TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN BY SUZANNE MCDONNELL
The monks tumbled out of bed at the sudden echo of the bells which the night amplified and magnified with each toll.
“What’s happening?” Father Leo shouted as he put on his sandals.
The small bell tower of the monastery stood out tenaciously against the moon while the clappers struck forcefully, with momentum, on the walls of the three bronze vases. The heavy alloy held the notes for a long time, a fifth, causing that deafening, grave and garrulous noise at the same time: the sound of a celebration.
“Who on earth could have entered the bell ringer’s room and how?” The monks asked themselves in their white robes which the moon lit up relentlessly.
Access to the bell tower was from the roof.
“A ladder, a ladder leaning against the wall, they climbed up from here,” the younger one exclaimed impatiently. “I’ll go up and see.”
From the roof, the Bose Monastery, which had been restored a few years earlier, could be admired in all its austere and simple beauty: the parish church consecrated in 1238 to Santa Maria Assunta, the monks’ cells, the vegetable garden, the large centuries-old oaks, and in the background the towers of San Gimignano, the medieval Tuscan village.
What fragrances on that summer night ! It was the jasmine plants that smelt so intensely, lying lazily on the wall next to the refectory, a sensual scent that would make you lose your mind.
The round arch above the portal of the church in its Romanesque style with three naves reflected shadows without any other frills, except the mullioned window with stone heads on the sides winking ghostly and a cross-shaped slit just under the spire.
“Who are you ?” shouted the Young Monk down towards the bell ringer’s hole.
A voice sneered,“The devil brought me here, I don’t have a name. I only have an age, twenty years old. I have lost my peace and the world no longer tells me anything. For me there is no salvation.
The devil begged me to ring your bells at the cursed hour, three in the morning. Do you like it? What do you think? Really nice surprise! Would you ever have imagined a creative and witty, even festive demon?
I have nothing to lose. It seemed like a fun proposition in a place I’ve never frequented. I don’t know who you are, but I know that you don’t sleep next to the warm body of a woman, you don’t wake up at the touch of a kiss, you are the living dead and the devil laughs at you. I laugh at you too ~ how sad. I’m often bored, I would say always, but I can at least hope for some lucky encounter. Today it’s not so difficult and maybe with a few grams of Mary, not your Mary, that’s too complicated, difficult to hang out with, prayers, penances , but my Maria, the grass I want, submissive and silent, always ready when needed, it costs a little, but if necessary the money can be found. By the way, where did I put the scale ?”.
“Get out of there” the Young Monk shouted to him, now climbing onto the roof, trying to drown out the deep sound of the bells which was slowly dying down.
“I don’t even think about it,” the arrogant one replied. “It’s fine here, it’s nice and cool and the moonlight keeps me company. It brightens my life, at least tonight; I even see a big segment of it.”
“Look, it’s exactly three in the morning and we have our rules to respect, I’m just about your age, too, and I can understand you, but you have to get out of there” The monk insisted.
“As I told you, twenty years badly spent: mine and yours. You are buried alive and I am buried in my fears” the boy intruder replied.
“Do you want to talk about it?” the monk asked.
“Why not, we have the whole night ahead of us, but know that I won’t come up to you . If you want I’ll talk from here and you from the roof” the strange guest addressed the young monk.
“It suits me,” the monk said. “Where do you come from ?”
“I live nearby with my mother and sister. My father left a year ago, too many fights at home and no work. Money, everything revolved around money, what we call the devil’s dung. The rent to pay, the bills, and at a certain point my mother couldn’t stand it anymore.” The boy paused to light a cigarette, the flame of the lighter illuminating for a brief moment his two intelligent eyes, set in a thin face, short brown hair and a tattoo on his wrist.
The monk on the roof, the boy in the bell ringer’s hole who was playing with the bell strings, and the small group of brothers who, in a circle below, stared questioningly at the white robe now sitting among the terracotta tiles on the roof of the monastery.
“Everything is fine, the situation is under control” the young monk yelled to his fellow monks below,“If you want to go back to your cells I’ll stay here”
“We’re waiting with you” they all replied.
The nocturnal birds, from time to time, let out high-pitched cries, breaking the silence that had become absolute after the last tolling of the bells.
Never before had there been a night so full of stars and such a white and blinding moonlight, and then that scent that stunned and filled the soul with nostalgia.
“And how did you end up here?” the boy asked from his hiding place after taking another drag on his cigarette.
“My story isn’t much different from yours.” The young monk began to tell, touching his curly black hair while settling himself more comfortably.
“I lived in Milan, in the great metropolis of the North. My father also lost his job when I was just 12 years old. We are four brothers who have grown up in extreme poverty since then. Shortly thereafter he died, for no real reason, perhaps out of shame at not being able to raise us. Then it fell to my mother to have to fight daily for our survival. All day bent over sewing in a corner of the kitchen. We lived in Bande Nere, the suburban neighborhood inhabited by various waves of migrants: first from the South, then the Chinese, finally the non-EU immigrants. Two rooms and a bathroom and that poor thing, our Mama, crushed by responsibilities, night and day, clinging to an old pedal sewing machine as if it were a wreck that carried her to safety!
Even today, no one has the courage to remove it from there. A monument to effort. At school they made fun of me because I only had two pairs of trousers that I wore for years: a pair for the winter and a pair for the summer. When they became too short or worn out, I inherited those of my older brother, in poor condition, not much better from the precedents just discarded. Then, we moved on to Caritas which certainly did not provide good role models. I felt alone and different.
“So you’re a poor guy like me,” The boy challenged him.
“No, I wouldn’t say so. With a scholarship, because I liked studying, after finishing high school, I flew to New York City. Pace University, economics course, internship on Wall Street, a career ahead. New York is the place of absolute, most amazing opportunities. That dimension seduced me, but I began to suffer from terrible headaches. My body rebelled and I soon realized that that life wasn’t for me.
I often took refuge in the Baptist churches of Harlem. I liked it when the Battle of Jericho was sung, the sweaty bodies swaying, the hands rhythmically clapping and the feet stamping. I then imagined the seven trumpets before the ark of the Lord, the seven circlings around Jericho , the prostitute Rahab, who had been saved for having hidden the messengers of God, a God who promised joy, peace and security.
One summer day, a sunny summer day in the Big Apple, a silence overcame me. In the silence I found my quiet, my truth, and I decided to listen to that call. Shortly thereafter I entered the monastery.
-You cannot serve God and wealth- says the Gospel, and I chose God. I don’t regret it. You know Amen, and Mammon, which symbolizes money, have the same root in Hebrew: the verb aman which means to make safe, trustworthy, what you can rely on. Now we can rely on money, on power, both can guide our decisions, becoming our idols, but without deep sharing there is no joy and freedom. In every choice, for me, that’s how it went.
We here in the monastery do not own anything, and I assure you that I have never felt greater peace, greater joy, in my entire life. There is a time when you have to decide and know how to achieve your destiny.”
The ancient stones of the monastery listened raptly to the close dialogue between the two young men.
Time had not stopped rolling over the centuries, but the destinies and stories of men were always the same.
The monastery had been defended by many and abandoned by many. That place marked the perimeter of what seemed impossible to much of humanity.
The last prior had lived there, in complete solitude, stroking his white beard. For decades he had waited for a handful of robes to continue the story and the path of those stones. He had died before the continuation with more monks, but he knew well, he knew well the strength of that place: he had never doubted it.
Almost blind, he touched his stones which recognized him. He communicated with these eternal stones, and the stones answered back with maternal solicitude. The grumpy and lonely old hermit knew, and waited.
God had chosen that place. Every stone, every tile, every piece of wood, kept and guarded its secret to entrust to two boys in love, each in their own way, with life, in the certainty of a new eternal rebirth.
The stones of the ancient parish church and the adjacent monastery had welcomed pilgrims, defied the indifference and anger of the powerful over the centuries, to listen to the words of two little souls, words shouted from a roof sloping towards the sky.
This unexpected encounter little by little thrust the boy into his epiphany. His eyes, his heart, his soul, are overwhelmed by the light.
“Would you be willing to die for me?” the boy from the hole suddenly laughed like a madman. “Would you be willing to die, like your Jesus did on the cross, for me? I need someone who is willing to die for me ~ do you think that’s too much? Does it seem disproportionate to you? Someone who loves me so much that he would give his life for my life?
“Difficult question” replied the Young Monk. “You idiot, you don’t understand, you don’t want to understand, you pray kneeling in front of nothing, your life is entrusted to nothing, if I hadn’t come along with this nocturnal ringing stunt, what would have been the point of your life?”
The boy was now shouting, standing with his fists against the sky.
“I am annoyed,” the Young Monk replied back. “I’ve been perched on this roof for two hours. I don’t know if I would die for you. But I’m here, in any case I’m here“.
His voice came from afar, enhanced by the still warm tiles, roasted by the sun that had heated them all the day before.
“I don’t belong to you,” the young monk continued. “ I’m not a projection of you, my days of prayer don’t give you the right to expect me to be patient and good.
That’s a problem that concerns me, it’s my problem. My life, and your life, belong to the Lord and it is He who decides when to turn it off and when to feed it. I would die for you if it would save you.”
“I don’t want to BE saved,” the boy shouted even louder from his cave.
“This starry night saves me, this scent of honey, the stormy sea, a kiss of love, but not you. Humanity has invented every variety of evil and at just a little more than twenty years old you would like to save one of its specimens, the most inept of the species? Buffoon.”
“Pass me a Bible, the Gospel!” the young monk shouted louder to the brothers sitting on the lawn. He was intent on reciting the Psalms, and began to read aloud.
“Lord, are there few who are saved? Strive to enter through the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will try to enter but will not succeed. Behold, there are last who will be first, and first who will be last.” (Lk 13,22-30) This is Luke, these are the verses from the Gospel of Luke.
“I can’t save anyone, only God can do it and only if you want it, only if YOU want it. The door is narrow, there are no shortcuts, grow up and face your pain. I can only love you, I can hold you to my chest. You will be able to stay here together with the other monks and share our poor things with us until you have recovered, and at dawn drink a glass of milk. Is that enough for you?
Maybe, who knows, I might decide to die for you. I’ll think about it later,” The young monk said laughing “But now come on, the brothers are waiting for us”.
The boy exhaustedly climbed up the narrow wrought iron spiral staircase and the two young men faced each other under the light of the dazzling moon.
Now that they were face to face, the words took on another perspective, another meaning. The heat of their bodies gave sacredness to the sound of every syllable uttered and the rest no longer mattered. Their embrace became the most important thing, the only thing that mattered, a mutual refuge, a mutual opportunity.
They descended in single file from the narrow passage that led straight to the exit and emerged triumphantly from the entrance door of the monastery.
The other monks approached them curiously, tired from the long wait. For those who wait, the effort is often tripled.
“Welcome brother,” everyone smiled at the bell ringer boy. “We are happy to have you here with us.”
They didn’t scold him. They didn’t judge him.
The boy smiled back. He rested a little, drank his milk as promised, and walked away lightly towards the dirt road that would take him back home.
The sun was rising while the larks in love cooed gracefully from the branches of the old oak trees.
“Our Father who art in heaven…. thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth.“
Also, read Poems by Magda Isanos, translated from the Romanian by Victor Pambuccian, and published in The Antonym.
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