A re-telling of the true 12th century love story of Heloise and Abelard. Abelard is a great philosopher and theologian who has taken, like many academics of the time, a vow of celibacy. When he is hired as a tutor for the brilliant and beautiful Hel...
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There is one night I stay awake, my desk lit only by one dim candle. I am scribbling furiously into my books, my quill dipping in the vile of ink again and again. I did not have much time during the day to write, in between all my teaching, maintenance work, and checking in with the nuns under my care – sometimes meeting with them one-on-one in endless blocks of time, hearing all their concerns from the quotidian to the theological. Everything I did for myself – all these texts I was working on – were pushed into the small hours of each night once my duties subsided.
But this one night, a figure appeared at my doorstep. His head was bowed. I did not need to look up. I knew from the very sound of his footsteps that it was Abelard.
"Abbess?" the shadow spoke.
I had seen him about the monastery these few weeks. But always, when he passed me, it was a cool indifference that set over his face. I did not know anymore what was just a show, so that others would not know our secret, and what was genuine. We had been working on renovations around the Paraclete each afternoon, and we would pass each other countless times, moving about the cloister grounds to gather this, move that, and fix things here and there... We spoke of nothing but the weather. We spoke in nothing deeper than the flat tones of "Hello, dear Sister" and "Hello, dear Brother." Formal, pious, distanced.
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"I am busy," I say, flattening my tone. I continue threading lines through my page, but I am aware that my attention is elsewhere. My peripheral vision is drawn to his figure, and I can focus on nothing else.
"Heloise," he commands, and my eyes snap up to meet him.
He is hunched and his eyes are damp and he looks more aged than ever. Perhaps it is pity that softens me. He takes my silence – my frozen state, pen still extended mid-letter – as an invitation to step into the dark shadows of my stone-walled room.
"Yes, Abbot?" I parrot his tone.
He shifts in his skin. He is hesitant. He looks frail – as if, beneath the sagging brown robes slung over him, he is nothing but bone. "I wanted to say I am sorry."
