Chapter Five
The people of this world cannot accept the Spirit, because they don't see or know him. But you know the Spirit, who is with you and will keep on living in you.
John 14:17
Silas finished his cereal mechanically, not really tasting it. He made himself some tea with milk and fetched the two containers of pills on the coffee table. Not really looking at them, he took one of each. He really did not want to go to hospital for any reason.
He took his dishes through to the kitchen and conscientiously put them in the dishwasher; Opus Dei had taught him cleanliness. Then he went back to his bedroom, he needed to pray.
When he knelt down, he found words would not come. He knew he could pray any number of prayers he had been taught by rote but still the words would not come. He didn't understand it. He was not angry with God. He sought forgiveness – but the words would not come. He felt numb. His mind felt numb.
Silas didn't know it but he was in shock. It was not a lack of faith that made him unable to pray but simply being in a suspended emotional state after trauma.
Finally Silas got up and lay on the bed that he had scrupulously made that morning. He didn't know what to do. He couldn't think. Before long, the drugs took effect and he felt sleepy.
As he drifted off, he examined the strange feeling of having another person consider his wishes and preferences. On the street, no-one gave a damn whether he lived or died. In jail, the rules were simple – survival of the fittest and most vicious. In Opus Dei, the rules were complex but clear. In every part of his life, his own wishes were irrelevant. What to eat, what to wear, where to live, what to do with your time – these things were either dictated by necessity or by someone else. Choice was a strange new luxury to Silas. He didn't know what to do with it. Having someone want to give him choices was even more alien. If anyone was interested in him at all, it was usually to tell him what to do.
Opus Dei was probably the only environment where anyone had been interested in him and the person mostly interested was Bishop Aringarosa. But even Opus Dei and the Bishop controlled every aspect of his life. They told him when to sleep, what to eat, how to pray, who to obey and trust, how to behave, what to wear and even what to think. Even this thoughts and feelings were not his own, they had to line up with Opus Dei's beliefs and views in every small particular. He was not allowed to question anything and he had accepted it because it was the first time since his mother died that anyone had paid any kind of attention to him at all or given him a place to belong.
Opus Dei had even told him who was an enemy and who to kill.
Silas curled himself into a ball on his side. Opus Dei had extracted a heavy price from him for their attention and providing a place for him to belong.
The strange thing about Sennett and Diggory and Sophie was that they hadn't asked anything from him other than he take his medicine which was for his own good anyway. They hadn't set rules for him, they hadn't locked him in (he had a key to Sennett's flat which astounded him), they hadn't made him make any promises, they hadn't asked him to work for his keep and they hadn't asked him to do anything difficult or unpleasant.
On the contrary, they had given him medical care, shelter, food, clothing, freedom to come and go, privacy, space and their trust. They had not asked him a lot of unkind questions or acted suspicious despite the terrible things he had done.
He had been here less than 48 hours and he already knew he was in the best place he had ever been in. It could not last. Sooner or later, when the wounds were better, he would have to make his own way. He would be on his own again without a place to belong. He could not rely on their kindness for too long.
Silas fell asleep with tears on his white face.
He woke up again as the sun was going down. He was cold. He should have put a blanket over himself when he lay down. Then again, he was used to sleeping on the floor once a week without any coverings. It was yet another mortification Opus Dei had required. So being cold was not a foreign experience.
He was hungry again, so he got up and stretched. Sennett said he was to help himself to food when he got hungry. Perhaps he could make a sandwich and some tea.
Sennett was not back from work yet. He quickly and neatly made himself a cheese sandwich and took it with some tea back to the lounge. He was used to quiet surroundings but the quiet in someone else's house unnerved him a bit. He turned on the TV for some company and out of curiousity. He couldn't remember the last time he had been allowed to watch TV.
Silas' chewing slowed to a halt as he watched a chat show. His pale eyes were wide with shock. People were discussing the most intimate details of their lives quite openly; others in the audience were booing or shouting in the most rude and vulgar manner. He could not remember ever seeing shows like this in the days when he was still allowed to watch TV before becoming a numerary. Of course, that was a good ten years ago now. TV had obviously changed a lot since that time.
Silas stared open-mouthed as a large African-American man talked about how his wife (an attractive young woman sitting beside him) had had a fantasy about him having an affair. Now she suspected his girlfriend was pregnant. If she was, his wife was going to leave him. The husband started crying.
"You know, I think that's just too much information about their relationship – don't you think so, audience?" the grey-haired lady host was saying. The audience seemed to agree.
Silas thought it was the understatement of the centuary. He felt hot and cold with embarrassment. Were there really people who lived like this? Why didn't they know any better? Did they have no shame about their sins that they went on TV and talked about them so openly? How did they get to the point where they thought this kind of life was somehow normal or acceptable? And what kind of woman would have a fantasy about her husband being unfaithful? What kind of inner sickness did that arise out of? Silas' mind was boggling.
Was the world really like this? Had it become so bad? Or had it always been this bad but now people were more open about their sinfulness and less repentant?
Silas felt ill. In one rapid motion, he got up and turned off the TV. He stared at his half eaten sandwich in blind horror.
It was not as though he himself was some kind in ingénue, Silas thought honestly. He had lived on the streets. He had been in jail. He had lost his innocence early. He had had some sexual relationships before joining Opus Dei. All of them had been disastrous and short lived but then again, his whole life before Opus Dei had been disastrous. Women were more often than not put off by his albino looks. He had felt like a freak. As a result, he had gradually withdrawn from women and relationships even before he had found God and Opus Dei. He had gotten tired of rejection. He'd had too much of it in his life. Being celibate had been somewhat of a relief; relationships were a problem he no longer had to face.
Silas began to realize just how sheltered his life had been for the past ten years in Opus Dei. He had grown unused to the world. Would he ever grow used to it again? He wasn't sure he wanted to if he was going to be subjected to the degree of sickness he had just seen in the talk show on a regular basis.
Just then he heard a key in the door and Sennett came in. Something about Silas' attitude, the expression on his face and the half-eaten sandwich seemed to tell her the complete story in half a second.
"You didn't try and watch TV, did you?" she asked with some amusement, coming into the lounge.
Silas simply nodded. The repugnance had not yet completely faded from his face.
"Rather a shock, was it?" she asked and tried to suppress a laugh. He really did look quite stunned.
Silas looked up at her briefly and then back to the blank screen in front of him and then shook his head. He was speechless. He didn't know what to say.
"Life outside of Opus Dei will take some getting used to," Sennett said kindly, "I don't know how long you were a numerary but I imagine the world has changed a fair bit in that time. The media is a lot more 'in your face' these days. They get their ratings using shock value a lot of the time. As time goes on, they need to be more and more shocking to maintain their audiences."
"Where does it end?" Silas asked in a hoarse voice, his pale eyes still wide with revulsion.
"I don't know," Sennett said, shaking her head. After a pause, she added, "Finish your sandwich if you can. Dinner won't be for more than an hour."
Silas had something that he wanted to ask Sennett but he didn't know how to bring it up. She had cooked shepherd's pie for dinner ('more red meat to build up your red cell count') and it tasted good but he picked at it, searching for a way to ask.
"Spit it out," Sennett said finally.
Silas looked up startled. Did she mean the shepherd's pie? Was something wrong with it? He felt rude just spitting out his food.
"Not the pie, whatever it is that's bothering you," Sennett said, smiling broadly at his confusion.
He looked at her quizzically.
Sennett sighed quietly. Sometimes Sennett felt like she was speaking some language other than English to Silas. Perhaps she should try Latin?
"Tell me what is bugging you. Obviously something is. You usually have a healthy appetite," Sennett explained patiently.
Silas cleared his throat nervously. How come this woman could read him like a book at times? He didn't really like it.
"Do you remember last night when we were talking about my cilice?" he said in a low voice.
Sennett's face expressed all that she thought on that subject. "Yes," she said encouragingly.
"You seemed to have… I don't know how to explain it… a kind of authority. I recognized it immediately," Silas said hesitantly.
Sennett was suddenly very still and she looked at Silas out of narrowed, assessing eyes. He was the first person she had ever met who had even come close to the truth about what she was.
"I spent twelve years in convent schools, Silas. I had a very good Catholic education. My religious instruction was very thorough," she said quietly, hoping that explanation would satisfy him.
Silas pondered this information. It sounded like she had had a very sheltered upbringing. To him, it sounded idealistic. He could not imagine any better start in life. He felt envy burning in his gut but tried to squash it. Envy was one of the seven deadly sins.
Still, there was something more. It wasn't just a good education that gave her that kind of authority. He shook his head, "It's more than that," he said simply.
Sennett was silent for a few moments. How the hell did she explain it all to him? It was impossible. If God wanted Silas to know, perhaps He would reveal it to Silas in time without her explanations. Goodness only knows, Silas had already picked up on more than anyone else she had ever known.
"You're not the only one with secrets, Silas," Sennett said finally.
Silas frowned. "You can't tell me?" he asked. He was used to people keeping secrets from him. He understood secrets.
"It's not that I don't want to but that it would be very hard to explain. I could tell you but you wouldn't necessarily understand and it may sound… weird," Sennett said with difficulty.
Silas thought about this some more as he ate. "You're very pretty," Silas said finally, out of the blue.
Sennett raised her dark eyebrows in surprise. She was amazed he had even noticed she was female.
"Thank you," she said simply. She had been told this quite a few times before so it wasn't startling to hear apart from the fact that it was Silas who had said it.
"I mean, you're pretty enough to be married by now. Why aren't you? Do you have a boyfriend?" Silas asked curiously.
Sennett couldn't help it, she laughed out loud. He was so earnest and so blunt. In some ways, he was childlike in his honesty.
"No, I'm celibate by choice too Silas," Sennett replied calmly.
That was news to Silas. "Why? You're not a sister or a numerary assistant, are you?" Silas asked with real alarm. He could feel his heart begin to pound. Was he in enemy territory after all?
"No," Sennett replied evenly. "I'm not attached to the Catholic Church officially or unofficially."
Silas calmed down. He was still safe. "Then why the celibacy?" he asked, frowning.
Sennett sighed. Another difficult question to answer both honestly and clearly.
"I suppose I never met anyone with the same set of values as myself who I was attracted to in that way," Sennett said truthfully.
Silas absorbed this information in silence. He had never heard of anyone outside of the authority of the Church having a celibate life. With that explanation however, Silas had to be content. He had a million other questions but Sennett seemed to have withdrawn. He found it hard enough to start conversations at the best of times, so her withdrawal conquered his curiousity for the time being.