Azazeel (27 page)

After sunset, the monastery servant came in with a large table set with pieces of cheese, grilled eggs, bread, sugarloaf, a jug of milk and some fruit. It was not a fasting day. The abbot took a
slice of peach and chewed it slowly as usual, then bade us farewell, saying: ‘That will do me till tomorrow. Enjoy your food, for you are still young, and carry on your conversation. Blessed
Nestorius, I’d be delighted to see you early in the morning before you leave. Hypa knows the guestrooms and will take you there whenever you want. I leave you in the Lord’s
care.’

We ate only a few mouthfuls, washed down with some milk, then we left the library and went into the monastery courtyard. It was autumn time and the night was very still. The air had a pleasant
chill and a rare clarity. I told Nestorius that here I felt close to heaven, that I no longer felt nostalgia for my home country and that my doubts no longer recurred. ‘Ever since I came
here,’ I added, ‘I’ve felt that the world is safe.’

He smiled, tipped his hands in the air in resignation and said sadly: ‘The world is still in turmoil but I have kept away from it.’ He added, ‘The raids by the barbarians and
the northern tribes have weakened the frontiers of the empire, the Kurds in the east are restless and the Goths are also turbulent. As for the big Christian cities, they are full of intrigues and
mysterious conflicts and gloomy speculation.’ He told me of many other things which were making a stir in the world from which I had withdrawn, including that Bishop Theodore’s health
had deteriorated, his seventy-nine years were taking their toll and he would feel lonely after the bishop was gone. He said Emperor Theodosius II had written to him about the diocese of
Constantinople and he would go there soon to be installed as bishop of the capital. He was not overjoyed. He said he had many things to finish off in the diocese of Antioch and the parishes around
it, and that he had to complete projects that he had begun because he did not know what would become of them after he moved to Constantinople. He was worried and he wanted me to raise his
spirits.

‘Father,’ I said cheerfully, ‘to be the bishop of the imperial capital at the age of forty-seven is something significant and a great blessing, so do not despair.’

‘Stop that, Hypa. My heart is not at ease in Constantinople. I am not comfortable among the leaders of this age, because of the way they are,’ said Nestorius.

‘The Lord will take care of you, master, and protect you.’

Nestorius turned the conversation in another direction, admiring the clear night air and its pleasant refreshing coolness. He told me he had brought me some books and medicinal herbs from
Antioch and I said I would be eternally grateful for his interest in the monastery. We spent the first half of the night talking of many things until I almost plucked up the courage to ask about
the mysterious building on the far eastern side of the monastery, in the hope that he could tell me something about it, but the moment I mentioned the building, as a prelude to asking, he yawned
and I had no choice but to invite him to rest in his room. I accompanied him to the door of the guest quarters and went upstairs to spend the night in this room of mine. I was in a sociable mood,
overcome by a heavenly exhilaration, marred only by the feeling that I had missed an opportunity to ask him the truth about the mysterious building.

Early in the morning I was waiting for Nestorius at the door to the guest quarters, with two or three other monks. He came out, beaming as usual, and we all prayed in the church. Then I took him
to the breakfast table and after that I went down to the bottom of the hill with him. He and his companions went on to Aleppo and I climbed back to the monastery. I stopped at the gate and watched
the small convoy as it disappeared out of sight between the rolling hills which rise above the plains.

Then began the year 428 of the birth of Christ, in which many events took place. Bishop Theodore passed on to the kingdom above and in spring Nestorius moved to Constantinople,
where he was installed as bishop of the imperial capital. I was settled in the monastery and more patients came to me seeking treatment. The year passed, and the next year too, quietly and happily.
Then the year 430 came along, with events that shook up everything in my life that had been stable, especially the events that took place towards the end of the year, at the beginning of winter.
For in those days the dispute between the church leaders intensified and Martha appeared in my life, like a sun burning in the sky.

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B
efore the recent violent upheavals began and disasters struck, I used to divide my time between sleeping in my room or in the library, praying
with the monks in the morning, meeting patients in the early afternoon and reading and writing poetry until I fell asleep. I slept little and my dreams were tranquil. I would often hear poems in my
dreams and I would wake up to write them down. Because of that I started to put my scrolls and inkwell next to my pillow. At the time I delved into the secrets of the Syriac language and fell in
love with its written literature, especially the story of Ahiqar the wise man, which I first studied under a teacher in Akhmim called Wissa. He taught us ancient languages, including Aramaic, or
Syriac as Nestorius likes to call it. Here I had seen other copies of the story of Ahiqar with variants, and I had intended to compare these many copies to extract a precise edited text of this
instructive story.
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I had such a wonderful time in those days, which now seem remote. At sunrise I would sit on the rocks which lay at the edge of the
monastery wall. The wall was in ruins at the northwestern corner and looked over the vast plains which stretched as far as the sea coast far away and the city of Antioch. At the time I wished I had
supernatural eyesight and from my position on the monastery wall I could see distant cities: Antioch, Constantinople and Mopsuestia. It would be a miracle of which I would tell no one, if it
happened, I mean if the Lord granted me that gift. Only rarely does the Lord like to reveal the miracles which he performs through his saints. But I am not a saint: I am a physician and a poet who
dresses as a monk, whose heart is filled with love for the universe and who expects to pass the remaining years of his life without sin, so that his unblemished soul can ascend to the heavens where
the light of divine glory shines. Those were the limits of my life at that time – just one year ago.

The abbot had become close to me, in fact at that time I was the person in the monastery closest to him and the one who spent most time sitting with him, especially after the monks Laugher and
Pharisee left. The abbot would often call me to his large three-windowed room, or he would come to me in the library shortly before noon and stay until lunchtime. Lunch was his only meal, but he
tried to be present in the dining room at breakfast and dinner to read psalms to the monks and speak a few words to them. He would always ask me about my patients and whether I had written any
poetry. He would be happy when I read him something new, in fact he started to memorize some of my poems. When I read them to him he would look at me with the same benevolence that I remembered
from my father when he looked at me in the old days. Fatherhood is a divine spirit that flows through the universe, bringing heavenly grace to the young through their fathers.

I will never be a father and I will never have a wife and children. I will never give this world children to torment in the same way I was tormented, because I cannot bear to see a child suffer.
When I heard the crying of a sick baby that his mother was bringing to me for treatment, I would run to meet them at the library door, take the baby from her and rush it inside, where among the
medicines I keep many remedies for childhood ailments. The infants often suffer, either from wind in their bellies or because their mothers do not look after them properly or do not produce good
milk. For the mothers I prescribe foods that improve the breast milk and I loosen the nappy and anoint the baby with an aromatic oil I have invented, tested many times and found to be beneficial.
The babies would often urinate towards me when I undid their nappies. I would laugh and take pleasure in the joy of the mothers who brought their children crying in pain and suffering and left me
with their children calm and sleeping on their shoulders. There is nothing in the world more sublime than easing the pain of a human being who cannot express his pain. Did not Jesus the Messiah
come only to save lost souls who are heedless of their many sins? Jesus endured pain to spare us from sin. That idea was the starting point of one of my Syriac poems which the abbot liked and
learnt by heart. Shall I record it here? Why not? The poem runs:

The poem is long and it is one of the poems of mine that Martha was later to sing, breathing her spirit into the words and dispelling the sorrows of the audience. Her singing brought tears to my
eyes several times, when she sang and looked towards me in one of the recitals that brought us together. My encounters with Martha are another story, which I will not tell now because I am
recalling the days of serenity when I felt at ease within the walls of this monastery and when my inner suns rose over the horizon of mercy until I forgot my torments, my doubts and my constant
uncertainty. I came to feel that I was living in the clouds and could almost sense around me the rustling of the wings of the angels that fill the sky. It was then that I discovered for the first
time the secret of the monastic life, the virtues of seclusion and the serenity of escaping the tumult of this world. I was certain that the world had no value and that when I left it behind me I
would exchange the cheap pleasures of the body for the precious prospect of the spirit.

In those days I had nothing to disturb my peace of mind, other than those dreams which sometimes took me by surprise without warning, to remind me of my burdensome legacy and the secrets I
harboured. Some nights I would wake up weeping and trembling when I saw my mother in a dream looking with contempt at my father. My father was humble even in my dreams, never speaking a word to me.
He would just look at me with great anguish as he rowed his boat or drew in his nets with no fish. It was my mother who often spoke to me in those dreams and often she would roar with laughter and
wake me up in alarm. Although these dreams would come to me infrequently, they might come twice or more in the same night.

One night I saw Hypatia in her white silk dress with the hems decorated with golden thread. She was radiant and friendly. In my dream I was a young man of no more than twenty and she was the
same age as she was when I knew her. I dreamt she was reading a chemistry book to me, although she never in her life studied that science. I was memorizing what she was reading from the book as she
read the lines and ran her finger along them. Her finger was elegant, her fingernail bright white, as it passed lightly across the words. She would turn towards me with a smile as she read, and
when I wanted her to embrace me, she embraced me. When I took her in my arms I found she had changed into Octavia covered in her own blood and I woke up terrified.

Several times I had strange dreams: the salty sea roiled by many eddies and my mother trying to escape them while I watched her in fear, standing naked on the beach. She was calling me by the
name which Octavia had chosen for me and which no one knew but us: Theodhoros Poseidonios. Then her call turned into a cry for help and that quickly became a scream which echoed across the
firmament and woke me exhausted from my sleep and left me sleepless for the rest of the night.

Last year I spoke to the abbot twice about the mysterious building. The first time he took refuge in silence and did not answer me. The second time we were sitting one morning and the sun was
about to rise from behind the building. I told him I would not ask him again if he did not want to tell me. The morning was clear and it was summer. The abbot bowed his head for a moment, then told
me that in ancient times this monastery was a temple to the god of fertility and pastures and the goddess of the fields. In the old days people believed that they met on top of this hill and made
love. For hundreds of years worshippers would come here from far and wide, so they built a temple and over time set up tall columns until it became one of the largest temples of the ancient
world.

In the time of King Solomon, the son of David, the Jews wanted to convert the temple into a house of the Lord and they secretly sent a squadron of soldiers to demolish it, but that proved
impossible for them to achieve because of the solidity of the structure and the large number of priests living there and of people visiting. They say that the Jewish squadron was completely wiped
out in mysterious circumstances and Solomon in anger sent more of his soldiers to demolish it, but they could not do it either because of the powerful amulets buried beneath it and the spells of
the ancient priests. No one could decipher the spells or thwart their magical power.