TCOTNK Season 3.4

The Castle Of The Naked Knights. The origins of the picture book that will change so many lives....

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December 1st

Late autumn is not the best time for a bike ride. The wind is cutting cold. I don't have gloves. The region is open and barren. Sloping. I toil. My fingers are numb. My legs burn. The wind gets on my nerves like a fussy child. The fight for warmth exhausts me. The occasional car that passes by indignantly washes over me. The road is already so narrow. Why are you cycling here while everyone would rather be at home? My inner self is gloating. Every gust of headwind gives rise to fresh reproaches from the little voice. It's hard not to listen to it. The smug know-it-all sits with his fat ass on the luggage rack.

I greet the wind and try to feel its pleasure. My cape flaps. It sings in the leaves. The crowns sway and dance. The light is so beautiful. I am the only spectator at this performance. I am rewarded with exuberant rain. It does its utmost to let me share in its power. Even my bottom gets wet.

It's a monastery. The doorbell doesn't seem to be working. Yet the oak door opens. An old lady. She giggles and closes the door again. I blink my clammy eyes and try to keep the pelting rain from under my hood. The cloud cover makes it dark early. Ring the bell again? Is there another option?

The wide door opens again. Another woman. Even older. She points to the left. Where the wind is fighting with a bunch of cypress trees. The door has closed again when I have temporarily won the battle with my rain cape. The violence around me becomes less cheerful. Branches and acorns touch the facade and me. Trying to break the small high windows with vicious shots. I turn the bike. Walk curved along the wall. The howling expresses indignation. Masonry is not liked by this wind; it doesn't move. Wind wants to move. Animate. The building merges into a high garden wall behind which balding oak trees stand together, waving indifferently. The iron gate is open. I walk into the sheltered yard. An outdoor lamp reveals the back door.

It is colder inside than outside. Both ladies are pleased to see me and start undressing me. The oldest old one is attentively present. The other is happy and simple. The towels smell heavily of lavender.

A third comes from the other side with an umbrella. She brushes past me in solemn silence and goes outside. Bicycle, the eldest elderly gestures. With an, Oh, I pretend to understand. She puts an index finger to her lips. And makes a spoon gesture. Food? She looks kindly and expectantly. I look down at my dripping shoes mudding the polished marble floor. My pants are soaked to the crotch.

They leave me behind. Each in one direction. Should I join? Or will they get something for me? A fourth comes out of the dark hallway with my things. Apparently my bicycle has been discharged and my gear brought in. She’s holding my own dry clothes and waits. Undisguised curiosity as I peel off my stiff pants. Her cold eyes follow my towel’s every rub. Only when she is sure my shivering flesh is sufficiently dry she hands me my undies and the woollen trousers. It may be too late to ever get warm again. My muscles twitch uncontrollably. I put on socks while sitting on the cold floor. That's less interesting because four also disappears in the direction of the simple old.

The storm outside is audible in the tapping of the windows and a polyphonic whooshing sound. Furthermore, it is very quiet. An unpleasant timelessness. But it's dry. There are hooks along the wall on which I hang my wet clothes to dry.

Down the hall. Around the corner. The door in an alcove is slightly ajar. Two long tables. At least thirty soup-eating nuns stare at me. The oldest old one is standing by the pan. She waits. On me? There is a white bowl. A dull spoon next to it. When I hold the bowl up she ladles vegetable soup into it. Steaming lovage with onions, carrots and celery. I groan and say thank you.

The wave of startled antennae ripples the plastered walls. I remind myself not to speak when I take a seat on the chair at the end of the left table. The soup beckons but it is so quiet. I am forced to eat slowly. To endure without a sound the delight of late soup in a numb and exhausted body.

More and more women put down their spoons and look furtively at me. Until I'm the only one eating. They wait until I'm done. The tension in my chest makes noises I have no control over. There's a chuckle as I put the bowl to my mouth in a bold flouting of the supposed rules. Oh, it's so delicious.

I put my spoon down next to the empty bowl and the noise of sliding chairs, rustling clothes and clinking dishes erupts. A door swings open and the next course slides in. They are not vegetarians. The chicken in the soup was a harbinger.

Eating becomes an inner experience in shared silence. Sleep tries to creep in after the dessert of merengue and vanilla sauce. Yawning continuously until the eldest old one puts down her coffee and grabs me by the arm.

The cell was simple and cold. The bed hard and warm. I slept like a child.

Until the dream woke me up.

Or the screaming outside.

I don't know which came first.

I sit up. An altercation takes place in a hollow-sounding courtyard. Shrill-sounding female voices. A dialect I don't understand. The morning is already well underway.

Wearing nothing but my undies I sneak to the veiled high window. My bicycle lies in the gravel. The trailer has been pulled on its side and its contents are scattered across the courtyard. Two women are trying to collect my drawings and things and a third is busy undoing that. Whatever wasn't already in the puddles helps them out. She pulls on my 'research'dress. So hard that I fear it will tear. The oldest old one stands there and looks at it.

The window of my sleeping cell can be opened. Even though it's been a long time. And in two seconds I am standing at the small piece of venom. Not that I'm angry, but you can't touch my drawings. No matter how holy your fingers are. I hit her full in the face.

It becomes very quiet while, with tearful eyes, I fish a limp illustration of Pierre dancing by the barrel out of last night's blue reflective rain.

My look of angry pain that I send to the pale eldest old one hurts. I can see that. I see the entire group reflected in her eyes. She's afraid of me. And I think of Yuna. And all I'm running away from. What I want to leave behind. Even inwardly focused people cannot come with, feel fear for me.

The next second I am again aware of my too small panties and too large hard nippled breasts. In the morning my hair is a thundercloud of apocalyptic proportions and my skin has that pink polished undertone. Especially in the morning sun. The twenty-seven other nuns are standing in front of the windows, devoutly enjoying themselves.

Until mother intervenes. With a voice like a crow. The scene dissolves.

The little religiously indignant one runs away whining like a child. I want to put my bicycle upright, but I am sent back into my window with a vice grip. A few helping hands continue to place my watered-down oeuvre side to side on the stone rose benches on the sunny half of the courtyard.

My clothes from yesterday are thrown behind the door as I sit on the bed shaking.

Back with the dream I had woken up from. Just before I would have jumped first into a ravine where a great fire waited in the depths.

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