It was her own breathing she was hearing, the contrast of cold wind on her face and her hot body breaking into sweat. She was no longer watching the time, measuring how long she had been running. It was as if she had broken through a barrier, leapt over a hurdle and entered another zone where she had extra strength and a longer wind. She opened her mouth and let the air touch her dry tongue. Sweat dropped into her eyes, the salt stinging and blurring her vision. She blinked and nearly tripped over the raised roots of a yew. When she collected herself and again broke into a run, she couldn’t make him out any more. Did he go left towards the water or did he head towards the monastery? She wasn’t sure. The uncertainty made her slow down. And when she slowed down, she came to her senses. It was like surfacing from cloudy water to normal air and breath. What made her do this, run after a total stranger, chasing a man and most likely giving him the wrong impression? Her behaviour embarrassed her. Usually she was reserved, not prone to silliness. Did she think he was Amir? But how would Amir be here. Holiday silliness. Daytime fantasies. She was suddenly conscious of how thirsty she was. She had forgotten to bring her water bottle, but she found a few coins in the zipped-up pocket of her jogging pants. Instead of walking further to look at the boathouse, she took the path that led to the monastery.
The monastery had been converted into luxury holiday flats. A placard said that up until 1983 one of the wings had been a boarding school for boys. The monks taught in the school and tended their vegetable garden and fished. With time, the number of priests dropped, the school shut down and hundreds of years of dedicated worship came to an end. Salma walked past a cemetery where the priests were buried. She tried to imagine their daily life: worship, work, fasting, fishing. It was a way of living that her own religion condemned. Instead men should love women, have children, beat the dusty track of work, profit and loss. It was an indulgence to give all that up, ungrateful to disdain the messiness and hide in this beautiful spot. They called it austerity and sacrifice, but she wasn’t fooled.
Gothic architecture, long stained-glass windows, even a gargoyle. She stepped into the cloister. Tranquil deep purple and a sudden coolness so that she shivered in her sweat-soaked clothes. She had read about the converted monastery online and expected to find a café where she could get a bottle of water and maybe a coffee. The stone walls made the atmosphere solemn, arches after arches. But there were people around. A man and his daughter played ping-pong on a table placed under the columns. Salma wandered around and read the signs. The chapel pool. The church atrium ideal for weddings and concerts. What she knew about Christianity she had learnt from the Qur’an. Sometimes David explained things, or Norma, his mother, would answer one of her questions. Norma usually went to church on Christmas Eve but not every Sunday. When David converted to Islam, she neither opposed nor joined him, but it seemed to have dented her confidence in some way. That was how she came across to Salma, at any rate, as if she was not confident in her religious beliefs. Her answers to Salma’s questions were often tentative. Words like ‘scriptorium’ and ‘sacristy’ meant nothing to Salma. She walked through the arches until she reached a grand staircase. Upstairs presumably would be the flats.
She was searching for drinking water and coffee, but she found something else. On the door it said Monks’ Refectory. She pushed open the door. A big wide space, wood panelling along all the walls, red paint all the way up to the high ceiling, stained-glass windows. When the door closed behind her, she saw a sign with information about the room. Here was where the monks had their meals. This had been their dining room. A pulpit protruded from one end of the room. There, during mealtimes, one of the monks would stand and read from the Holy Scripture. The room was now a comfortable lounge, furnished in tartan with a billiards table and armchairs. There was no one using it, but Salma felt a thickening in the air. It almost had a colour and a visibility. It almost had a hum. It was as if the monk standing at the pulpit and reading had left an imprint. As if the words spoken over the blessing of food had magnified in power. A moment of true sincerity had done this. Maybe the young monk had been hungry, smelling food he could not eat, at least not yet. But he believed what he was doing was necessary, to bless the food, to give thanks. And now, long after the monks had gone and their lifestyle with them, this spirituality lingered and refreshed. A thickening, that’s how she would describe
