Village Squire, 1977-01, Page 13decision. He raged against the decision and the time and the
world that made this decision necessary.
Leo's piping voice broke the silence and his father was glad
of it.
"Do ycu remember it?" the boy said to Bas.
"Remember what?" Bas' shy, open face was startled, as if
he had been caught suddenly out of some reverie.
"The wedding mass."
"Oh, that," Bas said as his hands moved on. "Yes."
"Sing it for us." the boy said, and immediately Piet and
Kees joined in. insisting, in the middle of their clamour
glancing at their father to see if he was objecting. He
pretended not to hear and while he kept the pretence up they
kept on pestering, till Bas too was looking at their father to
see if there were any lines of objection in that forehead.
"Come on Bas. sing it."
"Come on."
He looked at them while he hesitated, while his hands kept
moving. The plants went into the ground one by one and he
looked once more at the father to see if that continuing silence
could be interpreted as assent. Then he agreed, shrugging his
shoulders. They kept silence with him a few minutes more,
while he called all the parts of the music out of his memory
and gathered them together. In the pause the wind on the
water seemed to come stronger. the gathering clouds to gain
heaviness. Then the boy's singing broke that still plate of the
rising sound of wind and filled the cup of the air with his
voice. He sang first the Kyrie, his high, clear voice piercing
the blend of sky, earth and water around them, and the long
low sadness of repentance sounded like a knell at the end of
every line. As the tolling church bell had been like water in
the air, his singing was like wine, the cup of air was half full
. as they worked on and hands moved under bent backs and
bowed shoulders. Then he sang all the parts of the mass they
knew well, and after that all the parts only the priest might
have reason to remember, singing from Gloria to Credo to
Introit, to Collect to Gradual. The boys and their father were
silent while he sang, listening to the single voice in Latin
moving high above the water and lonely in the grey cold wind
above the tossing green of trees under the darkening sky ...
Uxor tua sicut abundans in lateribus dominus tuae.
"That's the priests part," Bas said, going on to sing the
rest of it without translating. Capel remembered it, vaguely:
Pater Ferdinand, years younger, explaining to he and his
young bride the meaning of the ancient songs, and he
remembered because this one especially had been like his
peaceful hopes, the little he asked for. and the feeling that
God understood what a man wanted and needed in life had
come upon him then. It was this that was a reward and a
blessing, "Your wife like a fruitful vine in the heart of your
house," and this, the boy was singing while another foolish
young couple was walking hopefully down an aisle to pledge
their faith and join two hopes together:
Filii tui sicut novilae olivarum in circuitu mensae tuae ....
"Your sons like the shoots of the olive around your table ...."
He looked at his boys. seeing the others too, who sat around
his table. They worked their way up and down the paths they
had laid out, leaving the thin and wavering rows of young frail
growth behind them. Bas went on singing, and in silence they
listened while their hands went in and out of the earth. ...et
videas filios filiorum tuorum: pax super Israel.
And your children's children. The father heard that echo,
pax super Israel, vrede over Israel, on Israel, peace. Then the
bells were ringing again, this time into a wind that carried the
sound away and over the water of the plan so that the people
in Venlo and Zuidplas would also be looking up from their
work and wondering about the ringing bells. Bas was finished
the music and the mass was over, the bells stopped.
They were cold now from the cold wind. Each of them in the
stillness of the ended ringing tried to picture the departure of
the bridal couple in their carriage, to where? Somewhere.
There could be no party tonight, because of the curfew;
perhaps a piece of cake in their parents' house, and a cup of
real coffee, and then they would go home, to whatever
precious home they had found.
For a moment the sun showed its face far in the western
aeea
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Village quIre/January 1977 11