a letter, but also to glorify once again the most precious message in the Gospel, that is, that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor the realized nor the untold nor powers nor heights nor depths nor any other creature is able to part us from the love of God, who revealed himself in Jesus Christ our Lord. What does God demand, you ask? He never demands anything but this: that you come to him as a little child. When Christ challenges modern man to follow him he does not demand that a man leave his father and mother, sisters and brothers, wife, children, and home, because modern man turned his back on all of these things long ago, and they are of little worth to him. Modern man has opinions, interests, ideals, convictions, and knowledge. These things are most precious to him, in the same way that men of old loved their fathers and mothers, wives and children. For this reason Christ says to modern man: Forsake your opinions, interests, ideals, convictions, and knowledge; lift your crosses to your backs and follow me. Unless you turn around and become like children you will never be able to enter the Heavenly Kingdom–”

He helped Steinn to his feet and smiled into his eyes with deep clemency. And all of this touched Steinn's heart.

“This house stands open to you,” the monk continued. “Imagine that you have come home. In this place peace reigns. We monks of the Benedictine order have two mottoes: one is
‘Pax,'
the other
‘Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus.'
⁸⁷
Let us make them our truths! Now please follow me into the monastery, friend, and the brother will fry
some eggs for you, because you must surely be hungry. And what a great wonder it is to see how you look, my good man – and bloody all over! You surely haven't been in a fight? And where is your luggage? Oh, fine; since you have no luggage I shall provide you at least with dry undergarments, since you are thoroughly wet.
Eh bien,
now we'll go to the refectory.”

A heavy, black oaken door was opened, upon which the word
“Clausura”
was painted near the top in red letters; then came a corridor that extended a very long way, silent as a crypt, but the footsteps of the men echoed in all directions. The lay brother walked ahead of them with a lantern. Finally came a wide hall, cold and empty: the refectory, with a great crucifix at the far end, bare tables and benches along the walls. In the center of the hall was a little table laid with a cloth, chairs around it; Steinn was offered a seat there. Speaking was permitted in hushed tones only. Both the lay brother and the father left, and Steinn sat in the dark hall like a spellbound character in a folktale. All was quiet.

A short time later the lay brother reappeared and was now the reverse of what he had been before, completely cordial; he served the guest thick porridge in a bowl and fried eggs on a platter, strawberries, salad and bread, and poured sour wine into a glass. Then Steinn discovered that he was as hungry as a horse left outside in the winter, remembered that he hadn't eaten since this morning when he had coffee with wheat bread at the train station in Basel. But he was so befuddled that he started with the salad and ended with the eggs, and did not have the sense to cut them into pieces and transfer an appropriate portion over to his plate according to good manners, but rather pulled the platter over, strewed salt and pepper
over the eggs, and emptied the platter in an instant. When this was finished he was full, and he stood up. The lay brother waited a bit for him to give thanks to God at the close of the meal, but when this did not happen he picked up the lantern once more and asked the guest to follow him. The hallways seemed endless again; they were like a labyrinth; finally came a stairway; Steinn followed the brother; the echo of their footsteps once again became a discordant concert that disturbed the nighttime silence of the house; more hallways and stairs followed, and finally the door of the room intended for Steinn.