Lukas has seen the squint from inside Sint-Salvator, the narrow window carved into the wall that separates the church from the anchorhold. It’s cut in the shape of a cross, barely wide enough for a hand to pass through to administer communion to the hermit within.
“You need to see the hold before you commit.” But Lukas can tell. She’s already left him for God.
36
Aleys
The enclosure ceremony is a few days hence, but Aleys wants it to begin now, if only to get her out of the bishop’s manor. She’s resisted Lukas’s entreaties to visit the cell and has kept to the bedchamber with the draperies drawn shut. A piece of her is afraid that if she sees the hold, she will lose nerve. Or worse, that if she sees the sky, her spirit will rush up to meet it and refuse to be drawn into the enclosure. She will miss the sky. Perhaps more than anything, she will miss the sky.
Of course, that’s what Lukas is testing. His entreaties become a demand. It’s her first trial. She cannot truly consent to enclosure until she sees the hold.
Aleys follows Lukas to Sint-Salvator. She keeps her eyes fixed on her feet until the last moment, when she can’t resist a glimpse of the belfry, of the golden weathercock on its peak. The rooster atop the cathedral is still, pointing north.Surge aquilo, she thinks—rise up, north wind! She wonders if she’ll be able to sense the weather from her cell. Then she thinks back to the vision of the solitary tree on the desert plain. She will have no need for the weather.
The cathedral is empty but for an orderly lighting the standing iron candelabra. Aleys pushes back her hood and feels the volume of the cool, vast space. She lets her eyes trace the soaring arches that taper to infinity. The altar itself is grand, solid. The Christ in this temple hangs from the cross gracefully, the weight of his body pulling his outstretched arms into a gentle arc. His head bends toward the wound in his right side. His eyes are closed; it is the moment past death and though he bleeds, his face is at peace. He will be looking away from her, she notes. For in the wall to the right of the sanctuary is the heavy oak door. Her door.
She considers the sliding bolt with an iron padlock. She hadn’t thought about the lock, and confronted with it now, she frowns. Who will hold the key? She doesn’t need to be told that the other side of the door has neither bolt nor latch. From the inside of the anchorhold, the door will be nothing but a wooden relief in the wall, an interruption of stone. A door that is no door.
This is what she seeks, she reminds herself. A sanctuary.
Beside the door is a small window into the anchorhold shaped like a cross, beautifully carved, with generous rounds decorating the foot, the head, and arms. Her squint. She twists back to the chancel and sees that the squint is cut at the perfect angle so that from the hold you could see altar, priest, and Christ on the cross. It’s just wide enough to admit a hand with a wafer, but cut at a slant, and narrow enough that all anyone can see inside her cell is a sliver of gray stone wall opposite. It buoys her, this precisely carved squint. It is lovely.
They stand before the door. Lukas shows her a heavy iron key. “This has been opened only twice in forty years. To admit the anchorite Gunther, and to remove his earthly remains.”
“So, inside, there are no ...” She doesn’t want to say it.
“Graves?”
She nods. He inspects her face. “That would frighten you?” Like she’s not strong enough. She resents his doubt, so she stares hard at him to prove it doesn’t frighten her, the possibility that the anchorhold contains graves, might even have a pit already dug to her precise length and breadth. Some anchorites live with their own open graves inside their cells, amemento morito prevent them forgetting, for a moment, what they owe to God.You must pray like your hair is on fire, Lukas has said to her. He doesn’t understand that she prays from desire, not fear.
“No,” he says. “No graves.”
Aleys is relieved. She knows she will die in the anchorhold. That part doesn’t bother her. Somehow, though, she would like to be buried beneath the sky.
And there’s a second reason she’s glad that Gunther and the anchorites before him aren’t buried under the floor. She doesn’t want to share her cell with anyone. Aleys doesn’t fear the dead; she’s jealous of them. The hold is meant for her and her beloved. She doesn’t want God’s former lovers beneath her feet, like so many dead wives beneath the bed.
Lukas inserts the key. It turns easily. He slides open the bolt and pulls the door into the church. It swings wide. A cool, mossy smell emerges. He watches her. “You’ll have wood for fire. It won’t be so damp.” He stands aside to let her enter.
Her first impression is that it’s bigger than she thought. From the outside, the anchorhold is barely noticeable, two rooms pasted on the side of the church. One room is the public parlor, with a door to the street for her caretaker and for visitors. The parlor communicates with the anchorite’s cell via a small square window obscured by black curtains, one on each side. Lukas has arranged for the beguines to bring food twice a day. “So you will see someone familiar.” Apparently, Katrijn is glad enough to get her out of the way that she’ll spare a sister to serve as maid. Aleys doubts the bishop knows she’ll be attended by a beguine; he seems happy to pay for her upkeep and leave the details to his brother of exactly who will pass what through the parlor window into the cell of the anchoress.
Aleys pauses on the threshold. This room, this cell, will be hers, and hers alone. She feels like a bride meeting her spouse at the altar. They are committing for life, Aleys and this place.
Aleys crosses the doorstep and looks back over her shoulder. Friar Lukas won’t follow her. Good. She wants to take in her new home, feel its dimensions, what it wants from her.
Aleys steps wholly inside, into a space defined by four walls of uneven gray stone, weathered and round. She runs her hand over them. They must have been pried from a riverbed, smooth as if oiled. The weight of stone is reassuring, speaks of the witness of earth and ground and true foundation. It feels loyal.
Behind her, beside the door that will be no door, is the squint. Faint light from the altar casts a cross, slightly askew, on the center of the packed dirt floor. Aleys inventories the room. First, she faces the wall shared with the church, which contains the door, the squint, and a narrow cot. Every night, for the rest of her life. She turns to her right, where the stone is interrupted by a square window with a black curtain. The parlor wall. Every meal, every chamber pot, every human word will cross that sill. She turns again. The wall shared with the street bears a small window with fixed translucent panes that admit a filtered light but not prying eyes. Beneath is a tidy table and stool. A stub of a candle, a quill, a dry inkpot. Aleys turns to the final wall, which hosts a fireplace with a simple stone mantel. An iron poker and a tripod for a pot lean against the stones like they expect Gunther to return any moment. She bends to pick up a knife which must have fallen to the floor. She replaces it on the mantel. Beside the fireplace, beneath a plain wooden cross, is a simple prie-dieu. Its kneeler is worn. She thinks of the anchorites before her. She hopes they found God here.
It’s four paces from the squint to the street window. Six paces from the fireplace to the parlor window. Aleys lifts the black curtain to reveal a wooden shutter with a bolt. She can lock the world out when she wants. Aleys breathes into the room. It wants nothing from her that she can’t give.
Aleys returns to the door and pulls it closed behind her. The cell darkens, but not completely. Noon light filters through the street window. Its panes are cow’s horn shaved to a fine translucence, dark where they overlap, but glowing amber between. She thinks of Finn and his hornbook. It seems so long ago, back when God’s word was a puzzle they could decipher together. She knows better now. Here, in this protected room, this simple, protected room, she will devote her life to understanding God. Her eyes adjust, and she finds herself happy.
At last. I am alone. No, she corrects. Not alone. Never alone. He is with me, always. What is it, then?I am sheltered.
She stretches her arms so that her fingertips nearly touch the walls. She turns slowly, sensing the contours of the space. Though there is a ceiling above and walls around her, she feels herself a hawk. Aleys spins, and feels herself expand, float, dissolve through the thick stone. What need has she of sun and clouds, when she finds a sky within her?
She hears silence.
She tastes nothing.
