horologion

He’d told him everything, once. Such friendships are dangerous. Matteo had taught him the name of every plant and its virtues, every root and leaf. He had loved him for his wisdom once — for his openness, his candidness.

When Lucca comes to his cell in the night, he finds no impediment there; no eye sees him, and no one apprehends him. To leave his cell at all is sheer recklessness, and the act is unacceptable on all imaginable levels, but he cannot help but come to him, any more than he can help his recognition of the works of God.

Lucca scratches at the doorframe with the backs of his fingers. “Let me in,” he whispers, “for pity’s sake. Let me in, brother.”

For what seems like a fearfully long time — though it can only be the time it take to say two Pater Nosters, barefoot and shivering on the flagstones — Lucca waits for acknowledgement. There is no sound from within, neither welcoming him in or rebuking such a disturbance, and he does not dare raise his voice any louder when he calls out again:

“Don’t leave me out here. I’m frightened.”

From within he hears a muffled whimper, as if in sleep. Lucca opens the door.

He does not find Brother Matteo asleep, but awake in the darkness. By candlelight his familiar face bears a look of surprise — as if even having heard Lucca’s voice, he cannot believe it is really him standing there. By candlelight Lucca can see fear in those features he loves so well — Matteo’s face is tired and lined, and his dark eyes have dark shadows pooling beneath them like ink only half-effaced.

“Come in. Put your candle out,” Matteo says. Lucca does as he is told.

In another time, Brother Matteo would have reproached him, but he did so always with a sublime gentleness — as if redirecting him in his course. Now he is resigned to his presence. Lucca has not interrupted him at prayer, or in the writing of a letter; it is as if Brother Matteo has lain here all the while, staring into the darkness. His beads are at his waist, and his belt knife lies at his bedside.

When he crawls into the bed beside him, Matteo does not protest. He strokes Lucca’s hair, and draws it between his fingers, there in the darkness. He calls it fine gold, though it is only as summer straw — once he had written him verses, of which he had seemed both ashamed and proud. In those pages Matteo had written of a boy’s unfledged cheeks as white as a woman’s, and the fiery redness of red lips. There was a violence in it that made Lucca blush scarlet and when he confessed to Matteo that he had burned the pages on which it was written, Matteo had told him with some embarrassment that he had done well. It had only been an exercise, to write verses after the manner of Horace. But that was another time, when they had leisure to read and write, and to do more than prostrate themselves and plead for forgiveness.

In time of plague, what can they do but continue their labors — and when they are not in prayer, what can they do? The Father does not seem to care a whit for all the labors of a monastery in January — there is no one left alive even to bake the bread, or to gather firewood.

Lucca shakes him by the shoulder, and Matteo recoils from his touch, as he never has before. He is not feverish, thanks be to God, but he withdraws from him as if he has touched a hot coal. The sight of it pierces Lucca to the heart.

“Tell me what it is that burdens your heart. Tell me and be relieved.”

Matteo’s face contorts in a silent laugh.“You don’t know what it is I’m saving you from. You are young, and there are things of which it is better to be ignorant.”

“What could be worse than this pestilence?”

He can feel his own voice beginning to crack, as the fear worms in. They are at the edge of a fearful precipice, both of them together. Both of them will fall.

Matteo shakes his head. “You’re better off this way. Come here, let me see you.

Brother Matteo strips him bare there in the darkness, feeling in the soft corners of his armpits for any trace of the betrayer among them — his long-fingered hands are cool to the touch, like a physician’s, and when by chance his thumb grazes the soft coin of Lucca’s nipple he murmurs an apology. There is no sign of disease on Lucca’s body, Matteo assures him, only the signs of hunger — his cool fingertips tracing the shallow ruts of Lucca’s ribcage, the soft high plain of his belly.

Lucca asks, “What should I do?”

Matteo says, “Pray.”

He knew everything once, this man — all his humility and his learning have been poured out like water, or else he refuses them. Lucca kisses him on the mouth. All the sins of a lifetime have gathered on his lips,

Matteo reciprocates so ardently that it nearly knocks the breath from him — as if Lucca has given him the command for which he has long been waiting. At first in the ardor of it Lucca cries out, but Matteo silences him with a smothering hand.

To have a friend in such bitter times as these is all the consolation he can hope for. Lucca rises up beside him, straddling Matteo’s lap — his prick is hard, and Matteo’s erection presses in against his backside. Their presence here together affirms every restriction they have ever known, every clause of every rule — what rule of life can contain them now? They are thicketed in death on all sides, they have been cast into a vale of thorns. Even the abbot has lost his wits, or else he doesn’t care for them any more, so firmly are his sights set on the next world.

But this does not seem possible. A thousand kisses, each one burning like a drop of hot wax against his lips — he opens his mouth and Matteo slips his tongue inside it, to enter him like a living thing. Matteo runs his hands down Lucca’s thighs. In the darkness he is breathing psalms.

“How beautiful you are,” Matteo says to him, there in the dark. He sounds as if he is straining to hold back tears. They are risking everything, everything they have ever had — but the things Lucca has known since his boyhood are falling away now in the face of this pestilence, and the fear of a sin he knows to be monstrous is overshadowed by the fear of what is unknown.

They couple together as did the sinners of Sodom, coming together as one unholy flesh — it is too much to bear, the pleasure and the pain of it running together. Lucca weeps freely, as the heat of lust moves inside him, as the consecrated temple of his body is pierced.

*

It is better therefore that two should be together, than one: for they have the advantage of their society. If one fall he shall be supported by the other: woe to him that is alone, for when he falleth, he hath none to lift him up. And if two lie together, they shall warm one another: how shall one alone be warmed? And if a man prevail against one, two shall withstand him: a threefold cord is not easily broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:11

*

Afterward, Lucca presses his face against Matteo’s shoulder, breathing in the scent of wool and wax. Matteo is silent but fretful; his tapering fingers draw through Lucca’s hair, tracing a whorl at the nape of his neck.

Brother Matteo is everything to him, he is lover and beloved, teacher and confessor. He is mother and father and brother to him, here in this madhouse. Lucca has not thought of his mother in many years — she had been only too happy to hear of his calling, happy to have one of her sons employed in holy works and not in stealing or whoring. He thinks of her now, how she had bid him to pray for her. She is dead; he knows this with certainty, he can see her bloodless withered face in his mind’s eye.

He can bear this silence no longer.

“What is it, Matteo? What reason can you have not to tell me now?”

Brother Matteo laughs, a helpless broken laugh, and draws him in closer. “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Let me tell you tomorrow.”