The Island of Books. Dominique Fortier
to attend services.’
‘Why?’
What I wanted to say was, To what end?
‘Because it is good to have the days governed by the rhythm of the holy hours, even for those who have not made a vow to devote themselves to God.’
I didn’t answer, so he continued, his voice slightly mocking. ‘And because I’m afraid that soon we will no longer be able to get you up in the morning, and I have no desire to carry you like a child.’
The monks celebrate God seven times a day – once in the middle of the night. Robert insisted that I attend at least two of the services, which I have been doing ever since.
In recent months, masses have been celebrated in the old underground church. When the choir of the abbey collapsed some thirty years ago, the monks simply erected a wall in the arch between the transept and the choir so they could keep celebrating mass there. It took months to clear the debris, assess the damage, shore up the structure to avoid more collapses; years to draw up the plans, raise the money needed for the work, choose the builder. During that time, the choir was covered with wooden slats to form a temporary roof, but it remained open to the elements. Still today, it is not unusual for it to rain in the choir. Birds have nested in there, and other vermin too, no doubt, among the beams and the struts. Underneath the choir a room was built with large pillars to support the structure that will climb higher and be more majestic than ever, if Robert is to be believed. The reconstruction work as such started shortly thereafter, and the monks moved their services underground until most of the structure was complete. Some twenty labourers are now working on the site morning to night, but their presence is hard to detect in the rest of the abbey. Most stay in the village, some for years. When I asked Robert when the new church would be ready, he answered, with his way of never seeming to take his own words seriously, ‘Never.’
Between the stones of Notre-Dame-Sous-Terre, no more than fifteen monks remain today in the midst of the massive columns in the immense room meant to accommodate five times more. Their voices rise up, monotone and quaking within the walls. They seem to know that they too are about to disappear, to leave the rock to its solitude. But their singing still has a mournful beauty – or maybe it’s me who can no longer hear anything beautiful without suffering.
In the middle of this morning’s service, the grey cat crossed the nave with its light step. I jumped when I noticed it. Brother Maximilien, seated beside me, noticed my movement. He turned his head and, seeing the animal, crossed himself while making a face.
‘Brother Clément’s beast,’ he whispered.
It was the first time he had spoken to me. I don’t know why, among all of these silent monks, I had decided that this particular one was mute. I must have heard him singing, but that’s when the voices come together to form just one, multiple yet indistinct. As if it had overheard his words, the cat turned its little head toward us and sat. The monk made a gesture to shoo it away, which the animal ignored.
‘Where did he come from?’ I asked.
Brother Maximilien shrugged before answering, in a disdainful whisper. ‘I don’t know. Probably from chasing vermin.’
I smiled and went on. ‘Not the cat – Brother Clément. Where is he from?’
Brother Maximilien sniffed. ‘No one knows. He showed up one morning with that filthy beast. He asked to be a lay brother, and he spent almost a year cleaning out the stables and feeding the chickens, without saying a word… Then by chance we discovered that he knew how to read and write, and he spoke Latin as fluently as if he had learned it at his mother’s knee. To my way of thinking, no good comes of that sort of mystery. Why would a man of letters want to spend his days grooming horses – or growing lettuce?’
He stopped talking to be certain I agreed with him and to check that no one was looking our way disapprovingly, then he went on, still in hushed tones.
‘In the end, since the abbey has more servants than it knows what to do with and very few literate monks, he was promoted without being asked his opinion. Besides, he doesn’t seem to have one on most matters, and it must be said that since the garden was entrusted to him, the everyday food has improved tremendously.’
It seemed that the concession had cost Brother Maximi-lien a great deal. He tried to shoo the cat again, with a hiss that made four heads turn. He lowered his eyes as the animal calmly rose, throwing the shadow of a tiger on the wall.
§
Some monks, particularly the younger ones, are as thin as reeds, but there are a few who are as round as barrels. How this is possible, given their Spartan diet, remains a mystery.
At noon, we have a crust of bread to dip in a goblet of wine, an apple, a piece of cheese or a handful of beans. For the evening meal, we have stew made of beans and vegetables, wine that is often watered down and the rest of the bread. But some monks are as fat and soft as women who gorge themselves on candied fruit. Perhaps the answer lies not in the meals they joylessly eat, but in the hagiographies they ingest with their food: a spoonful of lentils, a good deed; a swig of wine, a psalm. Their bellies are swollen with edifying words, stories of saintly victims of torture offered as sustenance at mealtime.
The recitation of pious deeds blends with sounds of chewing and half-suppressed burps. No doubt what was intended, in imposing these readings, was to nourish the soul at the same time as the body, but I can’t help but think that what was also intended was to remind the monks that they are mere mortals; they are not saints whose praise is sung, but men of flesh, humble eaters of beans and producers of wind.
I hadn’t thought to inquire during our journey about what position Robert held at Mont Saint-Michel, and I barely gave it a thought in the first few weeks, which were spent in a fog that was almost starting to lift. The few times I went to the refectory, he was sometimes eating at one of the long tables where most of the brothers sat and sometimes he was in the company of a few others at a smaller table set on a slightly elevated platform. The monks definitely showed him respect and deference, but I thought it was mostly due to his erudition and natural authority. He had always been that way; even when we were children, he seemed older than the rest of us.
Just yesterday, I thought to ask him, albeit awkwardly, ‘Are you in charge of the abbey?’
‘God is the one in charge.’
Robert had been making this sort of observation since childhood. It was his way of answering a question by not answering or, rather, of not answering by answering. It had ceased to bother me a long time ago. I had learned to respond with a more specific question, one that he could not wriggle out of.
So I asked in another way. ‘Are you in charge of it?’
‘The responsibility is shared among the monks; each one has a role and a task.’
I had long believed that he did that not exactly to catch me out, but because he thought my questions pointless. I eventually understood that he wasn’t this way just with me, and that he did it because he was careful never to make assumptions about the intentions of the person he was talking to. It could be irritating, often tedious, but it forced me to look at things in a new way, and sometimes even to consider ideas different from the ones I had begun to express at the start.
‘Are you the abbot?’ I asked. Usually I managed to get the answer I was after in three tries.
‘No. His name is Guillaume d’Estouteville, and he lives in Rome. I’m just responsible for the day-to-day management of the abbey.’
This was said without emphasis, as if simply making an observation.
Since Robert was not fussy about food, he had more elaborate cooking done only when there were distinguished guests, or the vicars or procurators of the abbot himself, who had never visited the sanctuary he was responsible for. The rest of the time he settled for the same stew as the others, and a little less wine. Sometimes I would dine at his table when there were no important visitors; sometimes I would dine with silent monks.
The refectory had a diffuse light