Chapter 3
E VERY AFTERNOON AT four, after the last of his classes and before the first of his chores, he had a free period of an hour, but on Wednesdays, he was given two hours.
Once, he had spent those afternoons reading or exploring the grounds, but recently, ever since Brother Luke had told him he could, he had spent them all at the greenhouse.
If Luke was there, he would help the brother water the plants, memorizing their names— Miltonia spectabilis, Alocasia amazonica, Asystasia gangetica —so he could repeat them back to the brother and be praised.
“I think the Heliconia vellerigera’ s grown,” he’d say, petting its furred bracts, and Brother Luke would look at him and shake his head.
“Unbelievable,” he’d say. “My goodness, what a great memory you have,” and he’d smile to himself, proud to have impressed the brother.
If Brother Luke wasn’t there, he instead passed the time playing with his things.
The brother had shown him how if he moved aside a stack of plastic planters in the far corner of the room, there was a small grate, and if you removed the grate, there was a small hole beneath, big enough to hold a plastic garbage bag of his possessions.
So he had unearthed his twigs and stones from under the tree and moved his haul to the greenhouse, where it was warm and humid, and where he could examine his objects without losing feeling in his hands.
Over the months, Luke had added to his collection: he gave him a wafer of sea glass that the brother said was the color of his eyes, and a metal whistle that had a round little ball within it that jangled like a bell when you shook it, and a small cloth doll of a man wearing a woolen burgundy top and a belt trimmed with tiny turquoise-colored beads that the brother said had been made by a Navajo Indian, and had been his when he was a boy.
Two months ago, he had opened his bag and discovered that Luke had left him a candy cane, and although it had been February, he had been thrilled: he had always wanted to taste a candy cane, and he broke it into sections, sucking each into a spear point before biting down on it, gnashing the sugar into his molars.
The brother had told him that the next day he had to make sure to come right away, as soon as classes ended, because he had a surprise for him.
All day he had been antsy and distracted, and although two of the brothers had hit him—Michael, across the face; Peter, across the backside—he had barely noticed.
Only Brother David’s warning, that he would be made to do extra chores instead of having his free hours if he didn’t start concentrating, made him focus, and somehow, he finished the day.
As soon as he was outside, out of view of the monastery building, he ran.
It was spring, and he couldn’t help but feel happy: he loved the cherry trees, with their froth of pink blossoms, and the tulips, their glossed, improbable colors, and the new grass, soft and tender beneath him.
Sometimes, when he was alone, he would take the Navajo doll and a twig he had found that was shaped like a person outside and sit on the grass and play with them.
He made up voices for them both, whispering to himself, because Brother Michael had said that boys didn’t play with dolls, and that he was getting too old to play, anyway.
He wondered if Brother Luke was watching him run.
One Wednesday, Brother Luke had said, “I saw you running up here today,” and as he was opening his mouth to apologize, the brother had continued, “Boy, what a great runner you are! You’re so fast!
” and he had been literally speechless, until the brother, laughing, told him he should close his mouth.
When he stepped inside the greenhouse, there was no one there. “Hello?” he called out. “Brother Luke?”
“In here,” he heard, and he turned toward the little room that was appended to the greenhouse, the one stocked with the supplies of fertilizer and bottles of ionized water and a hanging rack of clippers and shears and gardening scissors and the floor stacked with bags of mulch.
He liked this room, with its woodsy, mossy smell, and he went toward it eagerly and knocked.
When he walked in, he was at first disoriented. The room was dark and still, but for a small flame that Brother Luke was bent over on the floor. “Come closer,” said the brother, and he did.
“Closer,” the brother said, and laughed. “Jude, it’s okay.”
So he went closer, and the brother held something up and said “Surprise!” and he saw it was a muffin, a muffin with a lit wooden match thrust into its center.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s your birthday, right?” asked the brother. “And this is your birthday cake. Go on, make a wish; blow out the candle.”
“It’s for me?” he asked, as the flame guttered.
“Yes, it’s for you,” said the brother. “Hurry, make a wish.”
He had never had a birthday cake before, but he had read about them and he knew what to do. He shut his eyes and wished, and then opened them and blew out the match, and the room went completely dark.
“Congratulations,” Luke said, and turned on the light.
He handed him the muffin, and when he tried to offer the brother some of it, Luke shook his head: “It’s yours.
” He ate the muffin, which had little blueberries and which he thought was the best thing he had ever tasted, so sweet and cakey, and the brother watched him and smiled.
“And I have something else for you,” said Luke, and reached behind him, and handed him a package, a large flat box wrapped in newspaper and tied with string.
“Go on, open it,” Luke said, and he did, removing the newspaper carefully so it could be reused.
The box was plain faded cardboard, and when he opened it, he found it contained an assortment of round pieces of wood.
Each piece was notched on both ends, and Brother Luke showed him how the pieces could be slotted within one another to build boxes, and then how he could lay twigs across the top to make a sort of roof.
Many years later, when he was in college, he would see a box of these logs in the window of a toy store, and would realize that his gift had been missing parts: a red-peaked triangular structure to build a roof, and the flat green planks that lay across it.
But in the moment, it had left him mute with joy, until he had remembered his manners and thanked the brother again and again.
“You’re welcome,” said Luke. “After all, you don’t turn eight every day, do you?”
“No,” he admitted, smiling wildly at the gift, and for the rest of his free period, he had built houses and boxes with the pieces while Brother Luke watched him, sometimes reaching over to tuck his hair behind his ears.
He spent every minute he could with the brother in the greenhouse.
With Luke, he was a different person. To the other brothers, he was a burden, a collection of problems and deficiencies, and every day brought a new detailing of what was wrong with him: he was too dreamy, too emotional, too energetic, too fanciful, too curious, too impatient, too skinny, too playful.
He should be more grateful, more graceful, more controlled, more respectful, more patient, more dexterous, more disciplined, more reverent.
But to Brother Luke, he was smart, he was quick, he was clever, he was lively.
Brother Luke never told him he asked too many questions, or told him that there were certain things he would have to wait to know until he grew up.
The first time Brother Luke tickled him, he had gasped and then laughed, uncontrollably, and Brother Luke had laughed with him, the two of them tussling on the floor beneath the orchids.
“You have such a lovely laugh,” Brother Luke said, and “What a great smile you have, Jude,” and “What a joyful person you are,” until it was as if the greenhouse was someplace bewitched, somewhere that transformed him into the boy Brother Luke saw, someone funny and bright, someone people wanted to be around, someone better and different than he actually was.
When things were bad with the other brothers, he imagined himself in the greenhouse, playing with his things or talking to Brother Luke, and repeated back to himself the things Brother Luke said to him.
Sometimes things were so bad he wasn’t able to go to dinner, but the next day, he would always find something in his room that Brother Luke had left him: a flower, or a red leaf, or a particularly bulbous acorn, which he had begun collecting and storing under the grate.
The other brothers had noticed he was spending all his time with Brother Luke and, he sensed, disapproved.
“Be careful around Luke,” warned Brother Pavel of all people, Brother Pavel who hit him and yelled at him.
“He’s not who you think he is.” But he ignored him.
They were none of them who they said they were.
One day he went to the greenhouse late. It had been a very hard week; he had been beaten very badly; it hurt him to walk.
He had been visited by both Father Gabriel and Brother Matthew the previous evening, and every muscle hurt.
It was a Friday; Brother Michael had unexpectedly released him early that day, and he had thought he might go play with his logs.
As he always did after those sessions, he wanted to be alone—he wanted to sit in that warm space with his toys and pretend he was far away.