I have a will to be what I am, and what I will be is only what I am.
THE MYSTERIOUS SCRIPT HAD COME TO THE YOUNGER BROTHER WITH THE modest silver key in an addendum to his mother’s will. Family tradition decreed they should be passed from mother to daughter but, having only sons, she had agonized in her last weeks over what to do with these funny, seemingly valueless objects that had been handed down for generations. As the elder, Alex should perhaps have been the recipient in the absence of a daughter, yet Will was one with her somehow, and though she genuinely loved her boys equally, she kept returning to the feeling that Will was the rightful recipient. The document seemed to say as much.
When Alex had married she had waited for a granddaughter: that would have solved everything. But the impossible demands of a high-pressure job that meant he was rarely at home had brought his marriage sadly to a close, and he had no daughter to show for it. And Will. Well, she knew better than to wait for him to start a family. He was talented, loving, warmhearted, and irascible. Women were inevitably drawn to her younger son, to his tousled good looks and his sheer physicality. Both of her boys were good sportsmen, both played cricket in the village, but Will might have played for the county if he’d chosen. A dangerous middle-order batsman, he square cut fours and hoisted sixes in an ungainly but effective manner; and bowling to the other team’s tail he was adept at the art of reverse swing, laughing as they prodded one way while the ball cut back in the opposite direction. He was talent-spotted a few times, but refused to put in the necessary hours of practice, wouldn’t commit his summer. He’d play for love if his day was free, but never for money, and never so anyone would depend on him—that was Will.
She had thought Siân might get her way after all and push him to the altar. Siân was so fiery and attractive, determined, and ready to settle. She had just turned thirty, and time wouldn’t wait forever. Perhaps one day Will would have a little girl—and knowing the sensitivity that lurked behind his outward masculinity, it would be a daughter he would father, his mother felt. Whatever it was the key gave access to, it must have surely been meant for Will’s daughter: and he would hand it to her. Yes, she’d trust to time and Siân’s single-mindedness, and leave the key to Will. She’d penned a note, and put it with the key and the single ancient leaf of vellum in a huge envelope:
For Will, when he is something, or someone, that he is not now.
And she’d said not a word more on the subject, even when they bid each other goodbye in her last hours.
Will had inspected his talisman as though it were a jewel, turning it in the light, looking at it in an array of moods: over a port, late at night; in the demonic glare of his dark room; in the freezing January wind, right after his mother’s funeral; in the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento; and again in his tiny allotted space in the reading room at the Vatican, where he’d spent days searching the archives for the murky history of the Campo de’ Fiori. Such an emblematic object, a key. What lock did it turn? The lock it had fitted seemed to have vanished with time, lost in a spiral of years. He didn’t even know, he realized, who had first left it. He knew nothing really about his mother’s family; his normally mild-tempered father refused flatly to talk about the subject.
I am what I am, and what I am is what you will see.
His mind rehearsed these closing words over again while he covered the last miles along the B road to Chartres. He knew the whole sheet by heart, and easily managed the impressive feat of focusing on the necessary road skills while contemplating the text on the aged parchment, which he had photocopied and carried with him inside his leather jacket all the summer long. Even in the heat in Sicily he’d clutched the jacket to him, rather than be parted from the precious legacy, and the small key found a home on a chain around his neck where, he’d decided, it would remain until death, if necessary. He had tried explaining his need to understand so much more about his inheritance to others, but he knew that even Alex felt it was becoming a worrying obsession. His elder brother, of course, would have approached the whole enigma very differently, fitting any conjectures into the spaces between his work, his research paper, and his close relationship with his young son. Nor could Alex have disappeared to Europe for the summer because of his other commitments. But Will was a different man, consumed with a desire to know what it all meant, and unable to give his full attention to anything else until he’d solved this riddle of the sphinx and found the lock that was home to the mysterious key. His own sense of identity seemed caught up in the puzzle, and it was not the rumors of the key securing “the most precious treasure of our family” that were the lifeblood of his quest. He wasn’t interested in gold or jewels, but wondered what had been so important to his family’s sense of secrecy, for them to guard this object—forever and an age, it must have been.
Will was a freelance photojournalist, and well connected. A long-time colleague, now his closest friend, had become intrigued over a beer and offered some help, taking a fragment of the parchment to a cousin at Oxford who could do the carbon dating. At least they’d know the approximate age of the paper. Will had been clicking off photos in the Greek Theater in Taormina on a blistering mid-June day when the text appeared tantalizingly on his phone:
Samples tested x 2. Both conclude it’s probably late C16.
Any interest? C U Sept. Simon
Interest, indeed! What happened in the Campo de’ Fiori—the so-called Field of Flowers—in the late sixteenth century? This was only the very first reference on the document and, quick as he was at crosswords and anagrams, he had no idea how it might fit in with the key. After weeks of travel and research he’d begun to piece some thoughts together, but his mind was still whirling with the myriad facts that might—and as likely might not—be relevant. He’d spent the last day in Rome e-mailing back to himself photographs of any places that seemed of possible relevance, as well as pages of data about the political climate in Rome during the sixteenth century. He’d ordered a library list from Amazon to be waiting for him at Alex’s. He wondered about the Cenci, about Bruno, and Galileo. He’d have to peruse it all again at leisure, but it was taking his feet along some strange alleyways, past grim hooded figures in a kind of courtly dance. He’d thought of it as a “merry dance” more than once, and when the alleyways dead-ended he was often left with an eerie, unsettled feeling. Rome could entice you to look over your shoulder sometimes, even when there was nothing but paranoia waiting behind you.
Despite the limited long-distance vision from under his visor, he could see the impressive mirage that was Chartres Cathedral floating above the flat plain from miles away. Approached at speed, its sheer magnitude was suddenly upon you; he could imagine how a medieval pilgrim must have felt dwarfed into insignificance, and he realized that this amazing image of the great church dominating the landscape—its many personal associations—would never lose its magic for him.
Will now propelled himself around a corner and dropped to street speed. The steering instantly felt heavy again and he concentrated in order to ride smoothly through the maze of medieval lanes. He’d twice stalled the bike while learning her idiosyncrasies, and she was petulant if you didn’t give her due attention. Slipping through the restricted zones as though he belonged there, he ignored the invitations to park in a designated site and glided toward the spires. The rumble of his Testastretta engine broke the cloistral quiet of the town as he cruised through the Place Billard and along the Rue des Changes. He sidled up to the curb at the south side of the cathedral, and hooked out the kickstand in a pay-and-display area. It must have been nearing noon, and the powerful aroma of moules marinières and French onion soup from a bistro just opposite reminded him that he must eat something after his visit. There had been a long space between proper meals.
He glanced up at the familiar sight of the two unequal spires, then his helmet was off in a gesture of knightly courtesy as he walked under the shadow of the impressive west portal. While his eyes adjusted to the womb-like darkness, his ears picked up the whispers in different corners and in different languages from various tour groups, as the flocks all stared openmouthed at the beauty of the stained glass above his head. But although this was what Will thought he had come to see, his gaze was immediately distracted by a sight he didn’t ever remember noticing in the dozen or so times he’d come into the cathedral over the years. Many of the chairs were removed and Will’s eyes drank in the enormous black and white circle of marble stones, inlaid in the paving of the great Gothic nave, between the pillars. Splashed with the odd jewel-bright colors from the glass, the maze breasted the whole of the width of the huge church. In the center a girl was standing with eyes closed, but he could clearly see the flower shape that marked the middle of the pattern. He must have walked across it toward the altar many times, and never looked down to see it.
Nearby there was a young French girl informing her tour group about it, in good English and at a respectful volume. He smiled: a student with a summer job.
“Well, this is the famous Chartres labyrinth, and labyrinths as you will know are very ancient. They are in so many different countries; but when you are seeing it here inside a medieval cathedral like Chartres, this pagan symbol is obviously invested with a strong Christianized meaning. We know there was one also inside Auxerre Cathedral, in Amiens also, and in Reims, and Sens, and in Arras. All of these were taken away because they were not understood by the people in the seventeenth and also eighteenth centuries. We understand the clergy were disturbed by the people who were walking them! But here this one is the best preserved…”
Will was hooked, and he edged a little closer. She smiled in mid-sentence, well aware that he was not one of hers; but perhaps his genuine appreciation of her knowledge was translated through his smile at her, and she carried on without missing a beat.
“…and it dates from around the year 1200. Can you regard once again the western Rose Window of the Last Judgment behind it here, which we have just been looking at. It is from around 1215, remember? As you can see, the labyrinth almost mirrors the size and distance from the door on the ground as the rose is above the door. This demonstrates the idea that to trace the labyrinth path on the ground is a step on the stairway to the upper world. It is 53.8 feet wide at the biggest point between the pillars, and you will remember this is the widest Gothic nave in France. If you walk the whole path, like the medieval pilgrim, it is more than 853 feet. It has been referred to as ‘the Journey to Jerusalem,’ and we understand that pilgrims possibly walked it on their knees as a kind of penitence. You see, on the maps of the time, Jerusalem was marked as the center of the world, and for many believers even today the Last Judgment is strongly bound up with prophecies about Jerusalem and the great Temple. Now, if you will please follow me, we will go to the Adam and Eve Window.”
As she turned with her hand up for them to follow her, Will touched her gently on the arm. “Mademoiselle, s’il vous plaît; je n’ai jamais vu le labyrinth comme ça—je ne l’ai aperçu jusque ce jour…Comment est-ce que c’est possible?”
She was not offended by the intrusion. “Les vendredis, seule! Chaque vendredi entre avril et octobre. Vous avez de la chance aujourd’hui, n’est-ce pas?” She laughed warmly, and was gone with her sheep.
The girl who he had seen walking in it was just now completing her full circuit of the labyrinth, emerging from the center with her eyes wide open. She looked slightly flushed.
“Excuse me, it’s open only on Fridays, did she say? Gosh, that was lucky for me then. I came today because it’s the fall equinox. From today, feminine energy becomes dominant again, until spring.” She was American, fresh-faced and unreserved, and she too smiled at Will. “You should do it, walk it, it’s amazing. This is a good moment, and the light’s perfect. I had to wait ages till it was clear of people. You should go for it now.”
Will nodded. “OK, thanks. Thank you.”
He felt oddly shy. He was not a religious man—well, not in any conventional way. He had certain spiritual ideas, sensed we didn’t comprehend everything there was to understand; but essentially, he didn’t buy the whole virgin-birth thing, and he definitely wasn’t one to wear whatever ideas he had about his soul on his sleeve. But he found his feet moving without his authority as they traced the route to the starting point.
Yeah, OK, he thought. I shall too. Only on Fridays…he smiled to himself…and it’s the equinox. This last was an ironic afterthought. He was amused—though not judgmental—that it was such a special day for this rather sweet girl.
There was just one entrance, and he started forward, three paces toward the altar, and then it took a left turn into a beautiful curving path that looped right back on itself. He had to watch his feet at first to follow the direction carefully, because it wasn’t all that wide. He noticed he was following the light-colored path, and that it was pricked out by the dark border. He was symbolically treading in the light and avoiding the dark.
Cradling his helmet closer to him, his eyes closed a little, he began to tread without such a heightened awareness of his feet. The second loop took him almost to the center; he thought it would suddenly culminate at the flower shape. But the wondrous path coiled back on itself in a short series of bends, like a beautiful snake, until there was once again a great swooping curve that took him near the center and then right out again, into another quadrant. He gave himself to the feeling: his eyes were drawn up to the intense colors that dappled his face from the window on the south side. He paused for a second and took in the picture: a man emerging from the gateway of a walled city, with a cobalt glass background; then, in the roundel, a man steeling behind him and pulling a sword from its sheath, with a fabulous ruby-colored background. This man was wearing green, and was beautifully drawn, while the man in front of him wore a blue robe and carried a yellow cloak over his shoulder. The red, the blue, and the yellow hues all fell upon Will’s face as the equinox sunshine, approaching noon, slanted through the glass. Will felt light-headed; the experience was unexpectedly intense and moving. He laughed slightly self-consciously, and warned himself about roads to Damascus.
No one else was walking. They had generously given him some space, it seemed, though he was dimly aware of a few faces following his movements with surprise. He didn’t care though, and enjoyed instead the sensations of his face moving from the light to the dark, and back again; and his feet tracing shorter paths and then sweeping into longer ones, turning him back and forth, as if in a sophisticated game of blind man’s bluff. The mantra from the document began again in his head…
OUR TWO SOULS THEREFORE
All that was ablaze in the Field of Flowers! Pluck forth a bloom, and think on what has been; on centuries of betrayal, and pain, and misunderstanding…
Will’s feet wandered along without seeing properly. Only the single page was in his mind, and he touched his jacket as he continued walking and rhythmically tapping out the maze…
I am what I am, and what I am is what I am. I have a will to be what I am, and what I will be is only what I am. If I have a will to be, I will to be no more than what I was. If I was what I am willed to be, yet they ever will be wondering what I am or what
I ever was. I want to change the Wall, and make my Will.
That I am that same wall, the truth is so.
And this the cranny is, right and sinister,
Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.
Each pair adds up to every jointed piece; the bottom left is a square; bottom right is a square; top left is a square; top right is a square. The heart is a square too.
WHICH ARE ONE
And I am halfway through the orbit. And if you take half of the whole and make up pairs to equal me, you will soon use up all of the pairs.
Now, look no further than the day. My alpha and my omega. Make of these two halves a whole. Take the song of equal number in the old king’s book. Equal number of paces forward from the start. Equal number of paces backwards from the end—omitting only the single exit word. Amen to that.
I am what I am, and what I am is what you will see.
Count on me very carefully.
ENDURE NOT YET A BREACH, BUT AN EXPANSION
Will’s head had at first felt heavy, and now was growing light. He was unaware of the looks he drew—from a young boy holding his mother’s hand, an older lady who took off her glasses to watch his steps without any hint of rudeness or alarm, and from a vivacious redhead, who’d stopped chatting to her girlfriend, and found she’d become fixed on this devilishly beautiful man. A priest watched him, nodding acquiescently, and a man behind the pillar on the north side also seemed mesmerized by Will’s whole experience. He clicked off a digital picture of the man in the maze.
And Will’s feet danced lightly, his words like a rosary: “I have a will to be what I am…If I was what I am willed to be…”
He had reached the middle of the labyrinth, and his face was full west, the Great Rose Window straight above him. Eight bright angels watched him from the larger petals of the inner rose, sitting in pairs between an eagle, a winged man, an ox, and a lion. Will was exhilarated. He hadn’t suddenly undergone a religious conversion, but he marveled at the effect of the steps, the light, the sounds inside the great church, and his own psyche, which felt ecstatic. And, more amazing still, he understood something in the message on the sheet, next to his heart, which he hadn’t seen previously. He was Will; his destiny was to uncover the home of the key, and be initiated to its meaning and its treasure. It would happen, without him forcing it any further, quite passively perhaps.
He took six strong steps out of the center, where a plaque bearing Theseus and his vanquished Minotaur had once been pinned upon rivets that were still visible. He swiveled to the left, and caught the unmistakable perfume of roses—like an exotic attar. His feet paced on, and as he came to the 180-degree turn, he thought to see what or who had wafted the fragrance; but it was nothing, no one. He turned again toward the east, and the scent came again, with a sensation of the liquid movement of fabric, but it was a trick of the light and his giddiness, and he was able to complete the labyrinth without a soul interfering.
Almost breathless, he walked straight from the heart of the labyrinth in the nave to the rear of the altar, to the Lady Chapel; and here he lit a large candle—well worth the two and a half euros, he decided. He felt his mother here with him, watching him, and he quietly mouthed: “I am now what I was not then.”
He strode from the cathedral through the north porch, and his feet felt nothing of their contact with the floor, nor was he aware of a shadow slipping from the murky light behind the pillar.