In which long hours of bewilderment are briefly narrated.
It is difficult for me to narrate what happened in the hours that followed, between vespers and compline.
William was absent. I roamed around the stables but noticed nothing abnormal. The grooms were bringing in the animals, made nervous by the wind; otherwise all was calm.
I entered the church. Everyone was already in his place among the stalls, but the abbot noticed Jorge was absent. With a gesture he delayed the beginning of the office. He called for Benno, to dispatch him to look for the old man, but Benno was not there. Someone pointed out that he was probably making the scriptorium ready for its evening closing. The abbot, annoyed, said it had been decided that Benno would close nothing because he did not know the rules. Aymaro of Alessandria rose from his stall: “If Your Paternity agrees, I will go and summon him….”
“No one asked anything of you,” the abbot said curtly, and Aymaro sat back down in his place, not without casting an inscrutable glance at Pacificus of Tivoli. The abbot called for Nicholas, who was not present. Someone reminded him that Nicholas was preparing supper, and the abbot made a gesture of annoyance, as if he were displeased to reveal to all that he was upset.
“I want Jorge here,” he cried. “Find him! You go!” he ordered the master of novices.
Another pointed out to him that Alinardo was also missing. “I know,” the abbot said, “he is not well.” I was near Peter of Sant’Albano and heard him say to his neighbor, Gunzo of Nola, in a vulgar dialect from central Italy which I partly understood, “I should think so. Today, when he came out after the colloquy, the poor old man was distraught. Abo behaves like the whore of Avignon!”
The novices were bewildered; with their innocent, boyish sensitivity they felt the tension reigning in choir, as I felt it. Long moments of silence and embarrassment ensued. The abbot ordered some psalms to be recited and he picked at random three that were not prescribed for vespers by the Rule. All looked at one another, then began praying in low voices. The novice master came back, followed by Benno, who took his seat, his head bowed. Jorge was not in the scriptorium or in his cell. The abbot commanded that the office begin.
When it was over, before everyone headed for supper, I went to call William. He was stretched out on his pallet, dressed, motionless. He said he had not realized it was so late. I told him briefly what had happened. He shook his head.
At the door of the refectory we saw Nicholas, who a few hours earlier had been accompanying Jorge. William asked him whether the old man had gone in immediately to see the abbot. Nicholas said Jorge had had to wait a long time outside the door, because Alinardo and Aymaro of Alessandria were in the hall. After Jorge was received, he remained inside for some time, while Nicholas waited for him. Then he came out and asked Nicholas to accompany him to the church, still deserted an hour before vespers.
The abbot saw us talking with the cellarer. “Brother William,” he admonished, “are you still investigating?” He bade William sit at his table, as usual. For Benedictines hospitality is sacred.
The supper was more silent than usual, and sad. The abbot ate listlessly, oppressed by grim thoughts. At the end he told the monks to hurry to compline.
Alinardo and Jorge were still absent. The monks pointed to the blind man’s empty place and whispered. When the office was finished, the abbot asked all to say a special prayer for the health of Jorge of Burgos. It was not clear whether he meant physical health or eternal health. All understood that a new calamity was about to befall the community. Then the abbot ordered each monk to hurry, with greater alacrity than usual, to his own pallet. He commanded that no one, and he emphasized the words “no one,” should remain in circulation outside the dormitory. The frightened novices were the first to leave, cowls over their faces, heads bowed, without exchanging the remarks, the nudges, the flashing smiles, the sly and concealed trippings with which they usually provoked one another (for novices, though young monks, are still boys, and the reproaches of their master are of little avail in preventing them all from behaving like boys, as their tender age demands).
When the adults filed out, I fell into line, unobtrusively, behind the group that by now had been characterized to me as “the Italians.” Pacificus was murmuring to Aymaro, “Do you really believe Abo doesn’t know where Jorge is?” And Aymaro answered, “He might know, and know that from where Jorge is he will never return. Perhaps the old man wanted too much, and Abo no longer wants him….”
As William and I pretended to retire to the pilgrims’ hospice, we glimpsed the abbot re-entering the Aedificium through the still-open door of the refectory. William advised waiting a while; once the grounds were empty of every presence, he told me to follow him. We rapidly crossed the empty area and entered the church.