The Absolutist by John Boyne Read Free Book Online

whose arms reach out as if to embrace their observer, the unexpected moment when a choir above, rehearsing its matins, bursts into song and lifts the spirit from whatever despair brought one inside in the first place.
    Once, outside Compiègne, our regiment had rested for an hour about a mile from a small
église
and, despite having been marching all morning, I decided to stretch my legs towards it, more as a means of escape from the other soldiers for a few minutes than out of a desire for spiritual awakening. It was nothing special, a fairly rudimentary building both outside and in, but I was heartsick by how abandoned it seemed, its congregation scattered to safety, the trenches or the graveyard, its atmosphere emptied of the once-attendant conviviality of the faithful. Walking outside again, thinking that I might lie on the grass until summoned back to the line, perhaps even close my eyes in the noonday sun and imagine myself in happier surroundings, I found another of my regiment, Potter, leaning on the opposite side of the church at a slight angle, one hand resting forward against the wall as he relieved himself noisily against the centuries-old stonework, and I ran towards him without a second thought, pushing him off his feet and to the ground, where he fell in surprise, exposed to all, his stream of urine coming to an unexpected halt but not before splattering over his trousers and shirt. He was on his feet a moment later,pulling himself together, cursing loudly, before knocking me off my own and seeking satisfaction for the humiliation. We had to be separated by a handful of other soldiers. I accused him of desecration and he accused me of something worse—religious mania—and although the charge was false, I did not deny it, and as our tempers started to fail us we stopped trading insults and were eventually released after facing each other, shaking hands, and calling ourselves friends once again before heading back down the hill. But the sacrilege had disturbed me nevertheless.
    I made my way through the nave of the cathedral now, glancing surreptitiously at the dozen or so people who were scattered in silent prayer around the church, and wondered from what hardships they sought relief or for what sins they begged absolution. At the crossing, I turned and looked up towards the place where the choir would stand on a Sunday morning, offering worship. I walked south from there and an open door led me outside to a labyrinth where a few children were playing a game of catch in the bright morning, and continued along the wall towards the eastern end of the cathedral, where I found myself brought to a halt by a single grave. It stood out. Its stark nature surprised me, a simple stone cross resting atop a two-tiered base, and I leaned forward to discover that this was the grave of Edith Cavell, our great nurse-patriot, who had helped hundreds of British prisoners of war escape from Belgium through her underground route and had been shot in the autumn of 1915 for her trouble.
    I stood up and offered not a prayer, for that was of no use to anyone, but a moment of contemplation. Nurse Cavell had been proclaimed a heroine, of course. A martyr. And she was a woman. The people of England seemed to celebrate this fact for once in their history and I felt a great sense of joy at discovering her grave in such an unexpected fashion.
    Footsteps on the gravel alerted me to the approach of someone else, two people, in fact, whose steps had fallen in time with each other, like a night patrol circling a compound. I walked a little further past the grave and turned away, pretending to be engaged in a study of the stained-glass windows above.
    “We should be making the final list by about three o’clock,” the young man—who had the look of a sacristan—was saying to his older companion. “Assuming we can get through the earlier business quickly.”
    “It will take as long as it takes,” the other man replied insistently. “But