Prisoner of God

I had set the alarm for five o’clock in the sixth-floor bedroom that I was using. The previous day I had dined with Uncle. He had asked me:

“It’s to be tomorrow then?”

His tone was anxious, with a pretence of detachment.

“Yes.”

“Does your mother know?”

“No. Please don’t tell her.”

The alarm went off. It was still dark. I acted like a robot, with all the time in the world… I sat down at the table and wrote my mother a note. The manner was theatrical, like everything that had been said for a year: “When you read these lines I shall be gone…”

I descended the dark staircase and placed the keys by the kitchen sink. The bedroom upstairs was empty now, just a sheet of paper on the table…

I could not eat. It was as though the climax of so much tension and strife had left me crushed. Every action was charged with significance. I left the keys as a pointer. She would understand. She would go upstairs. I did not want to contemplate her shock at seeing the empty room. Without closing the door, she would go to the table. She would sit sideways, uncomfortably, to read. She would not finish, as tears would cloud her eyes. Then she would slam the door shut, collapse onto the bed, and sob.

She would go downstairs and start to boil a kettle for tea, looking away – moving slowly, wiping the lonely tears.

I took the underground: the station was grey and cold. The carriage was empty to start with; then one person got on, I think. I leant against the window and let the suburbs and the dismal countryside pass before my gaze. I was carrying within me a whole world of longing and of struggle.

Suddenly there before me was the abbey, utterly still, awesome. A moment of hesitation: I stepped forward and rang the monastery bell. Utter silence.

It was Brother Roger who let me in. Once inside, I put down my suitcase and said simply: “Right, then.” He wore a broad smile that lit up his pale face beneath a shaven scalp. I waited for the guest-master, and his mysterious whisper was my introduction to the world of the abbey. He led me to a reception room – bare, cold, where the voice made weird echoes. We did not know what to say: he joked, I gave mechanical replies.

The novice-master arrived: a large man in a black habit, he seemed to take everything in his stride. He picked up my case with ease. He conducted me to an internal chapel and knelt; I copied him, unthinking. Then up a well-lit staircase, the treads covered in dark green plastic.

On the first floor, at the end of a vast, broad corridor, was a glazed partition labelled in yellowish letters “Novices”. We had not exchanged a word since the reception room. Six doors opened onto this area (from which there was no other exit), and into each door at eye level was let a window of rough glass. He stopped at the first door on the right and opened it. From then on this was my cell.

I was twenty-two years old, with two degrees and work experience. I spoke four languages. I was what they call a “bright lad”, with a high market value.

I stepped gingerly into the cell ahead of the novice-master. He put my case down near the door.

I had chosen death.

In my suitcase were just two shirts, so convinced was I that I could not stay more than a week: they would get me out again; it couldn’t last …

It lasted twenty-one years.