The Small Hand (5 page)

Nine

started on my journey in a mood of cheerfulness and optimism. The shadows had blown away. The sun had come out. I needed a break, which was why I flew to Lyons and then hired a car, for I planned to take my time, meandering on country roads, staying for two or three nights in different small towns and villages, enjoying France. I knew parts of the country well but not the region in which the monastery of Saint Mathieu des Etoiles was situated, high up in the mountains of the Vercors. I was ready to explore, pleased to be going on what I thought of as a pleasant jaunt and with the prospect of discovering a rare and wonderful book to delight a client at the end of it.

I hardly recognise the person I was at the beginning of that journey. It is true I had had a strange encounter and been touched by some shadow, but I had pushed them to the back of my mind; they had not changed me as I was later to be changed. I was able to forget. Now, I cannot.

I see those few days in a sunlit France as being days of light before the darkness, days of tranquillity and calm before the gathering storm. Days of innocence, perhaps.

It was high summer and hot, but the air was clear and, as always in such weather, the countryside looked its best, welcoming and uplifting to the spirits. There were pastures and gentle hills, charming villages. One night I had a room above an old stable in which chickens scratched contentedly and swallows were nesting. In the morning, I woke to lie looking across a distant line of violet-coloured hills. I was heading towards them that day. They seemed like pictures in a child’s book.

I ate modestly at breakfast and lunch, but always stopped in time to dine well, so that I slept seven or eight hours, deep draughts of dreamless sleep.

By the time I was on the road for the third morning, the weather had begun to change. The sun shone for the first half-hour or so, but as I climbed higher I drove into patches of thin, swirling mist. It was very humid and I could see dark and heavy clouds gathering around the mountains ahead. Earlier, I had driven through many a small and pleasant village and seen people about, in the streets, working in the fields, cycling, walking, but now I was leaving human habitations behind. Several times I passed small roadside shrines, commemorating the wartime dead of the Resistance, which had been so strong in these parts. Once, an old woman was putting fresh flowers into the metal vase clipped to one of them. I waved to her. She stared but did not respond.

The roads became steeper and the bends sharper. The clouds were darkening. I passed through several short tunnels cut from the rock. On either side of me, the cliffs began to tower up, granite grey with only the odd fern or tree root clinging to its foothold. The car stuttered once or twice and I needed all my concentration to steer round some of the bends that coiled like snakes, up and up.

But then I came out on to a narrow plateau. The sky was darkening but to my right a thin blade of sunlight shot for a second down through the valley below. Somewhere, it caught water and the water gleamed. But then great drops of rain began to fall and a zigzag of blue-white lightning ran down the side of the rock. I was unsure whether to wait or to press on, but the road was narrow and I could not safely pull in to the side. I had not seen another vehicle for several miles but if one came up behind me, especially in the darkness and now blinding rain of the storm, it would certainly crash into me. I drove on extremely slowly. The rain was slanting sideways so that my windscreen was strangely clear. More lightning and still more streaking down the sulphurous-looking sky and arcing onto the road. I could not tell whether what was roaring on the car roof was rain or thunder.

The road was still narrow but now, instead of climbing I began to descend, skirting the highest part of the mountain and heading towards several lower slopes, their sides thickly overgrown with pine trees.

The rain was at my back and seemed to be coming out of a whirlwind which drove the car forward.

I am a perfectly calm driver and I had driven in atrocious conditions before then, but now I was afraid. The narrowness of the road, the way the storm and the high rocks seemed to be pressing down upon me at once, together with the tremendous noise, combined to unnerve me almost completely. I was conscious that I was alone, perhaps for many miles, and that although I had a map I had been warned that the monastery was difficult to find. I thought I had perhaps another twenty miles to go before I turned off on the track that led to Saint Mathieu, but I might well miss it in such weather.

Two things happened then.

Once again, in the midst of that black, swirling storm, a blade of sunlight somehow pierced its way through the dense cloud. This time I almost mistook it for another flash of lightning as it slanted down the rock face to my left and across the road ahead, which had the astonishing effect of turning the teeming rain into a thousand fragments of rainbow colours. It lasted for only a second or two before the clouds overwhelmed it again, but it was during those seconds that I saw the child. I was driving slowly. The road was awash and I could not see far ahead. But the child was there. I had no doubt of that then. I have no doubt of it now.

One moment there was only rain, bouncing up off the road surface, pouring down the steep sides of the cliff beside the car. Then, in the sudden shaft of sunlight, there was the child. He seemed to run down a narrow track at the side of the road between some overhanging trees and dash across in front of me. I braked, swerved, shouted, all at the same moment. The car slid sideways and came to a halt at the roadside, nose towards the rocks. I leaped out, disregarding the rain and the storm still raging overhead. I did not see how I could have avoided hitting the child, it had been so near to me, though I had felt no impact. I had not seen him – I was sure that it was a boy – fall but surely he must have done so. Perhaps he was beneath the car, lying injured.

Such violent storms blow themselves out very quickly in the mountains and I could see the veils of rain sweeping away from the valley ahead and it grew lighter as the clouds lifted. The thunder cracked above me but the lightning was less vivid now.

One glance under the car told me that the body of the child was not lying in the road beneath it. There was no mark on the front.

I looked round. I saw the track between the pine trees down which he must have come running. So he had raced in front of the car, missing it by inches, and presumably down some path on the opposite side.

I crossed the road. The thunder grumbled away to my right. Steam began to rise from the surface of the road and wisps of cloud drifted across in front of me like ectoplasm.

‘Where are you?’ I shouted. ‘Are you all right? Call to me.’ I shouted again, this time in French.

I was standing on a patch of rough grass a few yards away from the car on the opposite side. Behind rose the jagged bare surface of rock. I turned and looked down. I was standing on the edge of a precipice. Below me was a sheer drop to a gorge below. I glimpsed dark water and the cliffs on the far side before I stepped back in terror. As I stepped, I missed my footing and almost fell but managed to right myself and leap across the road towards the safety of the car. As I did so, I felt quite unmistakably the small hand in mine. But this time it was not nestling gently within my own, it held me in a vicious grip and as it held so I felt myself pulled towards the edge of the precipice. It is difficult to describe how determined and relentless the urging of the hand was, how powerful the force of something I could not see. The strength was that of a grown man although the hand was still that of a child and at the same time as I was pulled I felt myself in some strange way being urged, coaxed, guided to the edge. If I could not be taken by force, then it was as though I were to be seduced to the precipice and into the gorge below.

The storm had rolled away now and the air was thick with moisture which hung heavily about me so that I could hardly breathe. I could hear the sound of rushing water and the rumble of stones down the hillside not far away. The torrent must have dislodged something higher up. I was desperate to get back into the safety of the car but I could not shake off the hand. What had happened to the child I could not imagine, but I had seen no pathway and if he had leaped, then he must have fallen. But where had a child come from in this desolate and empty landscape and in the middle of such a storm, and how had he managed to avoid being hit by my car and disappear over the edge of a precipice?

I wrenched my hand as hard as I could out of the grip of the invisible one. I felt as if I were resisting a great magnetic force, but somehow I stumbled backwards across the road and then managed to free my hand and get into the car. I slammed the door behind me in panic and, as I slammed it, I heard a howl. It was a howl of pain and rage and anguish combined, and without question the howl of a furious child.

Ten

y map was inadequate and there were no signs. I was shaking as I drove and had to keep telling myself that whatever might have happened, I had not killed or injured any child nor allowed myself to be lured over the precipice to my death. The storm was over but the day did not recover its spirits. The sky remained leaden, the air vaporous. From time to time, the curtain of cloud came down, making visibility difficult. Twice I took a wrong turning and was forced to find a way of re-tracing my route. I saw no one except a solitary man leading a herd of goats across a remote field.

After an hour and a half, I rounded a sharp bend, drove through one of the many tunnels cut into the rock and then saw a turning to the left, beside another of the little shrines. I stopped and consulted my map. If this was not the way to the monastery, I would press on another six miles to the next village and find someone to ask.

The narrow lane ran between high banks and through gloomy pine trees whose slender trunks rose up ahead and on either side of my car, one after another after another. After being level for some way, it began to twist and climb, and then to descend before climbing again. Then, quite suddenly, I came out into a broad clearing. Ahead of me was a small wooden sign surmounted by a cross: MONASTERE DE SAINT MATHIEU DES ETOILES. VOITURES.

I switched off the engine and got out of the car. The smell of moist earth and pine needles was intense. Now and again a few raindrops rolled down the tree trunks and pattered onto the ground. Thunder grumbled but it was some distance away. Otherwise, everything was silent. And I was transported back on the instant to the evening I had stood outside the gate of the White House and its secret, overgrown garden. I had the same sense of strangeness and isolation from the rest of the world.

I was expected at the monastery. I had had email correspondence with the Librarian and been assured that a guest room would be made available for me at any time. They had very few visitors and those mainly monks from other houses. The Librarian, Dom Martin, had attached a helpful set of notes about the monastery and its way of life. I would be able to speak only to him and (although it was possible I would also be received by the Abbot), to the Guest Master, might attend the services in the chapel and would be given access to the library. But this was an enclosed and silent order and, though I was welcome, I would be kept within bounds.

‘C’est probable,’ the Librarian had written, ‘que vous serez ici tout seul.’

Now I took my bag from the car and set off down the narrow path through the dense and silent pines. I was still suffering from the effects of what had happened, but I was glad to have arrived at a place of safety where there would be other human beings, albeit silent and for the most part unapproachable. A monastery was holy ground. Surely nothing bad could happen to me here.

The track wound on for perhaps half a mile and for most of the way it was monotonous, rows of pines giving way to yet more. At first it was level, then I began to climb, and then to climb quite steeply. The only sound was the soft crunch of my own footsteps on the pine-needle floor. There were no birds, though in the distance I could hear falling water, as if a stream were tumbling down over rocks. The air was humid but as I climbed higher it cleared and even felt chill, which was a welcome relief. I imagined this place in deep winter, when the snow would make the track impassable and muffle what few sounds there were.

I stopped a couple of times to catch my breath. I walk about London and other cities a great deal, but that is easy walking and does not prepare one for such a steep climb. I wiped my face on my jacket sleeve and carried on.

And then, quite suddenly, I was out from between the trees and looking down the slope of a stony outcrop on to the monastery of Saint Mathieu des Etoiles.

The roofs were of dark grey shingle and the whole formed an enclosed rectangle with two single buildings on the short sides, one of which had a high bell tower. The long sides were each divided into two dozen identical units. There was a second, smaller rectangle of buildings to the north. The whole was set on the level and surrounded by several small fenced pastures, but beyond these the ground was sheer, climbing to several high peaks. The slopes were pine-forested. The sun came out for a moment, bathing the whole in a pleasant and tranquil light. The sky was blue above the peaks, though there were also skeins of cloud weaving between them. I heard the tinkle of a cowbell, of the sort that rings gently all summer through the Swiss Alps. A bee droned on a ragged purple plant at my feet. The rest was the most deep and intense silence.

I stood, getting my breath and bearings, the canvas bag slung across my shoulders, and for the first time that day I felt a slight lifting of the fear that had oppressed me. And I also recalled that somewhere in that compact group of ancient buildings below were the most extraordinary treasures, books, icons, pictures – who knew what else?

I shifted the bag on to my left shoulder and began to make my way carefully down the steep and rocky path towards the monastery.

I DO NOT know what I expected. The place was silent save for a single bell tolling as I approached the gate. It stopped and all I could hear were those faint natural sounds, the rain dripping off roofs and trees, the stream. But when the door in the great wooden gate was opened to me and I gave my name, I was greeted by a smiling, burly monk in a black hooded habit and a large cotton apron. He greeted me in English.

‘You are welcome, Monsieur Snow. I am Frère Jean-Marc, the Guest Master. Please …’ – and he took my bag from me, lifting it as if it contained air and feathers.

He asked me where I had left my car and nodded approval as he led me across an inner courtyard towards a three-storey building.

Every sound had its own resonance in such a silent atmosphere. Our footsteps, separate and in rhythm, the monk’s slight cough, another bell.

‘You have come a long way to visit us.’

‘Yes. I also came through a terrible storm just now.’

‘Ah, mais oui, the rain, the rain. But our storms go as quickly as they come. It’s the mountains.’

‘The road is treacherous. I’m not used to such bends.’

He laughed. ‘Well, you are here. You are welcome.’

We had climbed three flights of stone stairs and walked along a short corridor to the door which he now opened, standing aside to let me pass.

‘Welcome,’ he said again.

I felt real warmth in his greeting. Hospitality to strangers was an important part of the monastic rule, for all that these monks did not receive many.

I walked into the small, square room. The window opposite looked directly on to the pine-covered slopes and the jagged mountain peak. The sun was out, slanting towards us and lighting the deep, dark green of the trees, catching the whitewashed stone walls of the surrounding monastery buildings.

‘Ah,’ the Guest Master said, beaming, ‘beautiful. But you should see it in the snow. That is a sight.’

‘I imagine you have few guests in winter.’

‘None, Monsieur. For some months we are impassable. Now, here … your bed. Table. Your chair. On here you see a letter from the Abbot to you, a letter also from Dom Martin, the Librarian. This list is our timetable. Here is a small map. But I will fetch you at the times you will meet. You are welcome to walk outside anywhere save the private cloister. You are welcome, most welcome, to attend any service in the chapel and I will take you in half an hour, to show you where this is, where you may sit, the dining room. But for now I will bring you refreshment in this room, so that you may get used to the place. You will meet the brothers also about the monastery, the brothers at work. Of course, please greet them. They are glad to welcome a guest. Now, I will leave you to become at home, and I will return with some food and drink.’

The room was peaceful. The sun moved round to shine on the white wall and the white cover of the iron-framed single bed. The window was open slightly. I could hear the distant sound of the cowbells.

For a moment, I thought that I would weep.

Instead, the walls seemed to shimmer and fold in upon themselves like a pack of cards and I fainted at Frère Jean-Marc’s feet.