Heaven and Hell by Michael C. Doyle

Author:Michael C. Doyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christianity;Israel;Jerusalem;spirituality;fiction;temptation;spiritual crisis
Publisher: The Conrad Press
Published: 2016-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

16

Cohen arrived at the French monastery to find Father Samuel admonishing Brother Jose for having been discourteous to Sister Maria. ‘You must not speak to the sister like that again,’ said Father Samuel sternly.

Brother Jose had a Mexican temper and Cohen quickly gained the sense that he had a distrust of women, especially in the religious community. He had a dislike of Sister Maria at the monastery. It was self-evident that he was a misogynist. ‘Religious women are all crazy,’ said Brother Jose. ‘They should not be here. This is a monastery; women should be in a convent.’

Cohen was beginning to understand why Brother Jose had not yet taken his vows as a monk. Father Samuel had not asked him to take the vows, for he had doubts whether he would stay in the community. It was not long before the hot-bloodied Mexican lashed out at Cohen. It was over the new Alsatian the monastery had acquired after the old dog was put down. Cohen had taken the Alsatian out for walks, much to the anger of Brother Jose, who felt it his task to train the dog. He spotted Cohen out with the dog, straining at the collar, and was furious.

‘You will not take the dog out again,’ ordered the monk. ‘The animal has to be trained properly,’ he raged. Ripping a twig from a bush, he viciously whacked the dog on the nose, making it cower and whine in pain. ‘That’s how to stop it straining on the leash,’ he shouted.

Cohen knew the Mexicans and Spanish had a reputation for mistreating animals. It was in their blood. He once witnessed bulls killed in a Barcelona bullfight. He’d never forgotten the cruel manner in which they were disposed of and how proud and arrogant the matadors stood in the ring after slaying the bulls, while they had been practically hacked to death by the picadors on horses.

Cohen felt a special bonding with the Alsatian by playing in the woods. He would throw the ball and have the dog return it for another throw. But that was a thing of a past. Now the dog had a new owner.

Brother Jose never spoke to Cohen again, nor Sister Marie. Cohen was given another job at the monastery, helping Father Samuel make wooden crosses, sold to tourists. He was assigned to a workbench next to the priest and had to sandpaper the crosses smooth and varnish them. One afternoon, as Cohen sanded down the crosses, Father Samuel told him that if he was going to stay at the monastery, he would have to learn French. Cohen had practised learning French, but Father Samuel gave up on the idea because of his lack of progress, being English, meant that languages were not his forte.

Father Samuel told him, that before he became a monk he was considering a religious life in his last year of school. ‘When I told the teacher, girls started to cry,’ chuckled the priest. There was no question that he would have broken a girl’s heart by going into the monastery.

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