4 The Idol

Sister Dorothee sighed deeply and drooped her head on her desk. As celleress, she was responsible for the monastery's finances. And this task was making her increasingly ****. She certainly didn't dislike the responsibility or shy away from the work involved. But with the limited funds available, the community's expenses simply could not be covered. And that didn't even include the urgently needed repair of the roof over the dormitory. She had often tried to talk to the abbess about the difficult financial situation. However, the superior had no better advice for her than to pray and hope for the Lord's help.

No, this could not go on. If she was unable to reduce the expenses - God knows she had tried - then she had to increase the income. That sounded simple, but she couldn't think of a way that looked halfway promising.

Resigning from office was also out of the question for her. She was far too serious and responsible to take such a step. There had to be a solution to the problem!

She straightened up again, kept her back upright and snorted with determination. She would find a way. Period.

Brooding, she paced back and forth between the white plastered walls in her small office. In the past, she would have said a prayer. But she had prayed so many times and asked for salvation for her monastery. But nothing had changed the desolate situation. No unexpected source of money opened up, no generous donor appeared, no forgotten possessions that she could have sold were discovered. She no longer wanted to hope for a miracle. She had to find her own way out of this misery.

How had her predecessors managed to maintain the convent? After all, the congregation had existed for centuries. And she had never heard that there had ever been any problems like the ones she was facing now. Yes, she hadn't heard of it. But that didn't necessarily mean there hadn't been anything like it. She snapped her fingers. Yes, that was it! Generations of cellarers had meticulously and conscientiously kept their books. If there was a key to managing the estate properly, then her predecessors must have written it down.

She curtseyed in front of the crucifix on the wall. However, she refrained from saying a prayer of thanks. Instead, she committed the minor sin of arrogance at that moment of having come up with the idea herself, without divine inspiration. She hurried out of her office towards the stairs that led down to the archives.

Sister Dorothee descended the stone steps to the records office, her footsteps echoing in the silence. The air became cooler. She paused briefly, her hand on the stone railing, and took a deep breath. The painful tension in her shoulders was still there, but now it was a tension of anticipation. She hoped, no, she knew in her heart that she would find an answer there. A plan, a clue as to how her predecessors had dealt with similar crises. She was determined to proceed pragmatically and with determination, as she had always done.

She fumbled the heavy, iron key from under her frock and opened the thick wooden door. Dry air, smelling of old paper, wafted towards her. She switched on the light, which came flickering to life. The gray walls were lined with shelves up to the vaulted ceiling, housing old books and parchments, carefully filed by generations of nuns who had come before her. Her confidence wavered at the sheer volume of written evidence. How long would it take her to sift through even the most important documents? And what if, in the end, there was no solution here either?

“God's ways are inscrutable and their end is not always immediately visible to us,” the abbess had said, but that was no longer enough for Dorothee. She could not and would not rely on providence alone. She needed more than faith, she needed action.

She stopped in front of a massive wooden shelf. The thick spines of the books seemed to stare at her like silent guardians of the past. A sign read in bold, ancient script: cellerar books - finance and administration. A slight smile stole onto her lips. This was the place where the experiences and mistakes of those who had come before her were waiting for her. She pulled out a heavy volume, its cover made of faded, cracked leather, and carefully leafed through the yellowed pages in the twinkling light of the ceiling lamp.

As she read the meticulously kept records, she discovered that the monastery had endured severe financial difficulties in earlier times. The entries spoke of crises caused by famine, looting and unforeseeable disasters. Time and again, the cellarers found ways to secure the monastery's existence through clever measures or unusual ideas. One 16th-century celleress turned to the inhabitants of surrounding villages and successfully persuaded them to help out in the convent. Another had leased out land that was no longer of any practical use to the nuns. Dorothee paused and rubbed her burning eyes. How long had she been reading the countless, densely written lines? She stretched her aching back and leaned wearily against the shelf.

Was this really the solution? Times had changed. There were no longer any villagers who would work for free for their salvation. And the monastery hadn't owned any large estates for a long time.

To make matters worse, the ceiling light flickered and an ominous humming noise grew louder and louder until it died out with a loud bang. Sister Dorothee jumped in alarm and suddenly found herself standing in the dark. Wonderful, she thought, I should have had the dilapidated electrical installation repaired a long time ago.

Blindly, she felt her way back to the door, where she remembered there must be a niche in the wall with a candle. With trembling fingers, she lit a match and held it to the wick.

In the unsteady glow of the flame, she saw the book she had dropped in fright lying open on the floor. To her surprise, the brittle, leather protective cover had burst open and a folded, worn page had slipped out of the tear. Apparently someone had hidden it inside. Who did it and how long ago? Dorothee felt her pulse quicken and her hands become clammy. Perhaps the answer was hidden here.

Was this the miracle she had no longer dared to hope for?