The side door opens, admitting an evening breeze. Katrijn enters, ushering a frail beguine that Aleys has never seen. That must be old Agnes, who lives in the infirmary. The woman is so birdlike, so tiny and clawed, it seems she could fly to the ceiling and perch on the cross. Aleys can’t help but think of Christina Mirabilis. From Sint-Truiden, just south of here. At Miraculous Christina’s own funeral, as the priest sang theAgnus Dei, she rose from her coffin, sprang to the church rafters, straddled a beam, threw back her head, and laughed. And that’s not even the strangest part. Saint Christina returned from the dead with a death wish. She threw herself into the icy Meuse, staying under the water for hours, then days, at a time—some report she was carried downriver to the mill and spun about the waterwheel—until she stepped out, dry and complaining of thirst. Or she’d step into furnaces to pray. There’s something about Christina’s mad miracles that frightens Aleys, maybe because they happened so close to here. Aleys eyes the birdlike beguine warily as Katrijn guides her to a wooden chair. Old Agnes stays firmly seated.
At the front, the girls are chattering loudly. They wear their dresses from home, blue dresses and red, vests of green, ribbons of yellow, a festival of color. Such vivid hues belong in a psalter. Cecilia unpins her cap to let her yellow hair spill down her back. She nestles her head between Ida’s shoulder blades as she loosens the ties of Ida’s sleeves. Aleys stares. These might be the lewd rites people talk about. What is she about to witness?
Cecilia uncoils Ida’s dark hair and smooths it down her back. Ida reaches back to take her hand and Cecilia whispers into her ear before they separate. Aleys is torn between horror and fascination. She should retire to the dormitory, resume her prayers. She edges to the exit. From here she can make a quick escape. She gathers her robe about her ankles, as if loose morals might seep up from the flagstones.
The drum and harp begin in measured pace. The girls separate into pairs. Two by two, they bow to each other. The beguine with the recorder lifts her instrument to her lips and issues a high and mournful melody. Aleys feels a longing kindle in her throat—for what, she’s not sure, only that the loveliness pulls at a thread deep in her chest. The girls link arms and promenade. The pairs sweep before Aleys, sedate and slow, so close she can hear their dresses brush the stone. As they pass, each couple is silhouetted against the wall torches. The girls disappear, then reemerge into light, brighter than before. Cecilia is partnered with Ida, their hair gleaming flaxen and coal. The two regard each other in profile, Cecilia’s round face and Ida’s sharp, and Aleys feels the chill of the stone against her back. She’s nothing but a flat shadow pinned to the wall.
The tambourine joins. The pulse quickens. Around the circle, the older beguines begin clapping a staccato rhythm that fills the space, reverberating from the walls as if the church itself keeps time. Aleys feels the beat in her feet, feels the urge to stand and join the women. She must resist, she must not be drawn in. The dancers begin to turn about each other, palm to palm, eyes locked. They weave a pattern, ribbons of pigment in a tapestry of sound, a quilt of music. The beguines laugh. The music quickens. The voices grow loud. The women call out. Old Agnes is waving her hands like she’s conducting. Even the magistra seems to have forgotten herself, is shouting, “Faster, faster!” The tide of music carries them forward. Aleys leans in, wanting. Within her, something bursts like a cloud of tears.
Then the tune ends and the girls collapse to the benches, breathing hard, and Aleys is left to gather herself alone. She clutches her hands together, to keep herself from joining the beguines. Now she will leave. As she reaches the door, she catches Katrijn’s triumphant look. Katrijn be damned, Aleys thinks, I will not be made witness to unholy rites. As her fingers touch the handle, she hears the harp’s flourish, and she turns. Like Lot’s wife, already tasting salt on her tongue, she turns back.
Ida has stood. With her cheeks flushed from dancing and her hair smooth down her back, Ida is beautiful. She opens her mouth and from her comes the purest sound Aleys has ever heard.
“Look!” Ida sings, and her summons fills the chapel, rises to the rafters. Ida the silent is become a herald, alighted in their midst. The women look above them, as if Ida’s voice has lifted the roof and they see heavens above. Aleys pauses, her hand glued to the latch. She cannot bring herself to open the door. Somehow the precious sound must be contained in the church. She must not let it escape. When the note fades, a hush descends upon the women, like snow falling to field.
Ida sings again: “The winter is past. The rain is over and gone.”
The notes shiver delicately from her lips, dancing through the air of the nave. You can practically see the song of Ida. The voice makes you want to hold the girl, you want to shelter her. The voices of the beguines swell in chorus.
“Come, O sisters of Jerusalem!” they sing in response.
Then Cecilia rises across from Ida, folds her hands over her breast, and sings.
“Blossoms appear in the land, the time of the songbird has arrived.”
Their eyes meet across the space as their voices merge, the light meeting dark, diving and soaring. Aleys lifts her head to listen. It is so achingly beautiful. The words and the notes weave a nest, complex and particular, twig and grass and feather, a home in the heart of the music, and she is held fast by their song.Oh, Mama, she thinks,this is the melody you sought.
“The cooing of the dove is heard in our land.”
“The green figs open.”
“The grapevines bloom and yield their sweet fragrance.”
The voices reach for each other, interlacing in harmony, yearning and truth entwined and humming through the space. Tears well in Aleys’s eyes. It is as if the sun has risen in the music. She knows these words. They sing in the language of their mothers. She drops her hand and raises her head and sees she is not alone. The cheeks of the most elderly beguine are wet, too. Aleys see that old Agnes is not birdlike, not fearsome, but majestic.
And when the women respond, “Sing, O women of Jerusalem!” and rise to their feet, the thunder of their noise shakes Aleys.
“Come, O sisters!” sings the angel Ida. The women join hands. They are radiant and alive and dancing as Cecilia offers up the last line, and Aleys understands they all yearn as she does. She has been stingy, hoarding her prayer. It is not only between her and God. They are all beloved.
“Arise, my true love, and come with me.”
It’s the Song of Songs, the Canticle of Canticles, so joyful it makes you weep.
She has misunderstood. They all can fly.
17
Friar Lukas
On Sundays, Friar Lukas performs Mass for the beguines. Sophia Vermeulen meets him inside the begijnhof entrance. He’s always liked Sophia, has been glad to see her rise with the begijnhof, now nearly fifty women strong. There are as many beguines in the begijnhof as nuns in most convents. She runs the place with a steady hand. She is the best of her sex, practically a man. It occurs to him that she has more beguines than he has friars. Well, women are more inclined to religion than men. Maybe his Aleys will recruit a hundred women to the Franciscan order. What a tribute to God that would be.
“Magistra.” Lukas bows his head to Sophia and scans the courtyard for Aleys. He will spend some time after Mass to instruct her, perhaps try out a variant of his sermon about the coming end of times. It’s a sunny morning, with buttercups poking through the lawn and children running around. Several beguines are trying to corral them for church. Aleys is not among them.
“How fares my new friar?” he asks Sophia. He means it as a joke.
“Good day, Father.” She nods. “Walk with me?”
He falls in beside her. As Sophia speaks, he continues to look for Aleys. Perhaps she’s already in the church, praying. Perhaps she’s at her prie-dieu, with that little psalter of hers. Good. They will see her exemplary devotion.
