Then he added, “It is Abbot Kuno’s plan to replace the entire wall”—he raised his eyes piously to the sky— “with God’s help.”
Behind his back, my mother rolled her eyes; the help the abbey needed was far more likely to come from novices’ purses than any divine intervention.
In the guesthouse, my mother fastened my golden hair under the veil. “This is a special day for you, my dove,” she said. “From now on your life will be spent in prayer and work. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, mother,” I replied solemnly.
She walked around to face me and pulled a tiny wooden box from the pouch at her belt. “I want you to know that even though you have left your family home, you will never be far from our thoughts.” Her face was serious, her eyes full of sadness.
“And you from mine!” I assured her eagerly, too excited to be sad just yet.
She smiled briefly, but the smile did not reach her eyes. “You are so young, and I fear that as time goes by you may start forgetting.” She paused to control the tremble in her voice, then lifted the box. “That is why I am giving this to you to keep with you always.” She opened the lid to reveal a small lump of salt, smooth and white, but of a whiteness that was almost translucent. It was shaped like a heart, though irregularly so, with one side slightly bigger than the other. “Your father brought this for me from Alzey the year you were born,” she said. “I want you to have it to remind you of home.”
I took the box and examined the gift. “I will always carry it with me,” I said, clasping my fingers around it, then I looked up at my mother’s face, “even when I go to the church.”
She dropped her gaze. “Sweet child, you will not be going to the big church after today.”
“Why not?”
“Because the anchoresses vowed to live in seclusion, and they do not leave the enclosure.”
I frowned. “Does that mean I won’t be able to go into the forest to pick flowers either?”
“I am afraid not. The beauty of the world is not for anchoresses to enjoy.”
I was confused and thought my mother must have been mistaken. Nonetheless, my next words surprised me. “But I am not an anchoress yet; I am only an oblate, so I don’t have to do everything the same way.”
My mother opened her mouth, but no words came out. Afterward, I would sometimes wonder if she was loath to quash my hopes, or if the simple logic of what I had said prevented her from contradicting me. Or maybe it was something else entirely.
She proceeded to secure my veil, and as she did so she said softly, as if to herself, “Let God sort this out, as he ultimately does all things.”
But I could feel her hands trembling.
The oblation ceremony took place during the evening office of vespers, by which time the rain was falling steadily, at times lashing horizontally in the chilly wind. The lay brothers had lit candles in the nave and around the altar, but shadows lingered in the corners and under the low-vaulted ceiling as the monks filed through the door from the cloister and took their seats in the stalls. From the front pew, my family and I listened to their voices soar to the rafters and echo off the walls.
Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc et semper
Et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
After the first reading, a succession of four psalms followed. The music was so sweet and the cadence of the Latin words so mesmerizing that my head began to swim. The blazing candles seemed haloed by scintillating stars that vanished and reappeared amidst the swirls of incense that rose heavily and dissipated into the corners of the church. It was exquisite but also painful, and I had to close my eyes against the brightness. The weightless sensation I had sometimes experienced at Bermersheim returned, and I felt as if I were floating, supported and surrounded by light.
“As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man named Matthew at the tax collector’s booth . . . and He said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he rose and followed,” the abbot’s voice reached me.
The monks intoned another psalm, and I approached the altar and knelt before the abbot, who laid both hands on my head. “We beseech you, Lord God, to look upon your servant Hildegard who embarks on her monastic journey with infinite love; we ask your Son to bestow His blessings, and the Holy Spirit to offer guidance as she labors on the path toward earthly perfection.”
He turned to a novice who held a vessel of holy water and a lighted taper. He handed the candle to me and sprinkled the water on my head to the chant of Magnificat anima mea Dominum.
After the monks filed back to the cloister, the abbot led us to the women’s convent. The rain had stopped, and the wind had died down. The convent’s small windows, lighted by oil lamps, seemed almost welcoming.
The door opened and two anchoresses appeared on the threshold with folded arms. Sisters Adelheid and Juliana were no more than twenty years old and had the reticent air of those unaccustomed to seeing outsiders. Sister Jutta, in keeping with her adherence to the rule of seclusion, did not come out. I studied the women who were to become my companions, their heads covered by gray veils. They gazed back, their expressions serious and steady, though not unfriendly. They wore gray robes of coarse wool without so much as a hemp cord around the waist, and they stood barefoot.
“Holy sisters,” the
