“God bless you on your way,” said the abbot, “God make you brave, unselfish, obedient, and ready to do everything to spread the teaching of Christ. May God protect you in all you do.”
118. The Tonsure
“Right, little Barnaba, let’s go,” said emaciated Brother Gabriel. His deep voice surprised Farid. When they left the office the cases had disappeared. Gabriel noticed the boy’s questioning glance, and smiled.
“Brother John has taken them to your place in the dormitory. You have a little locker for your things there. But come with me now — he’s waiting to give you your tonsure.”
“What’s a tonsure?” asked Farid, bewildered.
Gabriel smiled. “A shaven head. After that you get the habit, and then you’re really one of us.”
Farid entered the room known as Brother John’s workshop. John was the general factotum: plumber, postman, porter, barber, but he also inflicted physical punishment when the monastery authorities thought it necessary. The workshop consisted of two rooms, one in front of the other, with a connecting door between them. The front room contained bicycles, metal trestles, chests of drawers and a workbench. It smelled strongly of engine oil, but was meticulously tidy. John was sitting in the back room on a mattress, trying to repair the broken handle of a wicker basket with his calloused hands.
When Farid came in with Gabriel, John looked up and grinned. He stank of sweat and old socks. Nothing in the place was even remotely reminiscent of a barber’s salon. The one cheerful touch was a sunbeam falling in through a round window on the west wall of the room.
John put the basket down and stood up. He pulled a small stool to the middle of the room and gestured to Farid to sit down on it. As soon as Farid was seated, he pushed his head down and began shaving it with an old pair of clippers. The clippers pulled out whole tufts at a time. It was a painful business.
“What’s our new boy called?” Farid heard John ask.
“Barnaba,” said Gabriel.
John repeated the name in a childish singsong, gradually turning it into its Greek version of Barnabas, then into Barabbas, the name of the robber whom the Jews chose to free instead of Jesus on the feast of Passover. John kept chanting this new name with enthusiasm. “Barabbas! Barabbas!” Although it wasn’t the robber’s fault, the early Christians hated that name as the symbol of a life saved at the cost of the Lord’s own. It seemed that Barabbas couldn’t live with that thought, and had hanged himself soon after he was set free.
“So now you’re one of us,” cried John in his singsong voice. Then, suddenly, his rough hand hit Farid right in the face. He had really meant to give the newcomer a pat on the back of his shaven head, but Farid had turned at just that moment.
The blow struck him full on. Farid lost his balance and fell off the stool. He was trying to stand up when he suddenly felt a thin hand on his shoulder, turned around, and looked straight into Gabriel’s face.
“Let’s go, Barnaba. John’s a lout,” said the monk. He helped Farid up and led him out of the workshop.
“Hey, I didn’t mean to do it,” cried John, putting out his hand to the boy, but Farid had already reached the door and slammed it behind him. John was left behind with his jaw dropping.
119. The First Night
The habit felt strange. It billowed between Farid’s bare legs, and made him walk unsteadily. When he passed one of the mirrors that were fitted at every landing on the stairs, he was startled. A bald-headed stranger in a black sack stared back at him from the mirror, eyes wide with shock. Josef would have a heart attack if he could see his friend in this outfit.
Evening dusk was already falling over the quiet inner courtyard. Farid stopped for a moment, and then followed Gabriel down to the cellars, where he heard a babble of voices. The cellar area had a high, vaulted roof of polished white stone. The doors to the refectory were open, and as Farid stood on the stairs leading down he could already see hundreds of monastery pupils, all with shaven heads and in black habits, sitting at three long rows of tables. At right angles to them, and slightly raised, stood a large table for the Fathers, and roughly in the middle of the room there was a kind of pulpit beside the wall. One of the older pupils stood at it, leafing through a thick book. His narrow leather belt told Farid that he was a novice. The Brothers and the Fathers wore broader belts.
Farid waited awkwardly near the door while Gabriel hurried up to the table where the Fathers sat, and whispered something to a rather stout priest. The priest looked at Farid and then stood up. There was silence at once, and Farid felt the eyes of the pupils and novices burning on his scalp. He looked down.
“In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,” said the priest, crossing himself. All the pupils did the same, repeating the words after him. Farid hastily made the sign of the cross too. “In the name of Abbot Maximus, who can’t be with us this evening,” said the priest, “I am happy to welcome our new pupil Barnaba. He is in the seventh grade, one of ten new students in all who have come to swell our ranks. Welcome, my son. Now sit down, and we can begin the reading.”
Gabriel moved his head in response to Farid’s glance at him asking for help. Then he saw the empty place. A napkin and cutlery were already laid.
The pupils started talking again, and his twenty companions at the table showered him with questions. They were all speaking French. Farid understood a good deal of what they said, but he confined himself to simple answers to avoid making mistakes. The pupils seemed eager to hear about the outside world. Only later did he discover that neither they, nor the novices and monks, were allowed to leave the monastery walls. Unlike ordinary boarding schools and many liberal monasteries, the order of St. Sebastian wouldn’t even let its pupils go home for the vacation.
The reading was in French too. All Farid understood was that it was the story of St. Barnaba. His companions told him that they had the story of a saint read to them every day before supper.
“Some of them are as exciting as thrillers, some are as colourful as movies, but some are just plain boring,” said a boy whom the others called Marcel. He sat opposite Farid and was beaming at him. As far as Farid could make out Marcel, who was rather stout, came from Alexandria in Egypt.
It was also Marcel who told him, briefly and graphically, about the hierarchy of the monastery that first evening. “The monastery pupils are squires, the novices are knights, the monks are princes, the Fathers are kings, and the Abbot — well, he’s God in person.”
“Why are some of them still just Brothers although they look old enough to be ordained priests by now?”
“Only God knows. They probably have a screw loose somewhere,” said Marcel.
“What about Brother Gabriel?” asked Farid.
“Gabriel’s the only ordinary monk allowed to sit at the top table with the Fathers and the Abbot,” Marcel told him. “He’s cleverer than all the rest put together. But he can’t be a priest, all the same.”
“Why not?” whispered Farid, leaning over the table.
“He’s sick in the head,” replied a small pupil next to Marcel. The others called him Timotheus. Marcel dug him in the ribs with his elbow. Obviously he didn’t approve of this explanation.
“Doolally,” said another.
“Oh, shut up,” snapped Marcel. “The Pope himself is afraid of Gabriel because he knows so many secrets,” he whispered in conspiratorial tones. The others fell silent, exchanged meaning glances, and looked surreptitiously at Gabriel.
“All those secrets probably sent him crazy,” said Timotheus.