A Matter of Time Read online

  He paused and looked at Bartholomew. “Let me ask you something. Does God love Koli?”

  “Of course.”

  “Was that God’s love you expressed to him Friday afternoon?”

  Bartholomew did not answer.

  “Well?”

  Silence.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Bartholomew. I’d assumed you understood what was going on here. God has been repatterning Koli’s responses into something more appropriate for monastic life. We cannot live together, as we’ve been called to, unless we are chaste. You know that. We must embrace chastity in every aspect of our thought-life, as well as our behavior.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “Koli was coming into that. But your rejection of him last Friday has set that process back months. In fact—we may have lost him.”

  Bartholomew jumped to his feet. “I tell you, Anselm, I couldn’t help it!”

  “No!” Anselm glared up at him. “Let me tell you! If God had been in your heart to the degree He should have been, you would not have reacted that way. Now—sit—back—down, Brother Bartholomew! I am not finished with you!”

  Bartholomew’s jaw tightened. “Well, I’m finished with—” he stopped, in the certain knowledge that if he said one more word, he might well be finished with far more than this conversation.

  He sat back down, glowering at his spiritual authority. Almost hoping that he would give him an excuse to say—what could never be unsaid.

  Neither man spoke.

  Then Anselm asked quietly, “How long has it been since you’ve written anything in your spiritual journal?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Anselm! You know what our life is like! We’re on the go from the moment we wake up! Matins, Lauds, Mass, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, Compline, Vigils—and in between we’re expected to put in a full day’s work! Plus, I’ve got all the grounds to look after, and the Brothers’ exercise program to run, and Illumination and Calligraphy to teach, and I’m responsible for Koli—or I was.”

  Outside the window there was a flash of red. A cardinal had arrived at the bird feeder. A slow smile came to Anselm, who nodded to the visitor in red vestments. “Whenever one of those comes, I take it as a sign of God’s presence. I believe He is here now—no matter how unpleasant this might be for you.”

  Bartholomew said nothing. He was not about to admit that that was exactly the way he felt about cardinals, too.

  “In addition to all the other responsibilities you mentioned,” Anselm observed, still smiling, “we’re also expected to be good stewards of our personal spiritual growth. Now, how long has it been since your last entry?”

  When the younger monk didn’t answer, the Senior Brother sighed. “That’s what I thought.”

  They both watched the cardinal. Then Anselm asked, “What are the watchwords of Benedictine spirituality?”

  No response.

  The Senior Brother answered for him. “Hospitality. Striving for excellence in all things, to the glory of God. Internal awareness. Balance.” He paused. “We’re not called to be contemplatives,” and then added wistfully, “though many’s the time I’ve wished we were.”

  Bartholomew nodded. And relaxed—a little. He’d been through too much with this man, over too many years, to remain flint-hearted.

  “Each of us is required to press toward the mark,” Anselm went on, “and cooperate with God as He prepares us to be His companions for time and eternity. We encourage the young ones to practice His presence by dialoguing with Him in their spiritual journals. And periodically we check them, to make sure they’re hearing the Holy Spirit, and not the unholy one. But we older monks—we’re not supposed to need supervision.”

  Bartholomew sat in stony silence.

  “I’ve seen Mother Michaela,” Anselm concluded, “and we feel you need an extended personal retreat. In Bermuda. Immediately.”

  Bermuda! He might as well have said Devil’s Island. The prospect had as much appeal as being condemned to the old French penal colony.

  Faith Abbey had a small work in Bermuda, where they were stewards of a 47-acre reserve known as the Harris Trust. The director was a retired priest in his 80s, Father Francis, who had once served as head of the abbey’s clergy. He was assisted by four sisters from the abbey’s convent. Sometimes members of the abbey went down there for R&R. Occasionally they went—or were sent—to reconnect with God. They would stay for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks—or longer.

  Bartholomew grimaced. “I feel like I’m being punished, sent into exile. Why don’t you just give me a leper’s bell, so I can warn people I’m spiritually unclean!”

  Anselm’s lips tightened, but his voice remained calm. “How you choose to regard this is up to you.”

  The younger monk tried a different tack. “Look, Anselm,” he pleaded, “I don’t need to do this. I’ll admit my prayer life has not been what it should be. But I can change! I can do something about it, right here. I don’t need to go down there.”

  When he saw that the Senior Brother was not about to compromise, he asked, “How long will I have to stay?”

  “God will let you know when you’re supposed to come home.”

  “Oh, come on! At least give me a ball park estimate.”

  Anselm shook his head. “If I did, you’d have a finite end in mind and might be tempted to stonewall the whole thing. Just serve your hard time and come home.”

  Bartholomew did not answer. That was exactly what he had been thinking.

  “Nothing would be accomplished,” Anselm sighed. “Nothing would have changed.”

  The two monks looked at each other, and finally the Senior Brother softened. “Bart, you’re not being ordered to do this. But we think it’s right, the next step for you, and we’re strongly urging you to consider it.”

  “How long do I have, to make up my mind?”

  “We need your decision tomorrow.”

  Bartholomew stood up. “I’ll think about it.”

  He did not say “I’ll pray about it,” because in truth, the last entry in his journal was at Christmas. Two years ago.

  3 tu to tango

  In a waterfront bistro in the French Riviera port of Cap d’Antibes, a blond, crew-cut young man leaned close to the dark-haired woman next to him. “Let’s get out of here,” he murmured. “This place is too crowded.”

  The woman, in a tight navy-and-white striped bateau shirt and white Capri pants, raised her eyebrows. “I thought you were with your friends.”

  “That’s the problem.” He scowled and glanced at the small table surrounded by five large men drinking Heinekens. All were in white polo shirts and white ducks, even white Topsiders. And they all had white Helly-Hansen sailing parkas like the one on the back of his bar stool. One of them, seeing him looking in their direction, gave him a thumbs-up. “Any place with that bunch in it is too crowded.”

  She shrugged and followed as he left the bar and headed for the door, his crewmates bellowing derisive encouragement behind them.

  Outside, she took his arm. “I know a place, plus intime. Very quiet.”

  He let her lead him away from the quay, through an alley, up some steps, into a smaller café. It was more intimate. No Americans. No sailors of any nationality. Just locals. The clientele spoke in low tones, concentrating on their Pernod, Dubonnet, Aquavit. The air was redolent with the pungent aroma of Gauloises cigarettes.

  All the tables were taken, so they sat at the bar.

  The young man—not much more than a boy, really—wrinkled his nose. “Guess no one here pays much attention to the Surgeon General’s report.”

  The woman, seeing he was waiting for a response, realized he must have made a joke. She smiled. “Go back to telling me about yourself,” she said, ordering two double Pernods. “How did you become a sailor?”

  He held up a forefinger. First, he had to finish telling her how his tennis team had won the Ivy League championship the year before. “The Yalie I played was ranked twenty-seventh in the c
ountry.” He paused to let that sink in, pleased that she seemed impressed with the defining moment of his life. “I earned my ‘P’ that day!” he exclaimed, and she laughed, assuming he’d made another joke.

  She caught the patron’s eye and circled her finger over their empty glasses. Which were soon refilled.

  “And how did you earn this?” she asked, pointing to the name Laventura embroidered on his polo shirt, as well as on the front and right shoulder of his parka.

  “That’s my yacht. Actually, it belongs to friends of my parents. When they were visiting at the family compound in Key Biscayne—that’s in Florida—I’d admired their boat. She’s the most beautiful schooner I’ve ever seen.”

  The woman sipped the yellow liquid in her glass without comment, then turned away so he would not see her yawn. When she turned back, her eyes were once again bright and attentive.

  “Anyway,” he was saying, “as they left, they told me, ‘You must sail with us sometime.’ I knew they were just being polite, but—I was graduating in the spring and didn’t want to settle down right away. So I wrote them and reminded them of their offer.”

  “And the sailing? You already knew how?”

  “Well, nothing more than Lasers. But the guys showed me the ropes.”

  “The ropes?”

  “Nautical expression. They showed me how everything worked.”

  “Oh,” she smiled. “You like them? The guys?”

  He nodded. “I’m sort of their mascot. But we’re leaving for Bermuda tomorrow, and the new boy,” he thumbed his chest, “is the only one who’s going to score tonight. Tennis term,” he added hastily, glancing at his watch. “Listen, um—”

  “Antoinette,” she reminded him. “Toni.”

  “Listen, Toni, you’re about the most attractive thing I’ve seen ashore, anywhere in the Med. And—”

  “I like you, too, Kevin,” she responded, tapping his chin with a forefinger and showing him she could remember his name. “You remind me of my younger brother.” She giggled. “My much younger brother.”

  Then, so he would not be hurt, she leaned close and beamed at him. Actually she leaned into him, so he would know there were only two layers of clothing between them. Two thin layers.

  It had the desired effect. “Listen,” said the boy thickly, “—Toni, I really want to coucher avec vous.”

  “Toi,” she corrected him.

  “Huh?”

  “When you say what you just said, to someone close to you, it’s tu, not vous. You would say vous if you were speaking to une femme de nuit.”

  “Sorry!” he stammered, chagrinned that he might have just ruined his chances.

  “It’s okay,” she said, smiling and tossing her head, “I want to, too. Just let me go in there a moment,” she nodded toward the W.C. “Then we’ll leave.”

  “Don’t be long,” he whispered.

  In a little while, she returned. “Let me leave first,” she murmured to him. “Take your time, finish your drink, pay l’addition. Then leave.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want them to see us leaving together. I live here.”

  He nodded. In a moment she said good night, and he nodded, feigning dismay.

  Ten minutes later he emerged and spotted her waiting in a white Renault two-door down the street. Strolling past it, he glanced around and, seeing no one, slipped into the passenger seat.

  “Your place or mine?” he asked huskily.

  She frowned, and then smiled; he was making another joke. “I’ll take you up on the corniche,” she said warmly. “A place I know. Très intime. Very romantic.”

  Putting the car in gear, she took the long winding road up the side promontory overlooking the sea. There were no headlights, in either direction. They would have the corniche to themselves.

  Abruptly she swung the wheel left, turning into what seemed to be a dense growth of brush. But there was a track through it, and she eased her way along, branches scraping both sides of her car.

  All at once they were out in the open, on a little bluff, barely big enough for the car.

  In front of them the vast Mediterranean stretched away under the light of a nearly full moon. It was calm; on the black mirror of the inlet, the moon seemed to draw a line straight to them.

  “You were right,” he said, exhaling, “this is romantic.”

  She nestled into him. “And no one even knows it’s here.”

  After putting the car in reverse and carefully setting the emergency brake, she turned off the engine. In the silence, they could hear wavelets splashing against the base of the rocky cliff, a hundred meters below.

  “Look,” she whispered, nodding to their left. A mile away, a dozen yachts were moored off the Cap. Silhouetted in the moonlight, they were of all sizes and descriptions. One, larger than the rest, had three masts.

  “Laventura,” the boy murmured, pointing her out.

  “Magnifique!”

  “So are you,” he gasped, taking her in his arms.

  He never felt the blow from the weighted sap strike him just behind the left ear.

  “What took you so long?” the woman demanded of the dark form outside the car. “He practically had my clothes off!”

  She reached over and extracted the wallet from the unconscious boy’s hip pocket. Removing the money, she started going through the credit cards.

  “Put it back,” said the man outside.

  “What?”

  “Put it all back.”

  “But there’s more than four hundred dollars here! And virgin credit cards—a platinum Visa, a gold Amex! I thought this is what—”

  “I have something else in mind,” the man said calmly. “Now—put it back.”

  Startled at the sharp edge in his tone, she did as instructed, then looked up at him, trying to make out his face in the darkness. “Hector, you’re not going to go—strange on me again, are you?”

  When he did not answer, she prattled on with forced cheerfulness. “You were right; he turned out exactly as you anticipated. In fact, as he was telling me about himself, I almost lost it. It was as if he was following your script.” She laughed, hoping he would laugh with her.

  He didn’t.

  He opened the door, reached in back and retrieved the boy’s sailing parka, dropping it on the ground. Then he pulled off the boy’s white polo shirt and dropped it, too. After that, he removed the boy’s boating shoes, adding them to the pile.

  “Why are you doing that?” she asked. “You’ll never be able to wear or sell—” her voice trailed off, as he came around to her side of the car.

  “Take off your sandals.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Take them off,” he commanded, icy steel in his voice.

  Scared now, she did it. “Hector, please! What are you doing?”

  “Now the shirt. Take it off.”

  “No, please! I don’t like this!” She started to cry.

  “Do it, or I’ll take it off for you.”

  Whimpering, she removed her shirt and dropped it beside the car. “What is this all about?” she begged, her body trembling.

  “You and the American were making love,” he explained, matter-of-factly. “In your ardor, one of you knocked the gearshift into neutral.”

  As he spoke, he reached over her and did so. “Somehow,” he went on, “the emergency brake also came off.” He disengaged it.

  She stared at him, her eyes filling with terror.

  “And then, at the height of your passion, the car started to roll.”

  He pushed it into motion, and she screamed. Frantically, she flung open the door and started to get out.

  But he had anticipated this, too. With a swift backhand blow from the sap, he stilled her. And put her back in the car.

  Straightening the wheel, he gave it a final push, and it sailed out into the night sky, nosing over and plunging down into the dark sea. It struck the surface with such force that its occupants were killed instantly—and so fr
actured that the blows to their crania would not raise suspicion.

  The impact sent up a huge geyser. But the sea soon settled back, and the car sank quickly, until there was nothing visible. In twelve meters of water, it might not be found for days. Months.

  The discarded clothing would allow the police to complete the hypothesis he had just outlined. He was about to leave, when he paused. The boy’s white boat shoes were nearly new. Picking up the right one, he measured the sole against his right foot, and smiled. A perfect fit.

  He thought for a moment, then threw the woman’s sandals over the cliff. They must have gone wading before they came up here.

  4 the quarry cottage

  Brother Bartholomew leaned his head against the back seat window of the very small, very old Mazda station wagon. Not feeling much like talking, he pretended to be dozing.

  Up front, Father Francis and his Bermudian friend, Brendan Goodell, a retired AME minister, were engaged in a spirited discussion about the impact that September 11th had had on Bermuda. Seven weeks had passed, but the situation was still desperate. Bermuda’s main industry was tourism, and the tourists had simply stopped coming. The Southampton Princess, normally at 80 percent capacity at this time of year, was at 12. And the Delta flight Bartholomew had come down on, which at this time of year should have had every seat filled, was flying with four-fifths of its seats empty. Restaurants were closing, hotel and retail staff were being laid off or cut back to half wages. The island was reeling.

  Bartholomew didn’t care. He was too busy wishing he wasn’t here. After the meeting with Anselm, he’d told his roommates of his impending exile—and was taken aback at their response.

  “Man, that’s tremendous!” exclaimed Clement. “And it’s only October. Still be warm enough for shorts and sandals!”

  “It’s not like I’m going down there on a vacation, Clem!”

  “Well, it sounds pretty good to me,” William chimed in. “In fact, it certainly was, when I was there a dozen years ago. I came home and took my final vows.” He laughed. “You’ll probably be in the Quarry Cottage.”