“She nodded. ‘It is very dark, but that is the way it has always been here, don’t you think?’
“‘Why don’t you come to bed?’ I reached over you and patted her cot.
“‘All right,’ she said, without any sign of protest. In fact, she smiled at me and bent over to kiss me before she lay down. I caught her in my arms for a moment, feeling the strength in her shoulders, the smooth skin of her neck. Then she stretched out and covered herself, and appeared to drift off long before I’d finished my chapter and blown out the lantern.
“I woke at dawn, feeling a sort of breeze go through the room. It was very quiet; you breathed next to me under your wool baby blanket, but Helen’s cot was empty. I got up soundlessly and put on my shoes and jacket. The cloisters outside were dim, the courtyard gray, the fountain a shadowy mass. It occurred to me that it would take some time for the sun to reach this place, since it first had to climb above those huge eastern peaks. I looked all around for Helen without calling out, because I knew she liked to rise early and might be sitting deep in thought on one of the benches, waiting for dawn. There was no sign of her, however, and as the sky lightened a little I began to search more rapidly, going once to the bench where we’d sat the day before and once into the motionless chapel, with its ghostly smell of smoke.
“At last I began to call her name, quietly, and then louder, and then in alarm. After a few minutes, one of the monks came out of the refectory, where they must have been eating the first silent meal of the day, and asked if he could help me, if I needed something. I explained that my wife was missing, and he began to search with me. ‘Perhaps madame went for a walk?’ But there was no sign of her in the orchard or the parking area or the dark crypt. We looked everywhere as the sun came over the peaks, and then he went for some other monks, and one of them said he would take the car down to Les Bains to make inquiries. I asked him, on impulse, to bring the police back with him. Then I heard you crying in the hostel; I hurried to you, afraid you’d rolled off the cots, but you were just waking. I fed you quickly and kept you in my arms while we looked in the same places again.
“Finally I asked that all the monks be gathered and questioned. The abbot gave his consent readily and brought them into the cloisters. No one had seen Helen after we’d left the kitchens for the hostel the night before. Everyone was worried-‘La pauvre,’said one old monk, which sent a wave of irritation through me. I asked if anyone had spoken with her the day before, or noticed anything strange. ‘We do not speak with women, as a general rule,’ the abbot told me gently.
“But one monk stepped forward, and I recognized at once the old man whose job it was to sit in the crypt. His face was as tranquil and kind as it had been by lantern light in the crypt the day before, with that mild confusion I had noted then. ‘Madame stopped to speak to me,’ he said. ‘I did not like to break our rule, but she was such a quiet, polite lady that I answered her questions.’
“‘What did she ask you?’ My heart had already been pounding, but now it began to race painfully.
“‘She asked me who was buried there, and I explained that it was one of our first abbots, and that we revere his memory. Then she asked what great things he had done and I explained that we have a legend’-here he glanced at the abbot, who nodded for him to continue-‘we have a legend that he had a saintly life but was the unfortunate recipient of a curse in death, so that he rose from his coffin to do harm to the monks, and his body had to be purified. When it was purified, a white rose grew out of his heart to signify the Holy Mother’s forgiveness.’
“‘And this is why someone sits guard on him?’ I asked wildly.
“The abbot shrugged. ‘That is simply our tradition, to honor his memory.’
“I turned to the old monk, stifling a desire to throttle him and see his gentle face turn blue. ‘Is this the story you told my wife?’
“‘She asked me about our history, monsieur. I did not see anything wrong with answering her questions.’
“‘And what did she say to you in response?’
“He smiled. ‘She thanked me in her sweet voice and asked me my name, and I told her, Frère Kiril.’ He folded his hands over his waist.
“It took me a moment to make sense of these sounds, the name made unfamiliar by a Francophone stress on the second syllable, by that innocentfrère. Then I tightened my arms around you so I wouldn’t drop you. ‘Did you say your name is Kiril? Is that what you said? Spell it.’
“The astonished monk obliged.
“‘Where did this name come from?’ I demanded. I couldn’t keep my voice from shaking. ‘Is it your real name? Who are you?’
“The abbot stepped in, perhaps because the old man seemed genuinely perplexed. ‘It is not his given name,’ he explained. ‘We all take names when we take our vows. There has always been a Kiril-someone always has this name-and a Frère Michel-this one, here -’
“‘Do you mean to tell me,’ I said, holding you fast, ‘that there was a Brother Kiril before this one, and one before him?’
“‘Oh, yes,’ said the abbot, clearly puzzled now by my fierce questioning. ‘As long in our history as anyone knows. We are proud of our traditions here-we do not like the new ways.’
“‘Where did this tradition come from?’ I was nearly shouting now.
“‘We don’t know that, monsieur,’ the abbot said patiently. ‘It has always been our way here.’
“I stepped close to him and put my nose almost against his. ‘I want you to open the sarcophagus in the crypt,’ I said.
“He stepped back, aghast. ‘What are you saying? We can’t do that.’
“‘Come with me. Here -’ I gave you quickly to the young monk who’d shown us around the day before. ‘Please hold my daughter.’ He took you, not as awkwardly as one might have expected, and held you in his arms. You began to cry. ‘Come,’ I said to the abbot. I drew him toward the crypt and he gestured for the other monks to stay behind. We went quickly down the steps. In the chill hole, where Brother Kiril had left two candles burning, I turned to the abbot. ‘You don’t have to tell anyone about this, but I must see inside that sarcophagus.’ I paused for emphasis. ‘If you don’t help me I will bring the whole weight of the law down on your monastery.’
“He flashed me a look-fear? resentment? pity?-and went without speaking to one end of the sarcophagus. Together, we slid aside the heavy cover, just far enough to see inside. I held up one of the candles. The sarcophagus was empty. The abbot’s eyes were huge, and he slid the lid back with a mighty shove. We regarded each other. He had a fine, shrewd, Gallic face that I might have liked immensely in another situation. ‘Please do not tell the brothers about this,’ he said in a low voice, and then he turned and climbed out of the crypt.
“I followed him, struggling to think what I should do next. I would take you and go back to Les Bains immediately, I decided, and make sure the police had actually been alerted. Maybe Helen had decided to return to Paris ahead of us-why, I couldn’t imagine-or even to fly home. I could feel a terrible pounding in my ears, my heart in my throat, blood rising in my mouth.
“By the time I stepped into the cloisters again, where the sun was now flooding the fountain and the birds were singing and lighting on the ancient paving, I knew what had happened. I had tried hard for an hour not to think it, but now I almost didn’t need the news, the sight of two monks running toward the abbot, calling out. I remembered that these two had been dispatched to search outside the monastery walls, in the orchard, the vegetable gardens, the groves of dry trees, the outcroppings of rock. They had just come from the steep side-one of them pointed to the edge of the cloister where Helen and I had sat with you between us on a bench the day before, looking down into that measureless chasm. ‘Lord Abbot!’ one of them cried, as if he could not even begin to address me directly. ‘Lord Abbot, there is blood on the rocks! Down there, below!’