The Martyr's Curse Read Online Free PDF Page B

homes, from schools, from cars, so as to extort ransom from their families. He wondered where they all were now. Getting on with their lives, he supposed. He wondered if they too were haunted by old memories.
    ‘Saving the lives of the innocent is not something of which you should be ashamed,’ Père Antoine said.
    ‘Yes, I saved people. But to save them, sometimes unpleasant things had to be done.’
    ‘Violence?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Killing?’
    Ben shrugged. He nodded. He glanced down as he did it. It was the first time in his life he hadn’t been able to look another man in the eye.
    ‘I did what I had to do to resolve the situation. Or that was how it seemed to me at the time. Perhaps there might have been another way.’
    ‘Perhaps. Or perhaps this was the duty that God set in your path. He has many purposes for men of courage and integrity.’
    Ben smiled darkly. ‘Next you’ll be telling me that He moves in mysterious ways.’
    Père Antoine was silent for a long time, reflecting. ‘We have talked about the past. Now let us talk about the future. You have been here long enough to have seen a little of our life. The institutional framework by which we live is somewhat rigid, some might say uncompromising.’
    ‘Believe me, Father, I’ve been used to that.’
    ‘Very well. Then consider our vocation to solitude. It requires a strong will and a balanced judgement. It is not for everyone.’
    ‘I love this place,’ Ben said. ‘I feel at peace here.’
    ‘Because of what you have found here, or because of what you believe you have run away from?’
    Ben didn’t reply.
    The old man smiled. ‘You may wish to dwell a little longer on that question. And ask yourself how truly you would be suited to life here. It takes time to adapt to it, learning to still the mind, quiet the senses and calm the spirit. It is a purely contemplative life, leaving behind all that we have known previously. He who remains in the Charterhouse has felt in the very centre of his soul a call so profound that no words can truly describe it. It is the revelation of the Absolute. But even this is only the beginning of a quest to which one’s entire life, in all its aspects and for however long we may continue in this world, shall be utterly devoted. We seek only God. We live only for God, to whom we surrender body and soul. “You have seduced me, Lord, and I let myself be seduced.”’
    ‘ Jeremiah , chapter twenty, verse seven,’ Ben said. He hadn’t forgotten everything from his past theology studies, even though they’d been scattered across the course of twenty-odd years – a dismal stop-start pattern of failure and indecision. There’d been times in his life when he’d wanted nothing more than to enter the Church, convinced that was the only way he’d find the peace of mind he needed so much. At other times that notion had seemed ridiculous, a crazy and irrelevant pipe dream. In any case, life had always got in the way of his plans and he’d found himself being dragged around the world instead, with people endlessly trying to shoot him, stab him, or blow him up. Routine stuff. You almost got used to it eventually.
    If the monk was impressed by Ben’s knowledge of the Bible, he didn’t say or do anything to show it. He went on, ‘Therefore we cast ourselves into the abyss, and cut ourselves off from all that is not God. For our new life to begin, first there must be a kind of death. The death of our old selves.’ He paused, and those glowing eyes seemed to bore into Ben. ‘Are you ready for that, Benoît?’
    ‘I’ve faced death often enough,’ Ben said. ‘And wished I could leave my old self behind somehow.’
    ‘It is the reason you tried to lose yourself in wine.’
    ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Ben said.
    ‘Can you live without it? The drink?’ For a moment, the monk’s eyes were as sharp as the directness of his question.
    Ben paused before he replied. ‘I won’t lie to you, Father. It isn’t