“Freedom,” the priest replied with trembling voice, “freedom has no purpose. And it is not found on this earth. All we can find here is the struggle for freedom. We struggle to obtain the unattainablethat is what separates man from beasts.
“That’s enough now,” Father Yánaros added, “you’ve talked and talkedenough! The Comforter! Lenin! The Barefoot Christ! The Rebel-Leader Christ! Muddled words! My brain can’t make sense out of all that jumble!”
“Can your heart?”
“Let the heart aloneit’s a foolish, fickle thing! Don’t in-volve it in difficult problems; it always goes against logic, any-way, and whoever follows the heart must have a strong constitu-tion. I don’t!”
The priest was silent. In a few moments he spoke again. “I’ll mention all this to God, and let’s see what He says about it!”
“I’ve already mentioned it to Him,” the monk replied, “and He agrees with me.”
“God weighs each soul separately,” Father Yánaros said, “and He gives to each the suitable reply for its salvation. Let’s see what He will say to me, to old Father Yánaros. When I, too, find the road, I swear that I will follow it to the end.”
“To freedom!” the monk added teasingly.
“To freedom!” Father Yánaros concluded, and felt the sweat pouring from his forehead again. “What I really mean is ‘To death’!”
The monk glanced toward the door. “I’m leaving,” he said.
Father Yánaros looked at the young man’s eyesthey shone, large and deep blue in the half-light. He had placed his left hand over his woundapparently he was in pain. The priest felt compassion rise in him againa gentleness, an admiration for this young firewalker before him. This one, he thought, this one should have been my son, not that other.
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know; wherever the road takes me.”
“They chase you from the monasteries, they chase you from the hills, they hunt you in the valleys; where will you go?”
“I have an unconquered fortress, Father, and I dwell there.”
“What fortress?”
“Christ.”
Father Yánaros flushed; he was ashamed at asking such questionsas though he had forgotten Christ.
“Now do you think that I should be afraid?” the monk asked, smiling, as he lifted the door latch.
“No,” Father Yánaros replied.
The monk kissed the priest’s hand, opened the door, and walked out into the night.
Father Yánaros stood on the threshold of his cell and watched the monk fade and disappear in the darkness. His mind was clearfor a moment there was not a thought in it; he had no urge to sleep. It was Holy Wednesday tonightthere was no vigilance in churchhe was free. Carefully he listened to the sound of the monk’s footsteps on the stones, slowly fading and finally disappearing.
Suddenly a knife pierced his heart; a frightful suspicion coiled around his brain; he wanted to shout, ‘Get thee behind me, Satanl’ But his lips were parched and dry. Could this, then, have been Temptation? Father Yánaros knew that Satan took many forms in order to trick man. He had seen him once on Mount Athos in the form of a small, plump boy who roamed outside the monasteries, trying to enter. And another time, here at Castello, in the form of a pretty woman going to the well with a water jug on her shoulder. Gone were the days when
Satan appeared before men in his true formwith horns, a tail, and the flames. Men were wiser and slyer now; and, tonight, Satan had entered the cell as a pure God-inspired monk with a cross hanging from his neck.
Confused and angry, Father Yánaros mumbled the monk’s words softly. “Lenin is the Comforter; God sent Lenin, when wickedness broke out in the world, to prepare the way for Christ. How? By destroying this corrupt world. Only in this way can the new path open for the future Christ to come …”
“No, no, I won’t accept that!” Father Yánaros shouted in the darkness. “Satan blends truth and lies with great mastery, to trick us. Yes, the world today is wicked and unjust; it has left the hands of God and fallen into the hands of Satan. It must be destroyed, it must! But who will destroy it?”
Beads of sweat poured from the wrinkled brow.
“I can’t make heads or tails of all this.” He sighed. “I can’t! My mind has aged, my flesh has aged, I cannot endure any more; let the pain of the world find a younger man than me.”
Mount Athos flashed before him, like a hagiography. The sky above was no longer blue, but golden; below it was the green valley, filled with small white daisies, like stars. And in the star-embroidered greenness rose a white monastery with four towers; and a flag waved from each tower; and an angel was painted on one flag, an eagle on the other, a small white bull on the third, and a lion on the fourth. And in the courtyard of the monastery stood a tree in full blossom, and beneath the tree, an ascetic stood erect with closed eyes, his head raised, listening. And on each flowered branch sat a white bird with a red breast; and all of them had their beaks open in song. The song they sang could be seen on a blue ribbon that unfolded from their beaks, “Solitude … solitude … solitude … solitude.” Nothing else.
Father Yánaros crossed his hands and murmured, unknowingly, along with the birds, “Solitude … solitude … solitude … ,” and he sighed. What sweetness, what peace, what reconciliation! God comes, you see Him, and He sits beside you like a long-lost father who has just returned from foreign shores laden with gifts.
The priest shut his eyes so that the vision would not disappear. Silence! Silence! A great sweetness! This is what God must be like! This is how man’s life should be! Why should we question? Why should we torment ourselves? Isn’t God above us? Doesn’t He hold the helm of the world? He knows what course we take and where we are going. Man is not God’s co-worker, he is the servant; then follow!
But as logic stirred within him, Father Yánaros tossed his head back in anger. “Get thee behind me, Satan,” he shouted and spat in the air. “My post is here in Castello, and this is where I will fight, a man among men! The time is gone when man could find salvation in the wilderness. The modern Thevai is the world; courage then, Father Yánaros, God is a fighter, and so is man; then fight beside Him!”
5
DAWN CAME; it was Holy Thursday; Christ went from Anna to Kayafas, beaten, cursed, crowned with thorns. The gypsy blacksmiths had already begun to pound the nails for His crucifixion; the angels, too, had begun to look down from the sky at Virtue being crucified on earth. And Gabriel the Archangel sat among them, with folded wings; and his eyes filled with tears. The air was still, melancholy, this Holy Thursday, as if it were the Archangel himself.
Father Yánaros sat on the stone ledge in the courtyard to the right of the church entrance. He had not slept all night; his thoughts were dark; his heart was heavy with a turmoil that would not settle; it felt unclean, imbedded in fat and mud. And with this heart he would not dare approach the icon of Christ on the iconostas, to offer his daily prayers. Sprigs of camomile had begun to grow between the old graves where the bones of the priests of Castello were buried. Father Yánaros sniffed the air and drew in the humble smell of the dead. He looked at his empty grave and, in the faint light, distinguished the red letters carved upon the stone: “Death, I fear you not,” but his heart did not leap, either with pride or certainty. This heart of his had become a morsel of flesh filled with blood instead of with God’s gracea piece of flesh that ached and cried out.
“Lord,” he murmured, “forgive my heart for calling; this shameless thing does not know what it seeks; but then, how can
it possibly know, my Lord? The poor thing is dizzy from stumbling through chaos in its wanderings.”
At that moment, a butterfly appeared in the sunlight; it swept earthward and sat upon the camomile branch; it, too, sniffed the remains of the dead; then it fluttered around Father Yánaros’ beard. He held his breath for fear of frightening it away; he watched it. A sweet emotion suddenly lifted the weight from Father
Yánaros’ chest. Of all the birds and beasts, this fearless firewalker loved butterflies the bestin them he placed his faith. It was only when he was once asked that he discovered why. “Because the butterfly was once a worm,” he had replied, “a worm that crawled into the earth and emerged a butterfly when spring came. What spring? The Second Com-ing!”
Father Yánaros moved, and the butterfly was frightened away; the priest felt sad that these two small wings had deserted him, leaving him alone on the ledge in the sun.
For a moment his mind had scattered; the weight that had crushed him the night before was exorcised; he decided to enter the church and prepare the cross for evening. They had brought him wildflowers from Vrastova to decorate the crucifix for tonight and the sepulcher for Good Friday. He opened the door of the church and glanced inside; the light entered from the window and fell on the icon of Christ. He could not make out the calm form, the blond beard, the long fingers which held a green spherethe earth. Quickly he closed the door, as though ashamed to appear in this condition before Him. He sat back down on the ledge.
The sound of footsteps coming from the road broke the stillness; Father Yánaros, glad that now he would have something else to think about, leaned from the outer gate and looked out. A large masculine woman passed by, barefoot, ragged, hairy, loaded down with a bundle of wood. Her badly combed, gray-streaked hair was tied with a wide red ribbon that only a young girl would wear. Behind her ran two children, throwing stones and jeering in singsong fashion, “I want a man, I want him now ! I want a man, I want him now!”
Bent from the weight of her burden, the unfortunate woman pinned her eyes to the ground and remained silent. Father Yánaros shook his head; his heart ached for her.
“Poor Polyxeni,” he murmured, “your virginity has jolted your mind, and you have become the town’s scapegoat. You’ve stuck a red ribbon in your hair like a wedding banner, you poor soul!”
It was long past midday; the Castellians were all asleep, resting before the long service tonightthe reading of the Twelve Gospels. Not a sound of a human voice could be heard, nor a dog’s, nor a bird’s; except from time to time a humming noise rising from a few homesa soft, monotonous, sweet rhythm, like the buzzing of bees; it was the weeping womenmothers, sisters, wivescrying softly, tiredly: their men had been killed the day before yesterday, on Holy Tuesday.
Father Yánaros’ heart once again was crushed with agony; the words of last night’s unexpected guest leaped in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that it had not been a man dressed in monk’s robes, the iron cross around his neck. The way he had sighed, so deeply, when he entered the priest’s cell, covered with blood; and later, the way he quietly disappeared into the nightsurely it was Satan! And the words he spokesurely only the Antichrist could select them so carefully and speak them so artfully. Father Yánaros desired nothing more desperately, more secretly, in his heart than this: that this unjust world would crumble by the hand of God.
Yánaros turned these thoughts over and over in his mind, and he was confused. They seemed logical, and yet something, someone within him, resisted, refusing to accept them.
“No, no,” the voice shouted within him, “this new word that the rebels proclaim cannot be the word of God; if the Comforter were truly their leader, they would not speak with such passion of material thingswhat to eat, how to divide the loot, how to kill their enemies. Did you ever hear them speak of heaven? Their eyes are turned to the earth: fill all the bellies of the world, they say, and the future will take care of itself. The stomach is their foundationnot the heart, not eternal life! What kind of Comforter, then, is this?”
Father Yánaros sighed; he contemplated for a long while. Often, when he was left alone in the courtyard among the graves, his mind would sink in deep thoughts. He had struggled from this small village, with the brain God had given him, to find an explanation to the mysteries of life and death and the
hereafter. And always, he questioned, questionedand waited for a reply. But today, the monk’s words tormented him; he groaned softly on the ledge, and sweat poured from his brow.
“Can it be true? Can it be true?” he murmured. “But if it is, then get up, Father Yánaros, onward! Put on your bandoliers, climb the hill, find the Comforter, and fight alongside him!”
But again the voice leaped within him; it would not let him rise and go.
“No, no,” it cried out to him, “don’t flare up so easily, Father Yánaros. If the belly is full, will the soul be able to leave it after the sweetness of digestion? The happiness on earth never leads to heaven; happiness is a trap of Satan; earthly paradise is the work of the devil. How many times must I tell you, Father Yánaros? The devil is the leader of the happy, the satisfied, the contented. Christ is the leader of the unfortunate, the restless, the hungry. Beware, Father Yánaros!”
But as he threw his head back, pleased that he had uncovered the trap and had not been fooled by Satan, he recalled a conversation he had had, years ago, in his village, with an old fisherman, on that blessed, distant shore.
It was a bright sunny day in Augustlike this onea day that seemed to have come straight from the hand of God. Morning the sea smelled sweetly, a light breeze blew, two white butterflies with orange spots on their wings chased each other, playing, above the sea shells. Father Yánaros was walking barefoot on the sand; his chest was bare and he was chanting loudly the hymn he loved so well, “Ti Ypermaho”“To Thee, the Triumphant Leader, do I, Thy city ascribethank offerings of victory. For Thou, O Mother of God, hast delivered me from terrors.” This hymn had once resounded triumphantly in all the Byzantine churches when the Virginthe Triumphant Leader freed the kingdom from the hands of the barbarians. And so, singing as he went, Father Yánaros came upon a humble cottage where two brothers lived. They were happy, inseparable one was a fisherman, the other a potter. The latter had a potter’s wheel, and he mixed mud, tossed it into the wheel, and gave it whatever shape his heart desired. Father Yánaros was tired, so he sat with them to chat awhile; one was mixing the clay while the other was gathering nets to go fishing.
They spoke of the sea, of wars, and of the poor; then of figs the trees were good this year. Suddenly the fisherman turned to Father Yánaros and said, “Father, I’m going to ask you one thing, and I want you to forgive me. Can you tell me how Christ chose his first disciple?”
Father Yánaros told him all that was in the books, but the old fisherman shook his head and smiled. He leaned toward the priest. “I’m the only one who really knows,” he said. “Christ performed many miracles; He spoke many great words, but no one knows them. Don’t believe what’s in the books; I’ll tell you, Father, how He fished for His first disciplewhat was his name?”
“Andrew.”
“Andrew. There was, imagine, a heavy storm! Wind, fog, huge waves! The fishermen struggled in vain; they were returning with empty nets. Then suddenly, on the shore, behind a rock, what did they see? A fire! And a shadow that moved be-side it rose, sat down, and rose again. ‘He’s cooking something,’ one of the hungry fishermen surmised. ‘I’d better go and see!’ And he ran toward the fire at the edge of the sea.”
“It wasn’t the sea,” Father Yánaros corrected him, “it was a lakethe Lake of Gennesaret.”
“What difference does it make?” the old fisherman replied, annoyed. “That’s what spoils you educated men. Anyway, he ran toward the fire and found the coals smoldering; scattered around were the remains of fish. But the man had vanished; he called out, not a soul!
“The next day brought an angrier storm. The discouraged fishermen were returning once more with empty nets, when again they saw the fire and the shadow bending over it. The same fisherman as the night before ran to the scene and stopped beside a man who was cooking a row of fish strung through a reed. He was young, about thirty years old, and sunburned.
“‘What are you doing there, friend?’
“‘I’m cooking fish.’
“‘And where did you find them?’
“‘I caught them a little while agoat sunset.’
“‘But how could you fish in this stormy sea? We haven’t caught a thing to eat in two days.’
“‘Because you don’t know how to throw the nets; I’ll teach you.’ The fisherman, as you must have gathered, was Andrew; he fell at the Stranger’s feet and said, ‘Teacher, I will never leave you again.’ That night Andrew told his brother that he had met a man who could catch fish even in the wildest storm. As this story spread, Christfor that was who He wasgradually gathered His disciples to Him, one by one. At first He taught them how to catch fish, so they would not go hungry. Then He taught them more; and, step by step, unknowingly, they be-came Christ’s Disciples.”
Father Yánaros listened open-mouthed to the old man. As the fisherman talked, the priest recalled a picture which he had seen in an old Bible preserved in his church. This holy picture, “The Descent of the Holy Ghost,” was one of the many miraculous multicolored miniatures which illustrated the Book. It depicted the Holy Ghost diving, like a hungry seagull, aiming for the Disciples, hooking them from their bellies onto twelve fishhooks. The men struggled to free themselves, but the hooks had sunk deep into their flesh, and the hooks held. As he remembered this illustration, Father Yánaros thought, How perfectly the word of God falls, from the very beginning, and plants it-self in the belly of man, slowly rising to grasp his heart and spirit.
The old fisherman looked at Father Yánaros, sensed the priest’s admiration, and was pleased.
“That is how God works, Father,” he said, “wouldn’t you say? You learned people say that God is an Ideaa Rare Thing who knows what? Others say that He’s an old man above the clouds, and they paint Him that way. He’s none of these!
“He’s a potter’s wheellike this one of my brother’s, here. And we are the clay; the wheel turns without stopping; it turns and twists us; it molds and makes us into whatever shape it wants: pitchers, jugs, pots, lamps. Into some of these they pour water, into others, wine and honey; some are for cooking, others for shedding light. That’s how God makes people! And if we break, what does He care? He turns, turns, and shapes new pots, and He never looks backwhy should He?”
The Fratricides Page 8