Before Ever After (19 page)

“I’ve had a few girlfriends. Why?”

“Did you ever imagine spending your life with any of them?”

He shifted in his seat. “Um, to be honest, I’m not sure if I’m built for that kind of commitment.”

“That’s another thing you have in common with Max, then.”

Paolo frowned. “Huh? What do you mean? Max married you …”

Shelley pulled off her wedding ring, revealing the pale band of skin where the ring had embraced her every second of the last five years. She handed it to Paolo. “Look at the inscription.”

“ ‘Now,’ ” Paolo read out loud.

“Most people promise each other forever when they get married. Max and I promised each other ‘Now.’ ”

“Why?”

“Because it’s breakable,” she said, “and the only thing you can really hold in your hands. It’s where the gnomon’s shadow falls on the sundial. Back then, I thought that it was romantic.”

“And now?”

“Now I realize that it was the only promise Max could make.”

T
he group convened early the next morning outside the monastery’s library. Shelley rubbed her eyes. She had found it difficult to sleep after Max had left her room, and when she did, she dreamed of sand slipping through her fingers. Breakfast had been a supreme struggle to keep from
taking a nosedive into her muesli. A black-cloaked monk unlocked the library’s door.

Ginger steeped with cloves. She caught its scent in the spiciness of the weathered leather-bound pages that surrounded her. The smell reminded her of her father’s evening ritual up until the time he needed to use a feeding tube. Her mother continued to brew it for him just the same. And when he had gone, she still set a cup on his bedside table. Shelley remembered watching and breathing in the fragrant and frail wisps of steam rising from it. That was the only time she allowed herself to miss her dad. Her mother mourned him enough for the two of them. She didn’t think their house could hold any more grief. She was glad to get away. She scanned the library, desperate to remind herself of how far she was from home.

Shelley tilted her head upward to take in the bookshelves that reached as high as the rows of white columns along the library’s two-story-high marble hall.

“This, campers,” Max said, “is where we will find the elusive secret of growing old.”

“Not as elusive as I would like,” Jonathan said. “It seems to have found me quite easily.”

Max smiled. “I stand corrected. You are quite right, Jonathan. Growing old is arguably neither a secret nor elusive. What we are here to discover is not the secret for aging but for escaping youth.”

“I’m not sure that’s something I want to find,” Dex said.

He smiled, but the stiffness in his tone told Shelley that he was genuinely less than thrilled about Max’s next story. She could understand why. She wasn’t a big fan of aging herself.

Since she’d left Ohio, she felt she had been playing catch-up with life. She thought that life in London would be different from the one she had left. She would be different. Living with her mom had been like living in a vacuum-sealed time capsule. Every cup, saucer, and vase had stayed in the exact same place ever since her father died. In London, Shelley was determined to do the opposite—to move, to breathe, to rearrange furniture. Living in a shoe box that only contained a futon, a microwave, and
an old couch she had found in the street proved to be somewhat of a design challenge. She made do by moving around cushions and plastic plants—anything to make her believe that she wasn’t stuck. She was done with a life that alternated between the pause and rewind buttons.

Max pulled out one of the books from the shelf. He handed it to Jonathan. “This is only a reproduction, of course. The original is kept in the archive because it’s now too fragile to handle.”

Jonathan opened the book, revealing its illuminated pages. “It looks like a prayer book.”

“It is. It’s a book of hours. It contains the monk’s daily prayers,” Max said. “Please turn to the last page.”

“It’s in Latin,” Jonathan said. “Is this another prayer?”

“It’s an exact copy of the original’s explicit, a personal message a scribe would write after he had completed a book,” Max said.

“Was this written by Isabelle’s ancestor?” Dex asked. “What does it say?”

“It was written by one of the novices under him. It is the secret we have come to discover,” Max said.

“Well, come on,” Shelley demanded, her voice tense. “Tell us what it says.”

“What’s the rush?” Max took the book back from Jonathan and stuffed it into his backpack. “It’s such a lovely day I thought we might do a little shopping first.”

“I don’t think the monks will be too thrilled with that.” Simon eyed the book peeping out of the flap of Max’s bag.

“Shopping?” Max asked. “Why would they object to that?”

“I was referring to the book you are about to steal,” Simon said.

“Don’t be silly, I’m just borrowing it for the day,” Max said. “I just haven’t told the monks yet.”

“But …” Simon said.

“Oh, will you relax, Simon? I’m sure Max will return it when we’re done,” Brad snapped. He turned to Max with a conspiratorial grin. “Now, Max, what were you saying about shopping?”

• • •

The air buzzed with sounds and smells spilling over from the striped canopies of the Naschmarkt, Vienna’s oldest and largest outdoor market. The fresh scent of organic produce was as crisp as the thrill of finding a good deal. Shelley breathed in the bustle.

“Let’s meet back here in half an hour, campers. Here are your lists and shopping money.” Max handed out little sheets of paper and euros. “Rose, you and Jonathan are in charge of the vegetables, herbs, and spices. Simon, you and Brad will get the figs and grilled octopus. Dex, your assignment is the cheese and wine. And, Shelley,” he said, “you’re getting some old cock.”

“But I thought Jonathan was coming with me?” Rose winked.

“I do hope you are referring to another Austrian misnomer, Max,” Shelley said.

“I suppose you’ll just have to wait and see.”

The heady scent of Eastern delicacies mingled with the warm aroma of freshly baked artisan bread. Shelley walked through the market’s endless lanes, finding it impossible to decide which stall carried the freshest, ripest of, well, anything, really.

Max took a strawberry from a vendor whose cheeks were as plump and red as the fruit she sold. He offered Shelley a bite.

The sweet pulp gushed in her mouth. “Hphmhfly.”

“I didn’t quite catch that, luv.”

She swallowed. “Heavenly.”

“We’ll take one basket,” Max said to the vendor.

Shelley took another bite.

“Er, make that two,” Max said.

Shelley held on to Max as they wove through the crowds. She was certain they had nibbled through at least a half pound of free cheese, olives, and sausage samples before Max found the stall he was looking for.

“Here we are,” he said.

Shelley read the sign on the small store’s orange canopy. “Zum Gockelhahn.”

“They have the best poultry this side of the Rhine.” Max walked over to the refrigerated glass cabinet at the front of the store.

Three ostrich eggs dwarfed the spotted quail eggs on the cabinet’s top shelf. The second shelf held a spread of packaged whole turkeys and goose pâté. Shelley wondered what he was planning to purchase. There was no cock, old or otherwise, in sight.

Max spoke in German to the barrel-chested man behind the counter. The large man disappeared into the back of the store and then reappeared with a football-size package wrapped in brown paper. Max weighed the package in his hand, smiled, and paid the man.

“So is this the mysterious ‘old cock’?” she asked.

“Hardly anything mysterious about an unwanted rooster past his prime, luv.”

Shelley grimaced. “Sounds delicious.”

“I find that in certain instances, older is better,” Max said. “And so did Isabelle’s distant uncle, Abbot Thomas.”

The group unwrapped their treasures on the counter of the monastery’s kitchen. Max laid the book he had taken from the library next to them, then opened it to the page containing the explicit.

“I’m feeling slightly sick imagining a dish that would call for a geriatric rooster, dried figs, and a grilled octopus,” Brad said.

“Me, too,” Max said. “It’s a good thing the octopus and the figs will be long gone before the rooster’s done.” He put the figs into a bowl and passed it around. “Here. Something to munch on while we cook.” He slid the octopus onto the platter. “And this is for lunch later.”

“And the rooster?” Rose picked a fig from the bowl.

Max placed the rooster on the chopping block. He raised the butcher’s knife over it. “It’s getting ready for a hot bath.”

T
he hen’s head fell into the basket on top of a growing pile of the day’s discards. The wet smell rising from the refuse wrestled with the stench of burned chicken feathers. Brother Aidan picked up the hen’s limp body from the bloodied chopping block and dropped it into his cast-iron pot. “Make soup, he says.”

Abbot Thomas’s instructions had left the younger monk feeling more than slightly frustrated. He had gone to the abbot with a serious question, and all that he had received from his superior were two words.
Make soup
. Technically, the old abbot had used four words, the younger monk conceded.
Make soup. Use chicken
.

But the request for chicken soup was not what irked him. He had learned well enough to follow orders in his two years at the monastery. What irritated him was the fact that he had already cooked the broth four times this week, and each time it had been met with the same response. He could already picture what would happen next when he brought Abbot Thomas his dinner in the infirmary.

First he would help the elderly abbot sit up in his straw-filled bed. Once he was comfortably upright, the abbot would smile and ask him if
he still wanted to know the answer to his question. “Yes, Abbot,” he would reply, though less eagerly than the first time he had asked it. “I would like to know what it feels like to grow old.”

“Did you make the soup?” the abbot would say. “Yes,” he would respond, “with chicken.” He would then give the abbot a spoonful of the hot broth. Abbot Thomas would close his eyes and sip the soup slowly. When his spoon was empty, the abbot would lean back on his bed. A gentle curve would form on his thin lips, communicating his disappointment in the kindest, and most excruciating, way possible. Brother Aidan had grown to dread that smile. The abbot would finish the rest of the soup and thank him. “And the answer to my question, Abbot Thomas?” he would ask, still daring to hope that the old man might finally give him a proper response. “Make soup. Use chicken,” the abbot would say and then bid him good night.

Brother Aidan could not understand what was wrong with his soup. He had been, up till then, fairly confident in his culinary skills. None of the other monks, pilgrims, or passing crusaders had ever complained about his cooking. He had tried another variation of vegetables and herbs for this latest attempt, but he knew that he would soon run out of ideas on how to prepare the soup to the abbot’s liking.

Brother Aidan found this barter of soup for knowledge quite odd but was still convinced that the abbot’s answer to his question would be worth it—even if it meant emptying out the monastery’s henhouse. To reach the abbot’s advanced age these days was a rarity that fascinated him. Abbot Thomas was the oldest man he had ever met. The younger monk wanted—needed—to know what it was like to be on the abbot’s winter journey … before it ended.

“Good evening, Brother,” Abbot Thomas said when Brother Aidan entered the infirmary. He was propped up in a chair next to the window.

“Good evening, Abbot.” Brother Aidan noticed the faraway look on the old man’s wrinkled face. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes. I was just remembering what the courtyard looked like.”

“Remembering?”