Report to Grego (32 page)

“And did he forget her,” asked my friend, winking at the monk.

“Can such things be forgotten?” he answered, but seeing old Habakkuk looking daggers at him, he regretted his words and bit his thick red lips.

S
aint Paul's Monastery
. Marvelous rowboat ride to Saint Paul's. The sea a thousand colors—pale blue and green, also like mother-of-pearl. Beetling crags of bright bloodlike red; black caves, wild doves, and then all of a sudden level stretches of brilliantly white sand.

Today my friend was in a fine mood; the whole boat shook from his thunderous laughter. I told him to be angry in Chinese, and he began at once, with astonishing readiness, to spout a raging torrent of imaginary Chinese words. I was so pleased that I could scarcely fit in the boat. “Now make love in Arabic,” I said to him, and he began with irrepressible passion to confess his love to an invisible Arab lady. Thus, as though in a flash, we reached the port of Saint Paul's and commenced the steep, difficult ascent to the monastery.

The doorkeeper was a Cephalonian. A wily old fellow; also a joker. In order to pass the time, he spent his days seated behind the
door with a penknife in hand, carving what appeared to be little wooden Christs, saints, and demons. He looked us over carefully.

“What do you want here, morons?” he asked with a laugh.

“We want to do obeisance, old man.”

“Obeisance to what? Are you in your right minds?”

“To the monastery.”

“What monastery? There is no monastery—it's finished! The world, that's the monastery. Take my advice and go back to the world!”

We gazed at him with gaping mouths. He really seemed to feel sorry for us.

“I'm only joking,” he said at that point. “Step inside. Welcome.”

We entered and looked at the cells which circled the courtyard. The monk extended his hand. “Behold God's beehive,” he said sarcastically. “Behold the cells. Once they were inhabited by bees who made honey; now by drones, and what a sting they have! . . . May the Lord protect you,” he added, and burst out laughing.

We did not breathe a word, but we were sick at heart. Had the sacred monastery been emptied of its hallowed contents to such an extent? Had the monks been left only hollow shells to such an extent, the sacred butterfly having flown from inside them!

With weary feet we climbed the stone stairway which led to the hall set aside for the reception of guests. My friend took hold of my arm compassionately. “Be patient,” he said. “Don't feel bad. As long as our souls remain strong, that is all that matters; as long as
they
don't go into decline. Because with the fall of certain souls in this world, the world itself will collapse. These are the pillars which support it. They are few, but enough.”

He shook me forcefully. “Hold fast, poor Missolonghi!” he said with a laugh.

We entered the hall. The commissioners, five or six large-sized men with hands crossed over their abdomens, were seated around the abbot. He was enthroned in the center, an elegant figure with a curly black beard, feminine face, white hands, and a headdress of black silk. He held out his hand in an extremely dandyish way for us to kiss, then inquired how the world was getting on, and whether we had brought any newspapers.

“What's happening in England?” asked one of the commissioners.
“What's happening in Germany? Do you think we'll have a war?”

“God grant we shall,” said another, winking at his neighbor. “I hope the Germans get their faces bashed in.”

At these words a fat seven-footer kicked away his chair and sprang to his feet.

“The Germans will gobble them all up in a single gulp—English, French, and Russians. Cut off my nose if I'm wrong! The German is today's Messiah. He will save the world!”

“Sit down, Germanós!” said the abbot, placing his white hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter.

He turned to us. “Don't listen to him. His name is Germanos, which explains why he became a Germanophile. The brothers tease him.”

But just as the conversation began to take a calmer turn, the door was kicked open and in flew a bony, gawky beanstalk of a monk with a cracked skull, the blood flowing down his beard and torn frock.

“Holy Abbot,” he cried, “look, the antichrists murdered me because I voted for you the other day in the elections.”

The abbot rose, deathly pale.

“Get out of here!” he cried. “Can't you see we have visitors!”

But the monk had no intention of leaving. He took off his hat, which was in shreds and dripping with blood.

“I'm going to hang it before the icon of Saint Paul to let him see how far his monastery has fallen.”

The commissioners rose in an agitated state and began to cajole him. He resisted, but little by little they hauled him outside. As for us, we seized our opportunity in the meantime. Slipping between the monks, we made our way out of the hall.

We went down to the cloister, where we paced back and forth in silence. The doorkeeper caught sight of us and understood. Forsaking his little saints and demons, he came over to us bursting with jollity.

“Don't feel bad, my friends,” he said. “So you saw Father Innocent, did you? I pulverized his head for him, but it'll heal up again, never fear. It's not the first time.”

“But do such things happen in the monastery very often?” asked my friend. “In other words, does the devil enter even here?”

“And where else, my boy! No matter, what you do, he'll get in somehow. Once upon a time there was a monastery with three hundred and sixty-five monks. Each monk had three suits of armor and three horses, one white, one red, and one black. They patrolled the monastery three times every day in order to keep the devil from entering: in the morning on the white horses, in the afternoon on the red, and at night on the black.”

“And did the devil enter?”

The wily monk laughed.

“Are you joking? All the time they were riding around the monastery on their horses, the devil was sitting on the abbot's throne, inside. It was the abbot.”

“And what about you, Saint Doorkeeper?” asked my friend. “Have you ever seen the devil?”

“But naturally! Of course I've seen the devil.”

“And what's he like?”

“Chubby and beardless, fair and fluffy. Twelve years old.”

He looked at us and winked. “You saw our holy abbot, I presume. How did he strike you? His blessings upon you both!”

Bursting with laughter, he entrenched himself again behind the door.

Five or six monks came now and surrounded us. In an effort to make us forget Innocent's smashed head they took us to pay our respects to the saintly relics conserved piously in a silver reliquary—various bones and the gifts of the Magi: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These they had us bend over to smell. So many centuries, they said, and the gifts had not lost their fragrance—it was a great miracle!

When we emerged into the courtyard and remained alone, the doorkeeper nodded to us. We went over to him.

“They smell, eh?” he said to us amidst guffaws. “A great miracle! If you pour cologne over them, they smell like cologne. If you pour patchouli, they smell like patchouli. And if you pour gasoline, they smell like gasoline. It's a great miracle, I tell you. What did they smell like today?”

“Roses,” said my friend.

“Well, they must have must have poured rosewater over them. You see!”

He doubled over the piece of wood he was carving and nearly died laughing.

“Off with you now, or they'll see I'm talking with you and I'll get into hot water. They take me for a madman, I take them for quacks, and the devil, he'll take every last one of us!”

D
ionysíou Monastery.
We set off by rowboat early in the morning and proceeded toward Dionysíou.

Father Benedict, our boatman, told us it was the strictest monastery on the Holy Mountain. No matter how merry you felt, you could not laugh; no matter how much wine you drank at this monastery, you could not become drunk. And there was a laurel they had planted in the yard, and if you looked at it carefully, you saw Christ crucified on every leaf.

We had a bishop with us. He was going to Daphne, the port, in order to leave.

“The entire universe, Father Benedict, is a cross with Christ crucified upon it. Not just the laurel leaves, but you and I and the very stones of the ground.”

This was too much for me.

“Begging your pardon, Bishop, I see Christ everywhere resurrected.”

The bishop shook his head.

“You're in a hurry, in a hurry, my child,” he answered me. “We shall see the risen Christ, but only after we die. This our earthly passage, now and as long as we live, is a crucifixion.”

A dolphin bounded out of the calm waters, very near to us, its firm supple back gleaming powerfully in the sun. It plunged again, reappeared, soared joyfully—the entire ocean was its province. Suddenly another dolphin appeared in the distance and each raced head-on toward the other. Meeting, they frolicked, then all at once swam off side by side with lifted tails, dancing.

I was overjoyed. Extending my arm, I indicated the two dolphins.

“Is Christ crucified or resurrected?” I asked triumphantly. “What do the two dolphins tell us?”

But we had arrived at Dionysíou, and the bishop did not have time to reply.

The moment we stepped into the courtyard, we halted in terror.
We felt we were entering a damp, dark prison for life-termers. The columns around the periphery were squat and black, the arches between them painted a dark orange. Every inch of the walls was covered with savage paintings of the Apocalypse: devils, hell-fire, prostitutes with two rivers of blood flowing from their breasts, hideous dragons with horns—all of the Church's sadistic longing to intimidate men and bring them to heaven not by love but by fear.

The guestmaster came, the monk who looked after visitors. Seeing us glaring in terror at the paintings, he parted his narrow, yellowish lips maliciously—he seemed overcome with hatred at the sight of two well-dressed, thriving men in the flower of youth.

“Open wide your eyes,” he said. “Do not screw up your faces in a grimace. Look! Man's body is full of fires, demons, and whores. The filth you see is not the inferno but the bowels of man.”

“Man is created in the image of God,” objected my friend. “He is not just this filth, he is something else.”

“He was,” shrieked the monk, “was, but isn't any more. In the world you live in, the soul has become flesh too. Sin holds it to her breast and nurses it.”

“What's to be done, then?” I asked. “Is there no door to salvation?”

“There is, there is. But it is a narrow, dark, and dangerous one. A person doesn't enter easily.”

“What door do you mean?”

“Behold!”

He extended his hand and indicated the entrance to the monastery.

“We're not ready yet,” said my friend, who had found the monk's words irritating. “Later, when we're old and feeble. The flesh is God's work too.”

A venomous smile incised the monk's lips.

“The flesh is the work of the devil,” he shrieked. “It's time you learned, you emissaries from the world, that God's work is the soul.”

Wrapping himself tightly in his robe as though afraid we might touch him, he disappeared beneath an orange vault.

We remained alone in the center of the courtyard.

“Let's leave,” said my friend. “It's obvious that Christ does not live here.”

The doors to two or three cells opened. Skeleton-like monks appeared, looked at us, murmured something, then closed their doors again.

“There is no love here,” insisted my friend. “Let's leave.”

“Don't you feel sorry for them?” I asked. “Suppose we remain here a few days and preach the true Christ? What do you say?”

“To them? Impossible! A waste of effort.”

“Nothing ever goes to waste. Even if they're not saved, we shall be for undertaking the impossible.”

“Are you serious?” asked my friend, looking at me in amazement.

“If only I knew!” I replied, suddenly overcome by great despondency. “Would that I could actually do it! My heart says to me, If you are really a man, stay here and declare war. But alas! the mind—Satan—does not let me.”

Two monks made bold to come to us and bring us inside. They took us around the monastery. We saw a fresco of the giant with the head of a wild boar, Saint Christopher, and were shown his monstrous fang. Then they had us do obeisance to John the Baptist's right hand. In the refectory were two fiery red seraphim, both holding a pair of erect lances in each hand, their snow-white feet planted in the green earth; on the left-hand wall a representation of the Virgin seated between two angels, with bright green trees on both sides, birds perched on the branches, and a slender cypress behind each of the angels; on the dome above us the Pantocrator with a ribbon unwinding from his mouth, and upon the ribbon large red letters. Raising their arms, the monks pointed to the Pantocrator.

“Can you make out what the letters say?
Love one another.
Pronounce those words to a dead stick and it will blossom, but pronounce them to a human being and he will not blossom. We are all headed for hell.”

The cemetery was simple and charming, like a balcony overlooking the sea. Just five or six wooden crosses gnawed by wind and salt.

Suddenly a flock of white pigeons flew over us, headed for the water. One of the monks, his eyes filled with murder and hunger,
threw up his hand rapaciously as though wishing to catch them. “God, if I only had a gun!” he murmured, his teeth grating from ravenous hunger.

O
ur pilgrimage was finally drawing to a close. A few days before our departure I set out by myself to climb to Karoúlia, to the wild hermitages wedged between crags high above the sea. Burrowed in caves there and praying for the sins of the world, each far from his neighbor lest he draw comfort from the sight of another human being, live the most savage and saintly ascetics of the Holy Mountain. Each has a little basket hanging down over the water, and the skiffs which chance to pass from time to time draw up to these baskets and toss in a little bread, a few olives—whatever they have—in order to keep the ascetics from starving to death. Many of these savage ascetics go mad. Believing that they have sprouted wings, they fly out over the precipice and hurl downward. The shore line below is covered with bones.